CHAPTER 11
Millie is twirling down the hallway when we get back to the dorm. She spins in a circle with her arms out, laughing at the ceiling. Her hair flies out in a circle. She’s smitten. “That was so much fun!” Millie whirls into a girl walking out of a dorm room, nearly knocking her over. Millie makes an oof sound and then steadies the two of them, apologizing. I try not to laugh. The girl storms away irritated. It’s late.
“And you!” Millie says, catching up to me. I didn’t stop during the ambush. “I had no idea you could dance like that! You’ve been holding out on me.”
I glance at her. “No, I haven’t.”
“Don’t give me that, Little Miss Goodie Two-Shoes. You’re always all pure and wholesome, and then you go and dance like that.”
I stop and turn to her. “What are you talking about? Dance like what?”
Millie shimmies her chest and says, “All sexy, rubbing up against the hot teacher.” She laughs hysterically, not knowing that I nearly slept with him.
I roll my eyes and keep walking. We round the corner and I pull out the key to our door. “I was not.” Twisting the key, we head in and I drop my stuff on my bed. I don’t know why I’m protesting. Peter is hot and the dancing makes me smile if I think about it too long, which means I can’t let myself think about it at all.
Frickin’ Millie and her observations. I glance at her. She points at me with a flick of her wrist. “You straddled the guy. Your thighs were around his hips.”
She walks over to her bed, not paying attention to me. “You can’t tell me that wasn’t hot, because it was totally hot. Besides, he seemed to like it.” I chuck a pillow at her. It hits Millie in the side of the head. She turns toward me. “Well, he did!” She throws it back.
The pillow hits the wall and falls on my head, knocking down a picture frame on my nightstand. I reach out and grab it before the frame bounces off the bed, and hits the floor. Setting it on the ledge next to me, I say, “You’re impossible. Next time, I just won’t come.”
“You know you want to. And, I think that I’ll ask you guys to show us more of that throw—in slow motion.” She winks at me with her mouth open. It’s all innuendo.
Stupid Millie. I’m close to laughing because her mouth hasn’t shut yet and she keeps winking at me, waiting for me to giggle. I fold my arms over my chest. “Go ahead. I won’t be there anyway.”
“Yeah, right. You know you won’t let me down.” Millie shifts in her bed and sits on her knees. She looks at me funny for a moment.
“What?”
Her pretty face is all scrunched up. Millie holds a pillow to her chest and gives me a serious look. “You never let me down. I mean, you always try to do what I want.” She picks at the corner of the pillow, not looking up at me.
Something doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t sound like praise, like oh Sidney, you’re the bestest friend I ever had! It sounds as though she’s worried or something. It makes me nervous. I have no idea where this conversation is going. “So?”
“So, I have a question for you.” She takes a deep breath and jumps in. “Why do you go on dates with me if you have no intention of dating? I mean, we’ve been roommates since freshman year and you haven’t hooked up with a guy once, but you always come out with us when I ask you.” Her voice is too serious.
Worry pinches my throat, making it hard to swallow. My mouth goes dry. I wonder if she knows what happened. My ex wasn’t stupid enough to post what he did to me on Facebook, but there were pictures. They were the type of pictures that look wrong.
I feel her gaze on my face. I don’t look up.
Millie finally asks, “Sidney, do you have a crush on me?”
Shock shoots across my face. I glance up at her and blink. “What?”
There’s a half smirk on Millie’s lips. Her eyebrows are doing this weird thing where one is up and the other is down. She looks right at me and adds, “I mean, if you’re into girls, that’s okay. I mean, I’m not—not that I don’t like you—well, not like that. I was just—”
My eyes are too big for my head. She’s rambling. Oh my God, this is so not what I thought she was going to say. My jaw drops open. I listen to her eat her foot and finally blurt out, “I’m not a lesbian.”
Millie counters, “But it’d be okay if you were.”
“But I’m not!”
Mille presses her lips together and considers me for a moment. It’s as if she can’t figure me out. Damn, have I become so dysfunctional that she can’t tell I’m into guys?
She finally asks, “Then, what’s up with you? Did your parents send you down here with a chastity belt or something?” She leans back against the wall and pulls her knees to her chest. “You don’t date, unless I drag you with me—and honestly, straddling teacher-guy was the most action you’ve gotten since we met.”
My face flames red. “This conversation passed the acceptable limit before it started.” I laugh nervously and stand. I walk over to my closet and fish through it, looking for PJs.
“I’m serious, Sidney. It’s like you don’t think you should be happy or something. There’s always this massive weight on your shoulders. I used to think it was because you’re from New Jersey and everyone there must be super pissed-off all the time, but that’s not it. Is it? You lit up when you were dancing tonight. I saw another version of you that I haven’t really seen before. It’s as if there’s another Sidney locked away somewhere.”
I stare at her. This isn’t something I talk about. It’s not something I share. Not after what happened last time I told someone. Part of me wants to say it. I want to know if she thinks that it was my fault, but I couldn’t bear that. Not again. Shaking my head, I look away. “I just like dancing. It makes me forget to scowl all the time.”
“One day, you’ll tell me. And when you do, I’ll be a good friend. You’ve been a good friend to me. You deserve to have someone to tell your secrets to, no matter what they are.” She smiles sadly at me.
I can’t. I feel the words lodged in my throat. I feel the bear at my back, but it doesn’t matter—I can’t say it. I can’t tell her what happened to me, what he did to me. There’s a span of silence. Neither of us moves.
Finally, Millie’s gaze drops to her bedspread. “I think he might be the one.”
Shocked by the abrupt conversation change, I don’t follow at first. “Who? Brent?”
She nods. “Yeah. We get along really well—better than anyone else. I really love him.”
“Have you guys said that to each other, yet?”
Shaking her head, she says, “Not yet. I nearly said it tonight. I’m thinking about it. It’s hard, you know. Being the first one to say I love you is rough. I mean, he might not say it back.”
“He’ll say it back.” There’s certainty in my voice. I smile at her and she looks less fragile.
“How do you know?”
“It’s all over his face, Millie. He adores you, even if he can’t say the L-bomb, yet.”
She smiles. Hard. It lights up her face. Millie leans back into her pillows. I change and then grab my books and try to get some reading out of the way, but my mind is elsewhere. I wonder how long it will be until Millie figures out what happened to me. Maybe I should just tell her and get it over with. When I realize that I’m no longer reading, I shut the light off and climb into bed.
This time when I close my eyes, I’m granted a reprieve. Instead of reliving the same nightmare over again, I see Peter’s easy smile. I fall asleep thinking about my body twirling and his strong hands guiding me.