Chapter Twenty-Eight
Iris
The sound of dishes clattering loudly in the kitchen sink jolted me from a delicious dream of being wrapped up in Noah’s arms. I grumbled in irritation as I glanced the alarm clock next to my bed.
Of all the times Bailey had to do the dishes, she had to do them early on a Sunday morning just to irritate me. That was what she had been scheming about the night before when I arrived back at the apartment to find her sitting in the living room sullenly with a glass of wine.
“Why are you doing dishes at 9:46 in the morning?” I asked with a sigh, tugging up the blankets around my head.
Bailey was the absolute queen at being passive aggressive when it came to people doing things she didn’t like. She did it to me all the time, and half of the time I caved in just to save face with her. Living with her was already complicated enough; having her pissed at me was a living nightmare.
A pot clanged down hard on the counter. She was still upset over not being invited to the mall with Jen and me. It seemed petty for how old we were, but things like that seeped beneath her skin. She cared greatly about popularity.
That’s why I never saw her on the weekends anymore. She always had somewhere to be and somewhere to go. Except, in her eyes, I couldn’t do the same thing for some reason. I rolled my eyes. I wondered if Bailey ever got tired of competing with everyone around her.
I pulled on a pair of sweat pants and a baggy shirt before leaving the sanctity of my room to face the wrath of my roommate. Just as I’d imagined, she stood in front of the sink with bubbles up to her elbows. A few cleaners were pulled out and sitting on the counter, as well.
I arched my eyebrows as I approached cautiously. Apparently, it was going to be a cleaning day. Not that I would ever complain about Bailey taking her anger out on our apartment. The landlord loved it. He was always impressed whenever he came to check out the place.
“Cleanest apartment I have here,” he beamed the last time we saw him. “Consider your rent lowered for such a great cleaning job you two do.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Bailey didn’t even spare me a glance. She scrubbed aggressively at a pot before dunking it back into soapy water.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” she quipped, shooting me a look that cut at me. “This place is dirty. Pick up a sponge while you’re standing there, or at least clean some of the dishes. You’ve barely been around to help out anyway.”
I sighed as I picked up a dirty plate to hand to her. “I know. I’m sorry. I have a lot homework to do and-”
“A new friend to hang out with, too,” she added snidely.
“Is that what you’re having your period about?” I asked. “Because I hung out with someone else besides you?”
“Not just that,” she replied, and turned to look at me with bubbles trailing down her tanned arms. “You’ve been MIA since the beginning of this semester. I can tell something is going on with you, and we are supposed to be roommates and friends.”
I caught a brief glimpse of genuine hurt in Bailey’s eyes before she turned to continue scrubbing at the dishes. Guilt shot through me. Maybe I was the one acting like a complete bitch to Bailey the past few weeks.
We had known each other for four years, despite my suspicions that Bailey inwardly had a love-hate relationship with me. I never knew were we stood with one another, but to hear her drop the friend label changed that a bit.
I still didn’t plan on telling her the truth, though. Noah and I had promised one another to keep quiet and not tell anyone about each other.
“You’re right,” I said. I waited until she turned to look back at me to offer an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for going MIA on you. I’m just trying to get through the next couple of weeks so I can graduate.”
“And, there’s nothing going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I said, and ignored the guilt growing in my stomach. “Just the usual crap of being stressed out with homework and school.”
She looked skeptical for a long moment, but relented when I handed her another dirty plate to wash. “All right. What do you want to do this weekend?”
“Whatever you want to do,” I said, grabbing a washcloth from next to the sink. I placed my phone on counter to plug it in and charge. “I have a lot of homework to do and an exam to study for.”
“That’s what Sundays are for,” Bailey pointed out and washed the last plate with a relieved sigh. “What about seeing a movie next weekend? I already know you’re going to turn me down for a party.”
“No parties for me,” I said, grimacing. “I don’t know how you do it, honestly. Loud music, horny guys, and cheap booze does not sound ideal to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s if you go to a frat party,” she said. “I’m over the frat parties, too. The guy I went to Hawaii with goes to wine gatherings in New York.”
“Sounds classy. That’s a step up from what you were bringing back here.”
“It is,” she agreed, beaming. “His name is Conner. His family is close friends with my family, so we’ll get to see each other a lot over the summer.”
“That’s great,” I replied, grinning at her. “Here, let me finish the dishes up while you wipe down the counters.”
“Good. My fingers were getting to be prunes.”
She wiggled her soaked fingers with a giggle. We switched sides, and I spent the next ten minutes washing down every utensil we owned while Bailey chatted animatedly about various things. She lifted my phone to wipe down the counter there before setting it down.
“Iris.”
I looked up from the sink to see Bailey lifting my phone slowly up to her face. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. She looked up at me then with furrowed eyebrows, and I had no doubt who had texted me.
“What?” I asked, reaching for a towel to dry my hands. “Bailey. That’s my phone. I don’t look at your-”
“Why is there a man named Noah Webber texting you?” she asked, abruptly. “More importantly, why is a teacher not only texting you, but texting you on the weekend?”
I reached for my phone, but she tugged it away before I could grab it. She looked at me expectantly.
“No reason,” I said. “He’s probably just texting me about our exam that we have tomorrow, is all.”
Bailey shook her head. “Teachers don’t text you about things like that,” she said. “That’s one of the rules on campus. What is going on, Iris?”
“Nothing,” I said, desperation starting to fill me. “Nothing is going on. Give me my phone back.”
“It’s not nothing. He texted you, ‘I miss you. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.’”
I would’ve been touched by the good morning text, but with Bailey clasping my phone like it was her lifeline, I knew I had to tell her. There was no lying my way out of this one. I could already see the wheels in her brain turning at a million miles a minute.
“You slept with Professor Webber,” Bailey said slowly. A knowing grin started to spread across her lips when I looked away to hide my burning cheeks. “Holy shit! You slept with a fucking a teacher? Of all the rules you break, you broke that one rule that could expel you.”
“Keep it down,” I scolded uneasily. “Please don’t say anything, Bailey. I know how hard it is for you to keep secrets.”
“Right. I’ll keep it a secret.” She handed me the phone before staring at me in a mixture of what appeared to be awe and pure envy. “I have to admit, I’m jealous of this. Professor Webber is hot. How did you score losing your virginity to a teacher?”
I grimaced at her choice of words. I fiddled with the corner of my phone, debating on whether I really wanted to tell her how this happened. I had promised Noah to keep quiet so we didn’t risk our futures at PHU.
“It just sort of happened,” I said, hesitantly. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean, it is, but…”
“It’s a huge fucking deal,” she exclaimed. “You broke one of the biggest rules here on campus. I never thought you’d be the one to do that sort of thing. Not to mention you finally lost your virginity.”
“Well, it happened,” I said, shortly. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Bailey. Let’s finish up cleaning, and then go catch that movie at the mall. Homework can wait until later.”
“Sure.”
The short answer threw me off for a moment. Bailey’s face was utterly expressionless, but I could still see the wheels turning in her head. Uneasiness filled me, but she didn’t bring it up again throughout the rest of the morning and on our way to the mall to catch a late afternoon movie.
When we returned to the apartment later that afternoon, I gathered my books and backpack to head off to the library. I couldn’t shake off the feeling of uneasiness around Bailey when I turned to look at her watching me with a strange smile.
“Off to school so late?” she asked, a bit too sweetly.
I tensed. Even though I hadn’t had a choice, telling Bailey had been a mistake, or was going to be in some way. That much I could already tell from the way she kept looking at me.
“I have to study for an exam in the morning,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Right. Have a good time studying.”
She turned away before I could even think of reply. Without sparing me a glance, she disappeared into her room. I stood in the living room for a long time while I stared at Bailey’s closed door.
I had made a mistake telling her. That much I could feel deep in my gut even though I wanted to believe that Bailey wouldn’t stoop that low. She would never sell me out if she considered us friends. She’d done some pretty sketchy things over the years that I’d known her, though. She never once hesitated to gossip about others.
Except, this was beyond gossip. She knew that like I did. It meant getting me expelled if she said a word – and I had a horrible feeling that she liked having that type of power over me.