Split by Swati Avasthi

Author:Swati Avasthi [Avasthi, Swati]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780375863417
Amazon: 0375863419
Publisher: Ember
Published: 2012-01-24T08:00:00+00:00

It took her days to write this one word, days in which her complaint was processed and served, days in which my mom copied it and sent it to me. Did she know that tipping me off was a surefire way to help me duck a summons?

I click on the dictionary icon to find the textbook definition for ambivalence: having mixed or contradictory feelings about something. Am-biv-a-lent adj. Am-biv-a-lent-ly adv. Example: Jace feels ambivalently about the warrant for his arrest. Jace knows that this warrant is proof positive that Lauren will return to her normal self, that he hasn’t broken her. Therefore, Jace can uncoil the knot in his back. However, Jace is also happy that he is in New Mexico, where he won’t be found, much less arrested. Finally, Jace suspects it’s a bad sign that he is referring to himself in the third person.

The door clicks, and I shut down the e-mail before I turn around. Caitlyn is making her way over to me.

I glance at the clock. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” she says.

She tells me everyone (a.k.a. her pride plus the soccer guys) is going out for pizza, and do I want to come? And oh, Eric’s not going to be there.

“Would you have tracked me down if he was?”

“Of course,” she says, but I’m not as certain as she is until she says, “He might ask me out if he sees me with you.”

“Caitlyn,” I say, “you could just ask him out, instead of acting all weird about it. You asked me out.”

“But you hadn’t broken up with me already.”

“Oh.”

I had assumed she was the puppet-master, but she’s just trying to refertilize her burned-up ego.

“So, you see?” she says, and takes a chip and then starts to laugh. “You look so surprised.”

“Well, yeah. You’ve got him on a string.”

“He bailed when I said those three little words. If he wants me back, he’s gotta answer ’em.” She pauses and looks at my computer screen. “Anyway, come out with us.”

I would like to blow this off and hang out with her and her friends. I’ve been eating lunch with them, and Heather even burned me a few CDs to save me from a twenty-two-year-old brother’s music collection.

I shrug and remember how often I would hang with Edward and our soccer team. Now this team is going to eat and joke around and talk about nothing. I could do with a little nothing.

“I can’t.”

“The paper isn’t due for—”

“No, I have to work.”

“That’s what sick days are for,” she says. “Don’t you feel sick?”

Dakota isn’t scheduled to work, and I can finish the paper when I get back to the apartment.

I smile up at her, and we head out the door. I use her cell phone to call work and tell Robyn I’m not feeling well, and for one night, I actually get to feel like life is a little normal again, like there’s a place where I fit.

When Eric comes in, Caitlyn’s mouth drops before she can cover.

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