College Girl (18 page)

Even at the age of twelve, the
thought of making someone I loved suffer so that I could have a few more weeks
with her had seemed cruel. So I had said goodbye to her rather than holding on
and causing us both more pain. And that was exactly what I had done with Ryan.
Rather than waiting for pain in three weeks or three months, I had chosen now.

I did homework until half past
four before going up to the room to change into my workout clothes. Sometime in
the past few hours I had decided that jogging incessantly was going to be my
new hobby. The way I saw it, if I ran long and hard enough, maybe I wouldn’t
have the energy to think about Ryan.

It was still raining when I got
outside, but I didn’t care. I ran out to the sidewalk and did a loop around
campus. By the time I got back, I was soaked and my lungs burned. Essentially,
I felt like crap—but the pain was good. Hurrying to the room, I unlocked
the door and grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweater. But when I reached the
bathroom, I was hit by another memory of the perfect night I had spent with
Ryan—the shower this morning.

Shivering, I stepped into one of
the concrete stalls and pulled the curtain. Turning on the water, I started
crying and promised myself that I would move on and forget Ryan Bennett.

Ryan

I was drinking too much, and I
didn’t give a shit. I could have easily killed two bottles, and even then I
would have been more sober than Jess and Brenda. I looked across the table at
Brenda’s friend Sarah. She worked for an accounting firm downtown, stood about
five-eight, and was only four years younger than I was. Compared to Alex, she
was
appropriate
.

And, really, there was nothing
wrong with her. She had light brown hair and blue eyes, and she was pretty
enough, apart from the unnatural hue of her skin that screamed tanning salon. I
knew because Gretchen had been fucking obsessed with tanning.

I had joked once that if she
didn’t ease up, she was going to end up being the tannest woman on the planet.
It hadn’t gone over well. Gretchen’s exact words had been:
What the fuck do I care what
you
think, asshole
? I hadn’t realized it at the time, but that interaction had
probably been a pretty good predictor of where our relationship had been
headed.

My mind drifted to Alex’s soft,
pale skin. It had been nearly a week since I had brought her back to the dorms and
she had fucking sprinted away from me. The worst part was that I had known that
the girl down the hall had been lying. Alex had been in there. I had smelled
the shampoo from the cottage all over the room, and it had taken everything I
had not to swing the door open and drag her out of there.

Fuck. Alex had practically eaten
me alive in the car. Then she had taken off like I had been the damn devil. And
I hadn’t heard from her since. Not that I had expected to. But what I
had
expected was for these fucking
feelings to die down. I had barely slept all week, and when I did sleep, I
would dream of Alex before waking up in a cold fucking sweat with Finn sitting
at the side of the bed giving me his best German Shepherd
you’re-an-asshole
look.

Agreeing to dinner at Jess and
Brenda’s place had not been my smartest decision, mostly because the second I
had stepped foot in their house, they had looked at me like I was about to come
unglued. And maybe I really was losing it. But inviting another couple and
their single friend Sarah? Jesus. The entire night had been a fucking set-up.

“Does anyone want to play
Pictionary?” Brenda asked brightly after dessert.

I looked at her and stifled a
groan. Oh, fucken shoot me. I had to get out of here. I wasn’t ready for middle
age yet. Getting up, I put on my best regretful expression.

“Sorry, guys. I’m running on about
two hours of sleep, and I’ve gotta let Finn out.”

“You have a dog?” Sarah asked.

I couldn’t tell from her
expression whether she was excited or disappointed, which was another thing.
Alex’s facial expressions had broadcast her every emotion. I missed it.

“A Shepherd.”

“Are you going to be okay on the
bike?” Jess asked, looking me over for signs of overt drunkenness.

I shook my head.

“I’ll pick it up tomorrow. It’s
only a mile back to my place. Andy, Lauren, Sarah, it was good meeting you guys.
Brenda, dinner was great.”

As I turned to leave, Sarah handed
me a business card with her cell number scrawled on it, and I smiled miserably.
My guess—from the number of times her leg had brushed mine under the
table—was that I could have someone in my bed by tomorrow night if I
wanted. And if James had been here, he would have smacked me upside the head if
I didn’t call her up later tonight to invite her back to my place. Speaking of
the devil, I hadn’t heard from James since last week, and as far as I was
concerned, McDevitt was on my permanent shit list for the asinine performance
at my parents’ event. Jess walked me out, and when he asked what I thought of
Sarah, I gave him a look. He shrugged.

“Blame Brenda.”

“I can’t. I owe her. Tell her I
thought Sarah was great, but I’m a fucking mess right now. She doesn’t want to
expose any of her friends to me.”

“You make it sound like you’re a
virus, Matthews,” he laughed. “You wanna play ball next week?”

I nodded and waved as I walked to
the sidewalk. It was a Friday night, and I had no reason to expect that Alex
would be at the dorms, but I found myself walking in that direction anyway. It
was in the mid-forties, and it wasn’t raining, so it wasn’t too bad. I walked
quickly and reached the edge of campus where Alex’s dorm was within ten
minutes. When I got to the back of the building, I watched as a group of feral
cats scurried across the lawn. Looking up at the windows on the third floor, I
felt like a deranged stalker. Fuck that. I
was
a deranged stalker. Only two lights were on; one of them was Alex’s room.
Pulling out my phone to text her, I sighed and put it back in my pocket.

This was the way she had wanted
it, and I had to respect that.

I was about to take off when her
light flicked off. Jogging over to the side of the building, I held my breath
and waited. A minute later, I glanced toward the front of the dorm and saw
someone in a hoodie crossing the parking lot toward the street. My heart sped
up. It was Alex.

Then I got angry. What the fuck
was she doing alone in the middle of the night? She reached the sidewalk and
started walking—fast—toward frat row. Cracking my knuckles, I
followed about fifty paces behind her. For a tiny girl, she walked fast. I
exhaled as she passed the frats and kept going. Finally, by the time she passed
Jess’s street, it dawned on me where she was headed.
To
my
house.

I laughed quietly. I wasn’t the
only stalker. Stopping on the corner, I watched as she walked down my street—on
the opposite side—before stopping a few houses from mine. I crossed the
street and jogged toward my house without giving any indication that I had seen
her. When I opened the front door, Finn yipped, and I went to the back of the
house to grab his leash from the hook on the wall. I leaned down to scratch him
on the head.

“Guess who came to see you?”

Finn tugged me toward the front
door, and as soon as I opened it, he strained at the leash. I let him pull me
down the stairs toward the sidewalk. He stopped, sniffed the air, whined, and
began pulling me across the street—just in time to see Alex running for
the corner. A second later, I heard the screech of brakes and watched a Civic
come within inches of hitting her as she cut across Lincoln.

Jesus
! Now I really wanted chase after her now and shake her
senseless. She had nearly fucking killed herself just to get away from me. I
took out my phone and sent her a text.

Tell me when you get back to Mercer … or I’m coming over there.

I paced up and down the block with
Finn a couple of times, itching for any excuse to ride back to her dorm and
break down the fucking door. Finally I let my dog into the house and was
walking to the bike when I got a text.

Sorry. Won’t happen again. I’m at Mercer. A

She must have run all the way
there. I felt my jaw clench.
Won’t happen
again
? What the fuck did that mean? She thought
I
didn’t want to see
her
again? Picking up the tennis ball, I bounced it against the wall and took out
my phone.

Alex, talk to me. Please.

Setting the phone on the table, I
flipped open the laptop and worked until it felt like my eyes were bleeding,
the breakthrough I was waiting for just out of reach. It didn’t help that I
kept stopping to stare at my phone every five fucking minutes. But Alex never
wrote back. Eventually, sometime after three, I fell into bed.

In the dream, she looked at me
before stepping off the curb. Then I heard the screech of brakes and watched
the car hit her. I ran, but by the time I got to the street, she was still as
stone. I reached down and lifted her into my arms. Her skin was cold to the
touch. Then her eyes opened.

“I love you,” she whispered.

When she disappeared right out of
my arms, I shouted.

Sitting upright in bed, drenched
in sweat, I looked around the darkened bedroom breathing hard, my fists
clenching the sheets. The image of Alex in my arms, cold and lifeless, made my
stomach pitch, and I barely made it to the bathroom before the nausea
overwhelmed me. I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom, dragging myself
to the kitchen once for a bottle of brightly colored sports drink.

The rest of the weekend was
destroyed since I could barely fucking move. Finally on Sunday night I called
Jess and got his voicemail. If he and Brenda had gotten what I had, then they
were most likely lying on the bathroom floor hating life just like I had been.
For the first time all weekend, I was glad Alex had taken off running before I
could catch up with her on Friday night. That was all she needed—to get
the stomach flu, something I hadn’t had since elementary school.

The week didn’t get any better
after Sunday. Robertson was being a prick, as usual, and the only reason I had
agreed to TA his intro classes was to stay on his good side through the end of
the program. But sitting in lecture while he taught to the top one percent was
fucking maddening. I could get up there, and in a week eighty percent of the
class would be passing. I had spent Sunday night putting together his next
exam, knowing he would reject anything that was passable by a reasonable
majority of the class.

Tuesday I ran five miles before
hitting the Rec Center to punish myself ruthlessly. On Wednesday, when I played
ball with Jess, he told me Brenda’s friend Sarah was still hoping that I would
give her a call. I passed him the ball with a little more force than usual.

“Forget I said anything,” he
laughed.

I blocked his next shot.

“Jess, just tell your fiancée I’m
not good date material for the foreseeable future. All right?”

I took the next shot for the game.

“You up for another game,
Matthews?”

It was strange to think that the
only person on campus who knew my real name was Alex. It was too bad in Jess’s
case, but I didn’t want anyone in the math department to know that Bennett Hall
had anything to do with my family. It would just complicate things, and I
didn’t need more complications.

“Depends. You up for getting your
ass kicked again?” I asked.

“Bring it, you tall-ass
motherfucker,” Jess grinned.

When I finished kicking his ass
again, I went back to the house, showered, and thought about going to the
grocery store to change up my routine of cold cereal and canned soup. Then I
got a call from Becca. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I took out the
picture of Alex.

“What’s up, sis?”

“Ryan, dear, what the fuck did you
say to Mom on Saturday?”

“Very little. Mom was being Mom,
and I got sick of her belittling my date.”

She sighed.

“Well, that’s Mom for you. In any
case, just wanted to let you know that I’ve been fielding her little guilt trip
in your absence, so I hope things worked out with your miniature date.”

I was silent for a single second,
and Becca pounced.

“Oh, Jesus. She didn’t dump your
sorry ass because of Mom, did she? Shit, I might actually be able to give Mom a
guilt trip for once in my fucking life.”

I sighed.

“No, Bec. I got my ass kicked to
the curb all by myself.”

“Well? What did you do, you
dumbass?” my sister cried. “Because that girl was so in love with you it wasn’t
even funny.”

“That was the problem.”

She sighed, and I could
practically feel Becca’s disapproval over the phone.

“Ryan, I’m your big sister, and I
love you. But you’ve got some serious shit to work out, and I hope you figure
it out. You think the parents need you to be Reece, but even if they do, it’s
your fucking life. Don’t waste it.
’Cause if you keep pushing
everyone away, you’re going to end up alone.
Just think about that.”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t
angry or hurt, just numb.

“Call me when you want,” she said
before hanging up.

I sat there and remembered the
first night I had seen Alex Reed, her jade green eyes sizing me up in an
instant. She had thought I was a dick. That had been easy enough to tell. She
had thought I was McDevitt. And I hadn’t proven her wrong, had I? I had been a
complete fucking jackass.

What had it been about her? The
serious expression on her face as she took notes while her roommate was
mentally undressing me? The way she had looked up at me when she had forgotten
to write her name on the assignment?
The fact that she had
written
WTF
next to one of the homework
problems?

All I knew now was that I wanted
to see her. Becca was right. I had some serious shit to work out.

The next morning, I rode out to
the cemetery. I hadn’t been since undergrad, and now that I was here, I felt a
spike of guilt. Parking the bike, I walked up the hill. The sky was gray, and
the colors around me seemed muted, which was fitting since that was how this
place always appeared in my dreams.

I stopped at his headstone and
stared at the epitaph, thinking of how many TV shows and movies showed people
talking to a headstone. I didn’t talk. I just stood there silently, waiting for
some sort of redemption or absolution to hit me.

Reece Nathaniel Bennett

Beloved son and brother

Reece’s rightful place in our
family had been that of the hero, the golden son. He had been ten years older
than me, four years older than Becca. I had been just about to start junior
high while he was finishing up college with a major in viticulture. He had
dutifully come home every weekend, because, unlike me, Reece had never had any
illusions about doing anything other than winemaking—or at least that was
the picture my parents had painted in their minds after he was gone.