Page 74 of Tutor With Benefits
We need to talk.
TWENTY-SIX
CORY
Although we do our best to be as normal and natural as possible, the ride from the dorms back to our apartment is awkward.
Though Tori doesn’t say anything about it, we all get the impression that she knows there’s something amiss, especially since she asks us if we’re okay more than once on the way back.
“So, shall we kick off the night in the bedroom?” Tori asks when we get inside the house. “I don’t know what’s up with you three, but I figure that might help relieve some of this tension in the air.”
“I don’t think that’s what we need to do,” Zach says. “Why don’t you come have a seat in the living room?”
“Am I in trouble?” Tori asks, giggling.
When none of us join in, her expression changes. It’s becoming clearer to her that there is something wrong, and she’s clearly not sure how to handle it. Or even what’s wrong with us, for that matter.
“I’m not one to really beat around the bush, as you know,” Zach says. “So I’m just going to ask you straight. What were you doing with Johnny earlier?”
“Johnny?” she asks, a little too innocently. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know. I saw the two of you in the hallway kissing after class. That’s not something you would do with someone you’re not interested in.”
“Oh, that?” she asks. “It wasn’t anything. Just a quick kiss goodbye because he was wanting to show me the pictures he took over the weekend and I had to get to class. I felt so rude just looking at two of them and telling him I had to go, and the only way I could think of smoothing it over with him was to give him a quick kiss and run off, that’s all it was.”
Zach says nothing. He already told us that he didn’t stay to see what the kiss was about, or how long it lasted. So, there’s a good chance what she’s telling us could be true. But I’m still not convinced she didn’t do it out of some level of affection.
“Where do you see yourself with Johnny now?” I ask. “Honestly?”
“Honestly?” she repeats. “I guess we’re friends. I mean, I still care for him, but I don’t have a crush on him anymore, if that makes sense. I’m sure it’s going to be tough when I see him get a girlfriend, but that’s just because I crushed on him for so long. Now that I know him better, I don’t think he and I are meant to be together that way. I just want to be his friend.”
“Does Johnny know this?” I ask. “Did he see that quick little kiss you gave him as entirely innocent and meaningless?”
I don’t know what we expect her to say, but she falls silent as soon as she’s asked that question. It’s clear she didn’t expect that, and she pauses, thinking carefully before she answers.
“We just want the truth,” Taylor says. “We want to hear it straight from your own lips. What do you want? Or, should we say, who do you want? You’re going back and forth between us, and we don’t like it. You can’t have both. Either you want Johnny, or you want us, and if you want us, then you can’t be making Johnny think there’s more there than friendship.”
“Alright, alright, I haven’t told Johnny yet that I just want to be friends, but it’s so hard!” she says. “I crushed on him for so long, I don’t want to just throw it away now. I feel good when I see him text me and know that he’s finally paying attention to me after all I went through to get his attention and everything. I don’t want that to just go away.”
“Then you’re still feeding into this as some sort of a relationship with him!” Zach cries out.
“You’re leading us on, too!” Taylor says. “Why don’t you get it? You can’t just play with hearts and emotions that way. You have to pick who you want to be with and what you want to do, then go with that. You can’t just keep going back and forth as though we just don’t care and we’re totally fine if you want us or don’t want us!”
“Okay, you’re going to have to calm down!” Tori says, putting her hands in the air. “I don’t think you’re being fair!”
“We aren’t being fair?” I ask with a scoff. “You really are going to flip this back on us as though we’re the ones who are going back and forth with our emotions?”
“You’re the ones who came to me in the first place about this whole idea to try to get Johnny’s attention! You didn’t have to fall in love with me, you did that on your own!”
“You’re ridiculous,” Zach says with a shake of his head. “You’re really going to sit here and tell us that you are blameless for hurting us with what you’re doing because you don’t think you have any responsibility here because we had this idea in the first place?”
“I didn’t say that,” Tori replied, trying to reword what it was she did say.
But it was too late for her to take it back.
We’re already hurt by what she did, and the more she tries to deflect her responsibility here and make it our problem, the more we get angry with her.
“So, what then?” Taylor asks. “Did you just tell us you love us before because you wanted to see how long you could keep this going? Did you just figure if you said that you loved us, then you would have free rein to do what you wanted with Johnny, and we would still be here when you had your fun and you wanted to come back to us?”