"Engaged."

When Farah repeated the word, it wasn't a question. It wasn't really anything. It was her playing around with the word on her tongue, testing it out, seeing how it felt when she said it out loud.

She didn't quite like the way it felt when she said it out loud.

"Engaged." Sam repeated quietly, his eyes searching her face for some sort of reaction. But Farah had trained herself to reveal nothing when she was surprised; when she was shocked.

Sam, on the other hand, had been in this exact position too many times before: revealing that he had been previously engaged to another woman, and watching the one in front of him grapple with the news for a brief second before making an excuse to leave.

"Well, that must have been a fun time." Farah finally said, glancing over at him and seeing the wave of relief wash over the poor boy, "I have never been engaged, but the rings have always looked nice."

Sam laughed.

"For the girls, maybe. For the guys they just look like two years' worth of paychecks."

They drove in silence for a few more minutes before pulling up to the outside of Farah's apartment building. They sat in the car until Farah moved to open the door, upon which Sam decided to speak.

"Farah?"

She turned around, her hand on the door handle.

"Sam?"

"You didn't ask any questions."

Farah raised her eyebrows.

"About what?"

"About my being engaged." Sam shrugged, "Usually people ask questions. They want to make sure they didn't get into something that someone else was dying to get out of."

Farah grinned at that, the corners of her mouth turning upwards just enough to signal that she found the situation amusing, to say the least.

"I don't tend to let the decisions of other women dictate my own." She opened the car door and stepped out, ducking down for a moment to make eye contact with her date, "Goodnight, Sam."

"Goodnight, Farah."

***

"How was it?"

Farah did not like her roommate. Actually, if she were being completely honest, she hated her roommate.

The only reason she was stuck sharing a bathroom with someone who made her want to throw a temper tantrum at all hours of the day was due to a mess-up in her roommate request form over the summer. She had had to mail the form in due to being across the country at the time, and supposedly the form had gotten lost in the mail. So, her best friend was living right next door with some other random person who seemed like a decent human being, while Farah was stuck in Apartment 21 with the Godzilla of all roommates.

Laurel asked too many questions. Farah hated being asked questions.

"It was fine." Farah replied shortly, setting her purse down on the kitchen table and kicking off her shoes. They had been living together for almost two months now and the girl still didn't seem to take the hint when Farah didn't feel like talking.

"Was he cute? Did you kiss? It was the guy from before orchestra class, right?"

"Yes. No. Yes." Farah looked around the room, "Was Danielle here?"

Danielle had been Farah's best friend since the second grade, and lived in Apartment 22, but had a key to Apartment 21.

"I think so. She said she was going to wait for you to get home from your date, but then she left to do homework."

"And what about Ruth and Courtney?" Farah asked, referring to the other two girls who lived in their apartment and shared the second bathroom. "Something smells different. And someone moved my makeup table."

"Yeah, Ruth was looking for her earrings."

"Tell them not to go in my room anymore."

Laurel nodded silently.

Farah knew she was a jerk to her roommates. She knew she was the one who everyone whispered about being the antisocial one. But she was also the one who had had the worst possible experience with roommates during her freshman year, and she wasn't about to make friends this time around.

Friends always left. The only one who had ever stayed by her side was Danielle, and she wasn't even in the same apartment. She wasn't even able to get the details about her date with a man who was formerly engaged.

Honestly, she wasn't sure whether or not she cared about that fact.

After all, Farah had far darker secrets of her own. She was grateful Sam had been satisfied with her alleged rapping skills. It had been the truth, but it had been a safe one.

"I'm going to bed." Farah told Laurel, "I'll be using the bathroom for the next little bit."

Laurel didn't respond, and Farah didn't wait around to see if she would.

When she entered the bathroom, Farah dialed Danielle's number. The phone rang five times before going to voicemail. Farah didn't leave one.

She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, trying to see herself from Sam's perspective. Though she couldn't exactly look at herself from half a foot above her own head.

She was grateful that she had gone to her hairstylist the week before. Not that Sam would have noticed, Farah was sure. Her makeup was still intact, with the exception of the few flakes of dried mascara that had gathered under her left eye.

She carefully took out one contact, and then the other. She wiped off the makeup. She washed her face in hopes that her acne scars would be the only blemishes on her skin. She hated those scars. They were just there, sitting in her skin, refusing to leave.

She dried her face with a towel. She rubbed a few dots of moisturizer on. She swiped on a layer of Chapstick. She left the bathroom and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her with more force than she had intended. She took off her dress and pulled on a yellow t-shirt that was four sizes too big on her, with a spray-painted smiley face on the front. She brushed through her hair once. She turned on the lamp by her bed, turned off the garish overhead light, and climbed into her bed with a half-read book in tow.

Farah opened the book where her Michelle Obama bookmark sat and began to read. She read three chapters before closing the book and turning off the lamp.

And then she stared at her ceiling, her brain too awake to allow her body to fall asleep. Her date with Sam replayed in her head. His secret stood out like a green strawberry in her memory.

I've been engaged.

An engagement was the same thing as a relationship. A woman in an engagement tended to own one more ring than a woman in a relationship. That was the only difference. It was just like any other breakup.

Farah didn't expect to only date men who had only dated her. That wasn't how the world worked.

Another comment from Sam emblazoned itself in her head.

You didn't ask any questions.

Farah didn't know that she quite cared to learn the answers.