I nibble on my cookie, grateful for Rylie’s nosiness at the moment. Because I would never ask. Even if a concerningly large part of me wants to snap my fingers and demand details as Natalie had done for my sister’s wedding.
Natalie sighs. Sets down the paintbrush. She takes a long swallow of hot chocolate. I’d made mugs for all three of us, my contribution to our junk feast, though Natalie had spiked hers and Rylie’s with Irish cream. Hands around her drink, she leans back against Rylie’s armchair, settling in as though for a bedtime story.
“Where to even start with Meegan and Spencer.” She stares at nothing in some far-off memory. “Well, they dated in high school. I don’t know when, I don’t know how. Spencer never told me, the ass. But they were well established before coming to Lakewood freshman year. I knew as soon as I met them, they were toxic together.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I say despite myself. “With his temper.”
“No, no, that’s the thing,” Natalie waves a hand. “She was the toxic one. Spencer was, like, the perfect boyfriend.”
I lean on an elbow, face scrunched. Rylie, too, sits forward, neither of us buying it. The king of one night stands, a model significant other? Not a chance.
“For real,” Natalie stresses. “Meegan was his world. He took her on dates, bought her expensive stuff, did anything she asked. In fact, I didn’t get to know him that well until after they broke up, since he spent every spare minute with her. He never so much as looked at another girl.”
I lay back down, stumped by this picture she’s painted in my head. Nothing like the surly running back I know and despise today. I try to mesh the two images, to fit two pieces of a puzzle together, but they don’t click.
“But Meegan,” Natalie says. “She was nasty, even then. She’d flirt with other dudes, try to make Spencer jealous. She’d get mad if he spent too much time with the guys. We’d be having fun, and she would call him, demand to know where he was, who he was with. She’d talk about him behind his back. This perfect guy who doted on her like a queen, and she complained about him! Once, we attended a game together—I had to pretend to be her friend, so she didn’t bitch to Spencer about me hating her, even though we all hated her—and she told me Spencer had erectile dysfunction.”
Not true, I almost say, then bury my nose in the blanket as my cheeks flame from that morning’s proof of his very much functioning erection.
“He’s vehemently denied it since.”
“We didn’t ask,” Rylie says.
“Well, I did,” Natalie shrugs. Because, unlike us, she has no filter.
“So what happened to end it?”
Natalie throws up her arms, spilling hot chocolate on Rylie’s foot. “Oops,” she pats her sleeve on our roommate’s sock, only to transfer glue and glitter on it instead. Finally, Natalie gives up, and Rylie tosses the sock on the floor. Later, I’ll throw it into the washer because both of them will have forgotten it.
Rylie prompts, “The break up?”
“Right. Meegan cheated on him,” Natalie says. “In Spencer’s dorm room. Whether that was the first time ever it happened, or if it was the first time she got caught, I have no idea, but Spencer did not take it well.”
“How did he react?”
That one’s easy, even I could answer it for Rylie. Spencer’s reputation began. Sleeping around. Drinking too much. Snapping at anyone to cross him. Including newbie newspaper staff photographers.
“Badly,” Natalie replies. “Beer. Drugs—not good ones. He got into fights constantly, over the stupidest shit. He was this close—” She pinches her fingers. “—to getting kicked off the team. Theo had to constantly vouch for him—he wasn’t captain or even quarterback yet, but he was able to convince Coach to let Spencer work it out.”
“Did he?” Rylie asks.
“At some point. I don’t know whether it was the threat of not playing football or if Theo talked sense into him or whatever, but he started shaping up. Went to practice, started going to classes again. We tried to keep him away from places where Meegan would show up, because whenever she did, they’d fight and ruin all his progress.”
“Of course,” she continues. “It doesn’t help that Meegan intentionally seeks him out. Messes with his head. Can you believe it? She cheated on him, and she stills tries to get back at him for breaking up with her. Pregnancy rumors. Slashing his bike tires. Sleeping with his best friend.” Here, Natalie gives Rylie an apologetic look. Rylie frowns at the reminder of what Levi had done in his weakest moment. “She once tried to get him expelled by claiming assault, but Theo caught wind of it and shot that shit down.”
Rylie gasps, and even I shake my head in disgust. Spencer may be an insulting jerk, but even he doesn’t deserve any of that.
It almost makes me understand how he can be so mean now.
“So that’s why he started sleeping around?”
Natalie makes a dinging noise, like a winning buzzer on a game show. “Exactly. A new girl, every night.” When she sees Rylie’s about to ask another question, she rolls her eyes. “Okay, maybe not every night. But a lot of them. And never the same girl twice. Like the only way to get over Meegan was to screw every other girl on this campus. But not me, obviously.” Because, for whatever reason, Natalie is immune to the charms of her friends. Just one of the guys.
She blinks, pausing before taking a sip of hot chocolate. “Wait, should I be offended he didn’t try to sleep with me?”
Rylie snickers. But I’m quiet, running her words through my head. It’s too easy. Too simple of a solution, but so intimidating and impossible and not something that would ever work for me,
