3 Sides to a Circle (19 page)

Toby

I didn’t think it would feel this good to be home, but the normal chaos of my house is just what I need. Mom picked me up from the train on her way from work. She’s still got her x-ray tech clothes on and smells a bit like latex gloves.

“Your brother moved into your room.” She says it like it’s a foregone thing. Like, of course he would, I left. And I guess it is and I did. “You can sleep in the basement.”

“The basement is freezing.”

She shrugs. “Okay. Then sleep with one of the boys. It’s just a long weekend. You’ll live.” It isn’t that my mom doesn’t love me or care. She’s practical.
Three boys and two girls. Three bedrooms besides my parents’. Saving mine would be ridiculous.

But over the holidays I have five weeks off. Five weeks in the basement or with my brothers is worse than just about anything I can imagine. So now I’m thinking I’ll figure out how to get back on campus early because there’s no way I’ll be able to deal with all of January at home.

“You have mail from the Lake County police department.” She raises an eyebrow at me, but I don’t say anything. Court date. I love that my mom never opens my mail. “And I need you to clean the garage. Are you better?”

And I know
this is all I’m going to get. Not coddling or fussing or anything. Just a quick confirmation that I can haul boxes.

“Yep.” I’m not. Not completely. But I can fake it. And I’m not about to get into the emotional crap that the attack has done to me. Mom wouldn’t get it. We get up, we dust ourselves off, we move on. That’s the
Damer’s way.

“Good.
The kids are excited to see you.” We’ll be
the kids
forever with my mom. A collective unit. Part of her team.

I grin. “Yeah. Me too.”

“I made pecan pie for tomorrow.”

And with that, my mom has told me she loves me and is worried about me all in one simple sentence. I smile at her.

“You’re awesome, Mom. I’ve missed you guys.”

“Us too, Toby. Your dad will say hi when he gets back from work.”

My parents have worked opposite schedules for as long as they’ve had kids. It’s sort of a miracle that they even had time to have sex enough to produce five kids. But a day/night schedule was really the only practical thing for them to do with no money for day care and both of them working in the medical field. Dad’s an ER nurse and has worked the night shift for so long, I don’t even think he’d remember how to go to bed at ten o’clock, even if he wanted to.

We ride in comfortable silence before pulling into the driveway next to my house.
My two sisters are throwing the football on the front lawn. Kelly and Katherine. The unexpected twins. My jocky sisters who could run circles around all of us. I slide out of the car and am greeted by tackle hugs that hurt my ribs, but I don’t really care. The hugs are real and this ordinariness is exactly what I need for the next four days.

I pull my phone out to text Honor. Her catalog audition is today. I know she’s nervous. And I know that Libby thinks it goes against what Honor’s about. But it’s hard to say if Libby decided that because she gets Honor so well
, or if she’s decided it because she doesn’t want to lose Honor to that world.

Libby was weirdly quiet when I left and had
buzzy, plotting eyes. I have literally no idea what her Thanksgiving plans were. And it made me realize as I walked out the door, knowing so much more about what the next four days would look life for Honor, Libby has told us next to nothing about her family. Still. Three months in. With me having spent almost a month in their bed. I know nothing.

Honor’s “good luck” text sent, I drop my bags in my old room, which is now occupied by my youngest brother who
undoubtedly pulled out the “I have the longest time until I turn eighteen” card to scheme his way into it. Luckily, he mostly plays Xbox and hangs out with his idiot friends. I drop onto my bed and stare at the ceiling for a few minutes.

I’m tired. More tired than I ever thought I would be in college. And part of me wonders if it’s from holding everything in after the attack
, or if it’s from how much energy is required of me to constantly be out of my comfort zone with two very different girls.

I spend the next four days wrapped in the normal of my family, clearing boxes from the garage, eating an obscene amount of food, and texting Honor and Libby. Of course, I only hear back from Honor. My gut churns at Libby’s radio silence, but I know enough to expect her to go dark. Worry for Libby is exhausting, so I choose to ignore it and pretend everything will be normal when we get back to school.

When I get back on campus, I check my mailbox and there’s a note from Dr. Simms.

Newspaper still looking for a few writers.
Hope you’ve considered it. There’s a staff meeting Monday at 6pm if you’re interested.

Seeing his words on the paper makes me want it so much that my hands actually shake.
And at the same time, I think about my D in Business 101 and how I need to spend all my extra time studying for the final in that class, not writing articles for the paper. Because being a business major is practical, and I need practical. Everything else about college has been unexpected. Good, but unexpected. I need to have something solid.

I read his note again and I hate that I’m not going to go. I think about what Libby would say and ignore the layer of cowardice that wraps itself around me.
Business 101 final. My head needs to wrap itself around that. I tuck the letter into my bag and head for the coffeehouse.

“We’ve sort of put you in an impossible position, haven’t we?” Honor asks, staring at me too closely like she sometimes does.
She’s sucking on another one of her green teas, and I’m working on a pumpkin spice latte while we wait for Libby.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean there’s no way for you to date. It’s not like you can date one of us, because it would shift the circle, and Libby has declared it off limits, and if you tried to be with someone else…” Pain flashes across Honor’s face. “Well. We all saw how well that worked for me.”

I shrug. “Neither of you would date someone like me anyway.” The words are out before I have time to consider the implications of what I’m putting
out there. I know Honor’s seen me watching Libby, and I’m not confident enough to think it bothers her, but at the same time, I think it would definitely be weird.

“
Wait. What do you mean,
like you
?”

“Someone like you would never date someone like me.” I sit back in my chair, something I can finally do after how long it’s tak
en my ribs to heal up.

“I would… You know what? There’s no way to tell. You and I might not have even been friends if it weren’t for Libby. I’m too quiet. You’re too quiet. But that doesn’
t mean I couldn’t fall for you. Don’t sell yourself short. And don’t for a second think I’m any better than you.”

For some reason, none of this seems like a loaded conversation. There isn’t
the
what if
factor that there used to be. I don’t know if it’s because of Libby or if it’s because of Honor’s Victoria’s Secret audition, but somehow, it doesn’t feel complicated with her anymore. “You have a painter.”

“I don’t think I do.” She sighs. “He said he needs space. He’s trying to protect himself
, and I get it because I’m not at all a safe bet. I never thought he’d actually like me. It’s all just an awful situation, and I’m not sure if it’s fixable.”

“But.” I swallow hard, her admission rolling through my head.
I ache for Honor and feel guilty for the part I played in making this so shitty for her. “You want to fix it.”

She blinks a few times and looks away. I’m an asshole. Making her think about this just because
Libby isn’t around and I’m not totally sure how to be with Honor without her. She deserves better.

“I
gotta go study.” And without a look back, Honor’s gone.

Not two mi
nutes later, and just when I’m starting to relax and convince myself that Honor will be fine, the chorus of yells from behind the counter signals the arrival of Libby.

Honor

I drop Libby’s requested chocolate shake next to her camera equipment on the desk and I take my tea to sit cross-legged on our patched together bed.

I want Libby to give a shit about my break. I want her to ask me about New York and Victoria
’s Secret. But it’s like no one left last week and we’ve just picked up in the same whirlwind we stepped out of when we went home.

She helped me get through that shoot, and she doesn’t give a crap. What the hell was all the pep
talk for if it was never going to come up again? And how can I want to have a friend when everything with her is so completely one-sided?

Instead I’ve lost my painter, and Toby’s stuck in this weird place and I don’t know what he’s getting out of this bizarre friendship
except no girlfriend and total frustration. And Libby’s meticulously cleaning off camera lenses with special cloths instead of even acknowledging that I’m in the room.

“So, what did you do?” I ask, knowing she won’t tell me, because I don’t know an
ything about Libby that doesn’t happen in my presence.

She shrugs
and sets one lens down in its slot before picking up the next. “Visited a few friends.”

“So, did you go home to see your family?” I prod a little more, wondering if she’ll keep evading.

“Not for this holiday.” She slides another lens into a bag of bright yellow and orange material, still not looking at me. “You probably wanna talk about your thing, huh?”

“My thing?” I play stupid,
wanting her to say more.

“You know.” She waves her hand on the air. “That modeling thing.”

I shrug, mimicking her and hating that I’m playing this game. I want to tell her how empowered I felt. How in that moment it was okay to be pretty. That as awful as it might make me sound, that it’s all I had to be in front of the camera. And that I’m still excited about finishing a degree in graphic design and how at any moment I could hear from them and have an incredible job, which may mean changing schools and going to New York for other jobs. I ache to tell her these things, but I want her to scream and yell and throw her arms around me in excitement, which of course she won’t because it would mean me leaving her.

Or that’s how she’d see it.

“So now you’re just waiting to hear, huh?” She sucks down the last of her chocolate shake, and the loud sucking sound bounces between us. The longer she sucks the more agitated I get, and I think about ripping the cup away from her and throwing it against the wall. But depending on what kind of mood she’s in, she’d probably laugh or try to start a food fight involving our whole floor. And on the opposite side of that is something I don’t want to think about, because sharing a room with someone who isn’t my wild Libby shakes me.

I just start in. “So, I was really ner
vous at first. And they were talking about me like I wasn’t even there, so I just stood silent, but there was this guy that looked a little like Toby.” I pause for a moment, waiting for a nod or a question, but get nothing. “So, he looked like Toby, which helped me relax, and he was really nice and told me that they obviously liked me because of what they asked me to wear—”

“Or not wear,” Libby interrupts.

I cock my head to the side and watch her for a moment. I swear something like contrition passes over her face before she looks away. She knows she’s being a bitch in this moment, so maybe I just need to let it go.

“Well.” She stands
, picking up the cup I brought her. “I gotta meet someone for a class.”

I wave her off,
take a few more sips of the tea I no longer want, and resist the urge to hurl it against the wall.

It’s dark on my way home
from classes and my workout, and after Toby’s attack, the darkness feels more oppressive. I round the corner near Joe’s Coffee and my breath catches when I see Sawyer inside. My heart pounds and my mouth dries out, and I stand on the corner, barely able to see him behind the counter. The place is almost emptied out, and maybe I could talk to him. Ask him why we have to be apart right now.

Just as I reach for the door his eyes catch mine and he
quickly turns away. It stings, and tears prick at my eyes so I stop and start back home. As I walk, the things he said echo in my head again, and I want more information. Need more information. I want to know why I hurt so bad over this. I have Libby and Toby. I should be able to breathe when I think about Sawyer. So I turn around and start back to Joe’s. Maybe I can do this.

I wait until the lights at
the coffeehouse are shut down and walk around to bang on the back door, hoping that Sawyer’s alone.

“Who is it?”
Sawyer’s voice carries through the metal door.