JUST LIKE HER (ANDY BARBER)

7. IT'S KINDA LIKE A CODE

You were ashamed to admit how long you wallowed in self-pity. How you spent the remaining weeks of your winter break wrapped up in a plush blanket, drinking wine straight from the bottle, mourning the loss of a relationship that was never really yours to begin with. You felt pathetic. You were pathetic. What kind of woman did you think you were? What did you seriously think was going to come out of this?

But, still, part of you wondered what would have happened if you had been at your apartment. If you had been there to answer Andy's calls. Could you have talked him out of marrying Laurie? Could you have given him the right words to push back against Laurie wanting to elope? Would things be different now? Was there a chance that he could be yours?

It felt like the universe was punishing you for your stupidity. When the spring semester started, Andy had just disappeared from your life. He wouldn't sit beside you in class anymore. He stopped coming to compare notes with you. He stopped talking to you. It was like you had no place in his life anymore. And it shouldn't have hurt the way it did. He was a married man, and before that he was an engaged man, and you fucking knew it. You knew it through the majority of your friendship with him. And yet...You expected more, more than he would ever be willing to give you.

Even worse, though, you had seemed to lose all of your friends in the process. Billy and Denny avoided you like the plague. Teddy would turn and walk the other way whenever she saw you. They stopped telling you about study group meetings. And you knew they still had them. You fucking knew they still had them.

Because you were standing in front of them, studying, without you.

"Oh. Uh. Sorry, wrong study room," you mumbled, slowly backing out of the room, shutting the door behind you.

What a fucking idiot. That's what you were. You should just go ahead and swing by that tattoo shop across the street and get "giant fucking idiot" tattooed straight across your fucking forehead. Of course you'd be stupid enough to walk into the wrong study room, and of course you'd be stupid enough to walk into the very one where your former friends were.

You walked as quickly as you could down the hall, trying to get to the study room you had booked. But you weren't quick enough.

"Hey, Y/N! Wait!"

You paused, knowing it would be useless to try and keep walking. Teddy was the type of person who'd chase someone to the ends of the fucking earth if it meant getting what she wanted. She was going to be a good lawyer for it. You just knew it.

But when you were on the receiving end of it? God, it fucking sucked.

"So we're talking now, huh?" you said, standing with your back still turned to her, your voice quiet. What? You were entitled to your low blows. If she got to ditch your friendship, then you got to be a bitch back to her when you could.

"Don't do that, Y/N. He needed us."

You scoffed. "Seriously? That's the position you're going to take? That's a fucking weak argument, and you know it."

She walked around you, standing in front of you. She almost looked apologetic. "Look, he's struggling right now. Things are rocky at the moment with him and Laurie, plus everything that happened between the two of you—"

"What the fuck did he say happened between us?" You felt the bile rise up in your throat. If he had told them that he was going to leave Laurie for you but then didn't...You didn't know what you'd do.

"What happened," Teddy said. "He said that you started attacking him for getting married on a whim and told him his marriage would fail."

"That's not what happened—" You weren't sure if you could tell her what actually happened. If you tried...You were sure you'd pass out. You could barely even think the words. How could you possibly say them out loud?