Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (26 page)

And I was about to find out, not that night but soon,
that he really had.

* * *

That night, John and I had a really beautiful and very
silent night together. I’ll always remember that night as
the night I knew that no matter what happened, nobody
could destroy our love. They could break us apart, but
they couldn’t break that bond. I didn’t always let John
know I knew that, though. And therein lay a huge
problem for us.

After I had thrown everything into the trash—dinner,
centerpiece, and anything else I could get my furious
hands on—I changed into a pair of old sweats and
debated over whether I should throw away everything of
Tia’s not in her room while I was in a mood to throw
things away. Including people, apparently.

I contemplated this over a half gallon of vanilla ice
cream and half a pie I found in the refrigerator. The pie
tasted a little rancid, but I didn’t care. I hoped I did get
food poisoning. Maybe that would dull some of the more
unbearable pain I felt in my heart. I don’t know how long
I sat on the sofa like that, doing the thing I was becoming
most expert at—feeling sorry for myself.

I
don’t know what time it was when I heard that
knock at the door. I pushed the empty ice cream and pie
containers aside, wondering who would dare intrude on
my angry silence. I stared at the door, willing the per
sistent knocking to stop. Even if Tia was home—and I
had no idea whether she was or not—I knew she would
never answer that door. Even if she knew who it was. And
this person was not gonna go away.

I walked to the door grumbling, ready to cuss Astoria
out if she was on the other side and half hoping she was
because I wanted to cuss someone out. But, no such luck.
I opened the door and stood there for a moment, too shocked to move. When I finally opened my mouth to
speak, John’s fingers closed over it.

“Sh. Don’t say anything. I just want to be with you
tonight. I just want you. I only want us to be together. And
we can’t seem to do that if we open our mouths,” he said.

I could only nod. He walked in and closed the door
behind him. I silently led the way to my room. After
closing the door to my room, he pulled me to him and
hugged me tightly. I breathed in deeply, needing to smell
the clean scent of his cologne. I wanted to breathe him
in; be surrounded by him. He gently pushed me back far enough so that he could remove his jacket and polo. He
kicked off his shoes and pushed off his jeans. I grabbed him again immediately and pressed our bodies together. He sighed shakily into my hair before pulling back far enough to kiss my cheek.

I took his hand in mine and we walked over to my
bed. We sat on the edge for a moment, watching each
other with wistful, love-torn eyes. We tried to say the
things with our hands that we couldn’t say out loud.
Hands on faces, necks, shoulders—hands over hearts. Fingertips between lips.

We slid under the comforter and I pressed my back
against his chest. His hand was still in mine. I brought it to my lips and let it rest there. He rested his chin on top
of my head. I smiled faintly as I closed my eyes. My first
smile in way too long.

John loved me. He wanted me and needed me near
him as much as I did him. There was no sound more beau
tiful than John’s even breathing. No better sensation than
his chest moving in time with that breathing against my
back. Except for maybe that of his warm breath against the
back of my neck. I always wanted that. I wished his hand
could stay at my lips. I wished he could hold me close in that bed forever. I knew that was the only place we were
safe anymore. Oddly enough, I got the best sleep I’d gotten
since we had returned to class following winter break.

When I opened my eyes the next morning to the
harsh blaring of my alarm clock and the unforgiving glare
of the morning sun, he was gone. I wept bitterly after I
hit the snooze button. I wept harder than I had in my
entire life. I surprised myself with the new heights of
despair I seemed to reach daily.

* * *

The Tau Gamma Chis, my arch nemeses, continued
their reign of terror, adding even more joy to my daily
l
ife. The day before my hearing, later in the morning that
I had wept alone in my bed—so utterly alone—they cor
nered me in the restroom. That was the day it was over
for me and John. Two days before Valentine’s Day.
Robbed of a Valentine’s present again. Although that was
the last thing on my mind at the moment.

I came out of the stall and there they were. Fresh from
hell. Cindy, Lacey, and Jess. And they looked liked a
Cindy, a Lacey and a Jess, too. They all had blonde hair
of various highlighted shades. They wore matching
smirks, pearls, and cashmere.

“What do you want now?” I said to the collective
body. They were really all one person to me anyway.

“You still haven’t gotten the message, have you?” said
Cindy.

“Hm?” I said, playing dumb. I was bringing it down to their level.

“You stupid bitch. You still want to pretend like you
have a chance with John and mess everything up for
Sasha,” another one said. That one was probably Lacey.

“I haven’t done anything to Sasha. She did it all to
herself,” I said, beginning to put that all-too-familiar
defensive front up.

“Yeah. Whatever you want to tell yourself, but we’re here to let you know it’s time to stop playing around,”
Probably Lacey said. “You can’t go messing with Sasha’s
future. They’re supposed to be together. That’s just the
way things work. I don’t know what you think you’re doing. But it has to stop.”

“Yeah. This ends right here, right now,” Cindy said.

“
What are you going to do? Try to fight me?” I said
incredulously. I turned to leave the restroom.

One of them put a hand on my shoulder.

“You’ve already taken all you can take. I’m about to be
kicked out. Don’t deny it was you who did this. And get
your hands off of me.”

“Oh, no. Little miss gangster wants to fight us. What
is that your kind calls this? Scrapping?” Cindy said with
a smirk. They all burst out laughing; the same laugh.

I was boiling inside. “You can shut your ignorant ass up right now.”

“And if I don’t want to?” She raised a perfectly arched
eyebrow.

“I think you’ll want to,” I said. I wasn’t about to back
down from that petty thing.

“You wouldn’t touch me,” she said scornfully, looking
at me as if I were dirty and not even worthy of the
“honor” of doing so.

“Oh, I’ll do more than touch you,” I said.

“You better watch her. She probably has a knife,” one
of the other two spoke up. “You know. They all carry
some kind of weapon. For when the drug deal goes bad.”

“You and your groupies need to get out of my face.
Right now and from now on.”

“I’ll press charges,” Maybe Cindy said. She looked
scared.

I smirked. “Whatever.” I set my laptop bag down on
the floor under the sink. “You feeling froggy, then c’mon.
Otherwise, stay out of my face.”

“You just leave Sasha alone.”

“I’m not bothering her.”

“You know what I mean.”

“John’s a grown man. He does what he wants. And
obviously what he wants is to be with me.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t know what kind of spell you put
on him, but—”

“What? Now you think I know voodoo? I understand
how you can be in the bottom of the class. But what I
don’t know is how you even got
in
to law school.”

“You shut your mouth.”

I laughed. “I guess the same way
your
kind gets any
thing. What Daddy can’t get for you, you spread your legs
for. So did Daddy pay your way in here? Or did you?”

“Trailer trash!”

“Hm. Trash describes you better than it does me,” I said. “Guess money can’t buy class.”

“I’m gonna destroy you. I’m gonna show you your place since you can’t find it on your own.” She glowered
at me and clenched her fists at her side. Her pearl necklace stood out against her red neck.

“You don’t scare me. How many times do I have to
tell you that? Hm. You’re slower than I thought.”

“And no one’s denying anything. You can make this
all go away, you know. You’re doing this to yourself. You
really want to lose everything?”

“You really think you’re going to get away with this,
huh?” I said with a scoff. Inside, I was beginning to care less and less whether she did or not.

“C’mon. She’s not worth it. Don’t worry. She’ll be fin
ished after tomorrow. Pathetic loser. Has no idea what’s
g
ood for her,” one of them said, tossing back her blonde
hair and glaring at me.

I sneered right back.

“Yeah. You know this isn’t going to last much longer
anyway. John has to get bored with her soon,” the other one said, looking down her nose at me.

I just kept staring straight at them. The two of them
pulled Cindy out of the bathroom. I knew she wanted to
see the end of me, and I had no idea how I was going to
stop her. All I had was the truth—with no evidence to
back it up. And I didn’t know if the fight was worth it
anymore.

My phone buzzed. I took it out of my pocket and
flipped it open. A new text message from John. I snapped
my phone shut and rubbed my forehead with shaking fingers. I couldn’t see how we could possibly make it.
Everyone wanted us to fail. But he was wrong about me.
At least I really hoped he was. I loved him so much. I
couldn’t imagine being without him. Then again, I hadn’t
really gotten to be with him all that much since all we did
was fight. Maybe, sadly enough, he was right about me.

Of course, John and I had a fight about my encounter
with the Tau Gamma Chi triplets. It seemed as if all John
and I did anymore was fight. Sasha and her army were
definitely winning in that respect. John and I came out
of Starbucks together. We met there after class to talk. I
told him about what happened that afternoon. He
remained almost silent the whole time. Despite the pre
vious night, or maybe because of it, I thought John wasn’t
trying hard enough. I was furious at him. Mostly because
I was afraid to be furious at anyone else—including
myself. Even the thought made me feel frighteningly
helpless and hopeless.

“What is it with you, John? Do you even care what
happened?” I finally exploded after we reached his car.

“What do you want me to do, Denise? What do you
want me to say? It’s not like I can control them,” John
said with an exasperated sigh.

I rolled my eyes and put my hand on my hip. I stared
at him, my mouth dropping open.

“What?”

“I am so tired of that line. You can’t keep hiding
behind that. You’re not even going to take up for me? Sympathize with me?”

“I tell Sasha to stop. Apparently, it makes her worse.
I’ve stopped trying. I try to calm you down and you yell at me for belittling you and not caring about your feel
ings. So I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do
here,” John said. The tone of his voice was frustrated.
Defeated. Tired. I refused to hear that at the time. I
refused to hear anything coming out of his mouth.

“Well, you’re just not doing enough.”