Twisted Lies by Nora Cobb

 

Chapter 38

Astrid

 

Sunday is stretching ahead of me without any distractions, so I head back to the dorm to do homework and fret over my life. I’m supposed to be a different person, but that’s hard to achieve when you have all the same old issues.

 

I walk into my room. Roni still isn’t around, and her bed is badly made up. The comforter is turned on a diagonal, and the pillow is lying on top of it. That’s not how she does it. I tap on the bathroom door, and Gemma yells out, “Occupied!” I gave her back her shoes. She wouldn’t come into our room through the bathroom. And even if she did, she wouldn’t make up Roni’s bed.

 

That feeling that something is off starts to poke me again.

 

“Hey, rough night?” Roni eyes her rumpled bedding as she walks through the door.

 

“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning.

 

“I don’t mind you using my bed.” She tosses her pillow at my head, and I catch it. “But you could’ve made it up better.”

 

My mouth stiffens into a grimace, causing Roni’s smile to melt off her face.

 

I clutch her pillow in my hands. “Someone was in your bed when I came in last night. But it was you, wasn’t it?”

 

Roni shakes her head then stares at her messy bed. “I spent the night at Terri’s. His roommate went home for the weekend.”

 

We stare at her bed with wide eyes as if it were a dirty and foul thing threatening to grab us.

 

“Are you sure someone was in my bed last night?” Her voice rises with panic.

 

I sink down on my bed, still clutching her pillow until I realize someone other than Roni had their head on it. I fling it onto the floor as if it burns, and Roni jumps away from it before hurrying to sit close beside me. We stare at the pillow lying in a heap on the floor as I recall the images of last night.

 

“I stood over someone in your bed.”

 

My breath stops, and I stare at the bottom desk drawer. I leap toward my desk in one swift movement and almost yank the drawer out onto the floor.

 

Over my shoulder, Roni watches as I take everything out, searching for anything that might be missing. The laptop is there, and the notebook, but I can’t remember if I had the notebook under the laptop or on top of it. My fingernails scrape the bottom of the drawer, catching a splinter. I wince in pain, hissing as I pull my hand away, but I continue searching until the envelope of cash is in my hand.

 

“Whoa. Where did you get that from?” asks Roni.

 

I grimace. Any other rich kid wouldn’t question having a stash of cash but not Roni. I ignore her question. “Last night, I swore you were in your bed. I felt like someone was watching me, but my stuff is all here.”

 

Roni gasps and runs to her closet, flinging the door open. She kneels on the floor, pulling out a large shoebox buried under a pile of clothes. She flips off the lid and holds her chest as she sighs.

 

“My stuff is still here too,” she says.

 

Inside the box are Ziplocs with weed, a neon pink vibrator, and condoms. Roni shakes a bottle marked aspirin like a rattle. Aspirin isn’t blue.

 

“I call it our sex box,” she admits sheepishly. “He’s getting better.”

 

She has shared more than I have been willing to. I look down at the envelope stuffed with cash. “Bryce gave me this after our date.”

 

Roni almost chokes on her spit. “He paid you for sex?”

 

I narrow my eyes, wishing I had kept my mouth shut after all. “He gave it to me after we got back. I didn’t ask for it or expect it.”

 

“But you kept it,” she says quietly.

 

I don’t dare tell Roni more. I would never talk about fight club around her or why I have the school’s laptop. I scowl when I realize what’s missing. My heart races as I flip through the pages of my English Lit book. The list with the boys’ names is gone. I look again, but I know it’s gone.

 

“Is something missing?” asks Roni.

 

I dump my stuff back into the drawer and shove it closed. “No. It just creeps me out. Knowing someone was in the room.”

 

She shrugs her shoulders. “Maybe you imagined it.”

 

“I didn’t,” I snap, losing patience with everything and everybody, “You won’t talk, will you?”

 

“I won’t,” Roni promises, watching me like I’m armed. “Now we both know each other’s secrets. You keep mine, and I’ll keep yours.”

 

I have no interest in talking about her “boyfriend” that needs a medicinal boost. That’s a petty thought, but I regret Roni knowing about the cash. I stare sternly into her alert eyes, knowing that this will bring us closer or prove that we weren’t meant to be friends from the start.

 

“Okay,” I say, “I can keep my mouth shut too.”