But the point here is that other people have problems and haunted pasts, just as I do. I am not alone. Yes, I have lost both of my parents in a pretty dramatic way, which I generally consider a pretty damn good excuse for total devastation, but … Maybe Chris nailed it by saying that I am holding on to the past because I think it’s all that I have. And by clinging to my guilt, I get nowhere.

He managed to find something besides pain, and I can, too.

The music in my ears changes, and I feel the urge to walk for a few minutes.

No, no, no! You are not walking! I yell at myself. Listen to the music. Toughen up. There are people who have it much worse than you do. Stop being so selfish and … and … narcissistic. Fuck, the world doesn’t revolve around you and your grandiose sense of pain.

My phone chimes and I look down. A rush of feeling rips through me: it’s Chris. He has just sent me more music. Another thirty songs, maybe more. The first new song starts and while the first line of lyrics nearly breaks my heart—my energy, or at least my motivation, is renewed.

It’s just pain.

I am not going to quit. I focus on the music and the lyrics and ignore my body’s protests.

I want to fantasize about Chris to distract myself, but since we haven’t exactly been cozy since our ill-fated encounter on his bed, I try not to. He’s clearly not fantasizing about me. When he’s seen me on campus, he hasn’t obviously bolted in the other direction, but he hasn’t gone out of his way to talk to me, either. It is entirely possible that the connection I felt between us simply doesn’t exist. Maybe my reaction to him just stems from not having touched someone or been touched in years. Honestly, the last time I probably had a lot of physical contact with anyone was when I got a whole lot of hugs at my parents’ funeral—and that kind of touching is not anything like a horny, dorm room make-out session. So maybe it made sense that I was freaking out.

What I do remember during the first few weeks after my parents died was the near-constant hugs, arm squeezes, and head pats I got from concerned family and friends. It wasn’t what I wanted at the time. I remember wanting to swat away everyone who came close to me. I started associating touch with death and grief. I don’t know if I actually started rejecting people or if they just stopped trying to console me, but eventually the unwanted affection just petered out. James and I never hug, not anymore, and my aunt has always been so uptight that I’m quite sure she’s as frigid as I am. Well, or as I was—these days, things seem to be looking up for me in that department. So I have spent four years without touch and affection and without wanting any.

But now there is Christopher Shepherd, the boy who has changed all the rules.

Not that he seems to want me the way that I want him. I’ve accepted that he probably let us mess around in his room out of pity. Of course, just because he felt sorry for me did not mean that he had to touch me like he did or lie down on top of me with a hard-on. At least fooling around with me hadn’t sent him into a completely flaccid state. Another small victory.

Whatever. I am trying to look at it as a fun, meaningless make-out session with some pleasant additional groping. Even though it didn’t feel meaningless to me. At all. It felt like everything.

Fuck.

I look down at my phone and eye Chris’s new playlist. Handpicked songs. I don’t know how much to read into what he’s chosen to send me, but it’s hard not to see it as some kind of affection.

And another big question looms over me: Why hadn’t he reacted in the least to my scar? He hadn’t hesitated at all when he touched it, and he didn’t ask about it, either.

I run harder. My breathing is not as uneven as it was on that first run. On today’s run, my body is starting to feel smoother and more natural. My dorm comes into view, and I check the time. Huh. I have reached the end of my normal route six minutes earlier than I did yesterday, and I’m not ready to keel over. I start to cross the street.

Damn.

I turn around. I have it in me to run for another ten minutes. And the playlist is calling my name. Chris is calling my name. Ten more minutes of running will give me ten more minutes to play in my private fantasy world where Chris doesn’t pull his body away from mine, and he doesn’t stop kissing me, touching my hair, or moving his hand under my shirt. He goes further, feeling every inch of my body.

CHAPTER NINE The Importance of Being

Well, these pants are hideous, and there is no way I can be seen in them. I glare in the mirror. My ass might as well have a sign that reads “Proof of Gravity.” The material seems to puff unreasonably, causing strange wrinkles and folds that add to what is already not a perfect shape. Angry, I yank them off and throw them to the bottom of my closet. For once, I actually want to look good, and instead I look like utter crap. I put my hands on my ass and squeeze. Stupid fat. Wait a minute… . There is definitely improvement here. A new firmness. Running is paying off.

Holy shit. These pants are too big. No wonder they look so terrible.

I start digging through my closet. I have to own something less horrible that I can wear to Sabin’s play. I locate a pair of inexcusably expensive straight-leg jeans my aunt gave me that I’ve never really fit into before, and I squirm into them now. A peek in the mirror does not cause vomiting, so I keep them on. The good thing about tight pants is that they pack everything in and hold it in place, and these have enough stretch that I can still breathe. My long-forgotten mascara has somehow not caked up, so I darken my eyelashes and then run an equally old tube of pink gloss over my lips.

The knock on the door startles me. I can’t remember anyone stopping by my room before. “Who is it?” I quickly reach for the closest shirt from the pile of rejects thrown on the bed. I may be out of practice having visitors, but I know enough not to answer the door in a bra.

“It’s Estelle.”

“Oh. Come in.”

Estelle opens the door. Great. She is decked out in a sleek navy minidress and gorgeous three-inch heels that tie up her calves with a wide ribbon. Her dark hair now has electric pink streaks running through some of the short pieces around her face. She looks so hot that even I want to jump her. “Hey. You’re going to the play tonight, right? Sabin put us in charge of bringing you, and Chris is going to meet us there. This is our brother Eric.”

“Hey.” Eric steps out from behind Estelle. Even if I hadn’t been told they were twins, it is obvious. He is the shortest of the three brothers, and if it weren’t for Estelle’s heels, they’d be exactly the same height. Eric has the same strong facial bone structure that she does. They make a perfectly gorgeous pair.

“Good to meet you, Eric.”

“So you’re a friend of Sabin’s?” he asks.

Oh. Sabin was the one to invite me to tonight’s play, not Chris. So I am Sabin’s friend. Am I really friends with either of them, though? True, Sabin has been texting me incessantly about his show: If you don’t show up on Friday night, I’m going to gouge out my eyes with a spork so that gazillions of tears cannot fall and drown the entire campus population. Chris, however, has been as absent as they come. Yes, he held open the dorm door for me last week and was perfectly friendly in the two seconds that it took him to say, “How’s it going?” before rushing off to his class. That seems to be the disappointing extent of our relationship.

I nod. “Sort of. I’ve only met him a few times, but he seems quite insistent that I see his show.”

Eric squints at me. “You don’t seem like his usual type.”

Estelle swats him with her hand. “She’s not one of Sabin’s conquests. Or Chris’s for that matter. She’s a friend.”