07 - Like She's The Only Person In The Room

Kassidy's POV

Eli was standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed, like he'd been pacing before he heard the bathroom door.  His arms were crossed, and his jaw clenched. I rolled my eyes as soon as I got over the shock. 

I snapped. "What the hell are you doing in my room?"

He didn't say anything immediately, but his eyes dropped to my feet before he stared back at my face.

"Relax."

What the hell? The word got on my nerves. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be seen here. How could I relax when he was right there? 

"I asked you a question," I said. "You should not be here. This is the only place I can be where you're not."

He grunted, staring at me closely. "We need to talk."

"So you thought breaking into my room was the appropriate way to initiate that conversation?"

"The door was unlocked, so I just walked in." He said it as though it made everything better. How was he so relaxed about this?

I pulled my towel tighter around myself and suddenly had a very vivid mental image of what would have happened if I had stepped out of that bathroom without it. My face went warm at the thought.

Eli's eyes did a slow, unhurried sweep from my shoulders down to where the towel ended at my thighs. For a brief moment, the look on his face was not the look of someone who hated me.

"I just need five minutes." He said with so much confidence. 

After a few seconds, he said in a low voice, "What happened last night stays between us. Nobody can find out. Not Nova, not Piper."

I gawped at him. "You want me to keep it a secret."

"Yes."

"You want me to keep it a secret," I repeated slowly, "but were you thinking about this when you slept with me that night? Because I'm trying to understand at what point you remembered you had a girlfriend."

His face went slightly red. "That's not what this is."

"Then what is it? Tell me! Because you kissed yet another girl at your own party, then came to my room and slept with me, and your girlfriend showed up the next morning with a cashmere scarf, and she gave it to me, Eli. She gave me her scarf because I was cold!" 

I wasn't even sure why the scarf mattered, but I was frustrated and couldn't stop. My voice had gone up slightly, and I forced it back down. "Do you have any idea how that felt?"

A look of regret flashed across his face. He turned toward my window, and I could see it then, under all the swagger and the nonchalance, the tightness around his mouth. 

He felt it too. He just wasn't going to say so.

"I feel absolutely terrible," I continued. "If I had known about Nova, I never would have let it happen. Never. She has been nothing but kind to me since she walked through that door, and that makes it so much worse."

"You don't know anything about Nova," Eli muttered.

I paused.  

"What is that supposed to mean?"

He looked back at me then, and there was an annoyance in his expression that I didn't fully understand. "It means exactly what you heard. You don't know anything about her, or about me, or our relationship. So don't stand there feeling sorry for her as if you have the full picture."

 This was now clear to me. Eli was a full-blown asshole. 

"What the hell is the full picture?"

He didn't answer that. He was already moving to the door. 

"Eli?" Nova's voice came from somewhere down the hall. "Babe, where are you?"

His hand found the doorknob as he looked at me over his shoulder. "Nobody finds out. That's all I'm asking."

He slipped out before I could respond.

I stood there in my towel and listened to them. Nova's voice came through my door.

"What were you doing in there?"

Eli's response was too low to make out. I caught fragments, something about checking the window latch, and about the rain from yesterday. Nova laughed, and then their voices faded down the hallway.

"Asshole," I muttered and looked at my Domino's box sitting on the desk.

I walked over, flipped it open, and pulled out a slice. It was lukewarm by now, but I ate it anyway because I hadn't eaten all day, and at this point, I didn't care.

Whatever Eli was telling Nova right now, it was a lie. I didn't need to hear it to know that. Lying was as natural to him as breathing, apparently, along with kissing strangers at parties and sneaking into girls' rooms.

I took another bite and stared at the wall.

*******

Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning in bed for hours. Eventually, I gave up on sleep and got up. I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I just needed to be out of that room. Maybe if I walked around for a while, I could come back and eventually get some sleep. 

Eli and Nova were in the kitchen. She was sitting on the counter, and he was standing between her knees. They were laughing about something Nova was showing him on her phone. It was a small and private moment, and I had walked right into the middle of it.

I was about to turn around when I felt a presence right behind me. My heart almost leaped out of my chest.

It was Celeste. I groaned lightly.

She looked around me as I tried to walk away, then glanced pointedly at Eli and Nova, then back at me, and raised an eyebrow.

"Must be rough, watching that." She muttered.

"I don't care. I'm just here for water," I lied.

"Sure you are." 

To prove I wasn’t lying and that I was unbothered about Nova and Eli, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filled it from the tap, and drank it slowly, keeping my eyes on the window above the sink. Eli and Nova had gone quiet behind me. I didn't turn around.

I set the glass down, said goodnight to nobody in particular, and went back upstairs.

 By the time I walked back towards the staircase, Celeste met up with me. 

"You know she’s going to be here all year." Celeste continued, in an annoyingly calm voice.

"I don’t care if she stays all year or for a decade,” I said, even though I knew damn well I might not survive seeing Nova and Eli like that every day. 

"He looks at her like she's the only person in the room," she said simply. "Always has. Whatever happened between you two won’t ever change that. It never does."

She walked past me up the stairs without another word.

I stood at the bottom and stared after her.