Zoey didn’t look up when he walked in.  Sure, she heard him, but he didn’t have to know that.

She tried to look busy, fumbled with the sound on her computer. Her headphones were on but the song had stopped and there was no music, but he didn’t have to know that. 

“Zoe.” She thought about what song she might say she was listening to.

“Zoe!” Louder this time.  She would have heard him, even if there were music. 

“Oh, Eli. Hey.” Without looking up, she pretended to turn the volume down before she removed her headphones. 

He walked past her toward the bed alongside the desk and sprawled out long on the comforter and dug his face into her pillow. She had always liked it this way. She used to think that her dorm room looked best with him in it.  But today, just the thought of his shoes on her bedspread made her cringe.

“So, Zoe.” She knew what he was going to ask her, so she tried to look busy on the computer.  She opened the Internet Explorer and stared at her homepage. Eli rolled over and plumped her pillows up on the wall, facing her.  “What was your deal last night?”

He was staring at her now. She could feel it, but she tried to fight through it, ignore it.  She couldn’t look at him, so she opened her email. Set her hands on the keyboard. “What do you mean?” She tried to say it quick, less like a question, more like a comment. 

“Well, when I called you. You went all lame on me, like you didn’t even want  to talk to me.” She scrolled through her inbox.  The words blurred past the computer screen, illegible.  She wasn’t reading anything. 

“I just wanted to know if Ashley was was with you and if she had said anything about me.” She tried to distance herself, pretend she was watching the conversation from far away, through the glass on the other side of the shut window.

He wasn’t staring at her anymore. She could always feel it when he was.  “She is really beautiful. Don’t you think?” He was picturing her in his head now. She could tell, and it made her stomach drop. She felt hollow and nauseous with him there, daydreaming about another girl on her bed. She wondered if he noticed her weight lift, her stomach fall.  She straightened up her back, tried to sit heavy and hard.

He flipped down and around on the bed, his head on the pillow right next to her chair now.  “So what? Did she ask about me?”

He was too close now.  He would notice if she exhaled too hard. She tried to fall blank and empty.  She repeated apathy over and over in her head.   She closed the lid on the computer and finally turned to face him.

“Or was my little Zoey a little too drunk for a long conversation last night?” He reached out to half cochie-coo her cheek just like he always did.  She hated to love it, his attention. Attention that overflowed when they were alone together.  He was her best friend.   

She smiled when he touched her face. His shoes were on her other pillow now, and she didn’t even care.  She was in love with him, but he didn’t have to know that.