Chapter 18: Friends
I just looked at her, standing there in the middle of the crowded hallway. "We can’t just not talk about it," she had said, and I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to admit it.
"There’s nothing to talk about," I said, my voice low and tired. ’This is all just getting worse.’ "This is exactly the kind of stuff I was talking about. Look at us."
I gestured around at the other students who were definitely slowing down to watch us. ’Another scene for the gossip mill.’
"You shouldn’t be doing this, Nina," I said, finally looking her in the eye. "You have a boyfriend. He just punched me in the face for you. Chasing me down the hall probably isn’t a great look."
I was trying to give her an out, to give both of us a way to just walk away and end this. But the moment I mentioned Tyler, her whole expression changed. The desperate, out-of-breath look was replaced by something else. Something sadder.
She shook her head slowly, looking down at the floor. "I don’t," she said, and her voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her over the noise of the hallway.
"You don’t what?" I asked.
She looked back up at me, and her eyes looked tired. "I don’t have a boyfriend," she said. "Not anymore. I broke up with him this morning, right after I walked out of the classroom."
The words just hit me. ’Wait, what? She broke up with him?’ I just stood there, leaning on my crutches, trying to process that.
"Oh," was all I could manage to say.
The way she said it wasn’t triumphant or angry. She just sounded defeated, like she was talking about something that had been inevitable. Like she had really thought he was the one, and now it was over. My stupid drama had ended her relationship.