Everything That Makes You (15 page)

“Oh, Luce. I'm sorry.”

“It was fair, though, her choice. Doesn't make her—or me—
less.
Decent people break up with other decent people all the time.”

“You're a better woman than me.”

“Agreed.” Lucy shifted back, resting her hands behind her and leaning into them. “So let me ask you this—what if David broke up with
you
? How would you feel about it?”

Fiona frowned. “Annoyed—like, about why. Worried we couldn't be friends anymore.”

“And Jackson? If nothing happened there?”

“Oh.” The idea was worse than that rusty-nail feeling she got when Trent McKinnon broke her heart.
This
felt like a chunk of her getting sawed off by an old, dull knife.

She looked at her friend and whispered, “He smells like cantaloupe.”

Fi slogged to the sidelines, cold, wet, and irritated. For the past three hours, the Milton women's club lacrosse team—go Badgers!—had put forth the saddest display of skills and teamwork Fi had ever seen.

“Fi, got a sec?”

Fi looked up from her bag. Mandy Pittman, the coach who wouldn't let the team call her “Coach” since she was, in fact, only two years older than the seniors, stood a few feet in front of her. “Sure,” Fi said.

Mandy sat beside her. “You doing okay?”

“I'm fine. Why?”

“The growling made me suspicious.”

“I wasn't
growling
,” Fi muttered.

“I'll be sure to clarify that with Kristin. She's worried you're going to come after her in her sleep.”

Fi scowled, thinking about Kristin, the sophomore attack
who couldn't catch a ball if someone
handed
it to her. By some miracle, the girl had found herself in the perfect position for an assist from Fi—smack in front of the goal with no defenders near her. Fi even tossed her the ball at about a quarter strength, and Kristin missed it. How she managed to bounce the ball off her toe, Fi couldn't guess.

Still, she didn't want anyone to be scared of her. “She's upset?”

Mandy waved her off. “She has a brother here, two years ahead. They have disturbing wedgie battles in the cafeteria. I think she can handle a little growling from a freshman.”

Wow. Ryan might be annoying, but at least he'd never tried to wedgie her—privately
or
publicly. A few years ago, she might have taken him, but he was about six foot two now.

Mandy pointed across the field, where the rest of the team was heading to the locker room. “They're doing their best, you know. Most of us are just here for the fun of it.”

Fi zipped her bag and sat up, looking past the gray, soggy field to the campus beyond it. The buildings were pretty—stone, ivy-covered—and flanked by cobblestoned paths and sweeping bright-green lawns. “Yeah. I know.”

Mandy turned to look at Fi. “Not to be nosy, but—why are
you
here?”

Fi's heart broke a little at the question. Did the “fun of it” part not apply to her? “Because I love it.”

Mandy shook her head. “No, I mean why are you on
our
team? Why are you playing for Milton?”

“It's a good school,” she said. “I wanted to be close to home.”

“You didn't want to play, like, for a
good
team?”

“No, I did,” she said, fiddling absently with the zipper on her bag. “I was talking to Northwestern, actually.”

Mandy whistled. “Great school.”

“But far.”

“And that was bad because . . . ?”

Fi took a deep breath. She was partially tempted to reveal the whole story—the dead boyfriend, the blown chance at Northwestern, her multiple-personality emails to Candace Starnes, the head coach. “Personal reasons,” she said instead.

“Look, Fi. I'm sure everyone on the team would love to learn some tips from you—but we are what we are. We're not trying to win the league. We're playing some lacrosse and having a beer after, okay?”

Fi nodded.

“If you want to talk to other teams, I'll help however I can.”

Nice. I'm getting pushed off a bottom tier club team.
She stood up, flinging her bags over her shoulder. “Are we done?”

“Yes, we're done.”

Without another look at Mandy, Fi walked across the muddy field, flung her stuff—and then herself—into her car, and clenched the steering wheel.

Her. Life. Sucked. Lacrosse at Milton. Pathetic grades. Her best friend was currently a stuffed bear.

She wanted to see Trent.

It was such an urgent, unexpected thought. But what was she going to do? Just pop in? Vent? Cry on his shoulder? It wasn't like he would comfort her, tell her everything would be all right. Trent might offer his shoulder, but he couldn't stomach wallowing.

A muddy, sweaty mess, Fi cranked the engine and headed south anyway. A little over an hour later, she was following Highway 6 into Oxford. She took a right when the green University of Mississippi sign told her to. At first, the road was all sprawl and chain stores, but eventually, Fi was driving past big old trees and pretty buildings.

She'd been down here a few times before—some football games with Ryan and her dad—but she didn't know the campus well. She rolled down a window and yelled to a runner on the sidewalk. “Hey, is there a dorm around here called Stockman? Strockman? Something like that?”

The guy pointed to two tall buildings peeking over the trees. “Stockard. Take a right on Rebel Drive. You'll be right there.”

She pulled into the lot, but couldn't get into the dorm without a card, and the desk appeared to be empty. Trent wasn't answering his phone, so she did the only thing she could think of—buy some bad coffee at the little mart across the street and wait on her hood until he came back. There better not be a back entrance he could slip into without her catching him.

Thirty minutes later, Fi was still on the hood, curling in on
herself against the cold and wishing she'd brought a coat, or at least dry clothes. At four thirty, the sun was setting. Winter sucked.

She'd about given up and was digging through her bag for her keys when from behind her a voice said, “Fi?”

Trent stood at the side of her car, a few guys behind him, a girl right by his side. He looked older—collegiate—even though he wore only jeans and an Ole Miss sweatshirt that looked comfy enough to steal. He had the same backpack from high school.

“Hey,” she said.

“Uh,
hey,”
he drawled, looking at her like she was unstable. “What the heck are you doing here?”

Fi looked past him to the people she didn't know. “Um—”

Trent followed her gaze. Quickly he gestured to the guys. “This is Zach, Brian, and Chris. Lacrosse.” Then to the girl. “And Lindsey.”

Fi held up a hand. “Hi.”

Trent waved his friends on, saying he'd catch up with them later. Lindsey looked over her shoulder at Fi as she went to the dorm.

Hopping onto the hood, Trent slid beside her. “So, Crazy, why are you here?”

Fi sighed and slumped against the windshield. Trent followed suit. Her shoulder rested against his upper arm; her head lolled onto it as well. “I don't know. Bad day, I guess.”

“How bad are we talking?”

Fi sighed. “My grades suck. Mom and Dad harass me daily. The lacrosse team hates me.”

“Why do they hate you?” he asked.

She groaned, looking up at the sky. “They are
terrible.
”

Trent was silent a moment. “And my role here is?” he eventually said.

“I don't know. I just drove down. I needed to . . . get some fresh air or something.”

“The hermit has left its—what do hermits live in anyway? Tree trunks? Shells?”

“That's a crab. And I'm not a hermit.”

He looked sideways at her, smirked, and then slid off the car. “Time to find out,” he said, holding out a hand.

She studied his hand a minute before taking it. He gave a quick tug, pulling her across the hood to land just in front of him. “There's an ice cream social in the dorm lobby.”

“An
ice cream social
? Have we time-warped back to 1923?”

“Every second Thursday. It's some crazy old tradition—maybe since 1923, I don't know. Anyway, they don't skimp on the sprinkles, so what do I care?”

Fi walked beside Trent, her hand still in his. She felt like a fourth grader, holding hands while crossing the street—on the way to an ice cream social, no less.

Trent scanned his card, and they left the cold of the parking lot for the overheated warmth of the dorm. They turned the corner and walked into a
packed
lobby—there had to be at least a hundred people.

She'd forgotten what her mom had told her about Ole Miss, how the girls went to football games in dresses and heels, the boys in coats and ties. People
dressed
here, and everything—even an ice cream social, apparently—was an event. There were maybe forty girls, all with updos and makeup and designer tops over skinny jeans. The place looked more like a club in Manhattan than a dorm lobby in Oxford, Mississippi.

Fi still had on her sweats.

Glaring at Trent, she snapped her hand out of his. “I can't go in there.”

He grimaced, looking down at her and back to the room. The girl he'd been walking with, Lindsey, looked back at them. She'd shucked her coat to reveal a cute, off-the-shoulder tunic over leggings. She flashed Fi an unfriendly look.

Trent frowned. “You can't be mad at me! I would have told you to shower at least.”

“Never mind.” Fi turned back to the door. “I'll call you later.”

He stepped in front of her. “Stop being melodramatic. We'll go to my room.”

“What about the sprinkles?”

“Hey, Lindsey,” he called. “Bring me some later, okay?”

Lindsey gave a fake smile and a quick nod. As they climbed the stairs, Fi asked, “What's up with the girl?”

“Nothing. We're just hanging out,” he said, unlocking the door.

Trent's dorm room smelled like a larger, less-ventilated
version of his car—old food, dried sweat, and boy. Dirty clothes sat in messy clumps on the floor, and take-out containers overflowed from the trash can. Fi picked her way through the mess, looking for a semi-sanitary place to sit. “You are a pig.”

“It's my roommate.” Trent kicked a few clothes piles toward one wall, making a path, and pointed between the two desks, one fairly organized and the other lost in the mess of papers, convenience store cups, books, and Fi couldn't even tell what else. “He's disgusting. And hardly ever here, only long enough to deposit more crap.”

“Open a window at least.”

Trent cracked a window. Cold air blew in, but at least it took the smell back out with it. He pointed to the neater of the two beds, and Fi sat, scooting across to rest her back against the wall. Trent joined her, the two of them side by side against cold, painted, concrete blocks. “It's a Doyle kind of day,” he said. “Ryan called this morning.”

“Yeah? What'd he have to say?”

“He quit the lacrosse team,” Trent said.

She jerked straight up. “What?”

“Can't say I'm shocked. All Christmas break, he wouldn't shut up about that intramural soccer team over fall semester. He'd never talked about lacrosse like that.”

“When did he talk about soccer?”

“Uh, the
entire
break.”

“Not with me. I only got the here's-all-the-ways-you're-screwing-up-your-life lecture.”

“He's just worried about you”—Trent nudged her shoulder—“
because you crazy.
”

“I'm not crazy,” she mumbled.
Just pitiful.

“Anyway, he said lacrosse was a ton of work and a pain with his schedule, and since he wasn't getting a ride either way, he'd rather play soccer.”

“How could he just give it up like that?” she asked.

Trent looked at her with a single raised eyebrow.

“Shut up,” she said.

Someone knocked on the door. “Trent? Are you in there?” a girl's voice called from the other side.

Trent slid off the bed and opened the door to Lindsey. She held a cup of ice cream out to him with a perfectly manicured hand.

“Thanks, Lindsey,” he said, taking it. “Hey, we're still, uh, talking and stuff. Catch you later?”

Lindsey forced a smile across her face. “Sure. I was on my way to Chris's anyway.” She waved bright-pink fingers toward Fi and drawled, “It was nice to meet you.”

The Chris comment—a pretty blatant attempt to get him jealous, Fi thought—didn't hit its mark. “Great. Thanks again for this,” he said, over the spoonful of ice cream in his mouth. He closed the door on Lindsey's pageant queen smile.

“She's so going to dump you.”

He offered her the spoon. “She can't dump me if we never dated.”

“Well, she wanted to.”

Trent shook his head, looking dramatically forlorn. “Wanting does not a relationship make.”

“So profound.” She took the spoon from him, scraping another bite. “You weren't lying about the sprinkles.”

“I know, right?”

“She's cute, though. Why aren't you interested?”

He spooned the last bit directly into Fi's mouth. “Not my type.”

Fi took the cup from him, running her finger along the inside rim and sucking off the captured sprinkles. “Have you figured it out yet?”

“Getting there.” He stretched out, so that Fi nestled between the wall and the nook created by his hips. She draped her legs over his—which hung over the edge, just like she'd imagined. “A girl who's naturally pretty, without tons of makeup and hair spray but not all hippie either. Funny. Sophisticated but not stuck-up. She has to be an impossible mixture of high and low maintenance—easy but not too easy, so as to keep me on my toes.”

“Sounds complicated.” She tossed the empty cup toward the trash can. It clattered to the ground, since there was no room.

“I'm a complicated man, Fiona Grace Doyle.”

“You didn't used to be, Trenton Alexander McKinnon the
Third. There was a time when you thought fart jokes were the height of comedy.”

He wagged a finger at her. “Never underestimate the timelessness of the fart joke.”

“Remember when we played in the backyard, and Ryan and I would trash-talk each other, and you'd try to keep up with those sad yo' mamas?”

Trent smiled with that single raised eyebrow. “What do you mean,
you and Ryan
trash-talked each other? The only one I remember doing the trash-talking was you.”

Fi shoved him with her foot. “Figured you'd take his side.”