College Girl (30 page)

She glanced over at me like she
expected me to be angry—with her—and I decided that I needed to
seriously rethink my decision-making paradigm.

“You must have thought I was a
complete dick for sending him to get you.”

Rolling over, she rose up and put
her hands on my chest.

“No. I thought your
friend
was being an ass, and I was
worried about you. How’s your dad?” She looked down. “Unless you don’t want to
tell me.”

I wrapped my arms around her and
pulled her close.

“They diagnosed him with Stage IV
lung cancer.”

Alex blinked.

“Oh my god. That’s bad, isn’t it?”

She rose up on her elbows and took
my face in her hands, kissing my forehead.

“Ryan, I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes welled up, and I felt my
chest begin to ache. When my eyes started to burn, I pinched the bridge of my
nose.

“When are you going back?” she
whispered.

“In the morning.”

She nodded and held me, stroking
my hair. In that moment, lying in the most uncomfortable bed I had been in
since freshman year of college, I realized there was nowhere else I would
rather be.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” she
said quietly.

“I’m not going anywhere yet.”

I held her closer, knowing that in
a few hours I would probably never see her again. I didn’t know if that made me
a saint or a complete asshole, but I had convinced myself that it would be
better for Alex in the long run. Eventually her breathing evened out and
slowed, but I refused to drift off. Instead I watched her as she slept. Just
before dawn, I thought about waking her up and making love to her again. But I
couldn’t. Because she would know I wasn’t coming back. Slipping silently out of
bed, I got dressed and wrote the note on a sheet of paper from her notebook.

Then I looked back once at her
sleeping form before walking out.

Alex

I opened my eyes and found myself
alone in bed. Again. I wasn’t surprised this time, just sad for Ryan. I wished
I could do something or say something that would make things better. We both
had issues with our fathers, but I couldn’t imagine that it didn’t hurt. I
climbed out of bed and froze when I saw the note on my desk. Unfolding it, I
bit my lip and stared down at the piece of paper.

Don’t wait for me. Live your life.
Please.

I love you.

Ryan

Had he broken up with me? Was he
coming back? I let out the breath I had been holding. I had been on a roller
coaster ever since meeting Ryan Bennett. Now it felt like it had just come to a
screeching halt. When I tried to breath in again, it was like my lungs had
forgotten how.

Hearing someone in the stairwell
outside my door, I looked down and realized that I had slept naked. I grabbed
my pajamas and yanked them on, nauseated by the thought of Brit the Bitch
getting back and finding me naked with a bunch of condoms and sex lube. Getting
dressed and brushing out my hair, I took my toiletry bag and went down the hall
to brush my teeth and wash my face.

It felt like I was having an
out-of-body experience, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going to
wake up any second and find myself back in the hotel room on the coast with
Ryan. I hated the fact that my brain was trying to escape reality by reliving
the past few days with Ryan. I had classes tomorrow, and I needed to focus on
redeeming myself academically.

People broke up with their significant
others all the time … and at this point, how significant could I have been to
Ryan if he had broken up with me in a note? I shook my head. At least it hadn’t
been a text.

On the way to the DC, I thought
about stopping by Julie’s room to see if she was back yet, but there was no way
I could handle her icy fucking roommate.
I texted her instead.
When I got back to the room after breakfast, I got my stuff together to go to
the bookstore. Mom had fronted me cash for books; I just had to hope it was
enough to pay off my credit card when I got the bill. Hearing my phone buzz, I
thought it might be Ryan.

Just got back!
Wanna
help me carry shit up to
my room? J

I smiled shakily at Julie’s text
and walked downstairs. In the parking lot, Julie was standing in front of her
hatchback, taking out two full laundry baskets. I walked over and poked her in
the side.

“Damn you’re lucky you live close
by—and you have a car. Half my shit’s still dirty from before break. Plus,
one of the washers is broken. And someone left all
their
shit in the other one. Again.”

Julie looked me up and down and
screamed.

“Holy … shit! You had sex, didn’t
you?”

I blushed bright red.

“What are you? Psychic?”

“You
did
! I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it. And he broke up with
me this morning.”

“Are you shitting me?”

I tried to smile, but my cheek
twitched instead.

“He left a note.”

“
Another
note?”

I picked up one of her laundry
baskets.

“Maybe I should start from the
beginning.”

“Uh, yeah. The last thing I heard was
he left you in the hospital, so how you got from there to fucking him to
breaking up is kind of nuts.”

“I know.”

As we walked inside to the
elevator, I ran her through the events of the past few days, starting with my
parents’ psycho neighbor. We were sitting on her bed when I got to the part
about Ryan’s note this morning.

“Wo-ow.”

“Yeah. When I woke up, I kind of
guessed he would be gone, but then I saw the note … and I don’t know.”

“So … what’s wrong with his dad?”

“Lung cancer.”

Julie cringed.

“That’s really bad.”

I nodded and swallowed,
remembering the tension in Ryan’s muscles as he had said the words
lung cancer
. I wished I could hold
him—which only confused me more.

“And he was going back home?”

“Yeah.”

“What about his asshole friend?”

“James? Shit, I hope I never see
him again.” I shook my head. “Enough about my twisted love life that is no
more. What about you and your luvvah boy? I haven’t talked to you since you
guys went into SF.”

Julie coyly turned her head to the
side, and I gasped when I saw the hickey on her neck.

“You didn’t tell me Chris was a
vampire!”

She giggled.

“Yeah, well I nearly fucking
killed him when I saw this!”

“Hot. So, did you guys, um …”

She shook her head.

“Nope. You’re the only ho around
here.”

“Thanks.”

Hearing a key in the door, I
looked over at Julie, and she rolled her eyes. Getting up, I smiled at her
roommate, knowing all I was going to get in return was a half-assed sneer.

“I’ll come over to your room in,
like, five, and we can go over to the bookstore,” Julie said.

“Okay.”

Walking down the hall toward my
room, I could already hear music thumping from behind the closed door, which
meant
Brit
was back. I groaned. The thought of
spending another term trapped in a room with her was unbearable. Putting my key
in the door, I held my breath.

“Wow. I didn’t think you were
gonna
come back after that car smacked you,” Brit said.

I smiled blandly. My roomie would
have been thrilled if I had ended up in a coma—and she had gotten the
room to herself for the rest of the year.

“How was break?” I asked,
collecting my stuff.

“Fucking
in-sane
.”

I nodded. I didn’t want details.
When Julie banged on the door, I got up and grabbed my wallet.

“Going to the library?” Brit asked
rolling her eyes.

I nodded. What did I care if she thought
I had no life?

“I’ll be back later.”

Translation:
Don’t fucking lock me out to have sex with some second-floor loser, you
snarky bitch
! When I opened the door, Julie smirked.

“You know that bitch would shit a
brick if she saw
who
you were hooking up with, right?”
she asked as soon as we got into the stairwell.

“Whatever. I can’t believe I have
to spend another term living with her. You want to start looking for apartments
now
?”

We started walking across campus,
and I felt a swell of relief that Julie still put up with me walking everywhere,
considering my bike had been stolen a month after fall term began. I didn’t
mind walking, though, mostly because some asshole had clipped my back tire and
sent me sprawling onto the pavement only days before my bike had disappeared. The
way I had figured it, it was the universe telling me I was better off staying
off the bike.

And Ryan Bennett disappearing
again had been the universe telling me that I should ignore the male population
for the rest of my college career.

I was really starting to wonder if
my third term of college was going to manage to kill me. Right now, I was
walking around, talking to Julie, smiling, laughing—but inside I felt
just as broken as when I had woken up in the hospital. I knew I wouldn’t trade
the three nights I had spent with Ryan for anything, but what did that leave me
with? A memory?
An aching feeling in my chest that hurt with
every breath?

When we got to the bookstore,
there were about two million people swarming around, and all of the lockers
were taken already. People were just dumping their bags on the floor in hopes
that they would still be there when they got back. I took out my list of
courses.

“I’m learning to hate bookstore
season,” I muttered to Julie.

“At least you don’t have to buy
the mega-Econ textbook. My dad’s going to shit when he sees his credit card
bill.”

“Yeah, every time my parents get a
tuition statement, my mom’s like, ‘
Say
thank you to Stephen
!’”

“Is he that much of a dick about
paying for your school?”

I shook my head.

“No, Stephen’s been really good
about it, but I think my mom’s got some complex going on since my
real
dad is MIA. Did I tell you that she
tried to sue him when I was in junior high? The court garnished his wages or
something. That’s how I got braces.”

I smiled to show off my straight
teeth.

“Fuck. That’s intense.”

“Yeah. Then he went on a bender,
and there were no more wages to garnish.”

“Wow.”

Thinking of my father only
reminded me that Ryan, not my parents, had paid for the last term of my
freshman year. When the online statement had shown up over break with my spring
quarter paid in full, I had lied and told Mom and Stephen that there must have
been a mix-up at the bursar’s office. It was that, or
explain
to my parents that my Calculus TA had paid for my third term—because he
had wanted to fuck me. At least that was how it felt right now.

“Meet out front in a half hour if
I don’t see you?” I asked.

Julie nodded, and we split up to
grab our books. Going down to the basement, I started looking for my Intro to
Psych textbook, wondering if my bad taste in men was a genetic defect.
Because I
did
have bad
taste.
It wasn’t Ryan so much as the fact that I had known from the
start that things with him were destined to end—badly. So, really,
genetics or not, it was my fault. I should have just stayed away from him. The
worst part, though, was that last night it had felt like we’d turned a corner,
like maybe we could be better together than apart. Or maybe it had just been me
being stupidly optimistic for once in my life.

The bookstore was a total
madhouse, and by the time I got around to collecting all of my books,
Julie
was
at least ten people ahead of me
in line
. Watching her pay, I shifted back and forth before finally
texting her that she could head back to Mercer if she wanted.

No way. Look up. See the hot guy at the counter?

Glancing up, I saw what she was
talking about. The guy ringing people up definitely fell into the attractive
category, with warm hazel eyes and brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. But he
looked young to me. Then I realized that
it was only because
my perception had been distorted by Ryan
. This guy was older than I
was—probably somewhere between twenty and twenty-two. He was tall, too.
Over six feet, but not as tall as Ryan.
Not quite as well
built, either. Not bad, but not Ryan. I wrote Julie back.

Stepping out on Chris??

I heard her laughing from beyond
the cash registers.

You’re the one who should be looking.

I laughed and looked up. Catching
the guy’s eye by accident, I quickly looked down at my books and pulled out my
wallet. The limit on my credit card, which I had applied for fall term, was
laughably small. The good thing was that I never used the card—except
when it came time to buy books. As I got closer to the counter, I watched,
hoping like mad that one of the other cashiers would ring me up. There were at
least eight registers open, so there was only about a one-in-eight chance that
I would get the guy Julie had pointed out. Then, just as the girl in front of
me got the cashier to my left, the customer at his register walked away. I
cursed silently.

This was ridiculous. If Julie
hadn’t said anything, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed this guy, mostly
because, compared to Ryan Bennett, no other guy stood a chance, which was
really depressing. Remembering my conversation with James McDevitt, I winced.

“
Is everything rated by comparison in your world
?”

“
I’m just saying it’s impossible to know the true value of something
when you have nothing to judge by
.”

I smirked. Maybe he had been
right. Maybe everything was relative to whatever came before or after it. But
if that was the case, then I was totally screwed.
Because
anyone who came after Ryan Bennett would look lesser by comparison.
The
cashier I had been hoping to avoid smiled, lifted his hand, and crooked a
finger at me.

I swallowed and looked around
self-consciously. Was that normal? Would he have done the same with the guy
behind me? I walked up and set my books on the counter, feeling my cheeks burn
with embarrassment. Fucking Julie!

“I remember Intro to Psych. Who do
you have?” he asked, looking up at me.

“Gates,” I squeaked, clearing my
throat.

What the fuck was wrong with me
getting all squeaky and breathless? I glanced over at Julie and gave her a
dirty look.

“She’s not that bad.
Three midterms and a final.
All multiple
choice
.
Don’t skip her class, though. She’ll put stuff on the exams that isn’t in the
book.

“Thanks.”

I wasn’t big on skipping classes,
but it was good to know. I needed good grades this term. I handed him my credit
card, and he looked down as he ran the card.

“Alexis?”

“Alex.”

“I’m Nick.”

“I know,” I said pointing at his
nametag.

He grinned and handed me a receipt
to sign. Then he circled something on my copy.

“Your return code is on the
receipt.”

He slipped a bookmark into one of
the textbooks before putting everything in a plastic bag with the university’s
logo on the front.