Crashing Into You Read Online Free PDF Page A

up
from my desk. It's faster.” She grabbed the bottom piece of the ladder and
handed it to me. She took the smaller part, and held it above her. “I don’t think
these will fit in our trash can.” She laughed, again, and waved me to the door.
“Come on.”
    We walked down the hallway,
toward the big trash can near the vending machine. The students with their
doors open glanced at us in bewilderment, like we were heading to the roof to
battle. We tossed the ladder remnants in the trash, and I closed the top.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    “Thanks? I broke the thing.
Thank you .”
    We walked back toward our
room. “It’s kind of cyclical, isn’t it?” Melanie said, after a few seconds of
silence.
    “What is?”
    “Remember when my chair broke
that first week freshman year? The one my dad built from scratch from IKEA?”
    “Oh my God, that's right,” I
said, and let out a loud chuckle. “I haven't thought about that in forever. Your
dad was so ticked off.”
    “Remember when we spent that
first Friday night trying to put it back together?”
    “And then we just—”
    “Threw it in the trash!”
Melanie said, finishing my sentence.
    “That’s right! Then the next
morning we went to that garage sale that had a chair for, like, ten bucks. And
your dad…” I couldn’t finish, I was laughing so hard. It had been almost a year
and a half, but I could still see the expression on her dad's face when he
walked in the dorm.
    “I know,” Melanie said. “He
walks in, and he’s so impressed we put the chair back together. I’m like, Dad,
the chair you built was black. This one’s red.”
    “He thought we painted it!”
    We stumbled into the room,
both of us laughing, and wiping tears from our eyes. Melanie and I hadn't
shared a laugh like that in a long time.
    She let out a nostalgic sigh,
and leaned up against her dresser. “But it’s all come full circle, you know? We
began by breaking a chair, we ended by breaking a ladder. I’ll miss you next
year, Sydney.”
    “I’ll miss you, too.” I bit
down on my bottom lip. I didn't want Melanie's kindness to end, but I knew I
had to ask her. “So... you’re not mad at me?”
    “Mad at you? About what?”
    “You know. Evan hugging me.”
    She smiled, dipped her head a
little. Melanie was so beautiful, but not in an annoying way. Her skin was super
tan, with a distinct little mole on the upper part of her left cheek. Her blonde
hair was long and straight and came down past her shoulders. She had on the
smallest trace of eyeliner, but unlike most of the sorority girls at LMU, Melanie
didn’t wear a lot of make-up; she didn’t need to.
    “No, not at all,” she said,
after a moment’s hesitation. “It looked a little weird from a distance, I'm not
gonna lie, but Evan said he was just trying to make you feel better. He said
you blew up at the class, about that car accident you were in senior year?
Sydney, you told me about the accident, and that your boyfriend died, but you
never told me a little boy and his mom were killed that night, too. That's so fucking sad . How come you hid that from me?”
    I leaned against the bunk
beds, crossed my right foot over my left. “It's not that I hid it. It's just...
it was horrible, Melanie. The worst experience of my life.”
    “I can't even imagine,” she
said.  
    “And despite what happened in
class today,” I continued, “I really don’t like talking about it. Even though
it’s been more than two years, it’s still way too fresh in my mind.”
    “That makes sense. Again, I'm
really sorry.” She took a deep breath, and attempted a lame smile. “You wanna
change the subject?”
    I nodded, and said, “Please,
let's.”
    She sat down in her chair,
and bumped her legs together. “I can't believe we're living together for just
one more week.”
    “I know! I can't believe it,
either.”
    “When are you moving out
again?”
    “I have an 8 AM final next Friday
morning. Gender Communications, it sucks. Lukas