Hannah’s words never got through Cat’s mind. She was just background noise, like a fan in the distance, while Cat sat on her bed and tried very hard to make her heart slow down. Really, even sitting, she felt faint. Her roommate either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, that Cat completely ignored her monologue.
How could this happen? How could she not know this whole time that she was talking to Peter? She knew him! The harder she thought about it, the more the puzzle pieces began to appear, though, clicking bit by bit into a giant picture that just screamed: Cat, you’re blind.
The threads he posted on Talkative. She found herself staring at her phone, borderline stalking his history, as she thought back to the times he posted them.
Hangover Cures, after Halloween. Okay, but everyone was hungover after that Halloween weekend. But she also ran into him outside of the store when “Pumpkin” convinced her to get ice cream as a hangover cure, and Peter had bought...something. But she freaked out at him from their weird, drunken moment the night before….
Excuses to Avoid People During the Holidays, right after she and Peter had that huge fight and she said they weren’t friends, though were stuck on campus together.
Insomnia Hacks, after the Nate thing--and while she was MIA, he posted about petty revenge, job interview tips, when Peter got a new job and started suffering the aftermaths of the water polo party, himself.
Cat switched to her messages and paid special attention to the dates, struggling to put more pieces together. The biggest failure, on her part, was not matching Peter’s Kinesiology Bachelors Degree as a precursor to being a physical therapist. Other details made her want to slap herself. PumpkinKing talked about Mexican immigration with her, reminisced about home remedies of old, straight-up told her he was from a family of immigrants.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” Cat muttered to herself before she returned her face into her pillow.
“...of the Internet. I mean, I’m more surprised we never talked about it at dinner. And how did you not notice, like syntax?” Hannah continued. Oh, she was just listing more reasons why Cat was stupid. “Like, Peter texted in the group chat all the time. Doesn’t he type the same, regardless?” Ugh. She was right. Peter used proper grammar, for the most part, and--how did she not notice neither of them swore? For crying out loud. From a distance, it was one of the main differentiators between Peter and the other water polo blonds, was the way he spoke. She’d only ever heard him use a single curse word, when he was too drunk to filter himself. Why did she never think, “Huh, two college-aged guys that don’t swear. That’s kind of strange.” Who didn’t like the occasional f-bomb?
“I need to go on a walk,” Cat sighed to herself.
“Are you going to join us for dinner, or are you going on your date?” Hannah was still too amused to hide any of her taunting. “Your date with Peter!” And there was the laughter.
“Eat without me. I’m going to go walk into oncoming traffic.” While Hannah giggled to herself, Cat just threw her phone on her bed, put the lanyard holding her dorm room key around her neck, and left.
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Flip-flops weren’t ideal walking shoes. And the sun was going down, so it was getting to be a little chilly without a sweater. She didn’t think she’d be walking this long. When she planned this outfit, she had every intention of being inside at this time. On her computer. Chatting to the mysterious Internet boy that enjoyed roasting people and things as much as she did.
Well, she thought sarcastically, at least he’s not a creep. And all those confusing thoughts, jumping back and forth between them, so worried about the chemistry she had with Peter, but the genuine connection with Pumpkin.
The sunset splayed orange patterns on the ground with the growing oak leaves on her path, guiding her back down to the dorms. After an hour long walk around campus, to the point that her shins now hurt, she’d gotten nowhere in her thoughts. How was she supposed to talk to him? Like she did in person, or like she did online? Would the damn hurricane in her stomach ever slow down? It was a beautiful evening and she hardly noticed it, hardly cared. She couldn’t stop herself from trying to figure out where to go from here, to try and predict Peter’s actions. What would he do, now?
Well, now was her chance to find out. As she descended the hill on her way to the back of the Casa del Sol dorms, a figure dressed fully in white workout clothes also approached the same set of doors. His hair, wet, splayed against his forehead, and splotches of damp skin stuck to his sleeveless shirt. He hadn’t seen her quite yet, and still focused on dragging his towel against his head to try and take some of the water out.
Cat hesitated at the base of the hill, just a hundred or so feet away from the doors, and watched Peter approach. He took his towel off his head, wafting the scent of chlorine in her direction, and his eyes found her just as easily as she saw him. He slowed to a stop, perfect teeth gnawing on his lip.
Her stomach only felt worse, looking at him now. Like unruly waves smoothing the side of a mountain during high tide. She opened her mouth to try and say something, but no words came out.
“Hey,” was all he offered. She could hardly lift her hand, but it seemed to be an acceptable enough greeting. Peter bunched his towel in his hands. The sun shone in his eyes, and he glanced away from her for a moment. She couldn’t move. Her feet wouldn’t do anything. Her arms went numb, heartbeat pulsing all the way through to her fingers.
Cat forced her lips apart, but her voice trembled despite her best efforts to steady it: “D-did you...?” Peter shrunk in on himself and kept his gaze on the ground, rolling his towel more and more in his hands.
He took a deep breath before he said, “Did I know who you were?” He didn’t wait for her to confirm the question. “I--there were times I thought, maybe--? But I--no. No, I didn’t.” Though he still looked down, his eyes flicked up to hers. Was she standing stupid? Why were her arms like that, just dangling like dead fish? But when she tried to move them, they were too heavy. He didn’t move at all, but he looked like a normal human, not like a weird, poorly-taken picture of a creature mid-motion. “Um, do you want to...talk...about it?” She flinched, finally granted permission to move by her body.
“I--I need...to….” The more she spewed sounds from her stupid, dry mouth, the more he frowned. “I need to, um--” To what, figure out how to talk again? Learn how to walk, get her brain to be something other than absolute slush in her skull? “I don’t know--” Wait, not those words. But she could only stammer, and none of the words she actually said went back in her mouth. How could she tell him she didn’t even know how to speak right now, because every nerve jumped and jolted like they were on fire, and she had to go through and figure out what feelings were real, and what feelings were just fleeting or hopeful or childish.
Peter never looked up at her. His hands stopped fidgeting, and he reached for the handle of the door.
“Fine.” His voice was so quiet, she hardly heard him. But just like that, he disappeared through the doorway and she continued to be rooted to the spot. Did he take that to mean--that she didn’t know if she wanted to talk to him at all or just right now? Because the way his shoulders slumped, the way he just threw open the door and stalked through it like he knew what she was thinking--
It took Cat another full minute to put the feeling back in her legs and feel steady enough to walk forward, down the hill to get to the door. But Peter didn’t have any issue moving; he was long gone by the time she’d even managed to make her way to the elevator.
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In a similar fashion to last year, Cat found her stomach wound so tightly that even the mere thought of food made her want to vomit. So despite Hannah’s insistence that she needed to eat, Cat changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Cat said to her roommate before she could leave for dinner. Hannah sighed.
“Peter beat you to that request. As Cam and Kelsey aren’t going to totally figure it out on their own anyway.” Peter beat her to that request? It wasn’t a pleasant feeling that joined her nerves when Hannah left. She could hardly imagine anything that might make her feel better.
Cat didn’t expect to sleep that night. But, if there were any days to have insomnia, Wednesdays was one of the best ones to wake up tired. Hannah was still asleep, the sun still behind the clouds when Cat got up and started to work on finishing her latest essay for English.
And even after Hannah got up and left for class and returned from lunch, Cat still typed away at her computer.
“Still working on it?” Hannah asked after letting the heavy door slam behind her. Cat twisted around from her chair and shrugged.
“I’m almost done with this essay, and I’ve got to do some ceramics before work tonight.” Hannah just yawned in response.
“You could’ve come to lunch. Peter wasn’t even there.” Even though Peter was, obviously, running around in the back of her mind, the mention of his name made her stomach hurt again.
Cat shrugged as she returned to her essay. “I got a lot done.” Though maybe it would have been better to eat something other than a day-old sandwich from the convenience store.
“So, like, what are you going to do?”
She knew her roommate wasn’t talking about her essay, but to get the point across that she wasn’t in the mood to talk about it, Cat said, “Just going to write a couple more sentences, then read through it a few times. Then, I guess I’ll go do some ceramics for a couple hours, take a dinner break, come back, edit it before work. Then I can make sure it’s final before I turn it in.” This smartass answer got her a pillow to the back of the head. Cat caught it sloppily, her elbow on her keyboard adding a nice keyboard smash for her conclusion paragraph, before she hurled it back.
“Fine, be like that.” Hannah stuck her tongue out at her, and Cat returned the favor. “Mind if Kelsey comes over to help me study, or would that be distracting?”
“That’s fine with me. I’ve only got like an hour’s worth of work on this left.” Which was good, because she highly doubted Kelsey and Hannah would actually do anything related to studying.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And she was right. Kelsey’s skin was still an angry red shade, but at least now able to move her limbs without too much struggle; she settled onto Cat’s bed to hold Hannah’s flash cards for her, but that was about as far as they got. This was, at least, the furthest Kelsey and Hannah got when they got to “helping each other study.” Really, it was just them taking out enough school supplies to look like they were studying, and then the rest was up to osmosis. The only things they learned from one another were what their bitchy sisters were up to now. Kelsey came armed with something a little more interesting, though.
“Cam has a date tonight,” Kelsey said. This got Cat’s attention, and she immediately snapped her gaze to the talking tomato.
“What?” Hannah and Cat asked at the same time. Kelsey giggled.
“I’ll give you one guess as to who it’s with.”
Cat let out a psh and said, “Brad.”
“That was fast,” Hannah said as Cat twisted around to keep looking at her paper.
“The guy’s been comparing everyone he’s been with to Brad all year.” The guy did have a smile that lit up the room; he had a charming sort of air around him. Cam could do worse.
Kelsey shrugged. “You’re right, it’s Brad. I ran into him at the convenience store. He said he’s been trying to get back with him for weeks.”
“That’s cute.” Hannah sighed. “Cam actively tries to avoid dating people and he’s still got someone after him. It kind of feels like everyone’s getting someone.” Cat decided now was the time to disengage from the conversation, and began to add to her essay. It was news to her, though, that Hannah didn’t like her single status. She could have anyone she wanted--though perhaps it was a little shocking that Cam, of all people, had a date. If Cat was willing to let herself think about anything romantic, she might have felt a little weird about the idea of Cameron dating, too. The guy freaked out when she implied that they were sleeping together too often for it to be considered unserious.
“When was the last time you saw someone?” Kelsey asked, genuinely surprised. “It was Cam, right?”
“If that even counts. We were more fuckbuddies than anything.” Hannah shuffled into her studythings, and Cat noisily scrolled back and forth through her essay to make it sound like she was doing something specific. If she remembered, Hannah said she and Cam didn’t work out even before the fall semester officially started. “But even that ended, like, beginning of the school year. Have I been standoffish? Maybe I’m being standoffish and that’s why no one will date me.” Huh? That timeline sounded off.
Kelsey sounded confused. “No? But what do you mean, beginning of the year? Cam was with Cat at the beginning of the year.” No use hiding that she was listening now. Cat glanced over her shoulder to Hannah for a moment.
“Mostly! I mean, we were supposed to be. We agreed when we woke up after my party that we were super done with that, and he immediately went after Cat the day after.” Hannah gestured to her. “Obviously no hard feelings or anything, but I thought until now that he was incapable of feelings--other than horny.” Wait, a day? When did Hannah have time to be with Cam at all the day of her party?
“A day?” Cat echoed, her brows raised. A day! She and Cam hooked up the first week. Hannah said they were done, even kind of encouraged it. Was she trying to say they slept together the night of her party? That didn’t make sense. Logically, at least.
“Chill, we were safe and clean. At least I was. And I assume you’ve been checked since.” Hannah let out a short laugh. But that timeline didn’t add up.
“Wait--” Cat squinted at her. “So you guys were together--”
Hannah sighed, a little irritated, “Jesus--it’s not a big deal. He wasn’t fucking us both at the same time.”
“Oh, wait--” Kelsey butt in, “like, you’re probably not a rebound from Hannah. He doesn’t do rebounds. He just...bounds.” No, they didn’t get it. It physically wasn’t possible. She woke up right next to him. She saw him leave the room.
“But I thought I was with Cam that night.”
Now Kelsey and Hannah seemed confused, looking to each other, holding up fingers to count.
“Were you--? No,” Hannah corrected, pointing to her. “You blacked out, remember? You did make out with him once or twice or something, but then we all did something else. Truth or Dare, I think.” Maybe she wasn’t remembering correctly anymore. Cat struggled to rack her brain to recall that morning. Horrible hangover, one of the worst she’d ever had… She woke up-- “Yeah, no, that was--yeah.” Hannah nodded, her eyes clear with the memories. “Cam and I slept together downstairs, fell asleep on the couch. Woke up, immediately found Advil, and then y’all started coming out of your rooms.” Cat blinked, her stomach twitching with the nerves that made a permanent home there. Cameron wasn’t with her that morning after all.
“I never made it to a room,” Kelsey muttered. “I fell asleep by the toilet.”
“Oh,” was Cat’s answer. She twisted back to her computer, mostly to stare into it and calm her heartbeat down.
“Right, just Peter and Cat actually found the guest rooms.” Hannah laughed again. “Oh, and Craig. Remember how we found him a couple hours later under one of the guest beds? The one that’s Paris-themed?” The girls laughed.
Cat just stared at her essay, hand resting on her mouse as she scrolled to the bottom of it.
“That was a fun party,” Kelsey said, though her voice started to fade to the background. If Hannah and Cameron were together that night, that left exactly one person left that Cat could have been with. Cat pulled out her phone, struggling to make it look like she was looking at the time, and clicked on her conversation history with Hannah to try and scroll all the way back to last semester, when she asked her about what happened after she blacked out. It took her a while, but she found the conversation:
Cat: Hannah, at your first party of the year when I blacked out, I didn’t actually punch Peter, did I?
Hannah: lol!! no. Why? He tryin to sue?
Cat: Did I try to kiss him?
Hannah: try? lol girl u guys made out for like 5min. everyone kind of went to bed after that bc it was too hard to separate u. but it was so hot im sad u dont remember.
For fuck’s sake, Cat thought to herself. Then, the Halloween party, that time at the tutoring center, and the other night in Peter’s room--
“Time for ceramics,” Cat said through a sigh. She shut her laptop and grabbed her bag, her phone slipping inside as she rose from her chair.
“Aw, set an alarm,” Hannah said, waving.
Kelsey laughed. “Yeah, don’t forget to eat before work.” Cat smiled at them, genuine in the small giggle that escaped her lips.
“Thanks, Moms. See you later.”
Kelsey and Hannah were so loving. She almost felt bad for lying to them just now.
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Cat got out of the elevator, her phone in hand, and finally clicked on the text conversation between her and Peter. Oh yeah, she failed math, she remembered when she saw their past conversation. But she’d worry about that later.
Can you meet right now? she texted him. Maybe it was presumptuous to assume he’d be able to, but--
Busy, group meeting. Oh. She hesitated, looking up from her phone for a second. Group meeting, hm? That didn’t sound right. She distinctly remembered the guys having an increased water polo schedule that made them eat like hoover vacuums, usually around this time. To check, she sent Cam a text: You have water polo today?
He was prompt in his reply: Yeah, just finished. Hungry? Peter was such a liar. Cat sank into a plush chair by the west entrance, chewing on her lower lip as she looked out to the hill that descended to the athletics complex. If she didn’t answer, Cam would assume she was at the cafeteria...and Peter, if he was lying like she thought he was, would decline a lunch invite and go back to the dorms.
All of this was a stretch, really. But the camel’s back was broken: there were too many intersections from the past year. Even when she thought Peter and Pumpkin were separate, her stomach fluttered. But now that she knew they were one and the same, her chest hurt with regret. So much confusion, so much anger, from never seeing the full picture. Guilt, from thinking she couldn’t make up her mind between someone she’d never seen before but made her heart soar and someone she saw constantly that made her stomach lurch and skin burn whenever he was around.
Thanks to the tinting of the glass entrance doors to the west, Cat saw him before he approached the door. Peter wasn’t wearing workout clothes like normal, though. Instead of his normal sleeveless shirt and gym shorts, he wore a light blue button-up and black slacks. Maybe he actually did have a group meeting. It was about the time in the school year for project presentations.... Whoops. Now the nerves kicked her heartbeat into high gear. Maybe if she ducked out really quick--too late.
Peter pulled open the doors and stepped through, but only got a few steps before he noticed her sitting in the chair. He hesitated, adjusting the straps of his backpack as he slowed.
He hesitated as she stood up, but he found his words before she did: “I’m meeting some people in the other lobby in a minute….” Well, maybe this wouldn’t take very long. Depending on his answers.
Cat wrung her hands together, watching his worried gaze examine her features.
“Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth about Hannah’s party?” she asked. A small crease formed between Peter’s brows.
“What do you mean?” But she could see his breath catch in his throat. He knew what she was saying. She grit her teeth, more out of nerves than any irritation. Though, it was a little irritating he wasn’t being straight with her. At all. This whole time.
“All you said was that I kissed you.” Now his lips pursed, and he stopped looking at her, instead choosing to look at the ground. “You didn’t tell me about anything after.” Peter sighed and reached into his pocket to pull out his phone, his dimples dragging down his frown.
“Is that really what you want to talk about right now?” He had an edge to his voice, but typed a message in his phone and put it back in his pocket. Despite his attempt to keep his expression smooth, she could see the gears ticking behind his eyes. He gestured to the chair she rose from, then made his way to the one beside it, separated by an end table with a table tent card for a few different clubs. He slipped his bag off his shoulders and onto the floor, and plopped into the chair, like a teenager waiting to receive a lecture. The way he looked at her, leaning on his knees, waiting for what looked to be bad news. Suddenly, Cat’s lungs were full of lead.
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly as she returned to the chair across from him. “After the hot tub. Hannah said everyone went to bed.” She sat on the edge of the cushion and forced herself to look him in the eyes, but he already started to retreat, his gaze unable to hold up to scrutiny. “Everyone went to bed but us. We went upstairs.” And from what she did remember, it was probably the best journey up a set of stairs she ever had. This whole time, she thought it was a dream…. The heat, the urgency of his touch, his lips. Even now, it made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“We didn’t--” But Peter’s voice died out before he could finish what he tried to say.
“I remember,” she said. “I thought I dreamt it. But I remember….” A warm flush washed over her cheeks, and she mirrored him, looking at the floor. Peter didn’t seem to have any answers for her, just a hesitant breath he kept in his throat. “I thought I dreamt it because Cam didn’t remember it. But I wasn’t with him.” And, in her defense, she’d never heard Peter curse before. But now she could remember his voice clearly, ringing in her ears. “Why didn’t we sleep together?” The question seemed to jolt him a moment.
“What?” was his initial response. “I--”
“I remember fully intending for things to go that way,” Cat said as-matter-of-factly. She tried to let the memory fade, but the tightness in the air remained, forcing her breaths to shallow. His shock steadied her swirling anxiety for just a moment. “Why didn’t we?”
Peter blinked several times. “I--we didn’t--” Another dimpled frown as he looked away. “We didn’t have...protection. Not any that you weren’t allergic to.” Her heart stopped. Really? That was it? Because she was allergic to latex, they just stopped? How-- “We were too drunk anyway, and….” But that seemed to be all he had to say. More memories bubbled to the surface of Cat’s consciousness.
“At the Health Center,” she remembered quietly, “that’s how you knew to ask for nitrile gloves. Because I told you I was allergic to latex.” What kind of guy cared about an allergy that much, that he’d let it get in the way of a drunken encounter like that, and that he’d remember it weeks later? Cat sighed some of the tension out through her breath. Peter kept staring at the floor, hands massaging one another as she watched him. Her chest ached so much, her heart may as well have burst through her rib cage. That feeling in her chest...that pull, that desperation. There it was again.
Cat let out a sigh as she shook her head. Peter wouldn’t look up, just squirmed in his seat with his face contorted in nerves. She leaned forward a little, and draped her hand on his, halting his fidgeting, freezing him on contact. That tug, that invisible rope that tortured her since she came here, was pulling her to him.
“I’ve been looking for you all year,” she realized when his eyes met hers.
His anxiety gave way to confusion, the perfect green flecks dancing as he searched her expression. “I’m right here.” She wanted to laugh; it seemed like the only logical response to the amount of relief flushing through her system that moment. But instead, she let the feeling fuel her to him, closer to feel his breath on her face, his lashes on her cheek, his lips against hers.