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Things got worse at the end of the month when the last blizzard of the season lasted three days and kept us all cooped up in the dorm. It started on a Thursday night before the snow even started. Frank and I were in the Common Room, on a couch, and under a blanket together, watching a movie in our PJs. We were laughing about something stupid when I saw Adam and Sally walk by, on their way out. They both stopped at the door and looked in. I waved to invite them to join us.
“I want to drive Sally home before the storm gets bad,” Adam said after a few awkward minutes of silence.
“What was that about?” Frank asked after the two left.
I could only shrug since I had no idea that they even knew each other that well.
“Maybe they’re hooking up?” I said.
I watched as a flash of anger passed over his face.
“Doesn’t Adam have a girlfriend?”
“The last time I checked they were on the verge of breaking up.”
Adam was alone when I found him at breakfast the next morning. The snow had started, and classes had been canceled, but it wasn't bad enough to keep us from moving around campus.
“Can I eat with you?” I asked.
Adam shrugged, so I sat down. I was tired of him avoiding me.
"I know you're mad that I won't press charges," I said, not wanting to dance around the issue anymore.
“I get it, believe me. Pressing charges doesn’t mean anything will happen in your favor and, most likely puts you under the spotlight too, especially if Eric still doesn’t know that it wasn’t you making out with him on Halloween.”
“Why wouldn’t he know that?”
“Did you seriously not listen to what he said in his apology? He specifically mentioned something that happened on Halloween. What happened? You were with me all night. I wasn’t drunk enough to forget singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” with you.”
“I remember that too.”
"So, what did he mean?"
I didn't have an answer, but I remembered Jenna mentioning that he had said my name while they were making out, which is why she had been so upset. Maybe she was right about him not realizing those had been her lips, not mine.
"That's not really the point of what I'm saying," He continued. "I understand that pressing charges could hurt you more than help you. He could walk away unscathed, and you could have your reputation ruined. I'm not angry with you about that."
“But you are angry with me.”
“Why would I be angry with you?”
“I don’t know, but you’re avoiding me.”
“I have a life, Amelia, with other friends.”
“Sally? What did Frank do to either of you?”
“Are you dating him?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“Well, I want to make sure I don’t have to pull him off you when I hear a struggle.”
It was like a slap in the face. Adam was not that crass. He didn’t say anything else, he just stared me down as if daring me to respond. I turned around to see Frank taking his tray to the cleaning area. I walked over to him and made sure Adam saw us leaving together.
I spent the rest of the day in bed, video chatting with Gwen. She and Steve were stuck at their apartment, but they were working on his campaign stuff. She was sympathetic to what was going on but didn't disagree with Adam. I wanted someone to tell me I wasn't entirely off base with my friends. When Jenna came back to the room, thankfully with something for dinner, I practically pounced on her, rehashing the right with Adam as rapidly as I could. She was busy dusting off the remaining snow, taking off her coat and accessories, and catching her breath while I ranted.
“Slow down and breathe!” She said once I was done.
“Can you believe it? Is Adam ever been my friend anymore?”
"You aren't being fair. Adam and Mel broke up a few weeks ago, and he's dealing with his own shit."
I wasn’t surprised that it had ended. All signs had pointed to this eventually happening.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I said, suddenly upset enough to cry.
“Why didn’t you ask him?”
He's been avoiding me! He's barely around, and when I find him, he's rushing off somewhere."
“Did you text him or leave him a note?”
“No,” I said in a whisper, suddenly feeling deflated.
"I'm not going to say he hasn't been avoiding you, because I've called him out on that too. I want it to be clear that you're avoiding him too, and you both have the same excuse of being too busy."
“He hasn’t made an effort either.”
“He’s not, you know, the one complaining to me about it right now.”
I let out a sigh and fell back on my bed, wanting to pout. Instead, I wiped away the tears beginning to fill my eyes.
“It’s easier to hang out with Frank, who is always interested in being with me.”
“I get that you’re into him, but where’s that going? You’ve known him for like a month and haven’t hooked up yet.”
“Did Bobby tell you something I don’t know?”
“I haven’t seen much of him,” Jenna said, shrugging. “I’m not that into him, so I don’t want to lead him on.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Well, I’ve been hanging out with Adam. I’m trying to, like, not be the rebound.”
“What?” I said, sitting up again.
"I think there's something between us. I would totally hook up with him, but I think I want more and Adam's not ready."
“I thought there was something between him and Sally? I literally saw her go to his room with him last night.”
Jenna looked at me, confused, and shrugged.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” she said before grabbing her things for a shower. “I mean, he and I spent Valentine’s Day together.”
I cried a little after she left. I had made a colossal mess, and it was just getting bigger and bigger. I wanted to get out and do something to get away from the growing problems. Obviously, cabin fever was setting in, and the storm had only begun.
Saturday morning, the second day of the storm, was when things really blew up. I admit I was looking for a fight. Jenna's accusations that I was allowing Adam to avoid me had kept me up later than I expected. I kept turning it over in my head and replaying what I wanted my response to be. I realized before I fell asleep, that this whole Adam situation had been bothering me for a while. I woke up feeling clearer than I had all month. I decided it was time for a confrontation. When he didn't answer his door, I planted myself in the Common Room with my computer and books and picked a spot that would allow me to see anyone who walked past to the elevator or stairs. He wasn't going to get away from me, and I didn't care if the whole floor, or even the entire dorm, heard our fight. I sat there for hours waiting for him, and he finally emerged from his room at about lunchtime.
“Jenna said you’re waiting for me here,” Adam said coming into the hall and standing over me.
I hadn’t told Jenna what I was doing. Maybe she was more perceptive than I was giving her credit for.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you broke up with Mel?”
“I didn’t think you cared since you seemed to hate her.”
“I didn’t hate her, but it’s hard to like someone who doesn’t like you.”
"Yeah, well, now, you know."
“Why won’t you talk to me anymore? What did I do and don’t tell me about the things I’ve done to everyone else. That has nothing to do with you and me.”
Neither of us moved, him standing in the doorway and me sitting on a couch. He crossed his arms across his chest and took a deep breath and launched into the tirade that he must have been holding on to for months.
"You're selfish and self-absorbed. Everything you do is to make yourself look good. You don't pay attention to what other people want or need, you plow through with your vision of what is good, and you do it all so you can pat yourself on the back and let others know how great you are. You're even doing it with your own suffering. You aren't worried about the typical repercussions, but about how it will make you look like you failed. You flirt with men and have no idea what impact that has. You did it with Eric for years, and now you're doing it with Frank. You push your friends around as if they were pieces on a game board. I'm tired of being used when it suits you. You need a place to live, Adam will help. You need someone to make you feel safe, Adam will help. What about what I need?"
“What do you need?” I asked, practically yelling and feeling the tears beginning to fill my eyes.
“Nothing from you,” Adam said before turning around and walking away.
I held back the tears as I packed all my stuff and went back to my room. Jenna was there, reading in bed, but she didn’t say anything as I dropped everything and fell into my bed, crying. I tried to put it all together, hoping that I could pinpoint the moment when I ignored Adam and something he needed. Nothing came to me because he never asked me for anything and, until this year, I couldn’t find anything I needed from him.
He was the only friend I had left from high school, most of them have gone to different schools and faded away. Those people had been my friends because they had grown up with me and had always been there. Maybe our parents had been friends, or we had classes together. Most had been like my friendship with Sally, which wasn't a friendship. We both needed something from each other, and that was the limit to when we saw each other. True friends are the people who outlasted those relationships. Adam was the friend I chose because we got along so well. I thought we had always been taking care of each other. I wasn't one to hang on to people for the sake of hanging on. Maybe that was selfish, but it didn't benefit anyone. Had I been wrong about my relationship with Adam? Was he shedding a friendship that no longer made sense for him?
Jenna never asked me about the fight, but she clearly knew what had happened. I assumed Adam told her everything. In my funk and self-reflection during that weekend, I worried she might be someone I was only friends with because of proximity. Would I have chosen her as a friend if we hadn’t been roommates? She was kinder to me than I deserved while I stayed in bed, bringing me food and not demanding I talk. If there hadn’t been feet of snow all over town, I probably would have avoided all of this by surrounding myself with people, but I was forced into near isolation.
I woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of plows driving through campus to clear the snow away. I got out of bed and walked to the cafeteria for breakfast alone, not sure who still liked me. Frank caught up with me on the walk. Even he knew what had happened the day before. He took my hand and walked to breakfast with me.
“Why do you hang out with me?” I asked him as we walked.
“You were the first person who was nice to me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah!” he said, laughing.
“Are we just friends?” I asked, stopping and letting go of his hands.
“As opposed to?”
“I’m not trying to be your friend.”
We stood there, looking at each other.
“I’m not looking for a romantic relationship,” Frank said after a few moments.
“But we work!”
I wanted to stomp my feet and demand he agrees with me.
“Look, I don’t want this to become a situation where you’re my friend because you’re waiting for me to realize I like you,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes and took a deep breath, angry at being accused of doing precisely what Eric had done.
“That’s something only men really do, you know that,” I said.
"What I mean is that I like being your friend, but I don't have those feelings for you. If that means we can't be friends, then that sucks. I don't want a relationship only because it works. I want to fall in love with someone."
I pouted instead of responding.
“If that’s going to be a problem,” Frank said, “Then I can walk away and leave you alone. Tell me now because there’s no sense in being friends if that’s not what you need, but I think you need a friend; especially right now.”
“I need to think,” I said, feeling nauseated.
I turned around and went back to the dorm alone, not hungry anymore.