Free Pieces of Me by Ann Garner Page A

getting sick, he says.
    Works
for me.
    I
know it will only be worse when I show up on Monday because Cole will know I
was avoiding him but I can't think about that right now. I’ve nearly bitten my
tongue in half to keep from asking Grace about him, and she hasn't mentioned
him at all since the frat party.
    He'd
been right about Grace looking for me. I had missed several phone calls and
texts both from her and from Grant. The moment we found them Cole said he had
something he had to do and left. He hadn't spoken another word to me the entire
time we'd been together after leaving the frat house.
    So
Friday morning, when I should be sitting with Cole and Robby in class, I'm
instead sitting on my bed reading a book when the door bangs open. I look up in
surprise as Grace bounds into the room.
    “Shouldn't
you be in class?” I ask.
    She
raises an eyebrow in response. “I could say the same about you.” She steps further
into the room, dropping her bag on the floor and collapsing on her bed. She’s
staring at me, and her eyes are squinted as if she's looking for something
unusual. I self-consciously run a hand over my hair, which I’ve put in a lose
braid to keep off my neck.
    “Do
I have something on my face?”
    “No.
I'm looking for some mortal wound.” She watches me for another minute before
kicking her shoes off and pulling her legs up to cross them under her on the
bed.
    “So,”
she says, “imagine my surprise when I'm sitting in my English lit class this
morning, minding my own business, doodling hearts on my paper instead of actual
notes, and in comes Cole.”
    Oh
God.
    “Now,
I know for a fact that Cole has a class at the same time I do, and that it's
all the way across campus. How do I know this? Because my roommate has the
exact same class as he does.”
    She
pins her eyes on me. “Only apparently my roommate hasn't been in class all week
long, and my normally level headed brother is freaking out. Like dragging me
out of my class to yell at me, freaking out.”
    “Oh,
Grace. I'm sorry.”
    She's
shaking her head. “Oh I don't think sorry is going to cover this one.”
    “He
was yelling at you? Really?”
    “Well,
yelling might be a strong word, but he's pissed. At me,” she says, obviously
exasperated.
    “I'm
pretty sure I'm not the one skipping class, apparently to avoid him, but
somehow he thinks it’s my fault.” Her eyes narrow in on me again. “He's
bitching at me about leaving you alone at the open door party last week.” She
sounds confused, and I can't blame her.
     
    “I
thought you said nothing happened, that you just couldn't hear your phone over
the music and then you ran into Cole. Obviously that isn't what happened.”
    “It's
really nothing.”
    She
shakes her head. “Oh no, try again. Obviously it's something if it’s keeping
you from going to class so you won't run into Cole. Because I know you aren't
sick.”
    I'm
picking absently at a string on my comforter while I try to gather my thoughts.
How do I tell her without telling her? Because no matter how close the two of
us have become, I don't think I'll ever tell her about my past. I don't need
the pity or sympathy or anything else that she might feel if she were to find
out.
    There
had been no choice for me back home. Everyone had known what happened, maybe
not the in depth details, but they had known enough. And no one had ever looked
at me the same.
I didn't look at me the same.
    Grace
crosses the small space between our two beds and sits next to me on mine.
“Look, I know you said that you have this....anxiety about being in large
crowds, or around people you don't know, or whatever it is, and obviously I
shouldn't have pushed you into going last week, as my darling brother so gently
pointed out to me,”
     
    I
start to interrupt her but she shakes her head. “I obviously don't have that
problem, Del, so unless you tell me what's going on, I won't know.”
    “I
wanted to go.” I assure her. “In theory. I just got