1
Taya
It’s the fighting that wakes me.
“You didn’t text me at all, Bevan!”
Callum is shouting from somewhere in the kitchen, which just so happens to be located right beneath my bedroom in the floor plan of our college house.
“I was in the fucking library, you moron! Why the hell would I have been out on a Tuesday night? I’m not you and your buddies!”
Bevan’s voice floats up through the floor, and I wince at how angry my best friend sounds. She and her boyfriend, two of the other people who live in this house, fight often. But a knock-down-drag-out before we’ve all had our morning coffee? That’s not typical. This will lead to another breakup for sure, which will suck for the other housemates who have to endure the petty awkwardness.
“Then why were you avoiding me all night?” Her boyfriend, who she and I have known since freshman year of high school, cries.
“Maybe because I was studying! Some of us actually do that.”
Shit, Bev sounds tired and furious, and yes, I can tell that even through the hardwood of my bedroom floor.
“They’re at it again.” Amelie, the other third of our trio of best friends, comes into my room without knocking and flops down on my bed.
Taya, Amelie, and Bevan. Best friends. Sisters minus the blood, although we’d once tried this Wiccan ritual and it had ended in a strange and somber manner. Anyway, we all met in the third grade and have been inseparable ever since.
Growing up in our Upstate New York town had been picturesque, and there wasn’t a math test, homecoming, or football game we haven’t faced together. So, we all decided on the same college. Fast forward to sophomore year, where we are now living in an off-campus house with three guys and us.
One of them being Callum, Bevan’s high school sweetheart and currently very pissed off boyfriend. The two of them are toxic as hell and love each other to the moon and back. Amelie and I are used to it, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying being woken up on hump day to a prelude to makeup sex.
“God, do you think we’ll have to hear them screwing again?” I throw a pillow over my ears, but it doesn’t dull the roar from the kitchen.
Am shrugs where she lies a few inches from me. “I’m not sure what’s worse, the fighting or the fucking. Should we take a poll of the street? Because I swear, everyone outside these windows can hear them, too.”
Prospect Street is the most desired road to live on if you’re a college student at Talcott University, and we just happened to snatch up one of the best houses. It has six bedrooms, a kitchen that was updated after two thousand seventeen, three bathrooms so the girls don’t have to share the one the two the boys decimate on a regular basis, and a basement fully worthy of parties. Six Prospect Street, our not so humble abode, also has the best backyard on the street since the owner put in a hot tub and is located closest to the bars we’ll frequent when we turn twenty-one. Or when we can get decent fake IDs, whichever comes first.
There’s no doubt, it’s chaotic living with five other people, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. We’re a family, even if it’s a dysfunctional one, and my college years, all one and a half of them, thus far, have been incredible because of it.
“Did you see Gannon off last night? Sorry, I was so tired.” I stroke Am’s white-blond hair as she lies in my lap.
“Yeah.” Just one word and I can tell she’s heartbroken to the depths of her soul.
Amelie may be my and Bevan’s best friend, but she has a fourth in her book. A person who might be even slightly closer to her heart than the two of us, considering she’s head over heels in love with him. Not that Gannon, our third male housemate, has a clue.
Case in point? He’s just been chosen to compete on a reality TV dating show for college students, and he couldn’t pack for Los Angeles fast enough. Amelie, the giving, caring, petite, curvy one of the three of us, is devastated. I don’t know how long it will take for her to recover, but I hope this is the kick in the ass she needs.
I would never be mean about it, but I’ve seen Am pine for Gannon for years. And all he’s done is brought other women around her and treated her like a kid sister. It’s heartbreaking to watch, and I want my friend to be happy. I want her to fall in love with someone who truly appreciates her.
“Well, good. You and I can go out and celebrate our single life tonight. And revel in the fact that we’re both not down there, screaming at someone we claim to love.” I giggle, and Amelie high fives me.
We might be making fun of Bevan, but it’s all in good fun. The three of us don’t hide barbs, jokes, or opinions from the others. Ours is the purest of friendships; we give the bad just as great as we take the good.
A lot of people probably judge the three of us for attending the same college. They accuse us of not growing, of not branching out to make new friends or experience the world. I know this because people have literally come up to me on the street in our hometown and sarcastically joked about the three of us being inseparable, to a fault.
It doesn’t bother me much.
My two best friends and I have our reasons, and we don’t need to explain them. Maybe the biggest underlying one is that we just love each other too much and don’t want to be apart. Is that such a crime? There is no such thing that says you can’t move out of your comfort zone, try new things and grow while doing it beside people you love.
There’s Amelie, the nurturing sprite who wants to be a children’s librarian, and that should tell you everything you need to know about her. Then Bevan, the spitfire who’s as athletic as she is whip-smart. Bevan is an overachiever who is also good at every single thing she picks up. Well, I guess, except for her relationship.
And finally, me. The middle man, the glue. The laid-back one who could also throw insults if anyone did my friends wrong. I’m bendable; I fit between their strong wills and saccharine-sweet kindness. Where Amelie is the fairy princess and Bevan is all attitude in black, I’m the preppy, average-American kind of girl. My eyes are big and hazel, my hair a shade past chestnut, and while I keep myself in shape, I don’t have the luscious curves or enviable muscles of my two friends.
I’m fine with all of that. I’m more than happy on a good day.
Well, except when I’m woken up by a screaming couple.
“We better go break that up,” I grumble, rising out of bed.
Besides Callum and Gannon, who departed the house last night, our other male roommate is Scott. Who, honestly, is probably out sleeping in someone else’s bed. Aside from Scott, the other five of us went to high school together. And while I like Scott as a friend, he makes horrible decisions in his dating life. Mostly, he just sleeps with way too many people and it gets him into sticky situations. Last year, a girl egged our house and dumped baby powder all over his car through the sun roof when he kissed her friend at a party.
Amelie and I make our way downstairs, sans bras or brushing our teeth, because who cares if Callum and Scott see us like this. Not only are they not interested, but no way in hell am I walking around my own house in a bra twenty-four seven.
“Ding ding, time to take a timeout.” I take Bevan by the shoulders, and she tries to shrug me off.