My Ex’s Roommates: Chapter 7

The next week passed in a blur of apartment searching and avoiding what felt like everyone I’d ever known. Except my brothers. They called daily and I could tell they were worried about me. I worried about them, though, so I didn’t tell them how depressing my search was. Student housing was full. Apartments just outside of campus were full. The ones that weren’t were three and four bedrooms and so far out of my budget that it wasn’t funny. I also didn’t tell them about how painfully awkward it was to live with people you knew hated you. They didn’t need more names added to the list of people they wanted to hurt for me.

Without any housing prospects I wasn’t sure what to do. Classes were going to start soon and then I wouldn’t have time to make any big moves.

I also didn’t tell my brothers about the constant barrage of dirty looks and nasty comments I heard whispered about me. I had somehow become public enemy number one. Jake wasn’t there for them to hate so everyone turned their anger on me. Friends I’d had for the entire length of my relationship with Jake vanished. I’d never been able to join a sorority because of the costs but I’d been friends with the sisters in the house next to the frat Jake pledged. They’d taken me in when I started dating Jake and I thought the friendships were real but the texts and calls had turned ugly and then dried up completely.

I was on a campus with forty thousand students and I had not a single friend. It was a harsh wake-up call that I’d been living a life that had never really accepted me. It didn’t matter how I’d acted or looked. I still never really made it as one of them. Jake’s harshly whispered comments from the two years we’d been together replayed in my head over and over again. My clothes weren’t right. My shoes were sad looking. My hair was too big or not big enough. He’d looked me over so closely every time we went out together because I needed little adjustments to look like I could ever belong in his world. He’d known I didn’t belong all along but it hadn’t stopped him from staying with me.

While I was thinking about the whys of our relationship, the same one kept coming up again and again. Why had I stayed with a guy who did those things to me? The possibility that I was so weak and desperate for a different life than the one my brothers and I had been raised in that I’d let Jake treat me like shit for two years made me so ashamed. It made me hate myself almost as much as I hated Jake.

There was also the way I couldn’t stop it that was making me insane. I still tried to look the part. I couldn’t help myself. The idea of going out and being seen in less than perfect condition made my stomach twist in knots. I’d committed to the Stepford girlfriend look so hard that I couldn’t find my way out of it.

I’d managed to avoid my roommates by staying out of the house as much as possible or staying in my room if I did have to be in the house. I didn’t eat in the house or do anything else that would’ve required me leaving the room for longer than a shower.

If I was honest, I was lost. Everything around me that I thought I knew as fact wasn’t real. I no longer had a place in my own life, it felt like. I was just…floating aimlessly.

Part of me almost wanted to find Silas and have him be mean to me again so I could at least get that anger back. It’d burned so much sweeter than the sadness. Maybe it was my hoping for that confrontation that brought it straight to me. Or maybe I was just bound to overhear my roommates talking shit about me at some point because I was sure they did it a lot.

I came in later than usual that Sunday night after closing the library and walking across campus to buy food from the only place that was still open. I crept it the same way I always did, not wanting to bother anyone enough to have them send me packing. I recognized the change in the house as soon as I was inside and closing the door. Normally the guys were in their rooms or out of the house but that night they were in the living room.

I was so focused on taking the first step of the stairs as silently as possible that I almost missed hearing them say my name. Almost. I should’ve just continued up the stairs but instead, I was drawn to their voices. I needed to hear what they were saying about me.

“…just like Jake. Just like the other silver spoon kids at this fucking university who drive around in their hundred-thousand-dollar car expecting the world to move for them.” Silas grunted. “No offense, Carter.”

“Hey, I drive a Jeep.”

Dylan spoke up. “I was just saying that we have to give her time to get out. We don’t know for sure that she’s just lounging around, betting on us picking up Jake’s slack. She can’t expect us to step in where daddy and Jake left off.”

“I’m telling you, she can. People like that, like her and Jake, they walk around with their noses in the air, waiting on people to do their bidding. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t even all that upset about Jake leaving and it was all about the easy gravy train ending. Now she’s going to have to go through the trouble of hooking another rich boyfriend.”

“Good luck to her on this campus. She’s not exactly anyone’s favorite person these days.” Carter shouted suddenly. “Who the fuck was he throwing the ball to?!”

Over the low hum of the TV playing a football game and the sound of the icemaker in the fridge kicking on, I heard my blood rushing through my veins, hot and furious. Listening to the three of them sum me up like they knew me was too much on top of everything else. That anger I’d wanted came rushing back with a vengeance, too hot to ignore.

I dropped my bag with a thud and stormed into the living room, catching the three of them by surprise. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they hadn’t meant for me to overhear their little gossip session. I didn’t give them a chance to recover before I let them have it.