Still Mine by Anthea Reiling

Author:Anthea Reiling [Reiling, Anthea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

I go to lunch with Sylvia—just to the cafeteria, where I pick the greasiest slice of pizza available, because I really just want to punish myself. I also secure a basket of onion rings, because even if I should somehow descend into another pit of stupidity, at least I won’t be tempted to kiss him—not with onion breath.

Sylvia takes a seat across from me and begins picking at her salad. The busy thrum of the cafeteria makes for a soothing sort of white noise, and I’m stabbing my onion rings with my fork like I’m training to be a serial killer.

“Well,” Sylvia says dryly. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”

I shrug. “Thanks for coming to check on me,” I tell her, chewing dispiritedly on a dissected onion piece. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“You know,” she says. “I think I was more worried about leaving you alone with Asshole Supreme. Did he try anything sketchy?”

I choke. “What? No. No, of course not.” Not then, at least.

“Hm.” She spears a few lettuce leaves and shoved them in her mouth. “So what happened? You were out of work for days.”

“I was sick,” I mutter, although by Tuesday I was already on the mend. “Nothing happened. Not like that.” I abandon my onion rings in favor of pizza, and I chomp straight through a piece of pepperoni before I say, “He didn’t want me to go to work today. He said I could go if the doctor cleared me, but I didn’t want to see the doctor again.”

She’s listening intently now, her fork poised over her salad. “So you argued.”

“No. No, not really,” I sigh. “I just said no, and he…backed down, I guess.” I frown, because in retrospect it’s not like him at all. “Then he walked me to the bus stop, because I didn’t want to go in his car.” And he hadn’t even really argued with me about that, either. I don’t know if you could say he’d accepted no with good grace, exactly—but he had accepted it.

“Hm,” Sylvia says again, around a mouthful of salad. “That’s…interesting.”

I blink, staring down at the slice of pizza balanced in my hands. “Is it?”

“Yeah,” she mutters, but doesn’t elaborate. All I can think is that I don’t know what to think. It’s not like he’s blowing hot and cold like he did years ago. I don’t think he’s harboring some vendetta against me. But I still feel like I’m missing something important, like there’s something hovering in the air between us that I can’t quite grasp.

Tentatively, Sylvia asks, “Do you think maybe he wants to…restart something with you?”

I freeze in horror, my gaze darting up to her face. I’m terrified that maybe she can see all the things I haven’t told her in my face. The shower. The whispered endearments. The kiss. Like every worry I have is written on my forehead. But she only looks back at me, guileless.

I clear my throat. “No,” I say. “There’s nothing to restart. There’s no going back.

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