On an Edge of Glass

and looks at Payton, “What we are trying to figure out is… what happened between you guys?”
    “Am I that obvious?”
    Payton smirks.  “Jesus, girl.  You could put a thirteen year old girl to shame with the amount of angst that you’ve been emitting since we got back from break.  Ben too.”
    I sigh.  “ Everything is so messed up.”
    “ Obviously,” Ainsley chirps.  “Now, tell us the story.”
    So I do.
     
     
    It’s strange after all the time I spent trying to keep my secrets from Payton and Ainsley, to be sitting here on the floor, spilling my guts out in between bites of Chunky Monkey.  That’s right.  Chunky Monkey.  Payton pulled a pint out of the freezer ten minutes into my telling of the Ben Hamilton chronicles.  She claimed that for this level of drama we needed the “big guns.”
    “ So , you’ve barely spoken since that night we all went to The Hill?”  Ainsley asks, licking the spoon.
    I nod. 
    Payton speaks.  “Except for the almost-kiss last weekend.”
    I nod again.  “Right.  Except for the almost-kiss.”
    Payton’s eyelids lower.  “Yeah, the almost-kiss sounds pretty goddamn sexy.  And I’m sorry about that.  If I had known that I was interrupting I would have suffered through my drunkenness in complete silence.”
    The serious look on her face has me chuckling.  “It’s okay Payton.  You had no idea and I know that you would have done the same for me.  Kiss or no kiss.”
    Ainsley takes another bite of ice cream.  She shares a look with Payton.  “And I think we’re both sorry that we called you out for not dating enough in front of Ben.”
    Payton nods.  “We thought if we brought it up and made things awkward, you would come clean.”
    I chuckle.   “Don’t worry about it.” 
    Ains ley inclines her head.  “You know what I didn’t see coming?”
    Payton and I both shake our heads.
    Ainsley’s eyes widen.  “The engagement.  I had no idea.  I t’s kinda like we’re living through an episode of One Life to Live .”
    “I think that show was cancelled,” I say, grabbing the ice cream container from her.
    “Naw…” Payton intones.  “You’re confusing One Life to Live with All My Children .  But whatever.  This is not a conversation about soap operas.  Let’s focus on the fact that, in the not-so-distant past, our roommate, Ben Hamilton, was planning to spend the rest of his life with one person.  He wanted to get freaking married .  How insane is that?  Married sounds like something parents do—not hot-ass young musicians.”
    Married .  I let the word bounce around my head for a bit.  Then, I anchor it down and examine it.
    I’m starting to get why Ben didn’ t tell me that he and Lily were engaged. I don’t like his reasoning, but I’m starting to understand it.  He said that he didn’t tell me about the engagement because he knew that I’d freak out. And, he was absolutely right.  I did freak out.
    I freaked out and I ran away without asking any of the right questions.
    Ainsley looks at me.  “Ellie, you said that you believe Ben was telling the truth and nothing happened that night between him and Lily, right?”
    The memory of stumbling in on them with their hands on each other slays me, but I do think Ben was being honest with me and it never went any further.  I nod my head.  “Yeah.”
    “Then, the real question is: are you mad at Ben because you didn’t know that he wanted to marry someone before he met you, or are you mad because it wasn’t you that he wanted to marry?”
                  I wish that I could say that there are a million possible ways to answer that question honestly.  But really, there’s only one.
                  I throw my head back and sigh loudly.
                  Insecurity is like a net, and I let it catch me.
                               
                               

CHAPTER NINETEEN
    The Roommate Trap
     
     
    “So guess what?” 
                  I glance up.  Mark’s sitting across the table from me grinning wickedly.  I know that grin.  I don’t like that grin. 
                  “What?” I ask warily.  We’re eating lunch at a small deli across the street from Lipton Hall, where we both have our next class. 
                  “Yesterday, while you were on the phone with your mother, going over the insanely boring details of