I was an escapist. And even worse, I was scared. Putting my head down was my way of dealing with things. Especially when it came to the second half of my teen years. Why face my name–my legacy–when I could lie to myself and pretend it wasn’t real?

I stared at the floor while my vision blurred. Processing some of the things he said–the truth–was not what I wanted to do. Fire was all over my face and down my neck from the intensity of everything. Life had punched me in the gut.

––––––––

The movie finally ended, and I still wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep. I forced myself to lay down, but my eyes just wouldn’t shut.

Emotions were high all around. The atmosphere of everything felt dark and grim. I fought hard to escape that feeling. When I lived with my aunt, things were bad. She called me some of the same things, but worse.

Spoiled rich brat!

You and your mother have always looked down on me. Now look at you!

Sleep wouldn’t come to me, so, pizza it was. The plush carpet barely made a sound as I padded through the house and into the living room. Brent was wide awake sitting on the couch when I came in.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hi,” I replied, crossing into the kitchen. My head was still reeling from earlier and I felt the urge to distract myself with whatever pizza was left.

I rummaged through the fridge to pull out a box of whatever was left.

“Can we chat?” He was right behind me.

Nodding my head, I shoved a breadstick in my mouth.

He rubbed the back of his head before taking a brownie out of the box I offered up to him. “It felt too charged to try to remedy the situation earlier, so I’ve been sitting here wondering how to apologize.”

“Didn’t think you got so offended so easily.”

He chortled. “Could say the same about you.”

No one said anything else while we ate in silence at the table. What would we say? It was true we didn’t know each other so well but knew how to effortlessly push each others’ buttons. We’d only observed each other for the short time that the semester had been going. Me, judging him. Him, watching me in whatever weird way he did.

I may have been quick to misjudge him, but I didn’t have to like him. Tolerating him would have to do.

I sighed into my cold piece of pizza. “I can’t sleep.”

“Same.”