Bend Me, Break Me

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  Still, it meant that now I was definitely going to stay friends with him, if only to solve the mystery. Shaking my head at myself, I pulled up my picture app to put in my latest poem. A lot of people on Instagram took a picture to go with their poem and edited the hell out of it. I didn’t have any Photoshop skills, so I just used a nice typewriter font on a background that looked like old paper. Simple and classic. Nothing special, but I liked to let the words speak for themselves.

  After I finished, I looked at my bookshelves. All the books were classics and I still didn’t feel like they belonged to me. They belonged to my…

  No. I didn’t need to dredge up memories and pain. Turning away from them, I grabbed my remote and decided to watch a movie instead.

  I was in the communal bathroom on Sunday when another girl came in. I’d seen her around, so I knew she also lived on this floor.

  “Hey,” she said, giving me a smile.

  “Hey,” I said back, meeting her eyes in the mirror. She still had her pajamas on: a tank top with a strip of bacon on it and pants with the same pattern. Cute.

  “I like your pajamas,” I said, in a freak moment of friendliness. She looked down at them and grinned.

  “Thanks.” Figuring I should make a quick getaway, I gathered up my things in the basket I kept my bathroom items in and left before I could say anything else.

  I wasn’t friend material.

  Monday morning I woke up and just couldn’t get out of bed. My body ached and I had barely slept. Going to class was the last thing on my mind, so I decided to skip. This was the first time I’d done so, but I figured one day wasn’t going to matter. I’d just email my professors claiming some sort of bug and get my assignments sent to me.

  Coen was going to be waiting for me, but I had no way to contact him to tell him I wouldn’t be there. Oh, well. Didn’t matter. He could drink my tea and give me the present on Wednesday.

  The rest of the day I spent flipping through the channels on TV and eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. I used to eat much better but now I forgot most of the time until I was absolutely starving and nearly to the point of passing out. Maybe I should go get some groceries.

  Grabbing my coat, I slipped on some shoes and headed out to the parking lot where my car was. Yet another item that wasn’t mine. I was sure some of the other students were jealous that I got to drive a black BMW SUV, but they didn’t know the circumstances behind me having it.

  The moment I opened the door of the car, I was assaulted by familiar smells and I almost slammed it shut and went back to my room. I breathed until the smell dissipated a little and then got in, gritting my teeth.

  I drove the five minutes it took to get to the grocery store with my hands clamped on the steering wheel. I hated driving this thing. Why had I decided to do this?

  As soon as I left the car, I could breathe again. Shaking myself, I walked toward the front of the store and grabbed a cart. The store had a surprisingly diverse vegan section, so I was able to find crackers, cookies, cereal and bread. I swung by the dairy section and got cashew milk before grabbing some more peanut butter, apples, oranges, carrot sticks, vegan jam and, on a whim, some protein powder.

  I collapsed when I got back, not even bothering to unpack my grocery bags. Still, I needed to shower, so I got my stuff together and headed to the bathroom. The girl from the other day with the bacon pajamas was blow-drying her hair.

  “Hey,” she said again. I said it back and walked toward the showers, but she said something else that made me stop. She clicked off the blow dryer.

  “You live down the hall, right? In 406?” I stopped walking and wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, wondering if I should be friendly and use a smile on her.

  “Cool, I’m Lacey. I’m in 410. You’ve got a single, right?” I nodded and she sighed.

  “I’m so jealous. My roommate is nuts. Like, I think she’s watched too many shows about witches and has decided that she is one. I mean, I’m open minded, but when I wake up in the middle of the night and she’s standing over black candles and chanting, I have to draw the line.” She laughed and I decided to give her a smile.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Now it was my turn to introduce myself.

  “Ingrid,” I said. She ran the brush through her long red hair. It shaded toward blonde and looked natural. She also had warm brown eyes and freckles across her nose.

  “Nice to meet you, Ingrid. Let me know if you ever want to hang out or something. Although, we should probably do it in your room since mine is slowly being turned into coven or something.” She laughed.

  “Yeah, sure.” I wasn’t going to take her up on it, but it was nice of her to offer. No one had offered to be my friend in a long time. I didn’t count Coen, because he had a reason. Even if I hadn’t figured it out yet.

  “Cool, I’ll see you around.” She turned the blow dryer on again and went back to working on her hair and I headed for the shower.

  Maybe now that I was friendly with Coen, I was putting out the vibe that made others want to be friends with me. Strange.

  On Wednesday, I was apprehensive about economics. I didn’t know how Coen was going to react to me being gone on Monday.

  When he saw me walking toward him, I thought for a second he was going to run forward and grab me up in his arms, as if we hadn’t seen each other in years.

  “Hey,” he said, but his eyes darted all over me, as if he was looking for an injury.

  “Hey, sorry about Monday. I wasn’t feeling good and I didn’t have a way to tell you. So.” He tried to blow it off, but I could tell he was upset about something. He hadn’t brought my tea this morning, but he did have a present that he handed to me as we sat down together.

  A box of crayons.

  “Sorry about the tea. I was a little distracted this morning.” He looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them.

  “It’s okay,” I said, putting the crayons in my bag. “Sorry about Monday.” He waved that off.

  “Hey, shit happens. It’s not a big deal at all. How are you feeling?” Our professor started talking.

  “Fine,” I whispered.

  Coen was off the rest of the week and I quickly figured out it had little to do with me. He was so out of it that I asked him if he wanted to study with me again on Saturday.

  “Oh, yeah, sure. That sounds great. Um, maybe you’d like to come over to my place. You could meet Marty.” The fear must have shown on my face, because he laughed.

  “Okay, okay. Never mind. The library.” I bit my lip and considered. I would meet his roommate eventually. And I was going to have to get closer to Coen if I was ever going to find out why he was trying to be friends with me. Maybe I could even look for clues in his room.

  “No, that’s fine,” I said and it seemed to take him by surprise. He hid a grin and then nodded.

  “Oh, and just so you can keep in touch with me,” he said, stopping and pulling one of his notebooks out of his bag. I watched as he tore off a piece of paper, wrote something on it and then handed it to me.

  “That’s my cell number. You know, just in case plans change.” Oh. I looked down at it and realized that it was my turn to give him my number. I couldn’t remember the last time I actually used my phone to make a call or send a message. It was purely for distracting myself when I had moments alone.

  With my hand shaking a little, I took the pen from him and did the same, writing my number on a piece of paper and handing it to him. He hid another smile.

  “Great. So how about I meet you in front of the library and we can walk to the dorm,” he said.

  “Sounds good,” I said, even though all I could think of were all the things that could go wrong. I slipped his number in my pocket and thought about using it to text him and call the whole thing off. But then he’d probably just ask the next weekend and the one after and it would happen anyway. Plus, there was always the chance that I could learn somet
hing useful about him.

  I was so nervous as I walked down to the coffee shop the next day. It was cold, so I’d added gloves and a scarf along with my jacket. He was there, waiting for me, two paper cups in his hands.

  “Hey,” he said, coming forward and handing me a cup. “I thought you might want something to warm up.”

  I took the cup from him and it warmed my hands instantly.

  “Thanks.” I sipped and the peppermint tea was just the right temperature. Not hot enough to burn my mouth, but hot enough to melt away the chill.

  “So I should warn you about Marty,” he said as we walked in the opposite direction of my building.

  “Oh?” I said, definitely regretting that I’d agreed to do this.

  “He’s a little… friendly. Like, not in a bad way. But he treats everyone like they’re already friends. He’s also not a fan of keeping his voice down, so there’s that. And… well, you’ll see.” He laughed at my shocked face.

  “It’ll be fine. He’s a great guy. We’ve only been friends since this summer, but I feel like we’ve known each other forever. You know?” I was about to say that I did, but kept my mouth shut and shook my head.

  We both sipped our drinks as we walked back to his place. I hoped he wasn’t a slob. Not that I was a neat freak. It was easy to be clean when you barely had anything. Except now I had a lot more things, thanks to Coen.

  He lived on the second floor of one of the older buildings on campus. We took the stairs and then walked down almost all the way to the end of the hall.

  “Here we are,” he said, using his keycard to open the door.

  It was almost exactly as I expected. Semi-messy. Cluttered. Very much like two guys lived in it.

  “Hey, you must be Ingrid,” a black guy lounging on the other bed said, getting to his feet and coming over to shake my hand. He was tall. Taller than tall. I nearly had to break my neck in half to look up at him.

  “Wow, aren’t you a tiny one,” he said with a laugh as his hand swallowed up mine.

  “Uh, thank you?” I said as he let my hand go and flexed it a few times to get the feeling back. He hadn’t been gentle with the handshake.

  “Come on in, come on in,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder and ushering me inside.

  “Cool it, Marty,” Coen said with a sharp look. Marty raised his hands in surrender.

  “Okay, okay. Sorry, I can be a little hands-on. Well. It was nice to meet you, but I’ve got to head to the gym. This body wasn’t built in a day,” he said, laughing as if he’d made the funniest joke ever. I just stared at Coen, who shrugged. He had warned me, I suppose.

  Marty was out of there faster than a blink. I half expected to see a cloud of dust in his wake, like in a cartoon.

  “Sooo, that’s my roommate,” Coen said with a shrug as the door slammed.

  “He’s… nice,” I said, not sure what else to call him.

  “Yeah, he takes a little bit of getting used to. But he’s a good guy to have around. Anyway,” he said, stepping back. “Do you want something other than tea? I, um, went to the store and found some vegan stuff.” He went to his mini fridge and picked up a few boxes, showing them to me.

  “Oh, wow. You didn’t have to do that.” I’d brought my own snacks this time, since I’d bought groceries the previous Sunday.

  “Yeah, but I figured eating better wasn’t a bad thing.” I was pretty sure that was a lie, but the gesture was… sweet. Very sweet.

  He’d made up his bed like a couch, with pillows so we could sit on it. I set my bag down and sat on the bed, sliding until my back was against the wall. Coen took the space next to me. I wished we were in the library. There were no beds in the library.

  He smiled at me and handed me the box of vegan cookies. They were my favorite kind, actually.

  “Thanks,” I said, opening them and taking out a few.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” he said, taking a few after I handed him the box.

  “Do what?”

  “Eat vegan. I looked it up online because I couldn’t really remember what it was about and shit. It’s hardcore. You don’t eat a lot of tofu, do you?” I almost laughed. Almost.

  “No, I don’t. I’ve never been a fan. But there are tons of things that are vegan. It’s more acceptable now and easier to find in the stores. Plus, I can order things online if I need to.”

  “Cool,” he said, reaching for the box. I passed it to him and our fingers bumped during the exchange. I tried to ignore it.

  “We should probably get to work,” I said, stating the obvious. Coen munched a few cookies and agreed. We each pulled out our respective work and I realized how quiet the room was. At least in the library, there were people walking by and I had my music. It seemed rude to bring it out when it was just the two of us.

  “Do you maybe want some music?” he asked, getting up. I swallowed hard. He must have read my mind.

  “Sure,” I said, wondering what the hell he was going to play. I didn’t think we would have the same taste at all. He scrolled through his phone and then a smile flickered on his face before he set it in a dock with speakers and “Set Fire to the Third Bar” by Snow Patrol started to play.

  “Is this okay?” he asked over the music.

  “Yeah,” I said. He couldn’t possibly know that I loved this song. He came back to the bed and handed me a little remote.

  “If there’s anything you want to skip, go ahead. I’m a little bit of a music junkie, so I’ve got a little of everything.” Interesting. I wondered how many other songs I liked that he would have. He sighed and picked up one of his textbooks, opening it on his lap. I did the same as the song ended and switched to “Starlight” by Muse. Two songs. Two songs that I loved.

  We turned pages and scanned words and the music played on. Muse to Sam Hunt to Taylor Swift to Frank Sinatra to Tom Petty. There wasn’t one song that I hadn’t listened to before. The more songs played, the more I was distracted from what I was supposed to be doing. Coen was diligently reading, turning pages and highlighting, taking notes and working.

  I reached for the box of cookies and it knocked over, spilling out onto the comforter.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, trying to pick them up and shove them back in the box. There were crumbs everywhere.

  “No big,” he said, hopping up and clearing off the bed before sweeping the crumbs into his hand and dumping them in the trash. Before we sat down again, he shook out the comforter.

  “I’ll vacuum later,” he said, as if I’d criticized him. I definitely wasn’t one to talk about keeping my own room spotless. Most of the time cleaning was the last thing I wanted to do, so I avoided it at all costs.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I said and he gestured to the now-clean bed. I sat down again, but he seemed… jumpy.

  “Do you want anything else? I have soda and stuff.” He opened the mini fridge and gestured to several rows of cans.

  “Sure,” I said and he grabbed me a Coke, as well as one for himself.

  Our hands touched again with the handoff and I found myself getting more and more aware that it was just the two of us here in this small room.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. I’d been staring at the can without opening it.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, cracking it open and taking a sip, spilling a drop on my shirt.

  “We can go back to the library if you’re uncomfortable. Or down to the study lounge. The chairs are all broken and the couch smells like feet, but…” I shook my head.

  “No, this is fine. I’m just… I’m not used to being around another person. I know how that sounds, but it’s the truth. I don’t have a roommate, or friends.” I couldn’t believe I was telling him this. He leaned against his desk and he had the strangest expression on his face. Like he wanted to tell me something. I had to look away from him.

  “You’re just a loner. There’s nothing wrong with that.” I shook my head. He was just being nice.

  “There’s a lot wrong with it
and I don’t think you’d find anyone who would argue with me on that point.” He opened his mouth to say something and then snapped it shut before taking a sip of soda.

  “Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you and I’d fight anyone who said otherwise. So there.” His jaw was tight, as if he was gritting his teeth.

  Why did he care so much? Sure we were friends (sort of), but he knew nothing about me. Just a few weeks of spending time together did not a friendship make. The semester would end and we wouldn’t have class together anymore and that would be it. He’d drop me and go back to his regular life doing whatever it was that he did.

  To break the tension, I set my textbook back on my lap. Coen came back over and sat down.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I looked up. His eyes were so green. I’d never seen anyone with irises like that before.

  “For what?”

  “For making you feel weird. Sometimes I say things and then realize that they might not be the best things to say, but you can’t unsay something. You know?” He was nervous, his words coming out in a jerky rush.

  “It’s fine, Coen. I’m fine.” The more he talked, the more I wanted to leave. This had been a bad idea.

  I was blowing it again. She was just so skittish when it came to people talking to her, or taking an interest in her, or just plain being nice to her. I didn’t for a second believe that she was broken beyond repair. Life had definitely banged her around, left her with bruises, but anyone with eyes could see that she wasn’t broken. She was the strongest person I’d ever met. Well, except for maybe Mom.

  I thought the cookies would help, but she was still just as ready to bolt as ever. I couldn’t seem to find a good way to get through to her and make her want to stay.