Christmas comes and goes and I barely notice I’m in Hawaii. I escape to my hotel room as much as possible and decline any offers to do anything even remotely interesting. I don’t have the energy. All I want to do is be on my own, and even when some girls that are around my age ask me to go dancing with them, I decline, even though my mom is sitting there with her eyes boring into me, begging me to go with them. The rest of my junior year of college is pretty much a disaster. I just can’t bring myself to care about anything. Nothing at all. I stop going to my classes, worried that if I go to campus I might see Robbie, or even Mason. I don’t want to deal with either of them. At first I get my notes from classmates, asking them to email over what they have and picking up stuff online so I can get the work done. Then I stop doing that too. I submit work I know is substandard, but I just can’t bring myself to care.
I say no to every single thing Tina asks me to do. A lesser person would give up on me, but not Tina. She comes in and updates me on her day, tells me her gossip and invites me out for dinner. Even when I say no to everything, she’s still there, asking me what I’m up to, if I want to do anything. I’m so, so grateful to her for the pretense she’s maintaining, acting like everything is normal and that I’m not falling apart. That I’ve not lost fourteen pounds because my appetite has permanently left me. That it’s normal that I hardly ever leave the apartment. That when I do, I dress in clothes that absolutely drown me so I can look as unattractive as possible, because the last thing in the world I want is to ever look attractive to anyone again. Because if I had been a little heavier, a little spottier, if my hair had been a little greasier, maybe Robbie wouldn’t have noticed me that first day in class, and then when he found out about Ryan and I dating, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to take what was his, just to piss him off. Maybe he would have laughed at Ryan and pitied him over me, and none of this would have ever happened.
It’s only after one of my professors insists on a meeting that I eventually drag myself out of my apartment and head back to campus. I’ve been trying to stay up to date with work and don’t think I’ve fallen too far behind, but the thought of having to see anyone but Tina is enough to make me want to stay inside, lock the door, and never speak to anyone again.
I’m walking home after my meeting with my head down, trying to get home as quickly as possible.
“Becca?”
I jump at the voice and the close proximity of it. I turn to my left and see Bernie Matthews leaning against the building there. A couple of his buddies surround him, and I’m pretty certain they’re on the football team. My eyes quickly search them, but Robbie’s not there. Thank God. I haven’t seen him since that night when I told him to drop the charges, and as far as I’m concerned, that should be the last time I ever see him.
“He’s not here,” Bernie tells me, pushing away from the wall and walking over to me.
“Who?” I ask quietly, my eyes darting back to his friends. I can feel my heartbeat picking up slightly. They all make me nervous. They’re all so tall and so strong. If they wanted to, they could do whatever they wanted to me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a single thing about it.
“Mason,” Bernie tells me. Of course he’s talking about Mason; I should have known that. “He’s at home feeling sorry for himself. He’s hungover but has convinced himself he has the flu or something.”
“Oh.”
Bernie frowns slightly at me, and I realize it wasn’t the response he was expecting. The old me would have rolled her eyes and called Mason a baby, or at least laughed at his explanation, but that was before…before Robbie destroyed my life.
“You okay, Becca?” he asks, his gaze sweeping over me. His voice is full of concern.
I nod my head and force a smile. “I’m good.”
“I haven’t seen you in months.”
“Yeah.” My voice is flat. “I’ve been really busy,” I lie.
“He feels bad, you know.” I’m completely lost as to what he’s talking about, and I start edging away from him, wanting to get back to my apartment and away from his eyes, which seem to be looking at me just a little bit too intently. He steps in front of me, blocking my path, forcing me to take a step back, otherwise we’ll be too close, and I can’t stand the thought of having someone of a similar build to Robbie too close to me. “Mason,” he clarifies.
“Why would he feel bad?”
Bernie scoffs. “Because of the way he spoke to you after you and Ryan split up. Because you’re supposed to be his friend, and he hasn’t seen you in months. Because he was a little bitch the last time he saw you? He should feel terrible.”
Oh…yeah. I shrug my shoulders. Mason has every right to be annoyed with me. He thinks I betrayed his friend. He should despise me. I despise myself. “It doesn’t matter, Bernie.”
“Yo, Matthews!” He turns back to his friends, and I take this as my opportunity to move away from him.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell him.
He turns back to me immediately and puts his hand on my arm, stopping me from leaving. My jaw tenses at the effort of not flinching away from his touch. I honestly don’t know what is wrong with me anymore. This is Bernie, for Christ’s sake, and we’re in the middle of the campus green in broad daylight. Nothing is going to happen to me.
His eyes narrow on my face, and he turns back to his friends and waves them off, telling them he’ll see them later. They send me curious looks, and I immediately drop my gaze to the ground. I hate what they must all think of me.
“I’m buying you lunch,” he tells me.
My eyes widen. “No, no. Thank you, but I can’t. I have plans.”
“What plans?”
“Um.” I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, and Bernie smirks and raises an eyebrow at me. We both know I don’t have other plans.
“Come on, let’s go.”
“No, Bernie, honestly, I can’t.”
He turns to look at me, his face deadly serious. “Becca.” His voice is soft but firm. “I’ve been worried about you. I saw Tina a couple weeks ago, and she said you’ve barely left your apartment.” I bristle at this; it’s the truth, but I don’t particularly want Tina going around telling people I’m now a complete loser. Bernie rolls his eyes at my reaction. “I cornered her and asked her about you. She would never say a bad word about you, but I wanted to know how you are and why I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I’m fine,” I insist. I don’t know what his problem is. It’s not like I saw him a whole lot anyway, only when he was with Mason.
“You’re not fine, Becca.” His eyes drop from my face to take in my body, and he actually grimaces before they come back up to my face. “You look like you haven’t eaten a decent meal in months.”
“I just haven’t been hungry,” I insist.
“Yeah?” he shoots back. “Haven’t been wanting to sleep much either, if those bags under your eyes are anything to go by.”
I scowl at him. I know I look like crap at the moment, but I don’t care, and I don’t know who Bernie thinks he is, talking to me like this. We’re not even friends, not really. We’re just two people who chat every now and again when we see each other.
“You either let me take you out to lunch now, or I’ll follow you back to your apartment and order pizza from there and then make you hang out with me all afternoon.”
I sigh. As nice as Bernie is, I don’t want him hanging around all afternoon, and I know he’s stubborn enough to follow through with what he’s said. “I don’t want to stay on campus,” I finally tell him with a sigh. “I don’t want to see…” I let my sentence trail off. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious who I don’t want to see, and I don’t want Bernie thinking he can just go eat with his football buddies and get me to join them. There might be the chance Robbie would come, and I never want to be near him or the football team again.
“I have my car,” he tells me. “Let’s go to that Italian place off the main strip in town. Their pizza is really good.”
I stare at him for a minute, but his brown eyes are unwavering, and I have a feeling he’s not going to let me get away with this. I sigh. The sooner I agree, the sooner I can get this over with. I nod my head in agreement and follow him down toward his car, and that’s how I end up eating lunch with Bernie Matthews on a random Wednesday. He doesn’t stop talking, which I appreciate because it means I don’t have to say anything, but he doesn’t talk about football, or Mason or Ryan or anything I can’t stand to think about. He talks about Texas and travel, and I realize I like Bernie a whole lot. He’s one of the good guys.