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room. He dumped the stuff on my bed and turned around.
    “I hate to ask, but do you think you can help me unload my car?”
    “Oh, sure,” I said before my brain could catch up. I wasn’t supposed to be talking to my new roommate. He was a business transaction, nothing more. My brain informed me it was good business to keep the customer happy, so if that meant turning into a pack mule that was what I was going to do. Maggie would be so impressed I actually remembered something from my business class.
    “I can’t believe I got this lucky,” Jade said as he handed a box to me. “I needed a place to stay and out of the blue, Jeff tells me he’d moved out and you guys were in need of a roommate. He’s getting married or some shit.”
    “What?” I gasped. “Married?”
    “Yeah, his girlfriend is knocked up, so they decided to get hitched,” Jade said.
    The world pressed down on my lungs, squeezing the air out and not allowing me to take a breath. I was going to pass out. Jade grabbed the box out of my hands just as I slid down the side of the car.
    “Rylan!” Maggie shouted from the steps of the house. “Rylan?”
    She jumped off the steps and rushed over to me. She knelt in front of me and cupped my face. “Rylan? What’s wrong?”
    I grabbed her wrists and pulled her face against mine. “Did you know about Jeff?”
    “Shit,” she said and pulled me to my feet. “Jade, I need a minute with Rylan. Can you excuse us?”
    “Oh yeah, sure,” Jade said and headed into the house with a pile of his stuff.
    “Did you fucking know?” I repeated. I sounded a bit hysterical, but this was huge. Jeff was marrying his pregnant girlfriend. The prick had been fucking me, begging me to run away with him, and at the same time he had been screwing some girl. This was exactly why relationships were a terrible thing. People fucked each other over regularly. My head hurt, and I wasn’t exactly sure why this bugged me so much. I never loved the guy, but it still felt like a major betrayal.
    “I found out a few days before we left on this trip, but I knew you were superstressed about going to your parents’ house, so I was holding off telling you,” Maggie whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Things just keep getting better, but it illustrates why it’s best for me not to get emotionally invested in anyone,” I spat. “I’m going for a run.”
    She made a halfhearted attempt to stop me as I headed into the house to change, telling me it was getting dark, but I wasn’t going to listen. The exercise would help clear my head and get some endorphins flowing. It might stop me from hunting down Jeff and spilling his secrets in front of his future wife. The woman had no idea what she was getting into.
    When I raced out of the house, Maggie and Jade were sitting on the grass surrounded by a bunch of boxes. They both stared at me as I took off down the road. I’d take bets that Maggie was trying to assure our new roommate that I wasn’t a total nut.
    During the beginning of the run, I made excuses for my reaction to the news about Jeff. It wasn’t love for me, but I did like the guy, so hearing he was fucking someone else when he claimed to be in love with me, stung. When I hit the third mile, my brain had devised multiple ways to murder Jeff. By the time I’d reached mile number four, I’d killed the asshole thirty-seven times. The fifth mile passed, and I decided I wasn’t going to kill the jerk. I had no desire to spend the rest of my life in prison. As the sixth mile started, I had convinced myself that Jeff was the one going to virtual prison and I felt sorry for the girl who was about to marry a fucking liar. During the seventh mile, I decided everybody could fuck off.
    Maggie was right. It was time to have some fun. Brooding about my parents and everyone else was nonproductive. I had no control over what other people said or did. By the eighth mile, I wanted to call Maggie and beg her to come pick me up. My