College Girl (32 page)

If I closed my eyes, I could hear
the song, still feel the bumps in the road. My brother had been larger than
life, and now nearly two decades after he had died, he still haunted me.

Finn yipped, bringing me back to
reality. I took off running up the driveway and sprinted the last hundred
yards. In the cottage, I stripped off my shoes and shorts, and my cell buzzed
right before I got in the shower. It was the locksmith.

“I can be at your place at
eleven-thirty.”

“Great. Credit card okay?”

“Cash is better.”

“How much?”

He gave me a ballpark estimate. I
could have easily changed the lock myself, but I didn’t want to wait until
morning. And I definitely didn’t want to spend the extra time. What I
wanted
was to drive straight to Alex’s
dorm.

“I’ll meet you there.”

Tossing the phone onto the
counter, I got in the shower. I was way too fucking happy to have an excuse to
be in Alex’s general vicinity. By the time I got dressed, Finn was already in
his dog bed. Scratching his head, I grabbed my laptop, and then headed for the
door, texting Becca to ask her to pick him up in the morning and keep him for
the weekend. My sister, unlike my ex, loved Finn.

As I got in the car, I told myself
I was just going back to get the locks changed, but I knew my ultimate
destination was Alex’s dorm. I had less than no right to talk to her—much
less see her—but the visit from Gretchen tonight had been like a personal
visitation from The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Gretchen was what my life would
have become if I had never met Alex, and Alex … She was my second chance. My
redemption. And all I had done at every possible opportunity was abandon her, each
time so sure that I had done the
right
thing. But what the fuck did
right
mean? She had been afraid I wouldn’t love her, and she’d had every right to be
afraid—because I had been afraid
to
love her.

The plan forming in my head was
beyond insane. Everyone I knew—including Alex—would have me
committed to a mental facility, but I didn’t fucking care. As of this moment, I
was done half-assing my life, and as soon as I reached the interstate, I
punched it. I had never been pulled over by the CHP, and I wasn’t about to
break my streak. Keeping within ten miles of the speed limit, I watched the
miles on the odometer passing with excruciating slowness.

I exited the freeway and stopped
at the ATM before pulling up in front of my house a few minutes later. I was
insanely and irrationally happy, even if I had no idea what Alex would say when
I got to her dorm. When I got to the pickup truck at the curb, I shook the
guy’s hand.

 
“How long for the front door?”

“You the owner?” he asked, eyeing
me.

I nodded and took out my keys as I
walked up the front stairs. Opening the door, I tried to ignore the state of
the house as I went back to my room and packed a bag for the weekend. While the
locksmith worked, I set the computer on the front table and e-mailed my
sister’s jeweler about the ring.

Alex

A knock at the door made me jump,
and I watched warily as Julie jumped off the bed. After an epically bad second
date with Nick from the bookstore, Julie had been indulging my need to watch
Pride and Prejudice
for the millionth
time.

“With your luck, it’ll be some
dick from the second floor,” she said, leaning toward the peephole.

Shaking her head, she turned back to
me.

“Fuck. Worse.”

“What do you mean
worse
?” I cringed. “Did Nick come back?”

I was still feeling horrible about
essentially slamming the door in Nick’s face after he had tried to kiss me just
a couple of hours ago. I probably shouldn’t have said yes to the second date,
but he had done most of the talking on the first date, and I had actually liked
not having to talk about myself. So, I had been fine all the way up until the second
he had leaned in. Then I had just broken down crying and slammed the door in
his face. Julie shook her head.

“Teacher man.”

Scooting to the very corner of my
bed, I swallowed, unable to speak as Julie turned and swung open the door.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Julie, right?”

Hearing Ryan’s voice caused me
physical pain, and the clawing desire I had to see his face just made it worse.

“Yeah. And you’re the asshole who
keeps screwing over my friend,” Julie said. “I know all about you, you fucking
ass. Is this like your hobby, fucking with poor little freshmen?”

There was a long pause, and I sat
silently, arms locked around my knees, trying not to breathe or move.

“I need to talk to her.”

“So you can screw her over again,
and she comes home from a date with a perfectly nice guy in tears because she
can’t get over the asshole from hell? Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

Julie started to slam the door on
him, but he caught it. When she shoved, it wouldn’t budge. Finally she turned
and looked at me like,
What
the fuck am I supposed to do now?
Shaking,
I climbed down from the bed and touched Julie’s shoulder.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it fucking isn’t, Alex. I’m
not going to watch this asshole hurt you again.”

I hugged her and reached for the
doorknob.

“All right,” she huffed. “I’m
going over to Chris’s.
If you need me to come back with
him—and five other guys—just text me.
Okay
?”

I nodded and bit my lip to keep
from laughing like an unhinged maniac. The thought of Chris and five of his
friends taking on Ryan
was
kind of
ridiculous. If Ryan wasn’t afraid of half a dozen thuggish frat guys, then
freshmen weren’t exactly the most realistic of threats. But I appreciated
Julie’s offer—and her faith in her boyfriend. As she walked by Ryan, she
bumped him with her shoulder. Then I was left staring up at him.

“What do you want?”

I had been hoping to sound
dismissive, but my voice cracked.

“I want you to forgive me … but I
don’t deserve that.”

My throat tightened, and I shook
my head.

“Ryan, I can’t do this. First my
dad shows up …” I threw my hands up in the air. “
And now you.
So, what the fuck? Is it
Men Who
Abandoned Alex Week
?”

“Your dad was here?” he asked,
clearly stunned.

Nodding, I inched away from him. I
couldn’t blame him for sounding surprised after what I’d told him about my dad.
And after not seeing my dad since junior high, having him suddenly appear at my
dorm had been a major fucking shock. Too bad him being drunk hadn’t been as
surprising. I had gone with him to a café off campus—by foot—and
then left when he had ordered a beer.

So much for our
father-daughter reunion.

I curled my hand into a fist,
because I desperately wanted to reach out and touch Ryan, craving a closeness
that I knew would only hurt me. Looking down, I felt a familiar emptiness. I
knew it would swallow me as soon as Ryan left again. It was like I was twelve
again. Tears started leaking from the corners of my eyes, and I retreated into
the room, putting my hand up when Ryan came closer. When I started talking, the
air escaped in quick bursts.

“You know, I finally accepted that
I’ve been trying to make things right with
him
.
Like if you loved me—if you didn’t leave me—then everything would
be okay, and I wouldn’t be that little girl who didn’t fit anywhere. That I
would be real to someone.” I let out a shuddering breath. “Well, I’m done
pretending, so you can just leave now, okay?”

My vision blurred, and suddenly I
couldn’t breathe, sobbing so hard that it felt like I was going to break apart
and disappear. I had never told anyone about the strange floating feeling I got
whenever I looked at my family—Mom, Stephen, Stephie. Instead I always
just pretended that everything was okay even when it felt like I was drifting
alone, set apart from the people I loved the most.

Besides, Ryan faced losing his
father, so how could I admit that I hadn’t even wanted to see my own dad?
Worse, that seeing him had only torn open wounds that I pretended weren’t
there?

It was the same as how I could
never tell Mom that I felt like a castoff—a leftover—from the part
of her life she wanted to forget. Or how jealous I was of Stephie and how
naturally she fit. I loved my little sister more than words, but I also knew
deep down that she was the
real
daughter.

I wasn’t. Real.

I slipped to the floor, and I knew
I was going to stay there. Suddenly, with a strange wave of relief, I
understood why Ryan had left the other morning. He hadn’t wanted to make me
live his loss any more than I wanted him to see me like this. I needed him to
leave right now.

“Go,” I choked.

Tomorrow I would be fine. I would
pretend this had never happened. I would pretend that nothing could ever hurt
me.
Because my problems were silly.
They were in my
head. Ryan had real problems. And whether he had left because he wanted to
spare me from them or he just hadn’t wanted me, the result was still the same.
I hugged my knees and waited for his shoe to move out of my peripheral vision.
I waited to hear the door open and close behind him, but the room remained
completely quiet apart from my uneven breaths.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried
to stop crying. Then I froze at the sound of Brit’s harsh laughter coming from
the stairwell. She burst in a second later, and I looked up at her, wishing I
could just melt into the ground. I must have looked like shit, because she
started roaring with drunken laughter—until she noticed Ryan. Behind her
I saw a new second-floor asshole.

Me with snot
running down my face, my sensitivity-challenged roommate, her nightly hookup,
and Ryan all in the same space?
I just wanted to disappear. Ryan grabbed
my arm and hoisted me up like he was lifting a ragdoll.

“What the
fuck
? You and
him
?” Brit
chortled.

“Get your things,” Ryan said in a
low voice. “Pack for the rest of the weekend.”

I didn’t question him, only
because I wanted out of this room so badly that I could barely stand it. I
grabbed jeans, socks, underwear, and some shirts, shoving everything into my
duffle bag with my toiletry bag. Then I grabbed my jacket, my backpack, and the
laptop. Ryan took most of my stuff from me before stopping in front of the guy
at the door. When Ryan looked down at him, the guy backed up immediately, and I
walked out without a word to Brit.

As soon as we got into the hall,
Ryan pointed toward the bathrooms. I nodded. One rule of crying was that if I
didn’t blow my nose and wash my face, I could keep crying indefinitely. Walking
into the bathroom, I took out my phone and texted Julie, who burst in from the
door across the hall only seconds after me.

“Did he leave?”

I shook my head and turned on the
water.

“I’m going with him.”

“Alex! Fuck,
no
. You can’t be one of those girls who keeps going back to the
dickhead that treats her like shit.”

After I blew my nose and splashed
my face with water, she handed me a paper towel.

“I know.”

“So? Tell him to fuck off and be
done with it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I need closure.”

“It wasn’t closure enough when he
left you in the hospital, or when he broke up with you the last time?”

“No. Because if I leave it like
this, then I’ll end up being the girl who always gets left, and the same thing
that happened tonight will keep happening. I’ll keep doing the same stupid
shit. I have to make a conscious choice, not sit around waiting to get broken
up with.”

Julie looked at me skeptically.

“You do what you need to do, but I
get dibs on the next cry fest.”

I shook my head and blew my nose
again.

“Uh, uh. No way. You tell Chris
that I’ll kick his ass if he hurts you.”

“And I
will
kick Teacher Man’s ass.”

I smiled shakily.

“Yeah? Well, I think he’s afraid
of you.”

“Good! You’re going to come see me
the minute you get back, right?”

I nodded.

“I hope you figure things out.”

“Me, too. Tell Chris I’m sorry I
stole you.”

She nodded and tapped her fingers
on the metal lockers.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah.”

I smiled and nodded for emphasis.
But I wasn’t sure. Then again, what else was I supposed to say?
Maybe not
?
I’m doing the dumbest thing ever
? Or:
I have serious daddy issues
? The most
honest answer was probably:
I’m in love
.
I had learned early on that someone I loved could disappoint me a million
times, but it would take a million and one times for it to finally sink in.

Julie walked out of the bathroom
toward Chris’s room, and I took a deep breath before stepping out on my side of
the floor. Ryan was waiting with my stuff, and I tried to smile, but I
couldn’t. A few minutes ago, he had seen me more naked, more vulnerable than
any other person ever had.

Looking up at him, I tried to
think of how different my life might have been if I had never taken Calculus,
if I hadn’t gone to the library that night, if I had walked away from Ryan
Bennett—if I had made all the
right
choices. Where would I be? Who would I be? Because no matter what happened from
this moment on, for better or worse, I was a different person than the girl who
had started school here in the fall.

Based on the TV shows I had
overdosed on before leaving for school, I was supposed to be some bad-assed
bitch
who
didn’t need anybody. But that
had
been me for more years than I could
count. Whenever I needed someone, I thought it was a weakness I couldn’t
afford. Whenever people left, I thought:
fuck
’em
. Whenever I was hurting, I buried it beneath a layer of sarcasm.

The thing was that I knew Mom
loved me. It just wasn’t in the same way that she loved Stephie. Not that it
should have been, but still. There was
an effortlessness
to her love for Stephie. With me, it was like there was an underlying
disappointment she had to hide.

I knew my father had left for his
own reasons that had nothing to do with me, but that didn’t mean it didn’t
hurt. And then seeing him again, I had still felt like the same little girl who
had waited hours for him to show up.

And I knew my fears and my
insecurities weren’t things I could share with anyone—but I had just told
Ryan.

His face was serious as he nodded
toward the stairwell, and I wondered what mine looked like. Yeah, I was red and
blotchy and my eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, but did I look as uncertain as I
felt? When we got to the first floor, I hesitated before deciding:
what do I have to lose?
Things couldn’t
get much more fucked up than they had been in the past month.

In the parking lot, Ryan popped
the trunk of his car and started putting my bags inside just as a cheesy red
Camaro pulled up a few spaces away. James McDevitt got out, and that was when I
started thinking this whole night was a vivid nightmare.

“Bravo, my man. Nice save.”

Staring back and forth between
them, I waited for someone to make sense.

“Don’t,” Ryan said quietly.

“You mean you didn’t tell her why
you’re here?”

Ryan’s friend took out his phone
and held it out. I stared at a blurry image of me—with Nick Collins, my
ill-fated bookstore date.

“Are you
stalking
me?”

James shrugged in that obnoxious
way he had.

“Like I told Bennett—small town.”

“You’re an asshole,” I pointed
out.

“Why else do you think he showed
up when he did?” James asked, pointing at Ryan and laughing. “His deep and
unwavering love for you? He just couldn’t stand the thought of his little
freshman conquest fucking anyone else. And what thanks do I get for telling
him? He changes his fucking locks on me. Thanks, buddy.”

Ryan slammed the trunk closed and
started to move toward James, but I caught his arm. I knew he could break away,
but I was hoping he wouldn’t. I looked over at James McDevitt.

“And
you
showed up here—why?
To foil your
friend’s evil plan?
That’s very noble of you.”

Did this asshole think I was a
complete idiot? James obviously had some fucked up issues going on, but
whatever those issues were, they didn’t have anything to do with me. To him, I
was just a convenient way to gouge his friend, which said a lot about their
friendship.

“Alex, let’s go,” Ryan said.