Free Stay by Allie Larkin

outside. Droplets of water sparkled on the fuzz of his black Patagonia fleece. “Seclusion usually means staying by one’s self. And studying means actually looking at bo- ”
    “What are you doing here?” I felt for leftover globs of mud mask around my hairline and tried to hold my arm across my chest to hide the coffee stain over my left boob.
    He looked right in my eyes, wrinkled up his forehead, and let out a quick sigh. “Thought you might want my psych notes from last semester. I thought if I helped you study, we could grab dinner tomorrow. Silly me,” he said flatly, handing me a maroon notebook, and walking past me into my room.
    Janie was sitting cross- legged on my floor in front of the TV. She had her hair pulled back with a thick black headband. When we’d washed our masks off, she’d carefully wiped away every trace of hers, and smoothed pale pink gloss over her lips.
    He stretched his hand out to her. “Peter, and you are?”
    “Janie,” she said, standing up. Her pajamas were adorable: pink satin pants with rosebuds on them and a matching tank top with a big beautiful rose blooming across her chest.
    And that was it. That was the beginning of the end. I could see it in the way they looked at each other. Not only did I lose him to Janie, but I couldn’t continue on with my theory that maybe he was gay and that’s why he’d never made a move on me.
    A few weeks later, Peter canceled our Friday night dinner.
    “I’m going into seclusion for the weekend,” he said, flashing me his movie star smile.
    Seclusion meant Rhode Island.
    He visited Janie at Brown and brought me back an I’d Rather Be in Rhode Island T-shirt.
    “I guess we both would,” he said. “Right? She is your best friend and all.”
    I had no problem throwing the shirt out. I wadded it up in a ball and threw it off the second- floor balcony into the Dumpster after Peter went back to his dorm to call Janie.
    I couldn’t blame the shirt, but the pajamas I could blame. If only I’d had cuter pajamas, maybe Janie wouldn’t have looked so freaking spectacular in comparison. I knew it was ridiculous, but it was all I had.
    I left the evil pajamas in my dresser drawer and dug through the pile of clothes in the bottom of my closet until I found a pair of black capri leggings. I pulled the jeans off. They stuck on my calves, and I pulled so hard that they turned inside out. I left my mom’s Boston sweatshirt on. The inside was worn down to soft, nubby pills, and the rubbery decal of the spaceship was cracked and peeling off. Pulling up the collar and tucking my nose under, I breathed in deeply, convincing myself that I could still smell my mom’s perfume on it.
    Three more drinks put me on the couch with my laptop, checking my e- mail and watching TV. I had forty-seven new messages, but they were almost all spam. The only real new message I had was a long e- mail from a client updating me on a project so I wouldn’t have to “waste time” getting caught up Monday morning. I didn’t write back.
    I got up to make myself another drink, sucking down half of it in the kitchen and filling up again, before I stumbled back to the living room, narrowly avoiding a collision with the coffee table. I flopped down with my legs over the back of the couch and grabbed the remote.
    There was a show on about a wedding. The wedding party was standing at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean in perfect wedding attire. It was on Lifetime, so most likely, the bride was going to find out her husband was really married to women all over the country, or her maid of honor was trying to kill her, or she and her new husband would have a kid and the babysitter would try to move in on her territory and start wearing her clothes. But right at that moment in the movie, everyone was all smug and delighted with themselves, and it made me sick.
    “He doesn’t really love you,” I yelled at the television as I changed the channel. “He doesn’t really love