I don’t want to move on. I want him. So, plagued with indecision, I’d asked for their secrecy until I figured out what to do. Natalie gave me a pinky promise, and Rylie and I had shared a doubtful look, since out of the three of us, our blue-haired roommate is not really that great with keeping her mouth shut.
With a sigh, I click on my schedule. My secret one. Spencer’s meeting with Trevor Morris and his scout friend this morning. I’d kept my phone on hand, to hear from him when it’s done, but if I don’t, we’re meeting at Tipsy Turvy soon.
“Some things never change. You and your calendars.”
My hand stalls over my keyboard. I may not have heard it in months, but I recognize that voice. I spent four years listening to it.
Ashton drops into the empty chair next to me.
“Kennedy,” he smiles.
I blink. Look over his shoulder at the rest of the staff. They quickly avoid my gaze, pretending they’re not eagerly watching us like some twisted newspaper version of Romeo and Juliet.
Well, that confirms I’m not hallucinating.
“Ashton,” I plainly state. Close out of my schedule in case he decides to peer over and see the block that reads ‘Bio study session in the library. Wear a ponytail’. No studying had taken place, whatsoever.
My face heats and I push the memory away to ask, “What are you doing here?”
His forehead wrinkles. Confused by my lukewarm reaction? That I didn’t burst into tears, scream his name, or throw my arms around him?
“The study abroad program wrapped up last week.”
I check the date. Look at that, it had. I’d completely forgotten.
“So, why are you here,” I tap the desk. “At Lakewood?”
He should be back home. At his parents’ country club. Playing golf and turning up his nose at anyone not wearing loafers.
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at our editor-in-chief, deep in conversation with another reporter. “Brook said ABB’s holding a fundraiser and Nolan Prescott will be there. You know I wouldn’t miss a chance to meet him. She said you’ve been working on an article about his daughter. She really goes here?”
I picture him meeting Summer and want to smile at how quickly she’d knock him off balance. I can see it now, Summer Prescott calling my ex a tool to his face.
“And I have some stuff to catch up at Epsilon Sigma, so I’m here through the next week,” he mentions his frat, then waves his hand. “But that’s neither here nor there. How are you, Kennedy?”
He smooths his hair. Before, I loved the way he arranged it, thinking it neat and classy. Now, it just looks greasy with gel. I glance at his short sleeve button-down, a shirt I’d purchased for his last birthday. He’s paired it with navy shorts that, frankly, are a bit too tight, accentuating how… tiny he looks.
Like a weasel. And that voice isn’t Spencer’s. Or maybe it is. Spencer’s and a little of Natalie’s, some Rylie thrown in for flavor, and most definitely Levi’s. All my friends who call him the same thing when they think I’m not listening.
For four years, I thought this boy was handsome. I planned everything around him. Looking at him now… I feel a little repulsed. Remember taking months on end to get him to kiss me right, how he’d made me feel so guilty in bed for wanting to be pleasured, the way he’d selfishly taken as much as he could from me and never offered anything in return.
Ashton never made me a blanket fort. He never tried so hard to learn words he knew would make me excited. He never bought me non-latex hair bands or warmed my hands or had sex with me all over campus or wrote his name all over my body or encouraged me to abandon my plans and just wing it.
Even at our best times, compared to Spencer… he just doesn’t measure up.
“Fine,” I clip. I give nothing else. I have nothing else. Nothing I want or need to say to him.
Silence stretches between us. After a beat, Ashton leans in, “Kennedy, can we get a coffee?”
“Why?”
He reels back, like I struck him by not jumping at the chance for my favorite drink. “Can we talk? I feel bad about last semester. We’re going to be working on The Weekly together next year. We’ll have classes, too. I don’t want to go into our senior year with bad blood between us.”
Maybe he should have thought of that before releasing that article about Levi and Meegan. Before dumping me. Before spending a semester abroad, kissing girls in photos while believing I’d still be waiting for him when he got back.
“And,” His voice hushes. He glances down at me. At my skinny jeans, my spring-y top and the mint cardigan I’d thrown over it, since some of Spencer’s signatures are still visible, even after thorough exfoliating. “…I miss you. It’s good to see you.”
I’d laugh if I didn’t feel like I needed a shower after that lingering gaze.
I return a cold stare.
And I feel nothing.
What did I ever see in Ashton Keeland? How did I ever convince myself that our relationship was good? I look at him now, and I see a slimy douchenozzle. I hadn’t thought of him in weeks. Days passed where I never remembered a time in my life that I’d been with him. Even now, trying to recall how I felt seeing him kissing another girl in a social media post, I sense not one damn thing.
She’s welcome to him. It’s good to see me? The feeling’s not mutual. The thought of giving in to his pathetic ‘I miss you’, the possibility of taking him back—I want to gag.
I’m saved from having to respond by Brook, who calls me over to her work table. I give Ashton one last impassive stare, then rise to meet her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she
