I Know What Sin Is

Chapter 36

"Oh my god, that- aaagh!"

I lay in Rhoda's dorm bed as she paced back and forth, staring at the neon purple clouds that hung from her ceiling. She'd strung some white stuffing up there to create the effect, and threaded LED's all throughout. The punk posters had gone MIA, replaced with a Just Vibes sign and vines of ivy trickling down one wall.

"What happened?" I asked. She'd been pacing for the last ten minutes.

"That stupid blonde! She's going to ruin everything!" Rhoda groaned. She threw her phone down on the bed so hard it bounced. "Look. See for yourself."

The stupid blonde in question turned out to be Amy. I angled Rhoda's phone so I could view the Instagram post on her screen. PARTY ON THE 31st. The bold text was written across a graphic background. BYOB. BYOW.

Amy had just shy of three thousand followers. Me included. Though I wondered if that number had anything to do with the multitude of bikini shots filling her page.

"Okay," I said. "So Amy's having a Halloween party. Doesn't mean we can't still have ours."

"No shit, but now everyone that was even considering coming here will be at her fancy-ass mansion all night! Have you seen that place? Look at the patio!"

I looked at a picture of Amy smiling and holding a glass of red wine in an Adirondack chair. I resisted the urge to pull out my own phone and like her latest post, just as a reminder that hey, I exist, if you ever wanna follow me back.

Rhoda let out a sigh and dropped onto the bed next to me, snatching her phone away and consequently, my view of Amy. "Shit..." she murmured, her raspy voice little more than a whisper. "Maybe it would be easier just to cancel. Save myself the embarrassment when no one shows."

"Hey," I said softly. "Don't give up. You've been really wanting this." I gazed at her, the way her dark brows furrowed and her brown eyes seemed empty inside. "Maybe I can figure something out with Amy."

Rhoda turned her head to the side. "What do you mean? You know her?"

I swallowed hard. "Sort of."

This time she turned her entire body to face me. "Ben," she said. "What the hell? I thought you, like, had no friends. No offense."

"My old best friend is roommates with her best friend," I explained quickly, leaving out my particularly intimate knowledge of Amy. "I've met her a couple times."

"Huh." Rhoda nodded slowly and drew a cigarette from the pack she kept on her at all times. "How are things with her? Your friend." Her words were gentle, genuine. Not many people showed interest in my life, beyond just courteous small talk.

Sarah was probably still the person who knew me best. There was a lot she didn't know, now more than ever, but the sheer amount of time we'd been in each other's lives put her ahead of everyone else. It was hard for me to open up to new people.

I wanted to confide in Rhoda, though. Confide in someone. I was sick of keeping everything bottled up all the time.

"Not great," I said slowly. "I messed up. Bad. That night we went to the bar, somehow, I ended up in a picture with one of Amy's friends. They're all in some weird sex cult or something. Anyway, Sarah found out. She doesn't want me around girls like that."

Rhoda made a face. "Girls like that? What is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know." I shook my head and palmed my forehead. "She's just... protective."

Rhoda let out a small laugh and smoothed her wavy hair. "She's not your girlfriend, is she?"

"No." Why did I hesitate? Sometimes, Sarah did seem like a girlfriend. Minus the kissing and sex and all that.