“Hey,” I said, going for blandly neutral.

“Hey,” Renee said back, not quite meeting my eyes like the guilty girl she was.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked, digging a bit for information, testing the waters to see whether she’d be honest and forthright.

It seemed my dear roommate and best friend opted for a renewed relationship with dishonesty and distance.

“Library,” she responded vaguely.

“Really. Did you get a lot of reading done?” Reading being a euphemism for dirty, wrong spit swapping.

“Yeah, I’m going to nail that microbiology test tomorrow,” she said, and if I hadn’t known she was lying I would have been fooled. She was that convincing.

“Or nail something else,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?” she asked, looking flustered.

“I saw you,” I said.

I had to give my friend credit, she played confused well. She tied her disheveled hair up into a ponytail and gave me a bewildered smile. “Oh yeah? Where?”

“With Devon,” I told her, trying not to sound as disappointed as I felt. In her. In me. In our obvious inability to really move on from the person who hurt us so badly.

Renee’s face paled, and she began chewing on her bottom lip. “It’s not what it looked like—”

“Is that why things with Iain didn’t work out? Because of Devon?” I asked, not because I couldn’t believe she would be so stupid, but because I understood her choices all too well.

But that didn’t make them any easier to swallow.

Renee narrowed her eyes. “Don’t, Aubrey,” she warned.

I held my hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m not judging, Renee! I just want to know what’s going on. Talk to me, please,” I begged, desperate for us to not fall back into that horrible place where our friendship used to reside. Full of secrets and mistrust. Laden with tension and false smiles. And all because of the very man I had seen her kissing minutes before.

“I don’t know what’s going on. Just please drop it!” she pleaded, heading back to her bedroom.

I didn’t chase her. I didn’t demand answers. Maybe I should have. But I couldn’t. Not when I could only look at her and see my own failings.

We woke up the next morning and drank our coffee together as if nothing at all had happened. We walked to school and talked about the weather and every other mundane, boring topic we could think of. And for the most part, we were pseudonormal. Except for the unspoken words that lay between us.

Except for the truth.

I walked in the door of my classroom later that day and promptly stopped in my tracks. April, Evan’s emotionally beaten girlfriend from support group, stood in front of the professor’s desk, handing him a slip of paper. She looked up as I came in, her face a mask.

I scurried to my seat and pulled out my textbook, burying my nose into the reading, my earlier feelings of goodwill vanishing quickly. I refused to look up when I saw a pair of ratty sneakers in my peripheral vision walking past and sitting at the desk directly beside me.

I chanced a glance to my left and saw April sitting beside me despite several other available desks around the room, chewing on her thumbnail. I kept reading until the professor started his lecture, ignoring her.

“Do you have an extra pen?”

I practically jumped out of my seat at the sound of the soft, yet husky voice of the frail dark-haired girl I had never heard speak before. “Uh, sure,” I said, not knowing what possessed me to respond to her at all, especially given her involvement with Evan. I dug around in my bag and found another pen and handed it to her. She blew her hair out of her face and gave me a timid smile. It never reached her eyes, and I thought that she looked incredibly sad.

“Thanks, Aubrey,” she whispered, turning back around in her seat. The entire exchange had lasted a whole thirty seconds, but it left me feeling strange.

I had a hard time focusing on the rest of the class. When April leaned over to return my pen, she thanked me sincerely. “I guess I need to be a little more prepared next time.” Her voice startled me again. It was pleasing to listen to. Soft but with a slight rasp. She had been mute the entire time I had facilitated the support group. Even during that one, terrible run-in at Compulsion, she had never uttered a single word, letting her boyfriend do the talking for them both.

I slowly reached out and took the pen from her, tucking it back into my bag. “I didn’t know you were in the counseling program,” I said, not able to help my curiosity about what she was doing in this particular class . . . with me. It felt like too much of a coincidence, given Evan’s threats only weeks before.

April got to her feet and slung a tattered purse over her shoulder. She seemed to be unwilling to make eye contact, choosing to look over my shoulder instead. Her dark hair, which had remnants of purple dye at the tips, looked tangled and slightly unkempt. She gave off the little-girl-lost vibe; not your typical student.

“I’m not. I needed to take some extra classes to fill in the semester and this looked sort of interesting,” she mumbled, and I wasn’t sure I entirely believed her.

“Okay, then. Well, see ya later,” I said, not wanting to prolong any sort of interaction between us. I walked out of the classroom and felt her presence behind me as I left the building.

As I left I saw Evan sitting on the steps, obviously waiting for his girlfriend. He looked up as I walked toward him, and his hateful sneer froze my blood. “Hey, Aubrey,” he said, saying my name like a curse. I looked away, not responding. I heard him laugh, and apprehension curdled inside me.

When I met up with Brooks for our usual morning coffee the next day, I was not in the best mood.

“I recognize that look,” Brooks said, pointing his finger at my face.

I batted his hand away and scowled. “What look? And play nice,” I warned.

Brooks chuckled and held the door open for me. The Coffee Jerk was crowded, which was typical for a weekday. Everyone was looking for the required caffeine to get through the day.

“The look that says you didn’t sleep enough, so tread carefully,” Brooks quipped, getting in line.

“I guess that’s accurate,” I conceded. I was starting to forget what a good night’s sleep felt like.

Brooks slung his arm around my shoulders. “Do I need to come over tonight and make you a cup of chamomile tea and tuck you in?” he cooed sarcastically.

I elbowed him in the gut and he dropped his arm. I smiled at him in a way that was more a baring of teeth. We continued to edge toward the counter. Brooks was talking about a research paper and I half listened. I was tired. I was irritable. And I needed my coffee.

And then I saw him.

Maxx stood behind the counter in a brown Coffee Jerk T-shirt, manning the industrial-sized espresso machine and looking harried.

Why did he have to start working at the only place in town that makes coffee the way that I like?

I was irrationally annoyed. But then I felt a smidgen of something else. Joy? Because at least Maxx was working. He had a job that paid him legal, honest money. He was trying.

My jaw hardened and I instantly stepped out of line and exited the coffee shop without another word. Brooks came after me with a confused look on his face. He had obviously not noticed the new barista on duty.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and I only shook my head, not wanting to get into it. Not now when I was feeling edgy.

“Nothing, I just realized I needed to get to class early,” I lied, feeling marginally guilty for not telling Brooks the truth.

“Oh, okay. Well, I guess I’ll just see you later, then,” Brooks said, still looking bewildered. I forced a smile and nodded, hurrying to class.