Second Lanark

Avoidance - Part 12

Almost as if by agreement, Rob and I didn't connect on Saturday or most of Sunday. Sunday night, Mishti called a floor meeting to discuss a floor wide event we had to host at The Breeze, which could be loosely referred to as a nightclub on campus. It was really only busy during whole floor residence events, which meant the school insisted that every floor hosted one at some point as an opportunity to bond with your floormates.

Tricia had her arm tucked in mine as I pulled open the door to the common room. I was so busy laughing at one of her jokes that it took me a moment to look around the room. There, sitting in the back corner was Rob and who was on his lap? Rachel. I felt my smile slipping, and I forced myself to steer Tricia to the opposite side of the room from the two of them.

We listened to Mishti drone on about plans for our bar night and the need for a theme. I was having trouble concentrating, but Tricia was a keener and contributed enough for both of us. We decided on a 1970s theme for the evening, which would take place after Thanksgiving.

Once the meeting was over, we wandered back to our room, and Tricia was even more peppy than usual. Once we got to our room, she shut the door and turned to me.

"Okay, I have to confess something." She looked worried.

"What?" I asked, picking up random things from the floor and putting them away. If there was one thing that bothered Tricia about me, it was my lack of tidiness.

"Jill's parents are in town today and she asked Lark and me to go out for dinner with them tonight."

"Just you and Lark?" I asked, pausing my cleanup.

"Yeah. I asked if you could come, too. But, Jill said her parents didn't want a lot of people."

"Inviting me would make it a lot of people?" I was already feeling down about Rob with Rachel, and this just felt like a second punch to the gut.

"Lark and I tried, really. But, Jill and Lark kinda don't get along that well and I think it's good for me to go, too. But, I don't want to leave you here by yourself. So, if you don't want me to go, I'll just say I can't go."

I sat down on my bed with a heavy sigh and looked at Tricia. "No, it's fine, just go. I'm sure I can find someone to hang out with."

"Maybe Rob?" she sounded hopeful.

"No. Didn't you see Rachel sitting on his lap during that meeting?"

"Maybe she's just a flirt?"

"And maybe there's something going on between them, and I don't want to get in the middle. It's just not my thing. I'm not a girl who fights over a boy."

I flopped back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. I wondered what Jill was hoping to get out of this dinner with Lark and Tricia. If she was hoping to endear herself to Tricia, I was sure that excluding me wasn't going to help her case.

I'd learned a thing or two about Tricia in the last few weeks, and one of those things was her uncompromising loyalty. When Tricia liked you, she liked you and when she didn't... Well, she could be equally brutal. I'd thought that maybe Jill and I had figured out a way to be friendly the other night at the Oasis, but apparently I was wrong.

Tricia looked at her alarm clock. "We leave in an hour, I think."

"Where are you going?" I asked, not really interested, but I didn't want Tricia to feel any worse than she already did.

"Some place downtown. They're paying. Maybe they were just too cheap or too broke to spring for an extra meal?"

I would have gladly paid for mine, but I wasn't about to say that right now, either. Instead, I stood up and grabbed my keys.