Sometimes it felt like senior year in high school all over again. Once you got into college, nothing seemed very important. You’d skip classes, blow off homework, party on weeknights. Now, with most of my friends’ futures secure, I was witness to much of the same behavior all around. Not that I indulged too much. After all, the shenanigans from Dragon’s Head were getting more outlandish every day (I’d taken to keeping my shower supplies out of the bathroom, as the other day I’d found my conditioner bottle filled with blue dye, my soap covered in drain hair, and all the safeties removed from my razor blades), and I was a bit nervous about what they’d try on me if I ventured out and about.
My fellow knights were at a loss as to revenge schemes. Attacking one society member for the crimes of all of them was taboo in our little culture, and we were pretty sure Dragon’s Head was keeping a close eye on their tomb after our most recent raid. Their attacks on me were reminiscent of the kind of pranks we pulled on barbarians, not other society knights. Our rivalries were held to a different standard of honor entirely. Dragon’s Head was breaking the code by treating me like a barbarian. I admit I was beginning to pity—or at least empathize with—poor Micah Price, the last barbarian victim of Rose & Grave. The guy had been a first-class jerk, and had caused a huge amount of pain to both my fellow knight Jenny and the society as a whole. But, on the other hand, we’d filled his apartment with rats. Way worse than crickets.
I felt so left out that on Wednesday, when Brandon asked if I wanted to skip my Geology lecture in favor of taking a short afternoon nap with him, I acquiesced to his demands. After all, maybe this time we’d finally cross the line we’d set back on Valentine’s Day.
We didn’t. And we didn’t again on Thursday after my society meeting, nor on Friday when neither of us were skipping any classes at all.
Meanwhile, every kiss we didn’t share made the next one that much harder to resist. I was lying there beside him during these indulgent—yet platonic—afternoon naps, knowing that it would take little more than a swivel of my hips to bring our bodies into alignment, to cross that invisible and all-important line between right and wrong. So I dared not move, because I was terrified of what his response would be. I knew, somehow, that if anyone was to cross the line, it had to be Brandon, just like it had to be Brandon who came over that night, had to be Brandon to be the first to admit that he missed me, to say that he still wanted me, regardless of our past.
On Saturday, Lydia waylaid me outside my bedroom door.
“I’m worried about you.”
Because I’d turned into a hermit? “I know I haven’t exactly been a social butterfly lately—”
“No, Amy. Brandon.” She sat down. “When he came over the night of the Valentine’s Day Ball, I was so excited. Everyone had seen his girlfriend storm out of the dance. I thought they were through, or as good as through.”
“So?”
“So Clarissa apparently told Josh that they’re not.” She gauged my reaction, and I fought to keep it under control. “Josh thinks you don’t care. But I said that couldn’t be so.”
Why did I feel a sudden stab of guilt for disappointing her? “Thanks for discussing me behind my back.” Again.
“You’re welcome. Isn’t it nice to have friends who care? Now tell me what’s going on. Are they broken up? And if not, why not?”
What was going on was that Lydia had gone and gotten herself a perfect boyfriend and had suddenly forgotten how complicated the battle of the sexes could be. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. Maybe they weren’t broken up. Maybe they were, and he was just practicing some sort of…mourning period before becoming involved with someone else. Did I really want to know that answer? “It’s complicated.”
“Bullshit,” Lydia pronounced. “It’s easy. He wants you, or he wants her. They aren’t married. They don’t have shared property or children. They’re dating. Sure, there are going to be hurt feelings, but that doesn’t make it complicated. Awkward and potentially hurtful, but not complicated. ‘Hi, Felicity, you’ve been grand and we’ve had a really good time together, but I don’t think it’s fair to keep dating you, since I realized I still have feelings for my ex—as you know—and she wants me back—as you may not know. I’m sorry; I’m a shithead, but you’re fabulous and beautiful and I’m sure there’s a line of amazing guys waiting for the day you’re single.’ See? Easy.”
Felicity was indeed fabulous and beautiful. I didn’t need Lydia or her imaginary suitors-in-the-wings to remind me of that.
“So I can’t see why he’s spending so much time hiding out in your bedroom and still dating her.” Lydia shrugged. “Why doesn’t he make a choice? If it makes sense to you, please explain.”
“It’s just that…” Okay, choose my words carefully here. “We’ve had such a rocky past. We don’t even know if what is going on between us now is a sexual, romantic kind of thing.”
Lydia blinked. “It’s not sexual?”
I ducked my head. “Well, no. It’s, uh—”
“Don’t tell me. Complicated.”
“Yes. For now.”
“He’s not being fair to either of you. But especially not to Felicity.”
“So now you’re the patron saint of girlfriends?” I said. Figures. Get a real relationship going and all of a sudden you have no sympathy for those of us on the outside. Wonder what the T.A.’s girlfriend would have said back when it was Lydia infringing upon her turf.
“Someone here has to be. Don’t get me wrong: If you did want to steal some guy from his girlfriend, and I liked the guy and not the girl, I’d say go for it, as a friend. Ends and means and all’s fair in love and war and a thousand other aphorisms.” She shrugged. “But that’s not what we’re dealing with here. You’re not, apparently, trying for him, and he’s not, apparently, letting go of her. If you’re in a relationship, you have to be in it. If you’re unsure, then you have to be fair and end it. Really end it, Amy, not play two people off each other. Brandon, of all people, should know this behavior is unacceptable.” And she fixed me with a look that was impossible to mistake:
Because it hurt him so much when you did it.
“It’s not like what happened with us, Lyds.”
“You’re right. It’s worse. Because Brandon and Felicity had a real relationship that you’re messing with. Amy, you’re the other woman. Things never end well for the other woman.”
“I’m not! I told you, we’re not doing anything.” Not really.
Lydia was just shaking her head at me, disbelief rolling off of her in waves. “Right. All those hours in there, bedroom door closed, lights off, no sounds. Bet you’re studying, huh? Bet whatever it is you’re doing, you’d do it in front of your mother, in front of his girlfriend, in front of anyone who cared to watch, and you wouldn’t think twice about it, it’s so aboveboard.”
I swallowed. How had this turned from I’m worried about you to an indictment of my behavior? “There are a lot of things I wouldn’t do in front of my mother that are perfectly aboveboard.”
But Lydia was on a roll. “Come on, Miss Digger. You of all people should know that the things you do in secret are private for a reason.”
That was it. I stood, turned, and marched toward my bedroom.
Lydia called after me. “Amy, come back!”
I turned around on the threshold. “Please, Lydia. You of all people, with your well-researched secret society factoids, should know what happens when you drop the D-bomb in front of me.” Lydia knew everything about societies, enough to have convinced me all last semester that she was in one. And when you used the name of a society in front of a member, they had to leave the room.