Page 16 of Rent: Paid in Full
“Try,” I croak. I clear my throat and reach for my water bottle.
The fist squeezes. Hard. Almost painfully so. It’s a different fist though. Not the one that plagues my nights and tortures my sleep. Not the one that finds me whenever things around me slow and fall quiet.
This one is worse.
This one reaches deeper. And squeezes lower.
“Where are you going?” Miller’s eyebrows shoot up into the hopeful look of someone angling for an invitation.
“Emily’s room.”
His mouth twitches. “Emily’s? I thought you said you didn’t know her?”
“I didn’t. I only met her a couple of weeks ago.”
“Mm-hmm.” He nods as if he doesn’t believe me, which makes me feel lightheaded with rage. “So why’re you going to her room then?”
“She asked me to come over to help her hang fairy lights in her room.”
He nods again, the same as before, but worse. “You know, I happen to know Emily pretty well, and let me tell you, she’s a highly competent woman.”
Annoyance peters out and is replaced with exhaustion. “What’s your point, Miller?”
“My point, Ry, is—”
“Don’t call me Ry.” It’s not the first time I’ve said this. More like the tenth. I say it with meaning and that makes his eyes crease at the corners.
“My point, Ryan, is that Emily can hang up her own goddamn fairy lights if she wants to. That’s not why you’re going over there.”
Okay. I’ll bite. “Why am I going then?”
“She wants you.”
I’ll admit, I do laugh then. I have to hand it to him. It’s funny as hell. “Um, it’s Emily Parker we’re talking about. Have you seen her?”
“Like I said, I know her.” His eyes flash, and the heat in the room cranks up a degree or two, making it uncomfortably warm.
I’m too tired for this shit. This week has kicked my ass. I feel worn down to the bone, hardly able to muster the energy to argue, so I open the door and head out.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he calls after me.
Warn me? Warn me about Emily? I’m not sure if he’s mocking me or if he’s out of his mind, but he must be crazy to think a girl like Emily would ever be into someone like me.
Hmm, wonder if delusional is something that might be of interest to Bev?
I’ve been back to see Bev twice in the past two weeks. Both times, she shook her head when she saw me and yelled, “Next!”
I knock on Emily’s door and take two steps back, which seems a little excessive, so I quickly take one step forward and then drop into a pit of self-doubt about whether I’m too close. This is me. This is what I’m like. Seriously, this is the shit I deal with daily, and that idiot MacAvoy thinks Emily is into it.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t so tired of being in my own head.
“Ryan!” Emily opens the door and flings her arms around me. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks,” I say stiffly, feeling my cheeks heat from a welcome I admit is a lot warmer than expected.
“Come on in.” She waves me in, looking at me expectantly as I take in her room.
There’s color on every surface. Her bedding is floral, and there’s a teal-and-white striped rug on the floor. The walls are plastered with art, every inch covered in pastels and primary colors. It should be way too much, and it damn nearly is, but somehow, with the plants on her desk and the hot-pink neon light that readsWelcome to the Shit Showabove her bed, it seems to work.