Saving Ben by Ashley H. Farley

friends.”
    “If you say so.” I turned left and headed toward the library, calling to him over my shoulder, “Just don’t come whining to me when Maddie won’t speak to you and Emma breaks your heart.”
    There wasn’t much point of me staying in the library without my backpack, but I ran into some friends who invited me to go with them to Starbucks. Which gave me a chance to calm down a little before I had to face Emma. When I returned to our room, I found her prancing around in the black sequined dress my mother bought for me at the river.
    “Please don’t be mad, Katherine. I know you think I’m using Ben, but he and I are just friends. He knows how much I want to go to this party.”
    I couldn’t help but smile. She was so predictable. “I should’ve known. This is all about the dress, isn’t it?”
    “Well . . .” She chewed on her lower lip. “The dress would look better on me if I didn’t have to hide my face behind some disgusting mask.”
    “Who says you have to wear an ugly mask? You’re creative. Can’t you come up with something that hides your face in an alluring way?”
    “That’s it!” She snapped her fingers. “You’re a genius, Katherine. I’ll go as Batgirl. Your knee-high black boots would be perfect with fishnet tights. That is if you’ll let me borrow them.” She danced around the room on her toes in excitement. “Surely I can find a Batgirl mask online.”
    I rummaged through one of my drawers until I found my jewelry case. “What’re you looking for?” Emma asked, peering over my shoulder into my pouch.
    “Earrings. I have a pair that’d be perfect with your costume.”
    “Ooh, those are pretty,” she said, pointing at my diamond studs. “Are they real?”
    I nodded. “They belonged to my grandmother.”
    “Why don’t you ever wear them?”
    “They’re not exactly the kind of jewelry you wear to biology class. Here.” I pulled an earring out of my satchel, a silver medallion on a chain with a black Batman emblem etched in it.
    “Are you kidding me? You just happened to have a pair of Batman earrings lying around?”
    “I bought them for a costume party a few years ago.” I located the mate and handed it to her.
    “Thank you, Katherine.” She held the earrings up to her ears, admiring herself in the mirror for a minute before setting them down on top of her dresser. “On another subject, Phoebe and Carla asked me today if you and I would be interested in sharing a suite with them next year.”
    Emma was a master at changing the subject and she’d picked just the right one to get my attention. So with only two weeks left before early applications were due to the housing department—ignoring the nagging concern in my gut and reminding myself that we were compatible as roommates—I committed to living with Emma for another year.
    The night of the Monster Bash, I made a point of being out of the room when Ben came to pick Emma up, and I pretended to be asleep when she got home, although I peeked at her when she turned her desk lamp on. She was stumbling around, drunk. Her updo was no longer up, and her lips were swollen and red from kissing.
    Friends? Right.
    Made of stretchy fabric with no zipper, the dress presented a challenge to Emma as she struggled to pull it over her head. When she was free of it, she hung it in the closet. Then, she put on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and switched off the desk lamp.
    She nudged me. “Katherine, are you awake? You missed a great party.” When I faked being asleep, she whispered, “Too bad for your poor brother. He has no idea what just hit him.”

Seven
    After weeks of begging, I finally convinced Abigail to spend some time with me at UVA. It didn’t bother me any that her visit was scheduled at the last minute and had more to do with her parents needing a place to park their troubled daughter for the night while they attended a friend’s fiftieth birthday party in Lexington. She arrived just