Between Black and Sunshine (5 page)

I stare at the picture of Jude as I wait for her.
Young Jude
with two long braids in her hair and a big smile on her face.
Happy Jude
. Jude before me.

Yesterday was a setback for me. Jude wasn’t there- she wasn’t answering my calls. I was sure something was wrong, that something had happened to her. By the time morning rolled around and I still hadn’t heard from her I was throwing up; unable to hold down the worry that I was sure was warranted. Something had happened to her.

Then she called. All cold and happy and distant and it hit me for the first time. Maybe she just didn’t want to talk to me. Maybe she was finally fed up with my bullshit but was stuck in this plan to come to me.

I’ve been sitting on this cold, hard step for almost two hours, watching the excited fresh-faced kids trot around me and up the stairs with their doting parents. Bags and boxes and totes full of shit to put in their rooms. Bathroom caddies, stuffed animals, IKEA boxes, grocery bags full of food. I can’t see Jude here. I can’t see her fitting in here, being happy here. I know for damn sure she won’t have parents or IKEA boxes with her.

The crowds have dwindled now. There are more people exiting then entering. I hear someone coming down the walk and I glace up. I briefly look at the blonde girl. Just another dorm girl, prettier than the rest of them, but not my girl. Eyes that radiate like hers… I look up again, then to the girl next to her and realize its Callie.
What the fuck?
I look back at the blonde girl, at her eyes, at her lips, at her body. She’s smiling at me.
What the hell?

I stand, going to her now, thinking it has to be Jude. Not my Jude, but Jude all the same. I move faster, as my body starts pulsing. The dress and the blonde hair fall away and all I see is Jude.

She moves faster too, towards me. I need her in my arms, I want my hands on my girl. I reach out and pull her to me, I pick her up and hold her close. I feel like I’m breathing for the first time since I left her. She’s here in my arms, and she’s not leaving and I know that shouldn’t make me happy, but it does. It fucking does. “Jude,” I say into her hair.

In that moment I realize it was all futile. Everything I did to try to prepare for this moment was pointless. Nothing could have wiped away even a fraction of the way I love her. The way I’ve missed her. The way I need her.

“Oh my god, I missed you so much.” She pulls her arms tighter around my neck.

I move my hands to the backside of her legs. I’m not ready to put her down yet. “You’re here,” I say, pulling back so I can look into her eyes. She looks so different, she has been acting so different, but her eyes; they’re still the same. Still cautions, still sad.

My heart pounds against my chest. Her legs are fastened around me now so I move a hand up her back and to her neck. She stiffens in my hold, but in the same motion, she brings her lips to mine, resting her open mouth against my open mouth.

She kisses me and I lightly suck on her bottom lip, careful not to lose sight of her eyes. Her body relaxes and her eyelids drop. I take her upper lip in mine and kiss it… feel it… taste it. She breaths into me and I suck her in. I want to pull her into my mouth and lose myself but I don’t. I have to be careful with her. Always.

“I love you,” I whisper, before setting her back on the ground but not releasing her from my arms.

She stares up at me with wide eyes. “I love you too,” she whispers.

“I can’t believe I’m holding you.”

“I’ve been waiting for this for so long,” she tells me with a smile.

I run my fingers through her soft, long hair. “What’s this?” I ask.

“I colored it,” she tells me.

“I see that. How come?”

“Because I can.”

I look at her, questioning her- her changes, her cautiousness. Wondering what she’s hiding, or trying to cover up. Her eyes turn away from mine- she doesn’t usually do that.

Callie comes up beside her, wheeling Jude’s suitcase behind her. She takes my hand from Jude’s hair. Jude gives her an angry look. Both things confuse me. “Sorry,” Callie says to me.

I shrug my shoulders at her.

“How are you, Luca?” she asks.

“I’m good. Thanks for driving Jude here.”

“Of course. Take care of her, okay?” she says with warning in her eyes.

“Always,” I say.

She turns to Jude then. “I gotta go, sweetie.”

Jude turns out of my arms and I miss her already. I’m a gonner already.

“We just got here. You aren’t even gonna come look at my room?”

“Send me a pic. I need to get to Berkley tonight.”  Callie looks at me again and then grabs a hold of Jude’s hand, gently pulling her away from me. I get the hint so I take Jude’s suitcase and walk back towards the dorm. I can’t help but look at them though.

Callie is talking quietly to Jude, the look on her face is intense. I have to assume she’s talking about me. Could be warning her to stay away from me, could be telling her to give me a chance. Who knows? Jude makes her own decisions though. You can’t tell her what to do- I’ve tried.

I watch as the two girls embrace. Callie seems apprehensive, like Jude could break if she hugs her too hard. Callie looks back at me once more with a smile and a wave, and then she walks away.

Jude turns to me and I’m caught off guard again by how different she looks. This is what I pictured her being, when she was happy again. Light…sunshine. But her eyes haven’t changed. They are still sad.

I go to her, grabbing her hand. “You ready?” I ask her.

“Guess so,” she says, turning from me to the big building.

In the elevator I press number five. As the door shuts I bend down and kiss her bare neck. She flinches and I wonder if her overzealous greeting was just that: a greeting. But then I see the black and blue marks creeping out of the collar of her dress. The door opens as her eyes meet mine. Two girls with their parents step inside, completely unaware of what the hell just happened here.  Jude raises her eyebrows at me, silently asking me to let it go. I will for now.

What the hell happened to her? I know what happened to her, but why didn’t she tell me?

I lead her down the hall, absently looking for 519, as I think about her bruises. She became stiff when I moved my hand up her back.
I was hurting her
. Callie took my hand from her hair…
because I was hurting her
.
Fuck
. Callie barely hugged Jude because she didn’t want to hurt her.

I have a death grip on Jude’s hand by the time we reach her room. I think about turning and running Jude away from here, but the door is cracked and a high-pitched voice escapes it, “Judith!”

I watch Jude’s face as she forces a smile and steps into the room. She tries to release my hand as she goes to the brown haired girl, but I won’t let her.

“Hi, Stephanie,” she says, her voice an octave too high.

Stephanie closes the gap between them and pulls Jude into a half-hug since I’m still attached to the right side of her. I watch the girl’s hand reach for Jude’s back so I drop the suitcase to remove it, but Jude anticipates what I’m doing and steps away from Stephanie. “This is my friend, Luca. He’s a junior.”

Stephanie’s eyes look me up and down. Her face gives me the same look that I get from most girls. Interest. Interest because she doesn’t see guys that look like me very often. She pauses at my hand which is still intertwined with Jude’s.

“I thought you didn’t have a boyfriend,” she says suggestively while her eyes continue to roam.

“It’s complicated,” Jude says in her real voice, not the too-high, fake one.

I look at Jude and smile a little because I love this side of her. The fighter. It’s who she needs to be. I look down at her back and my smile drops.

“Oookaay,” Stephanie says long and exaggerated, letting Jude know she understands. “I put my stuff on this side of the room.” She gestures to her right. “Hope that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Jude says.

“Do you need help brining your stuff in?”

“Uh… no. This is it,” Jude says, looking at her suitcase.

“What?” Stephanie asks, genuinely perplexed. “What about the bedspread that you sent me a picture of?”

“All my stuff got left at home. I thought my stepdad had already put everything in my friend’s car and he thought I had…. Anyway, long story short, by the time we realized what had happened we were five hours away.” Jude lets out a contrived laugh and my stomach turns.

There are so many things wrong in this moment. Jude herself is wrong. She’s not behaving like the girl I know. The girl I know would have told this nosey bitch to mind her own business. She wouldn’t bother making up a lie for her.

But now I wonder, did she have things… a bathroom caddy, bedding, groceries, IKEA furniture… that she wanted to bring, and because of whatever the fuck Arnie did to her, she left her shit behind? Or is she just embarrassed that she has nothing?

“We’re just dropping her suitcase off before we head to the store.” Jude looks up at me. “Right, sweet girl?” I ask her.

“Yeah, we were.”

“But we have our floor meeting in two hours and then a pizza party. You’ll be back by in time, right?”

“Doubt it,” Jude says and Stephanie’s face drops. “In fact, I may just crash with Luca if I don’t find anything that matches your butterfly comforter.” Jude smiles and I do too, happy to glimpse my girl.

“What evs, pretty sure it’s mandatory, but if you don’t care than I guess I’m not gonna worry about you.”

“Sounds good,” Jude tells her, letting go of my hand and reaching for her suitcase. I pick it up before she can.

“Where you want it?”

“On the bed,” she tells me. I throw it up on the bare mattress.  “I wasn’t being a smart ass,” she says to me, over her shoulder as she unzips her suitcase. “If I can’t find a damn butterfly bedspread then I’m staying with you.”

Stephanie lets out a disapproving laugh.

“Whatever you want,” I tell her.

Jude pulls out a bathroom bag from her suitcase and shoves it into her oversized purse, followed by a tiny pair of shorts and one of my old t-shirts; her pajamas. She turns to me then, holding two very small, very sexy pairs of panties. One is red with a lace waistband and not much of anything else. The other pair is black with pink polka-dots and small bow in the middle. “Which pair you like better?” she asks me.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in pink,” I say, as Stephanie stares at me with her jaw slack.

“Is that something you want to see?” Jude asks.

“Hell, yeah,” I tell her.

She throws them in her purse, zips up her suitcase then turns to her new roommate. “I’m gonna try really hard to find that bedding but if I don’t I’ll just see you in the morning.”

Stephanie has nothing to say so Jude turns and walks out the door with me following.

Back on the elevator Jude turns to me. “Don’t worry; I was just putting on a show for Stephanie. You don’t have to tell me I’m not welcome in your bed. I already know it so please don’t say it.”

I want her in my bed. I wouldn’t have told her no, but I’m gonna let it ride for now. I nod at her.

“What the hell is with every damn girl that gets within ten feet of you? I mean you were holding my hand. You’re not that damn gorgeous. Girls like that shouldn’t like a guy like you. Who the hell’s gonna go for the preppy douche bags if not a girl like her?”

I raise my eyebrows at her. I didn’t think Stephanie did anything out of hand. She looked at me- curious about by my ink. “Is that why you look this way? Trying to be a girl like her? Trying to nab the preppy douche?”

Jude looks at me like she’s disgusted by the idea. “No, stupid. I’m trying to nab you.”

The elevator door opens and I lead her out, wanting to wrap an arm around her, but I can’t do that, not with her hurt the way she is. I clasp my hand tighter around hers.

I look at the guys we pass on the way out- all of them are staring at her. Not one of them doesn’t notice her. This new thing she’s got going on is gonna be trouble. Ironic… the little speech she just gave me.

I get us out the door and to my beat up old Chevy. I help her up and notice how she sits back one inch at a time, like she’s got a sunburn covering her back. I slam the door shut and go to get in on my side. I don’t start the engine though.

“What happened to you?” I ask, turning to face her, taking her hand in mine again.

“What do you think happened?” she asks, eyebrows raised.

“I thought he wasn’t doing that shit to you anymore?” I try to calm my words, but my hands are shaking, my leg is bouncing off the floor. I can’t stop either of them.

“Yeah, well, I’m less scary as a blonde without face metal.” She touches her eyebrow where a small hoop used to sit.

I want to tell her she shouldn’t have changed herself, but I know that will just piss her off. She thinks she did it for me…
to nab me.
That’s another subject I’m not going to broach. Not now. “Why didn’t you tell me?”