Then You Saw Me by Carrie Aarons

37

Austin

Idon’t know why I have to be here for this.

There is an end-of-year house meeting among the roommates, and I had to give Scott my last portion of the sublet rent, so here I am. This meeting is really about those living here next year and how they’re going to lock it up for the summer.

I should probably just leave, but I haven’t been in Taya’s presence for days, and I’m a fucking masochist along with a prick. She shouldn’t have to see my face, but I miss her like crazy. If this is the last time we’re in the same room, I have to stay.

“All right, guys, we have to talk about who is taking the TV home, who will be locking up last. I volunteered to come up here over the summer and check in on the place.”

Amelie, the peacemaker, starts the conversation off, and I tune out.

I know I’m the one who let Taya go, who made her break up with me. Call me coward, asshole, fuckboy, whatever name in the book. I am all of those things. But I’m also in love with her and don’t want to do what I did to her, unknowingly, for years. Make her feel like less of a priority, like she always comes second. I’ve heard how long distance goes, especially between young people. I don’t want that for her.

The girls are in the middle of talking about how to disconnect the washing machine—which is the dumbest conversation ever—when Callum walks in.

The tension and grief between him and Bevan is palpable. I know he left for Webton a few days ago, but someone clearly told him he needed to be here. And Amelie doesn’t skirt around the bullshit as soon as he sits down.

“We need to talk about the house now that …” Amelie trails off, at a loss for words. “Well, now that Callum has moved out and Austin is leaving.”

My eyes can’t help but land on Taya when Amelie says I’m leaving, and with the way she’s biting her lip, she looks like she’s trying not to cry.

I want to talk to her so badly. But what else can we say? There is no one reason why we’re falling apart, why it’s already done. Maybe for as much as we have in common, we were always too different from the start.

“Can’t we just give it the summer?” Bevan sounds meek, which is so unlike her that it freaks me out.

She’s looking at Callum, and I know this has nothing to do with the house. Sure, one could interpret that she’s asking the group to wait it out, to see if they can all come back into the house junior year and live together like they always have except for me, whose room will be taken back over by Gannon.

But in reality, she’s asking Callum himself. To give their relationship space, maybe for the summer, but not to give up on it.

“Yeah. We’ll shelf it for now,” Amelie interrupts, knowing that we all do not need to be here for this.

Taya is refusing to even look at me, and I’m growing more irrationally annoyed by the second. I know I’m the one responsible for this, but it was a freaking mistake. Part of me wants to take it all back right now, get on my hands and knees and beg.

We’ve been back and forth so many times, and I never want us to end up like Bevan and Callum.

Before I can even form a coherent thought about what I could do to get her to talk to me, I’m interrupted.

“HEYO!”

Gannon comes walking up the lawn, and I do a double take. The guy and I have never been close, but I know of him having grown up in the same town. I’ve lived in his room for about five months, and he told no one he was showing up here today. Amelie has her back to him, and she’s smiling down into her phone. When Taya and I were on speaking terms, she let slip that Amelie finally found a guy who piques her interest. Well, maybe that’s about to go up in smoke.

“No fucking way,” Bevan deadpans and rolls her eyes.

Bevan is clearly so over the apple of Amelie’s eye. And I can’t say I blame her. From the stories Taya has told me, it’s been a bad situation.

“What’s up, party people?” Gannon opens his impressively cut arms wide as he throws the door open, that signature movie star smile beaming at us.

I swear, I think I just saw Amelie’s stomach drop through the floorboards of the living room. As if in slow motion, she turns, her expression one of horror.

“Ams! I missed you.” He marches up the steps, towering over her, and scoops her up into a hug.

“Oh shit,” Callum coughs into his fist, watching the train wreck we all can’t take our eyes off of.

Unlike the rest of our roommates, Gannon has no idea what’s going on. First of all, the guy is clearly completely oblivious when it comes to Amelie’s feelings. Not only does he not realize she’s in love with him, but I’ve heard, from Taya, that he hooks up with other girls right in front of her. I’ve only lived here a couple of months, and even I know how mad about him she is.

So, of course, he’s not going to think what he did on the reality TV dating show is a big deal at all. But there are five other people sitting on the porch, fully aware of how hurt and pissed off Amelie has been the whole time he’s been gone.

“Get. The. Fuck. Off. Of. Me,” Amelie grits out between her teeth.

And then …

She punches him in the stomach.

Gannon barely even flinches, since Amelie is one hundred pounds soaking wet, but his face falls so hard that I think the guy is about to hit the pavement.

“What the fuck?” He wonders as she runs up the stairs, covering her mouth.

We all sit here, stunned by what happened but very much aware of all he’s missed. I don’t envy the guy for coming back now.

This semester, the couple of months it’s been, has felt like an eternity. One I haven’t wanted to end. But now that the party’s over and the lights have come up, there is nothing left here.

I’m standing in a group of strangers; I’m no longer a part of this family I thought I was being adopted into.

A person knows when it’s their time to leave, to exit stage left. And my cue just came.