Bullet (3 page)

But she too was polite as we carried in my boxes.  She even offered to help with a few.

When the truck was entirely unloaded, I walked with my family to where it was parked so we could exchange goodbyes.  “Valerie,” my mother said, “I hope everything works out.  Charlotte seems nice, but…I don’t know about her.  I hope you can get along with her.”

“That makes two of us.”

My mother was having a hard time seeing me in this environment, leaving her nest for good.  Out of Danny and me, I was the oldest child, so she’d never gone through this before.  Tears welled up in her eyes as she hugged me.  “Keep your grades up, honey.  Have fun.  And remember we love you.”

My father kissed me on the cheek.  Then Danny,
Mr. Cool
, said, “Bye, sis.  Don’t miss me too much.”

“Come here, you little twerp, and give me a hug.”

He did and then whispered, “I’m gonna miss you, ya know.”

“Yeah, I’ll miss you, too.”

They got in the truck, and I stood there for a few minutes after they’d left.  I’d waved goodbye to my family, my home, my friends…and my childhood.

* * *

I set the last box on my bed and started sifting through its assorted contents, deciding where to put them (not that there were a whole lot of choices).  Charlotte lay on her bed, once again clad in just her little red teddy.  She thumped her hand on her bed to the beat of the music she was playing, some Lady Gaga song I’d never heard before.  “Hey, Valerie, why don’t you invite your little brother up to visit for a weekend?”

My back was turned from her face as I continued sifting through my box.  I was glad, because I’m sure my expression was one of shock at the very least.  This girl wasn’t trying very hard to make a friend.  “Why?  He’s busy.”  I suspected I knew why she was interested in my brother, but I figured she was just asking to get under my skin.

“Busy?  Doing
what
?”

“For one thing, he’s on the football team.”  I pulled some pencils out of the box and put them in my desk drawer.  Once again, I repeated my question, “Why?”

Her lips curled up in a half smile.  “He’s awfully cute, you know.”

“He’s in high school.”

She raised her eyebrows, the smirk still firmly affixed to her face, making her tiny upturned nose look pug-like.  I was starting to not like this girl.  “So?  He’s probably still had a little experience.”

I started laughing, unable to help myself.  “You don’t know my family very well.”  Our parents had us on tight leashes, so, while my brother might have had a
little
experience, that was likely
all
he’d had.  “Sorry, Charlotte, but he can’t come up.”

“Oh, I get it.  I guess I’m just not good enough for your brother.”

The last thing I wanted was an argument with my new roommate on my first day away from home.  “No, that’s not it.  I don’t know you well enough to make that call.  But I can tell you he wouldn’t be able to make it.  It’s a long drive and he has a lot on his plate.”

“It’s not
that
long of a drive.”  She sat up.  “I’m going to the restroom.  Excuse me.”  Her tone of voice was nothing like the sicky-sweet purr she’d used earlier.  She stomped across the room and walked out the door to find the restrooms down the hall.  I started to suspect this school year would be a long one.

* * *

Good-looking guys roamed every part of the campus.  A girl could get lost just looking at all of them—well, this girl, at least.  But the ones I got to know during my first month on campus were either taken already or not the guys a father would want his daughter to date.  And, since I’m inherently a people pleaser, especially when it came to my parents, that made them off limits…while my guard was up, anyway.

Needless to say, in spite of Charlotte, I enjoyed my first few weeks of college.  It was tough, but the professors and other students were friendly and helpful, and that meant a lot to this
small town never-been-away-from-home girl.  I soon became familiar with the campus and the surrounding college town.  I loved the weather (so far) and the surrounding countryside.  I began to feel like this place might be a nice home for the next four years.

I was a happy freshman the first month and a half.  But October rolled around to eventually change the entire course of my future:  I met
him
.

I walked into a building full of stuffy classrooms from the beautiful crisp outside.  The sun had been shining brightly as leaves were beginning to fall.  I was a little disappointed because I
had to sit in a dull history class instead of walking on campus, listening to the soft crunch of dead leaves beneath my feet.

I set my books on the desktop, and I slid into its cramped seat. 
As I waited for the professor to walk in, I glanced around the room…and saw him.  I wondered why I’d never noticed him before, but I knew why.  I’d pretty much kept to myself for the most part the first month or two as I adjusted and tried to find my way around this new world.  But as I became more relaxed, more comfortable with my environment, I felt that I could stretch my legs a little.

So I spotted him.  And he was probably one of the best-looking guys on campus.  How had I never noticed him before?  I immediately became intrigued by this handsome stranger.  He appeared to be close to my age, and I fell in love with his shoulder-length reddish-brown hair, his light-emerald green eyes, his firm, strong jaw.  He didn’t appear to be overly tall sitting in that desk, but he didn’t look short either, and—even from where I sat—I could see his biceps were nicely sculpted.  One plus—he wasn’t talking to anyone either…that is, a
girl
.  But even on that first day, I saw a look of anger in his eyes, a look of hate, of revenge—from where I sat, it was barely noticeable, but it was there, just the same, and it would always be there.  I think that attracted me the most.  It made him mysterious.  I should have known then to stay away from him.  But I’ve always been the kind to take on a challenge.  I decided then and there that I would sit beside him the next time our class met.

* * *

I shut the door to my tiny dorm room behind me and placed my books on my desk.  I sat down in the chair and finally muttered
hi
to Charlotte.  She was lying on her bed reading and didn’t move her eyes from her book to mumble
hi
back.

I decided I should make an effort to get along with her.  If I had to spend an entire school year with her, I needed to talk to her once in a while and make the effort to connect.  So, when she set her book down on her bed with a bored look on her face, I told her about the guy in my history class and how I had decided to sit by him in the next class period.  Her response was “So what?”

No, my jaw didn’t drop and keep in mind I was young.  I should have realized that maybe I needed to make a few attempts to get on her good side.  Instead, I felt my ire stir a little.  I figured she was unimpressed because here I was,
Virginal Valerie
, a girl who’d primly dated the occasional boy, and there was Charlotte, sexually wise beyond her years, bringing a different boy to her bed every weekend.  She probably thought I was stupid (not true), naïve (yeah, that was right on), and not worth her time.  I didn’t think, though, that it gave her the right to be rude and offensive, especially when I was trying to make nice.  But, no matter what I thought, I
did
at least
try
to continue to be nice, even though overtones of anger and impatience surely showed through it.  “
So what?
  He’s cute!”

Charlotte’s voice was clipped.  “You said that before.”  She threw her books off her bed with a sweep of her forearm onto the floor.  Then she crawled under the covers and snuggled up with her pillow.  “I really don’t care.”

I was angry.  Yeah, I know…I should have just blown her off and figured
good riddance
, but what can I say?  I was young and idealistic.  I don’t know—maybe I thought my words could help her see the world wasn’t such a bad place.  Maybe I could help her see the error of her ways and she’d realize I was just trying to make a connection.  Of course, the words I said wouldn’t necessarily help out with that.  She was getting on my nerves, and I’m afraid I was getting emotional.  “You wouldn’t.  All you really care about is sleeping.”  And…that wasn’t entirely untrue.  The girl was in bed more than not.

She acted offended.  “
Sleeping?
”

“What are you getting ready to do right now?”

Charlotte glared through her dark eyes.  “You’re just upset because I don’t care about this guy you’re lusting after, and I don’t want to listen.”  She rolled over on her side so I didn’t have to look at her.

“I’m not upset.  I’m angry.  Whenever
you
like a guy, I hear about him all the time until you find the next one.”  She bolted upright.  “But when
I
like a guy, I say two sentences and—”

“Valerie, you’re a—”

“Shut up.”  I slammed the door behind me as I left the room.  Now, more than ever, I was determined to meet this guy.  Then Charlotte would become curious.  And when she asked questions, I wouldn’t answer her.

As my blood pressure cooled storming down the hall, I realized how childish that was.  And stupid.  Of course, Charlotte wouldn’t instantly become interested if I started dating someone just because I was dating him.  I had hoped, though, to prove to my roommate that a girl could date a guy without sleeping with him.

A few days later the next week, I was in my history class again, this time sitting on the cute guy’s side of the room, ready to put my plan into action.  I thought I’d come up with a good conversation starter.  I hoped it would work.

He sat on the left side of the room, about the third row, so I sat in the desk directly behind him.  Gently, I tapped on his shoulder.  He turned around and took out the
earbuds that were attached to a hidden iPod.  I started getting nervous but tried to hide it.

I took a deep breath, flashed the sweetest smile I could, and asked, “Sorry to bother you, but did you take good notes during the last class period?”

He grinned back at me through his full, sensuous lips.  Oh, yeah…I would love to kiss them.  I tried not to be distracted by them.  He said, “Not really.  This class is so boring, I hardly take notes.”  He glanced to the side as though to make sure the prof wasn’t nearby to overhear him.  “I hope reading the book will help me pass the midterm.”

I nodded.  “I hope you’re right.  I was having a hard time concentrating last class.”  Yeah…watching this cute guy.  I wasn’t going to mention that.

“I wasn’t either.”

Perfect time for an introduction, I thought.  “I’m Valerie Quinn.”

“Ethan Richards.”  I allowed his name to flow through my head several times because I didn’t want to forget it.  He leaned toward me with a conspiratorial air.  “So…do you suppose we’ll take shitty notes again this period?”

I giggled.  “Probably.”  I pointed toward his
earbuds.  “So what are listening to on your headphones?”

He shrugged.  “Just some metal.”

He acted like he didn’t expect that I would be interested.  So when I said, “Who?” he smiled and handed me one of the earbuds.  He hadn’t paused the music when he’d taken them out of his ears, so I could hear loud music blaring through as I held it up to my ear.  It sounded familiar and I could tell right away that it was metalcore or deathcore.  And then I recognized the tune…and I suspected he didn’t expect me to know I was listening to Suicide Silence.  So I said, “Oh…‘Disengage.’  I
love
this song.”

“You like these guys?”

“Love ‘em.”  That was cool.  Charlotte, probably the person I knew best on this campus, mostly listened to pop tunes, so to find someone else who listened to music other than top forty excited me. I loved heavy metal music, so to find someone else who liked it (and someone I was already crushing on was an added bonus) was comforting somehow.

But then it really hit me.  I’d struck up a conversation with this really cute guy
, and I’d found out in the space of just a few minutes that we had something in common.  That was a great start.  So meeting him hadn’t been as hard as I’d thought it would be.  I moved my head to the beat of the music.  I couldn’t help it.  That’s what we headbangers do.  But I wasn’t going completely crazy.  I was in a classroom, for heaven’s sake.  Before I could listen to much more, the history professor walked in, so I grinned and handed the earbud back to Ethan.  I whispered, “We can see if we take the same notes, okay?”

He laughed, not enough that the professor noted it while he pulled his texts out of his attaché case.  “Deal.”

Well, that class was not any more memorable or noteworthy than it had been the class before.  In fact, it was probably less so because nothing could distract me from replaying in my head what had just happened.  The event was more important than a lot of people might think.  I might not have been a shy girl, but I’d never really “put myself out there” when it came to guys.  I didn’t have much confidence when it came to the opposite sex, so for me to have just decided to go for it—and for it to have worked—was huge.  So…notes?  Nope.  Maybe Ethan would have a few, though.