-DEVON’S POV-

I had woken up a little startled from the door, and I saw Amanda walk in looking quite… shocked. I didn’t want to aggravate her about where she was or who she was with… besides, it was none of my business.

I had gotten a glimpse of who was outside though, and it was that girl Samantha. I knew her, she graduated a year ahead of me at the same Highschool. She was weird, or so I heard, people always spread unwanted rumors.

I never clarified if she owned up to all of the things I heard about her, but I wouldn’t want to associate her.

Besides, she was a lesbian.

I thought of Rachel, and I felt a huge depressing wave drown me all of a sudden. When I thought about her… God it hurt like hell.

The last thing she ever told me was she was in love with me… and all I did was back away from her like a disease. The last moment she had with me… was probably one of her most horrible moments in her life. That was something I could never take away, it was something I was going to have to live with for the rest of my life.

I heard Amanda climb into her bed and I peeked over to her, she looked peaceful, but then she didn’t. She had something on her mind… I could see it.

Her eyes… when I heard her name I felt like my heart had been ripped. It had just given me a reality check on life. It wasn’t a small town, but meeting with her and being her roommate… well it was fucked up, I could tell you that.

Her eyes though, she reminded me so much of Rachel. The way she paced around the room when she was thinking, the way she ordered at that café, her song preference…

In a way it was like she was still here with me, but I knew better.

I rolled over, facing the wall and finding myself not being able to find sleep again. Great. It was going to be one of those nights, the ones where I couldn’t close my eyes for more then ten seconds without thinking about something else.

The pain, the depression was all still there in my heart, and it always found me at night.

But when I was with Amanda… it faded. She talked to me just like Rachel used to talk to me, we could talk for hours on end and I barely even knew her. We talked about nothing half the time, just joking around and acting like idiots.

And in a way… I wished it was Rachel, not Amanda. Sometimes I would even have to correct myself when I called her name, accidentally shouting Rachel instead of Amanda.

In a way I also thought Rachel’s death was my fault, if I would’ve been there for her, comforted her and told her it was going to be alright… she might still be here. If would’ve just pulled her into me for a hug, she wouldn’t have gotten into that damn truck with Trenton.

She would still be alive… even though she would be in New York.

I felt tears roll down my face, and I rolled my eyes. Great, now I really wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight.

What would’ve happened if Rachel was still here? Would we still be friends? Would she have continued to call me every night like we had done for four years straight?

Would I have told her I loved her back eventually? I did love Rachel, but I didn’t know if I ever loved her like that… and after two months I still didn’t know. I missed her, and when I got that call from her mom… I felt like my world had shattered into a million pieces.

Did that mean Rachel was my world? That she meant more to me then I had thought?

I felt so stupid when she told me she was in love with me… How did I not see it? I had finally put everything together when she did, the looks she gave me, the things she told me, the things she got for me… it all made sense.

I was so stupid.

If I wasn’t so stupid she would be alive.

But she wasn’t, and she was never coming back.

I really needed to stop doing this at night… it was going to be the death of me.

I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling trying hard to sleep but I couldn’t, then I heard, “Can’t sleep either?”

It startled me, and I almost jumped out of my damn bed, “Jeez Amanda you scared the shit out of me! No… I can’t.”

She rolled to look at me, giving me a sorry look, “Can I tell you something? And you won’t judge or freak out?”

Oh God, these things were never good.

“What?”

She sighed, “That chick Samantha… she kissed me thirty minutes ago. She fucking kissed me Devon!” I found humor in the situation, and I started to laugh. She shot up, looking at me with disbelief, “What the hell’s so funny?”

I shook my head, “I could’ve told you that! She’s a lesbian!”

Amanda threw her hands up, “Well fucking obviously!”

Amanda’s head flew down back onto her pillow, and she sighed heavily, “What you gonna do about it?”

She shook her head, “I don’t know…”

“Are you bisexual?”

She looked at me, long and hard, as if debating internally on an answer, “No. I’m not.”

I shrugged, “Well then, there you go. You’re not interested in girls, therefore you cannot be with her. Problem solved.”

I studied her, she didn’t seem to sure of her answer, but I was glad she wasn’t. It was less I had to worry about at night. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy… she seems… strange.”

I laughed, Didn’t I just think that? “She is strange, I went to school with her two years ago.”

“So what do I do?”

“Avoid her, that’s all you can do.”

Amanda rolled on her back, nodding, “Yea, that’s the best thing I guess…”

I felt my eye lids getting heavy, and I yawned, “Well night, see you in the morning.”

She mumbled a night and all of a sudden I was hurdling through black, into a deep sleep.

***

I woke to the alarm clock and I groaned, Just one more day… then the weekend. I lifted myself out of bed and stumbled to my closet, hearing Amanda doing the same. I pulled out some Nike shorts and a V Neck T shirt… I wasn’t getting fancied up.

I slipped on the clothes and I headed to the bathroom, brushing my teeth.

Then in walked Samantha Summers.

She eyed me, and I was suspicious… Why was she looking at me like that? Like I was doing something wrong? Or something she wasn’t okay with?

I hurried to brush my teeth and I escaped out the bathroom, avoiding Samantha and stumbling in on Amanda’s half naked body.

I laughed, not even realizing I was staring at her chest, “Sorry.”

She shrugged, “It’s cool.”

I finally pulled my eyes away from her full breasts and I scolded myself, Stop looking at her like that! You probably freaked her out!

The way she looked at me the other day though… when I opened her shower door, she looked okay with me seeing her. I mean she was a little timid at first, but she was confident with her body just like I was.

And for that split second she gazed at me from in the shower… it reminded me of that time Rachel had accidentally seen me naked.

It was one of Rachel’s weird things… she would never look at me when I changed. I had never taken any mind to it at first… but now looking back I understood why.

I remember her walking into my bathroom when I was about to get into the shower, and her gaze found my chest, then my eyes. She even stuttered when she spoke, out of nervousness, “Uh S-Sorry…”

Then she was out the bathroom, and it made me smile. She was nervous… just like a guy would’ve been. It was actually cute.

And all of a sudden I wanted to cry… I wanted Rachel back. I would do anything to have her back…

***

We were sitting in the middle of Algebra, Emerson kept glancing up at me and it was making me flustered. He was so cute… but I wasn’t sure if he would be interested in me. College guys… especially guys in Frats, well they usually only had one thing on their mind…

Having a good time.

It wasn’t about relationships and figuring out who you were, focusing on school… it was about screwing every girl you could and getting so drunk you couldn’t remember who it was.

But tonight we were going to our first Frats party, and I knew who Emerson’s target of the night was going to be.

Me.