“It’s a long story.”

She pauses. “Please don’t tell me your psycho girlfriend has something to do with this.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

“Fitz!”

“What? And she’s not a psycho.” Also, she’s no longer my girlfriend. Also, the psycho thing might be more accurate than I’ve wanted to believe but the natural urge to defend Abby is going to be a hard one to break.

“I’m not convinced.”

Even though Abby isn’t my favorite person at the moment, I don’t really want to tell Annabel the entire horror story. But I’m not seeing any way around it at the moment. If she feels bad enough for me, I won’t have to beg too much for a spot on her couch. “Don’t be all gleeful about this, Annabel, you hear me?”

She sighs. “I’m not happy if you’re in pain, blah blah blah, now tell me what’s going on so I can come up with a solution.”

I take a breath before letting it out. Quick. Like a Band-Aid. “Abby and I broke up.”

“What?” Her shriek could wake the entire county. “When?”

“About a month ago.”

“A month? A month! What the hell, Fitz?”

“I don’t wanna get into the details. It’s over. But we were still friends, then she . . . she was sending me weird texts last night and I got worried and went to check on her and I caught her and Kevin. In her dorm. On the floor.”

She hisses and I can practically feel her breathing fire through the line. “Your roommate Kevin? She was banging your roommate? Did you kill them? Because if you haven’t, I want a shot at it.”

“I might have hit Kevin. A few times.”

“You should have punched Abby. She’s the one who likes to set up the dominos just to tap one with her overly manicured finger and watch them fall. Right onto people’s heads.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I know you’ve never liked her.”

“That’s not true, I liked her fine until she started wearing pants so tight you could see her religion.”

A startled laugh escapes me. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, Fitz. She hasn’t been the same since you guys went off to college together. I could tell last summer at the midnight hay ride she was looking to park her car in someone else’s garage.”

She’s right. It’s why I ended things already, and yet I still got sucked into her crap. I thump my head against the steering wheel. I have been blind. “I get it and you’re right, okay? You’re always right. Are you happy now?”

“Kind of. I would like to hear it again in person. Maybe in writing too.”

“I have a more pressing problem. I have nowhere to live.”

“You could go home. I mean, I know it will be strange and all since Dad’s not working but you still have a room there.”

How can I tell her? “I can’t tell Momma.”