College Girl (17 page)

Alex

By the time Ryan pulled up in
front of Mercer, my dorm looked like a prison. I was wearing an oversized white
T-shirt, the silicone sticky bra from last night, a pair of Ryan’s
jeans—belted and cuffed more than a foot, and the pair of spiky black heels.
It was like a morning-after uniform. We had gone back to his house first so I
could borrow some clothes, but I had refused to stay longer than a few minutes.
Because I knew that the longer I stayed in his world, the more it would hurt
when I left it. Ryan started to get out, and I shook my head as I carefully
slid out of the heels.

“No! Brit might be in the room,” I
said quickly.

He looked at me strangely, but
before he could question my reluctance to have him come up to the dorm, I
leaned over and put my hands on his face, covering his lips with mine. I kissed
him like I was never going to get another chance, loving the feel of his
stubble against my cheeks. He smelled so good, and I wanted to remember that
scent forever. When I bit his bottom lip, he groaned, and by the time I pulled
back, Ryan put the car in gear.

“What are you doing?” I gasped in
a panic.

“Taking you back to the house, so
you can continue attacking me.”

I laughed and then stopped as
tears pricked in the corners of my eyes.

“Ryan … I-I love you.”

I didn’t wait for a response. I
hadn’t planned to. I reached back and opened the door. Jumping out, I already
had my ID out, and I ran without looking back. When I got to Mercer, I slid the
card in the reader and bolted inside. Taking the stairs two at a time, I was
panting and out of breath by the time I got to my door.

As I put the key in the lock, I
prayed that Brit would be gone. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pushed open the door.
The room smelled awful, but I was alone. Grabbing a sock from my laundry
basket, I put it on the door and twisted the lock. Then I threw my phone down
on the desk and ran over to the bed. Pulling back the covers, I jumped up onto
the rock-hard mattress, and when a sob escaped my lips, I turned and pressed my
face into the pillow. I kept telling myself over and over that
I
had made the decision, which meant
there was zero reason to feel sorry for myself. I had told Ryan a million
times—or at least three of four—why I couldn’t do this.

Explaining it to him one last time
had been pointless. So I had ended it.

Last night and this morning had
been beyond fantastic, and I was probably going to be thinking about those
hours with Ryan years from now, but that was why I had to end it. Because this
thing with Ryan had been doomed to end, and it had always been up to me to
decide how badly damaged I would be when it was over. I was already screwed
enough as it was. The thought of kissing—or doing anything
else—with another guy wasn’t even remotely appealing now.
And if I had slept with him?
How much worse would it have
been then?

My phone buzzed from the desk, but
I ignored it. It didn’t matter who it was. I couldn’t talk to anyone like this.
With a sudden wave of agony, I realized that I was never going to see Ryan’s
dog again, and I burst into a fresh round of tears. Fuck! I loved his dog, too.

The phone buzzed again.
And again.
I wanted to throw the thing out the window. Then
I froze. What if it was Mom? Maybe something had happened to Stephie! Shit. I
jumped off the bed and grabbed the phone. There were three texts.

Alex, look out your window

I swallowed and got back on the
bed to raise the blinds. Ryan was standing on the lawn in front of my window.
Shit. My phone buzzed again.

Not leaving until you talk to me

Well, tough shit
, I thought. Then a spike of fear went through me.
Eventually someone would come in or out, and Ryan would get into the building.
Shit. The phone buzzed again, and I scrolled to the last text.

Please

I looked up and saw a guy walking
across the lawn from the DC toward the back door of Mercer. When Ryan followed
him, I panicked. Jumping off the bed, I ran barefoot into the hall and crossed
through the stairwell to Julie’s side. Sprinting down the hall, I banged on her
door.

“Julie!”

I exhaled when her door swung open.
Practically knocking her down in my rush to get into her room, I closed the
door after me, gasping.

“Fuck, Alex! What the hell
happened to you? You text me last night saying you’re not coming back … and
then you burst in looking like someone’s chasing your ass. You wanna fill me
in?”

Someone knocked a few doors down,
and I put my finger to my lips.

“Shh!”

“Alex, what the hell?”

I shook my head and kept my finger
at my lips, listening as someone knocked at the room right next to Julie’s.
Shit
! It couldn’t be him, right? I froze
when the person knocked at Julie’s door. Shaking my head, I mouthed,
I’m not here
, and she gave me an
exasperated look. When she leaned forward to the peephole, I dived into the
corner by her closet. Watching as she opened the door, I thought about
strangling her.

“Do you know Alex Reed?”

I flinched at the sound of Ryan’s
voice.

“Yeah, she’s in three-oh-four.”

“Have you seen her today?”

Listening to Julie pause, I held
my breath.

“No, but she was supposed to stop
by later. You want me to give her a message or something?”

“Thanks,” he said.

I held my breath as she shut the
door. She walked over to where I was hiding and opened her mouth, but I shook
my head, hurrying over to turn up the music. When she handed me a folded piece of
paper, I frowned. Then my palms began to sweat. Taking it, I shoved it in my
back pocket.

“You’re not going to read it?”

I shook my head.

“All right—what the fuck,
Alex? Are you wearing his clothes?”

I exhaled and started telling her
the whole story, starting with him having me dropped from Calculus, to his
friend James McDevitt, to his ex-fiancée, to everything that happened last
night, all the way to being hopelessly in love with someone who would never
feel the same way.

“So, you just broke it off?” Julie
gasped.

“More like I jumped out of his car
and fucking ran.”

“Oh, shit. That’s why he was going
up and down our floor?”

I nodded and swiped at the corners
of my eyes.

“Wait, so what did he say the
first
time you told him you were fucking
in love with him?”

I swallowed.

“Nothing. He took me back here and
left.”

“And just now?”

“Nothing. I mean
,
I jumped out of the car before he could say anything. It was pretty much my way
of saying, ‘
Leave me the fuck alone
.’”

Julie laughed and then stopped.

“Sorry. But, come on, Alex. ‘
I love you
’ is not the same as ‘
Leave me the fuck alone
’. And the guy
brings you breakfast in bed? That’s not love?”

I shrugged miserably and blew my
hair out of my face.

“Not to him, I guess.”

“Since when do guys willingly
emote?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Yeah, that’s right: never. He’s
obviously fucking crazy about you. Remember, this isn’t a fairy tale.”

I took a shuddering sigh. There
was no good way of explaining that I wanted to cut my losses now, not later.

“How long have your parents been
together, Jules?”

“Twenty-five fucking years. Sick,
isn’t it?”

I smiled.

“I think it’s sweet. I barely even
remember mine being together, so I kinda want to think that fairy tales still
exist.”

She cringed.

“All right, so I was going to tell
you when you got back, but now I feel bad …”

“What?” I asked, bracing myself
for more tragedy.

“Well, I’m going with
Chris—and a couple of his friends—to the DC tonight.”

I screamed.

“Holy shit! When the fuck did this
happen?”

“Let’s see … maybe while you were
out with the hottie you just kicked to the curb—”

“Low blow!”

“Sorry! Okay, so last night a
bunch of us went out to another one of those stupid parties, and it turned out
to be a total bust,
but
… I ended up
walking back with Chris—and then I totally just went for it!”

I got up and did a happy dance.

“Holy shit! That is awesome. So?
Is he a good kisser?”

“Hell yeah!” she laughed. “Well, I
don’t have much to compare to.”

“Yeah, neither
do
I. We’ll have to find some new guys to compare them to.”

Julie snorted, and I laughed so
hard that I almost started crying again. I went over and hugged her.

“Thanks for listening to me whine.
I’m gonna head back to my room and try to get some work done.”

“You want to come with us
tonight?”

I hesitated. What I really wanted
was to go back to my room and spend the rest of the day listening to miserable
music and working on the story about that first night with Ryan.
Such a bad idea.

“Yeah. What time are you going?”

“About seven. You want me to come
by and get you?”

“Sure.”

I walked out and continued down
the hall to the bathroom to blow my nose and wash my face before returning to
my room, wishing the asshole next door would turn down the volume for once. I
really wasn’t in the mood for crappy country music for the next eight hours.
Taking my computer from the bottom drawer of the desk, I set it on the desk and
put in my earbuds. I spent the next hour trying to work on my Creative Writing
assignment. More accurately, I spent most of the time staring at the screen.

Finally I removed the folded piece
of paper from my back pocket, my hands shaking as I unfolded it.

I don’t want to lose you.

I started crying again just as the
door thumped open. Shoving the note back into my pocket, I looked over and saw
Brit.

“Do you have the homework
assignment for Robertson’s class?” she asked, oblivious to my meltdown.

I shook my head.

“What the fuck? You always go to
class.”

“I dropped,” I muttered.

“How the fuck did you do that?
It’s past the drop-dead.”

Wow. I was surprised Brit even
bothered paying attention to minor details like that. Watching as she walked over
to turn on her music—to an eardrum-bursting volume—I took the
opportunity to grab my stuff and leave. By the time I got to the first floor
lounge, it had started raining outside, and I really didn’t want to walk all
the way to the library. The good thing was that there weren’t any second-floor
assholes around. Walking over to the far end of the lounge, I parked myself in
one of the grungy chairs near an outlet.

Looking down, I realized that I
hadn’t changed out of Ryan’s clothes. I looked completely ridiculous. But I
didn’t care. Grabbing the neckline of the shirt, I pressed it to my face. It
smelled like him.
Clean laundry and aftershave.

Before I could start crying, I got
online. There was
an e
-mail from Jenny Tran, my
editor, asking if I wanted to take another article. I wrote back and said sure.
Then I worked on my homework for Chemistry. I would be lucky if I passed with a
C
. But it was better than the big,
fat
F
I would have gotten in
Robertson’s class. Besides, unlike Calculus, my Chemistry class didn’t have a
hot TA itching to drop me from the class, which meant I needed a passing grade.
The last thing I wanted was to retake a class that I hated. After finishing my
homework, I took out the note from Ryan and stared at it. When a drop hit the
paper, I realized I was crying again.

Why had he done that, dammit? Why
had he said the one thing that would haunt me? I didn’t want to think about it
too much, but I couldn’t help obsessing over the fact that when I had asked him
last night if he had ever loved his ex, his answer had been no—because he
hadn’t
been afraid of losing her.

What did it mean that he had left
me a note saying he didn’t want to lose me?

I shook my head and squeezed my
eyes shut. It didn’t matter. None of it did. Even if Ryan had loved me, it
would have been impossible. He was finishing grad school, and I had four more
years of undergrad. After that, I had no idea what I wanted to do.

More importantly, we were from
different planets. His parents were stately and richer than fuck.
 
My parents … Well, Mom would say
something inappropriate within two minutes of meeting someone like Ryan’s
mother. Hell, if I had spent a few more minutes in front of that woman,
I
would have made a complete fool out of
myself. Ryan and I together had been one big cosmic mistake.

Now that I was thinking about it,
I couldn’t even see how Ryan had gotten to be the way he was—funny,
easy-going,
fun
to be around. Somehow I doubted any of
these things described his mother. Maybe he got his intensity from her. After
all, his mother had stared right through me, and Ryan could make me melt with a
single look, so there was that.

Fuck, Alex
! Enough. If I thought about things any longer, I would
regret my decision. For some reason, it made me think of Jelly Bean, my first
dog. As a little kid, I had expected she would come with me to college. But the
summer before seventh grade, she had gotten sick. Then one day she just
couldn’t get up anymore, and the vet had told us that he could give her
medicine to ease her pain—but that she wouldn’t live more than a few
weeks. I had wanted to bring her home so bad and just have those weeks with
her. Then my dad had asked me if I really wanted her to suffer. I had cried and
cried. But finally I had decided that I couldn’t make her suffer, and the vet
had put her to sleep that day.