Still Dreaming - Treebros

Chapter 17: "You're Too Sweet For Me"

Friday, November 22nd

    The door behind me hasn't even clicked shut when I see him. Sam's sprawled across his bed, laptop in front of him. The clicking and tapping of keys starts to drill a hole into my brain. He looks up for only a moment at me before he's absorbed back into the screen. "Hey," he offers. I scoff and drop my bag down.

"Oh, so you're back?" I've felt like a war widow for the better part of a month. Waiting for my boyfriend to show up at my door. Except instead of the battlefield, he's been in another guys room. 

"Evan, I'm sorry," he sighs, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm. As if he has any right to be frustrated at me. He still hasn't even looked up from the computer.

"For ditching me for like a fucking month? For another guy?" I ask. At this, he looks up. Annoyance dances in his face.

"I didn't ditch you for Cole, I just-"

"Just stayed in his dorm for-" I pull out my phone to check the date. "14 days, with zero communication, that's all. You could have been dead and I'd have been none the wiser because instead of staying to work things out, you just ran," I say. Was there anything to work out? Where did we go wrong? It was like one day everything was normal and the next day he was gone.

"Well, you weren't exactly bending over backwards trying to make it work, either. Just because you slept here didn't mean you didn't run to Connor, too," he snarks, looking back at his computer. It's gone dark, I can tell by the lack of glow on his face. For some reason that makes me madder than if he'd really gone back to work.

"Oh, God, here we go again," I sigh, putting my chest into it. If he wants to piss me off on purpose, fine. I'll bite. I even throw my hands up a little too.

"Why can you get mad at Cole but I can't get mad at Connor? You guys act like you never broke up, how am I supposed to take it?!" Sam shouts as he slams his laptop shut. Those eyes are piercing me. In another life, when we were happy or I was scared, I would have looked away. Maybe apologize. But I'm just so sick of it. Sick of everything. 

"I didn't sleep in his bed for 2 weeks while dating another guy!" I yell back, holding his gaze .

"Just because I-"

   Oh you've got to be kidding me.

"Are you fucking serious? I was kidding, Sam, you slept in his bed?" I ask, voice pitchy and bordering on shrieking. I've been sleeping in an empty room for weeks, catching flak for being friends with my ex, while my boyfriend's been sleeping in bed with another man.

"We didn't do anything!" Sam yells. He hurdles himself into a standing position. I don't know if he's trying to intimidate me, but he is. My hands are shaking.

"You wanted to, though!" I retort, hands flying out at my side. 

"And you don't want to do anything with Connor?"

"I- No!" I say. Even I can't hear any conviction in my voice. I don't know. I try not to think about feelings and Connor. Connor was my before and I don't know how he fits into my after. But I don't sleep in beds with him or leave my boyfriend for him at parties. "Can we please just- just do this later? Noelle's supposed to come over we're, we're working on our final projects together and-"