“Hey guys,” I say, trying to pretend like I don’t see her disgruntled expression.
“Hey Aubrey,” Tammy says—either oblivious, or not caring about Bridget’s expression. “What are you dressing up as?”
“What, for Halloween?” I ask.
The girls all giggle.
“For Bridget’s costume party,” she clarifies. “Surely you knew about it already, I mean you guys share a room.”
I look over at Bridget with a blank stare.
“I must have forgotten to mention it,” she says. “You know, kind of like how you forgot to mention who you were going on a date with Sterling.”
Yep, she’s pissed alright.
Just before the other girls are able to start prying into what my date was like, Bridget cuts them all off and starts explaining her idea for the costume party that will be taking place in our dorm building—with the food and drinks being headquartered in our room, of course.
I wonder when she had been planning to tell me about this, if she was planning to tell me at all. I can just imagine the entire campus showing up to our dorm room floor in costume, as I’m lying in bed in my pajamas trying to sleep.
“Sounds fun,” I say with a pretend smile. I’m getting really way too good at faking shit. “I’ll whip up some sort of costume, I suppose.”
I suddenly spot Sterling across the campus and politely excuse myself to run after him. I’m not letting his crazy behavior slide by unnoticed, even if everyone else seems to be acting like this is entirely normal.
“Hey!” I shout as I run up to him.
His face is dark when he turns to glance my way.
“What do you want?”
Great, he’s back on the downward spiral of the mood swing, apparently.
“Are you coming to the costume party?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“What are you dressing up as?”
“I’m not sure yet, maybe a vampire or some shit,” he answers as he keeps trying to walk toward wherever he’s headed.
Not very original, but then again, whatever I manage to scrounge together tonight isn’t likely to be the height of Halloween fashion either.
“What about the gala?” I ask, suddenly. “What are you wearing to that?”
It’s a good question to ask, not only did I genuinely want to know what I should wear to match him as my date, but it also opened the door back up for me to push him a bit more about his dad.
The source, I have a sneaking suspicion, of today’s roller coaster of emotions.
“Unabashed shame and perpetual resentment,” he says.
“Huh?”
“That’s what I’ll be wearing to the gala,” Sterling snaps. “You asked me, and I answered.”
“Oh,” I say. “I was mostly asking about your clothes.”
He knew that, of course. So, he was either trying to make a point about how much he really doesn’t want to go or he’s just intent on lashing out.
“Dress pants and a shirt,” he says. “Probably not a tie because I hate ties.”
“I think that I’m going to wear—”
“Look Aubrey,” Sterling interrupts. “No offense, but I really just don’t care. You know that I don’t even want to go to the gala to begin with. I’m only going because of the deal that I made with you.”
“I know,” I say as I nod my head. “But what I don’t know is why you’re so opposed to going.”
“I already told you, I don’t like to be in the same room as my father,” he says.
“Yeah, I don’t like to be around my parents either,” I say. “But you seem more than just stressed about it. You seem like you’re having the equivalency of a nervous breakdown—no offense.”
“None taken,” he says.
Sterling stops walking long enough to turn and look at me for a minute. He can be so soft when he wants to be.
“Look, I just want to make sure that you’re okay,” I say as I reach up a hand to touch his forearm. I’m surprised when he doesn’t pull away.
For one second, his eyes almost flutter shut at the touch of my hand.
“Why?” he asks. “Why do you even care about what happens to me?”
I wasn’t really expecting that question so I’m not sure how to answer it. To be honest, I’m not really sure why I care about him so much. Now it’s my turn to try to avoid his questions.
“I need to get to class,” I say, suddenly drawing back. “I’ll see you at the Halloween party.”
The look on his face as I turn to hurry off almost makes me stop.
Almost.
Chapter Twelve
Bridget’s costume party is everything that I would expect from her and the recesses of her extravagantly frivolous and superficial brain. She actually had food catered in mere hours after the spread the school chefs already laid out.
I’m not even sure that’s something the dorms allow, but once again, it doesn’t seem to matter. Just like it doesn’t seem to matter that almost everyone is underage yet drinking a heavily spiked Halloween punch that is located right on top of my dorm room desk, dangerously close to my laptop … which I’ve got to move. I reach it right before a half-drunken girl nearly sloshes her punch all over my computer.
When I first got here, I thought the house mother would have had a heart attack over this sort of thing going on.
Now I just wonder how much Bridget had to pay her off to turn a blind eye.
“Sorry,” the girl giggles at me before walking away in her scantily clad mermaid costume.
I sigh and shove the laptop under my bed before all of my stored assignments get
