Accepted (7 page)

I needed to be diplomatic, to convey that we could only be friends but in a way that that would preserve our friendship. But how could I tell him that he was one of the best friends I’d ever had when I’d only known him a week?

"You’re a great friend, Colin. You have no idea how much that means to me. The
four
of you — you’ve made coming here the best decision of my life." I turned and looked into his eyes as I spoke. "It means the world."

And I saw in his eyes that he understood. Friendship was all I could give but, for me, that was a lot.

When we reached the dorm, we went straight to our floor.

Colin followed me as I walked to Randi’s room and stopped by the door. I meant to check on her but could hear her snoring through the door, so I left her alone.

We walked to my room next. When we got to the door, I turned to Colin.

"Thank you again, Colin, for everything tonight…everything."

He stared down at me and smiled. Then, he reached out with his hand and tucked my hair behind my ear. His hand lingered there for a moment. I leaned my head to the side, resting my cheek on his hand. I smiled back at him.

"Goodnight, Ash," he said softly.

"‘Night," I sighed.

And he turned and walked away.

I went into my room and closed the door behind me.

****

I undressed slowly, replaying the night in my head.

The party had sucked, but the night wasn’t entirely a loss. I’d had a lot of fun getting ready with Amber, Randi, and Becca, and I genuinely enjoyed feeling all dressed up and pretty. I had felt really good about myself that night.

Plus, Colin had said I looked "beautiful."

I knew I shouldn’t care about that; I tried not to care about that but, of course, I was thrilled.

Like I said, not being allowed to want Colin and not wanting him are two very different things.

Everything about Colin that night had secretly thrilled me—from the ways he touched me, to the things he said to me, to the fact that he’d thought enough about me to worry and come find me.

But I couldn’t feel this way, not only because it would hurt me but because I knew it could hurt Colin, too. I was relatively positive that Colin felt about me the way I felt about him. The difference was that I realized I couldn’t let those types of feelings get in the way of our friendship and all the friendships I’d cultivated here. Hopefully, I'd made him understand tonight that our friendship was the most important thing.

While thinking all of this through, I changed into my pajamas, washed my face, and got ready for bed.

When I was done, I walked back to my room, stopping briefly to listen for Randi’s snore before heading into my room. When I got there, I put Colin’s sweatshirt back on, climbed into bed, and went to sleep.

****

The next morning, when I opened my dorm room door to head to class and found Colin leaning on the wall opposite me, it was pretty easy to forget why I couldn’t like him.

He wore a pair of khaki cargo pants, and a deep-blue polo shirt. The color made his blue eyes brilliant, so much that even from five feet away, I was captivated by them.

Colin was holding his book bag in one hand and an open bottle of water in the other. Just standing there, he exuded a confidence that was almost breathtaking. It was powerful, sexy.

While I stood there for a minute, just taking him in, the most unexpected and forbidden of thoughts crossed my mind and, for a second, I wondered how it would feel if this man were mine. The unwanted thought shocked me into reality, and I realized I’d been staring. Hopefully, Colin didn’t notice.

"Hey," I said and raised my eyebrows at him questioningly, belatedly wondering what he was doing outside my door.

He answered "good morning" as a slow, knowing, smile crept across his face.

Yup, he definitely caught me staring.

Suddenly, an unpleasant thought came to mind. "Did you come for your sweatshirt?"

Please say no, please say no, please say no.

He shook his head, "Oh, no. No, I forgot about that."

I breathed a quick sigh of relief. I really liked that sweatshirt.

"I thought we could walk to class together. No one else around here has Friday classes." He shrugged, "Figured we’d keep each other company."

I smiled and nodded as he made a sweeping motion with his arm. "Ladies first."

****

We were quite a bit early for our first classes, so Colin took me on a detour to his pick for the best coffee cart on campus.

"There was a lot of trial and error that went into this choice," he explained.

"Really?" I laughed. "Coffee’s just coffee to me. It all sort of tastes the same."

Colin turned to me in disbelief. "Then you’re not drinking the right coffee." He threw his arm over my shoulder. "Don’t worry, though, you’ve got me to show you the ropes."

I smiled and leaned into him just the tiniest bit.

"So, how are your first few weeks here stacking up to last year?" he asked as we headed toward the science building.

I shrugged. "It’s good. I think the classes are going to be much more challenging here, though."

He nodded and squeezed me to him just a bit. "I’m sure you can handle it."

I smiled up at him, and he continued, pulling his arm from me. "It has to be hard, though — you know, picking up and starting somewhere new, especially in the second year with everybody already knowing each other."

I shrugged again. "I’m kind of used to that. I moved around a lot growing up. I was pretty worried, though. About the whole living situation — you know, fitting in with the people in the dorm, living with someone new, especially in the second year, when I assumed most people would have picked their roommates. But Amber and…" I gestured to him. "You guys…you’ve made fitting in really easy." I shrugged again and swallowed hard as I looked down at the ground passing under our feet. "I never imagined it could be like this." I felt rather than saw him slow next to me. "I never expected to be so happy so quickly. I hoped, but…you know."

I looked up and over at Colin. The look on his face was both beautiful and heartbreaking: a cross between surprise, happiness, and sympathy. I knew in that moment, that Colin had never known the feeling of being an outsider, of not belonging.

I smiled as big as I could at him, but I know it didn’t reach my eyes. And he smiled back; his didn’t either.

In that moment, that strange, enlightening moment, I almost opened my mouth; I almost told him so much more. For one second, the briefest second, I wanted to let him in. I wanted Colin to understand me. Just a sentence, maybe two, to let him see why I was like that, why his friendship was more important than anything.

I could’ve slipped it into a conversation; I could’ve breezed right over it. I’ve never felt like this before, Colin. I’ve never felt like part of a group. I’ve never felt comfort in a place, in people. I don’t feel alone today. I’ve never felt less alone. I could’ve just said it and walked away. I could’ve just said it.

But I didn’t. I didn’t, because did not want to see the look on Colin’s face change to pity. Sympathy was bad enough. Pity from
Colin
was unimaginable.

Plus, how do you make someone understand that when you’ve felt like nobody’s ever wanted you before, you have a hard time comprehending when people do.

So instead I changed the subject. And Colin, he knew what I was doing, but he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t stop me.

Yeah, sometimes it was pretty easy to forget why I shouldn’t like him.

Chapter Five

The ensuing month can only be described as the best of my life thus far.

That September was like no other I’d ever experienced. It flowed uneventfully, comfortably, naturally, normally.

And that was the best part. My life seemed
normal
. I got up in the mornings, got ready and went to class. After class, I did homework, studied, and then spent time with friends.

My friends were great, too. Never having had close friends, I had no idea what I had been missing. It amazed me that some people took relationships like these for granted. I loved my friends fiercely. They had become my family here.

Amber had become like a sister to me. We shared everything—clothes, books, snacks. We spent our weekends shopping together and exploring the city. We stayed up late at night talking.

I didn’t agree with everything she did or said—she had a tendency to gossip, and the gossip wasn’t always friendly, and she still blindly followed Randi—but I still loved her regardless of her flaws, like I imagined that one would with a real sister.

Randi had gotten better, too. She was friendly to me, and she rarely gave me looks or made snide comments about Colin anymore. I wasn’t sure whether that was because Amber and I had grown closer and she didn’t want to challenge her friend, or because Colin was around us so much and she wasn’t sure if that was because of her or me and was afraid to rock the boat.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure either.

Colin was always with us, and while he usually focused on me, seemingly because of our shared class, Randi still flirted with him outrageously.

And he flirted right back.

Not that I minded. I had already decided that we were just going to be friends, and I was learning to live with that.

More important in my life than Randi or Colin, or even Amber, was Becca. If Randi was Amber’s best friend, Becca had become mine—my first best friend.

I liked Randi, loved Amber, and was pretty much obsessed with Colin, but I trusted Becca.

And I’d never trusted anyone.

Somewhere in the middle of the four of us being together, Becca and I discovered a real friendship.

It was probably inevitable. Our living situations dictated continued contact, but there was more. Where Amber and Randi were well-suited for each other, so were Becca and I.

Becca and I both were homebodies or, rather, "dorm bodies." We both preferred staying in to going out and comfy, broken-in sweats to cute little dresses. We both studied a lot and preferred to work ahead on our school work. Becca even liked to run—my favorite pastime.

And, a couple of weeks into the semester, I began inviting Becca on my nightly after-dinner runs.

Becca and I talked about almost every aspect of her life while walking and jogging. I learned that she was here on a scholarship and worked hard to keep it. I learned that she was the first person in her family to go to college. I liked that we had that in common. She was majoring in special education, because she had a brother with autism and watching him and helping him learn had fulfilled her more than any other single thing she’d ever done. Her best friend from home was a guy named Jamie whom she missed dearly.

I learned that Becca hated change and had grown accustomed to living with Randi, even though — like me with Amber — she wasn’t always a fan of the things Randi said and did. I also learned that Becca wasn’t Randi’s original roommate.

Freshman year, Randi was placed in a room with a girl named Kirsten. The two didn’t get along—at all—to the point where, within the first week of the semester, Kirsten apparently fed up, stormed into the resident assistant’s room begging for a new roommate. She said that she simply could not live with Randi another minute.

Kirsten had quickly become close with Becca’s original roommate, a nice girl who she was on the softball team with, and they, along with the resident assistant asked Becca if she would "volunteer" to switch rooms. Becca, who was always accommodating, agreed.

But I wasn’t sure that Becca liked living with Randi either.

Randi liked living with Becca, though. Like I said, Becca’s very accommodating. She pretty much let Randi do whatever she wanted. She wore Becca’s clothes, listened to loud music while Becca was studying, and spent hours on their shared phone. I asked Becca why she let Randi do whatever ever she wanted; she just shrugged and said she didn’t care.

"Really, what’s the point in arguing? It annoys me that she wears my clothes without asking, but, if she asked, I’d just say yes anyway, so why make waves?"

I couldn’t really argue with that.

A few weeks after we began running together, I eventually finally opened up to Becca—well, as much as I open up to anyone.

It was like any other evening. We each vented about our day, talked about assignments, and complained about homework. Then, Becca unexpectedly slowed, falling a step behind me. I slowed in response and turned to look at her.

"You okay?" I asked. I was worried she’d gotten hurt or something.

She slowed almost to a walk, and I followed suit.

"Becca, what’s wrong?" I put my hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

She looked into my face, and I saw reluctance in her eyes.

"Can I ask you something?" She sounded uncertain.

I just nodded.

"It’s personal and probably not any of my business, but we always talk about everything, you know…" She trailed off, looking even more uncomfortable.

And I knew right then that she was going to ask me about Colin.

She’d noticed my crazy fixation, and she was going to ask me about him. Then, she would tell Randi that I liked him and then Randi would hate me. Then, Randi would tell Amber to hate me, and I’d have no one.

"It’s just that you never talk about yourself, your family, your home, or
anything
," Becca quietly began, interrupting my internal rant.

Oh…that.

Becca continued, "Amber mentioned that you said you moved around a lot, and I was just wondering, you know…" She trailed off again.

It was obvious that this conversation was very difficult for her. She wasn’t one to pry, but there was a definite inequality in our friendship. She had shared everything about herself—her life, her family—with me, and I had shared literally nothing.

Not that I didn’t want to. I would love to open up to someone completely and tell them all about me, my life, my family…everything. If nothing else, I’d like to get it off my chest.

More than that, though, I’d like to know that there was someone in the world who knew me—all of me—the good, the bad, and everything in between. I’d like for someone to truly see who I am and understand how I became her.