“If it was nothing you never would have left.”
“I lef
t because I wanted to sleep on a real bed as opposed to a couch,” I said.
“Bull… I know something happened between you and Cory because she was in a really pissy mood when I came home. And she keeps avoiding the question when I ask her why you left.”
I sighed. “Well… I don’t know what to tell you…”
“How about the truth?”
“I just didn’t want to be an imposition, ok?”
“Then you would have told me beforehand and you wouldn’t have left in such a hurry… without so much as an explanation.”
“Seth… you’re making too big a deal about this.”
“Did Cory ask you to leave or something?”
“No,” I said quickly. “She didn’t.”
“Did she say anything… rude to you?” he asked.
“Seth… can you please let it go?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to cause trouble between you and Cory.”
“Can I ask you a very serious question?” Seth asked.
I tensed. “Ok?” I said uncertainly.
“Do you like Cory?”
I raised my eyebrows, and for a second, I was grateful that Seth was not in front of me. The expression on my face would have given away my feelings instantly. “If she makes you happy, I love her,” I said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I disagree.”
Seth sighed. “You are so—”
I missed the last part of what he was saying because I heard a beep that told me that another call was coming in. I glanced at my screen and saw that mom was trying to call.
“Oh, mom’s calling,” I said quickly, jumping on the chance to get out of this uncomfortable conversation. “Got to go… I’ll speak to you later.”
“Don’t you—”
“Bye-bye,” I said brightly and hung up on him so that I could accept mom’s call. “Hi, mom,” I said, picking up.”
“Hey, honey,” mom said, in a voice that suggested she was ready to talk things through and put the tension of our last fight behind us.
It was the nature of our relationship. We always fought and even when we tried to push through and pretend like nothing had happened, the tension would linger until we talked it out. Of course, talking things out never resolved much because we always ended up having the same arguments over and over again… but we had entered a pattern we would probably never break now.
Before going to Seth’s place, I had spent a night on mom’s couch. But we had barely spoken while I had been there. She was obviously still recovering from her breakup, and I didn’t want to kindle the fragile peace between us by bringing it up. Of course, by the second day, I had decided to just go to Seth’s since I could never stand tension for too long a time. That had turned out really well.
“How are you?”