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him to quit making all these careless, cynical
comments—that she would appreciate it if he could stop doubting her and
Scott. That maybe if at least one other person believed she and Scott would end
up with each other, then maybe they actually would. She wants to tell him that
he should at least try to be supportive, because he is her only friend and she
needs him to start acting the part. She wants to tell him that her feelings for
Scott will not be going away any time soon, no matter what he says, no matter
what anyone says. “I’m trying to meet him halfway,” she tells him instead.
    Zac
shakes his head. “You can’t meet him halfway if he doesn’t.”
     

Chapter
7

 
     
    On commencement day, right
before the booming announcement instructing all graduating students to gather
by block and line up outside the school gym where their parents and siblings
and professors were waiting, Summer discovers Scott has been seeing Roxanne for
months. It is Meg who breaks the news, in a voice much smaller and sadder than
her trademark effervescent shrieking, her shoulders slumped and her mouth a
thin scarlet line. “They went home together that night you watched his show in
Liberty at the end of freshman year,” she says. “They’d both had way too much
to drink, and, well… you know.”
    No, Summer wants to scream. I don’t know,
and I hate you for assuming I do. She tries to think back
to the morning after that gig, tries to picture Roxanne sleeping soundly in her
own bed, or stumbling sheepishly into the room at the crack of dawn. She can’t
remember witnessing either, can’t remember anything else from that morning
other than the optimistic elation she felt despite her throbbing hangover, the
curiosity over whether or not Scott would be able to contact her. She tries to
think back to the things Roxanne had said as they packed their stuff for
storage and cleared out their desks and closets for the summer, but her mind
draws no pertinent information—all she remembers is Roxanne asking her if
she had a spare balikbayan box
and some packaging tape, complaining about the dorm’s policy on students
vacating their rooms completely during April and May, when repairs and
renovations were made.
    Meg
continues, “Nothing happened after that night—I think she flew to Los
Angeles to visit her cousins a week later and didn’t come back until June, and
by then he had moved on and forgotten all about their drunken hookup. They
reconnected at the beginning of senior year, when Roxanne broke up with that law
student Gary. I think they had to organize a fundraising party together or
something.” This, Summer remembers: the party was for a marketing elective she
decided not to enroll in, opting for a basic Spanish class instead. During
those months, she would regularly ask how the party planning was coming along,
and Roxanne would gladly launch into a tirade about how Scott was such a
typical boy, lazy and irresponsible and unwilling to lift a finger as long as
he knew there was a girl around to do all the work. Scott, in turn, would call
Roxanne bossy and annoying; he would often roll his eyes and tell Summer, “Man,
that roommate of yours is something else, isn’t she?”
    The
memories come flooding back, tiny hints she must have missed out on, or
deliberately chose to ignore: how her fights with Scott escalated at around the
start of senior year, even after a relatively smooth summer; how Roxanne, who
was always prepared to brag about her most recent conquests and their dazzling
smiles and shiny cars and wealthy families, suddenly turned mysterious and
secretive. How she saw Roxanne’s name flashing on the screen of Scott’s phone
one evening while they sat entwined on his couch, and how he jumped out of her
arms and rushed to the kitchen to take the call. How Roxanne and Scott once
spent an entire Saturday together; how their “meetings” would run late into the
night and he would have to cancel on Summer, saying he