Roam by Erik Therme

Author:Erik Therme [Therme, Erik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thecker Books
Published: 2017-02-20T23:00:00+00:00

[16]

The knock on the bathroom stall door was followed by a timid voice: “Sarah, will you please come out?”

“Go away, Jill.”

“I want to talk.” The door handle jiggled. “I know Lisa was upset, but she shouldn’t have said that stuff.”

“Then it was a lie?”

There was only silence from the other side. Sarah snapped off the lock and let the door swing open.

“No,” Jill said quietly. “I heard it too. It was near the end of my shift, and Lisa was out visiting me.”

“You work at the pizza place?”

“For over a month now. Sarah, do you know how long it’s been since we’ve talked? Do you know how many times I’ve been by your house to see you, or tried calling you?”

Sarah’s eyes drifted to the floor.

“Do you know you blew off Shannon’s party last month? Remember, the four of us were supposed to go out to the cabin? Shannon paid for everything, and all you had to do was show up. What was so important that night? She left you a bunch of messages. You had to have known about it.”

“Matt,” Sarah whispered. “He had a really bad day and didn’t want to be alone.”

“Try asking Lisa about feeling alone. You crushed her when you stopped going to the bookstore to visit her on her breaks. Do you know how much she looked forward to that? No matter how crappy of a night she was having, she could always count on you to make her laugh.”

“So the joke’s on me,” Sarah said, moving past Jill to the sink. “I’ve been blowing you all off for Matt, so now you all have your revenge.”

“That’s not it at all.”

“Then what am I supposed to think?”

“You didn’t let me finish what I was saying,” Jill said, raising her voice. For the first time there was a hint of anger there. “I didn’t know what to do at first. Lisa said it was poetic justice and it served you right, but it made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I left a message the next day and said it was important that I talk to you, but you never called me back.”

Jill shivered and ran her hands down her arms.

“We’ve all been friends for so long,” she continued. “I kept telling myself you weren’t meaning to blow us off . . . that you were just wrapped up in the moment of someone new and exciting. I don’t hate you for it. I could never hate you, Sarah. You’ve just been blinded these last few months, that’s all. Blinded by someone you thought was special.”

Sarah opened her mouth and then closed it.

“And maybe it was just talk,” Jill said with a half-shrug. “You know how guys are when they’re out together. They have to talk trash, don’t they?”

“Sure,” Sarah said briefly.

A small silence settled between them.

“What will you do?” Jill asked.

“About what?”

“About everything, I guess.”

After a pause, Sarah answered, “I don’t know.”

“Will you call Lisa and Shannon?”

Sarah ran her hands under the faucet and pressed them against her cheeks.

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