Ryder

thirty five

"I hate this, Alice," Nico grumbled beside me, hunching over to preserve body heat as he glared over at the newly kindling bonfire in the middle of the campus courtyard.

It was a pretty big pit, flames crackling and lighting up the dark night. Everyone was slowly gathering around, bundled up in layers and layers of clothing to ward off the cold night, and a few laying down their spare blankets on the grass to enjoy the night.

"It's just started." I nudged him.

"But I'm already freezing my balls off!" He hissed and directed the archaic-sounding curses at the cold. I stifled a laugh because I'd known, even before we'd come out here to join everyone else for the annual bonfire, that Nico would somehow hate it being out here so late and so cold.

"We haven't even started on the s'mores yet." I reminded him and started taking off my mittens. They were making my hands itch anyway. I held them out to him and Nico snatched them up with a grateful grunt. "You wanna know what this reminds me of?"

Nico busied himself pulling on the gloves and scowled. "What?"

"Last year when this happened, I was reluctant to come out here just like you."

"Fuck off." He spared me a suspicious glance. "I can't imagine you being grumpy about anything, Alice."

"I wasn't being grumpy exactly. I just kept telling Brooke that I wasn't going with her because I had missed classes to catch up on."

"You did miss out on a lot of classes back then."

Because I'd been missing out on a lot of sleep back then too--coming back to the dorm too late at night, shitfaced and wasted. "New place, you know." I shrugged, then wrapped my arms around my pulled-up knees and sighed. "But I ended up going with Brooke after all. She wanted me to. Told me it would be fun, and it was even though the smoke stayed in my sweater for like a whole two months after that."

Nico stared at the crackling fire ahead.

"So you dragged me out here because you don't have a Brooke with you now?" He asked me after a while.

I blinked, startled. "No, that's not what I...I'm sorry. That's not what I meant."

"I know." He rolled his eyes. "But you have to stop reminiscing about good times with Brooke, Alice--stop it because even I can see that it hurts you. She did you dirty, you just have to accept that. You can't move on when you haven't even accepted the straight facts here. Brooke betrayed you and she does deserve your anger."

I stared at him. "I've forgiven her."

"Have you? Because you say you have, but no one in your position would ever do that so soon. I don't even think that's healthy."

There was a loud gaggle of good-natured laughter and a group of girls laid down a huge fluffy blanket near the fire.

"I don't want to hold it against her," I told him quietly, then swallowed because this was true. I wasn't lying this time. "It's very tiring holding grudges against people, Nico."

He made an exasperated noise beside me. "Yeah but if you were in Brooke's place, they'd hold it against you. Anyone would. Even though I know, hell anyone who knows you should know that you'd never do anything like that. You're always on the other end. They use you and you let them."

I grew silent. Then I stared off at the fire just like he'd been doing a few minutes ago.

Lies, lies, lies. All of a sudden, I was thinking of Ryder and how we'd left things off the last time I'd seen him. He can help you if you just show him that note Santiago left you, my conscience tried convincing me. And it could've been just that easy if I wasn't such a coward and hadn't lied to his face.