Roommate's Virgin

“Maybe you’re right,” mom said, without putting up too much of a fight.

“I… um… how are you?” I asked, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

“I’m good.”

“Are you still involved with all your charities?”

“Yes I am,” she said. “It’s very fulfilling work.”

“I’m sure going to all those fancy dinners must be very fulfilling.”

Mom bristled at my not so subtle dig at her lifestyle. “We raise a lot of money at those charity dinners.”

“You also spend a lot of money giving those charity dinners. It kind of defeats the purpose.”

“You like arguing with us, don’t you?” mom sighed. “You like picking fights.”

“I object to your sense of superiority,” I retorted. “It wreaks of hypocrisy.”

Mom stood up ceremoniously. “I’ll have Carla show you where your paintings are,” she said.

“Guess we’re done then.”

“Thank you for coming when I called.”

I nodded, feeling awkward and unsure of what to do next. Do I hug her? Do I wave? In the end, I just walked out of the room and towards the garage. I retrieved my stuff from the garage and then went to wait outside by Zack’s car. A few minutes later he arrived, and the gate closed behind him.

“Thanks for telling me you were done,” Zack complained.

“Sorry, I needed to get out of there.”

“Did you get your stuff?”

“I did.”

“What was it?”

“Just my old paintings and things,” I said. “From when I was a kid.”

“Geez,” Zack replied.

“Yeah…”

“You ok?”

“Fine,” I said shortly.

“You want to do something tonight?” Zack asked, and I knew he was just trying to make me feel better.

“I know you’re busy, don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll probably just hang out with Zoey.”

And just like that, I felt a little better.

22

Zoey

It was sweet how much trouble he’d gone through to get everything set up before I got there. There was a beautiful blanket laid out under the best tree in the park. He had positioned the sheet so that we had a slight canopy over us, but we still had a good view of the sky above.