HIM by Brittney Cohen-Schlesinger Page A

into circles around her eyes.  I dabbed a washcloth in some warm water and handed it to her so she could deal with the mess.
                  “Want to do something to take your mind off of Adam?” I suggested, feeling bad I said his name.
                  “Yeah,” she mumbled, blowing her nose.  “I’d like that.”
    Tory and I went up to her room, which was marginally roomier than mine.  Not like I’d been in there since last year.  In fact I slept in every room but the one I’d been raped in.  I couldn’t even pass it without some sort of spasm or emotionally gut-wrenching thought taking over.  Honestly it was a controversial subject – one that I’d love to talk about someday without flinching or feeling the urge to vomit.  But I didn’t feel that way in Tory’s room.
    It looked as if a pre-adolescent child had inhabited it.  The walls were a pale shade of crimson.  Her comforter set, pillows, rug and lamp were all hot pink.  She had an array of amazing smelling perfumes from the many places she’d traveled growing up: Paris, Rome, India.  Little ballerina figurines and other trinkets filled the space as well.
    It was cute.  It was chic.  It was Tory.
                  Scattered pieces of paper were strewn across her large oak desk – which if I recall took six men to bring upstairs because it was heavier than a full-grown walrus.  Or something like that.
    Beside her desk were four extremely large bookshelves containing every romance novel known to man.  Seriously.  She had everything from Shakespeare to Jane Austen to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nicholas Sparks, Stephenie Meyer and beyond.  At one point I’d been jealous of her.  That is until I acquired the same books she had . . . and then some.  She’d told me once that she’d hit her quota for romance novels.  She had her true love – Adam – and didn’t need to read about something she was already experiencing.
    Again, I felt sorry for her.  This must have been what it was like to be around me for so long.  I wished I could diminish the memories – take them out of her head and destroy them forever – so she wouldn’t have to feel pain anymore.  G-d knows what I went through with him .  She didn’t have to feel the same thing I did.  Well you know, something similar to what I went through.  Although she hadn’t spoken the words I knew what she was trying to cover up: Adam had cheated on her.
    We were sitting on her queen sized plush bed looking through old, ripped notes that felt as brittle as straw and tattered pictures from high school – which might I say felt like eons ago.  We had attended the same school district in New York.
                  There was one picture of us from freshman year:  Tory sitting on my lap while my legs and arms thrashed out around her.  It looked as if Tory had four arms and four legs – like an octopus.  It made me laugh.
                  Looking past what our bodies were doing, I noticed the expressions on our faces, remembering how life seemed to be so simple, so carefree before boyfriends got involved.  It made me realize that being in a relationship all the time wasn’t so important.  Back then we thought a zit was the worst of our problems.  We were overly dramatic.
                  We’re all looking for true love , right?  Well in high school I guessed we all figured we’d find the one .  Even though all these statistics said ninety-seven percent of high school sweethearts married, what I’ve seen is about ninety percent of relationships failed past graduation.
                  Suck on that, statistics.
                  “It’s so funny,” I said glancing at the photos.
                  “What is?” Tory asked looking at a picture of us from junior year at a football game wearing matching jerseys to support our home team.
                  “How we thought