Insidious.

"What happened today?" Harlow asks, sitting down next to me in the living room.

I look straight ahead, and lean back on my palms. I do my best to shrug my shoulders. "I don't know. Who told you?"

From the corner of my eye I can see her playing with the hem of her old floral print dress. The one we found at the thrift store a few weeks ago. I told her it looked great on her.

"Nobody told me anything, Zachary. I saw you and Seth at Rachel's house a while ago," she said.

I turned to look at her with furrowed brows. She could read my expression almost instantly. "No no no no no no, Zach. I wasn't following you," she explained. "I was just... you know, I couldn't sleep and I was walking around. I saw you leaving Rachel's house and you looked like you had been crying. Then I saw you arguing with Seth."

"It's... there is a lot to it, Harlow. I really can't explain everything right now because I don't have the energy."

"But you have the energy to tell Tommy's voice mail?" She asked, irritation overpowering her will to stay nice.

Harlow was always so nice. She always is so nice. I don't know what she did to deserve a guy like me. I just don't know what she did wrong.

"How do you know about Tommy's voice mail?"

Harlow's eyes wander towards the staircase and I know she means Angela.

"She told you? She heard me?" I ask.

I'm looking at her now, and she looks sad. Sad and scared.. She looks the way Rachel did right after I hit her only her face isn't all red on one side. And she isn't looking at me as if I'd done the ultimate wrong.

She only looks sad because I'm so pathetic and I've let things got his far.

Harlow nods and moves closer to me. Her hands are on my knees and I'm not sure if she wants me to say anything.

Finally she asks me.

"Why didn't you just talk to me?" She asks. "About Rachel. Why couldn't you just talk to me?"

I ignore her question, tuck some of her naturally curly hair behind her ear. "Did Angela tell you everything?" I ask. "Did she tell you everything I told Tommy's voice mail?"

Harlow shakes her head.

"That's why I didn't talk to you."

Harlow begins to hug herself like shes cold. The room feels awkward, like we're two little kids who've kissed for the first time and don't know what to do afterward.

"It's not that, Zachary," she whispers. Her voice is almost too soft to hear. I wonder if she really wants me to know what she's saying.

"What is it then?"

She looks at me, and her eyes are still just as sad as they were before, if they're not sadder. All I want to do is hug her, but I can't bring myself to do it without feeling like a hypocrite. I sit there instead and let her stare at me for a while.

"Just tell me, Zach," she says, then moves closer.

Her face is only a few inches, if that, away from mine. I feel like kissing her and forgetting about everything else because when it comes down to it, Harlow lets me do that. Her face inches closer and her eyes are fluttering open and then closed, and then open and closed. Her lips brush against mine for only a few seconds and then she is moving away and placing her palm against my cheek.

Her hand is warm; warmer than I remember it to be.

"Tell me, Zach," she whispers.

And she looks like she really wants to know. And she looks like she really won't be all that mad about it because she knows me. She knows me, and she knows I'm really not that guy. Not really. Not anymore.