The Lie (13 page)

The first day
of my second year at SMU was pretty much exactly the same as the first day of my first year. I got my job at Mac’s Place again and had to fill out all the tax forms. I moved all my shit into a dorm room at McElvaney and met my new roommate. I knew most of the other sophomores had moved off campus, but I couldn’t really afford it. So, yeah, I was back at McElvaney as the only sophomore I knew of on my floor, which seems like that would have made me pretty pathetic, but I really didn’t give a shit. My roommate was a freshman named Russ Hammilman. Russ was from Grapevine, a little suburb of Dallas, and he was majoring in business or some bullshit and couldn’t wait to rush in January. As soon as he moved in he grilled me for a solid half hour about what the frat parties are like. When he finally started to get the fact that I had no idea, he never really talked to me again. We just kind of had an unspoken deal to leave each other the fuck alone.

After I moved all my shit in, I called Heather to see if she wanted to get lunch or something. I think she said, “Oh, babe, I’d love to, but I’m like supposed to eat with Andrea and some other Kappas. Is that okay?”

I don’t know why it pissed me off so much when she said, “Is that okay?” I guess it was like she was asking permission even though it didn’t matter what the fuck I thought. She was going to do whatever she wanted to. I think I said something like, “Sure. How about dinner tonight then?”

And she said, “I can’t commit now. I’m going to be pretty tired tonight after I move all of my stuff into the house. Can you believe I have my own room now?”

I said, “Yeah, that’s great,” even though I really didn’t give a shit. I take that back. I actually did give a shit, because guys weren’t allowed in the girls’ rooms in the Kappa house, so if we wanted to fuck it was going to have to be in my shitty dorm room, and I knew that Heather would never actually want to stay in a dorm room at McElvaney over her own room in her sorority house. So when she did stay over, I knew it would only be for me and I was pretty sure she’d start to resent me because I’d be the only reason she had to leave her perfect sorority life. How did I not see what a fucking cunt she was? Every time I go back over it I’m still surprised by what a fucking idiot I was.

Anyway, that first day back I pretty much wrote off getting to see Heather. I had one class orientation I was actually kind of looking forward to—molecular genetics lab. I’d taken the pre-req my freshman year, instead of my sophomore like most people do, because I really wanted to take molecular genetics lab as soon as I could.

The orientation was pretty standard. The professor handed out the syllabus, tried to crack a few shitty science jokes, told us about the research he was doing, and then made us choose lab partners, saying this exactly: “Your lab partner will be the person you spend more time with than any other this semester. If you are married, if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, if you have a pet or child, tonight you should tell them that you love them and you will see them again in five months. Your lab partner is going to be your new wife, your new husband, your new boyfriend/girlfriend, your new pet, your new child. I realize you are all complete strangers and I don’t care. Whoever you choose today will be your lab partner until the semester ends or until one of you dies, period.” I actually kind of regretted taking the class a year early at that point. My friend Carl, who was my lab partner for almost every class that required one my freshman year, ended up transferring to Arizona State, which sucked because we had become decent friends, we worked pretty well together, and we were essentially on the exact same track with our majors. So we effectively could have been lab partners in every class up until graduation. But since he was in Arizona, I was kind of stuck with the luck of the draw, just hoping I didn’t get a complete douchebag.

Of course everybody paired up immediately, and I got stuck with the fat guy who smelled like dirty armpits and farts. His name was Reginald Fromme and I swear to fucking God he was wearing a Harry Potter T-shirt and he had the beginnings of a Jedi Padawan braid on the back of his head. I wanted to fucking kill myself. Once we paired off we had to go up and sign our names on a list and then it was set in stone. I told myself it wouldn’t be that bad, even though I knew it was going to be.

Every once in a while, maybe five or six times in your whole life, something will happen that seems so lucky, so out of the blue, that you almost believe there’s a god. This was one of those times for me. My fucking hand was on the pen and I was about to sign my name next to Reginald’s when two people came into the room. One was another fat guy who probably also smelled like shit and was wearing a
Lord of the Rings
T-shirt, and the other was a girl who was pretty cute, not fat, and probably did not smell like shit.

As they came in the fat guy said, “Stop the press. Sorry I’m late. What’d I miss?” Reginald turned around, saw the guy, then turned back to me and, I shit you not, said, “My apologies, this lab partnership is terminated.” Then he went and started yelling at the other fat guy for being late. He said something like, “You have to be more punctual. I almost ended up getting stuck with that guy,” referring to me. “I would have never forgiven you.”

So that left me with only one other choice for a lab partner—the cute chick, who I confirmed did not smell like shit. She said, “So I guess we’re partners.”

I said, “Guess so.”

“I’m Erin.”

“Kyle. Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

We signed our names next to each other and that’s how I met Erin Sullivan, who I admit I thought about that night while I jerked off because Heather opted to stay in her new room at the Kappa house.

I know it probably
pissed Kyle off that I spent my first night of sophomore year in the house, but what was I supposed to do, seriously? It wasn’t like I was going to sleep in fucking McElvaney Hall with him my first night back when I had just moved into my own room and everything. I made it up to him, though. The next night I stayed with him and had sex with him and let him finish in my mouth and he seemed to calm down a little and not be so high-strung, so it seemed like everything was getting back to normal. At least it did to me. I mean, at the end of our first year it was kind of getting strained because I couldn’t see him as much as he wanted me to, but we made it through that, and then over the summer I think he thought we would see each other more than we did, but I had to go to Europe. So now we were back, and even though we didn’t really see each other the first day, I let him cum in my mouth the second day. I figured I would see Kyle pretty much every other day and stay in his room maybe like two or three times a week and have sex with him one or two times a week and it would work out fine. Everything was fine.

I signed up for whatever classes my counselor told me I needed and none of them seemed too hard so I wasn’t worried about that and I was just seriously excited to be living in the Kappa house for the most part.

We had our first big back-to-school party like in the first or second week back, and even though Kyle was seriously like the biggest asshole ever in all of this and pretty much all of it was his fault, I guess at that party I did kind of do something that I can at least understand him being mad at me for. I mean, I guess I just shouldn’t have done it, but whatever, it still wasn’t as bad as anything Kyle did to me.

I basically knew I was in for a long night before the party even started. The party was at Fiji, and a few of us went over to help them set up some stuff a few hours before it officially started. While we were setting up, this guy Cam Saunders, whose older brother Jim sometimes got coke and E for us, was like, “So my brother came through with some serious shit for this party,” and he pulled out like seriously a trash bag full of weed, coke, E, oxys, and a bunch of other pills—I had no idea what they were. He was like, “For being such good girls and helping us set this shit up, you ladies get one of each,” and he gave us all like half a gram of coke, some E, and some other stuff. Then he made us promise not to do them until the party started.

I wasn’t like a big cokehead or anything. I had done it maybe like a dozen times or something at different parties my freshman year and it was pretty fun, so I didn’t have a problem with it or anything, and I knew the stuff that Cam’s brother got was like the best on campus.

After we set up, Andrea, Jill, and I went back to our house to get ready and everything. I was pretty sure I’d be way too fucked up to see Kyle after the party, so I called him and told him I was just going to stay at the Kappa house that night. I never told Kyle about any of the drugs I did. I knew he’d be weird about it if he found out. It was just easier not to deal with it, seriously. Honestly he really was a pretty good boyfriend when it came to giving me space and everything during that time. He never even asked questions when I would sleep for like twelve hours the next day.

So we got dressed back at our house and then walked down to the party with the stuff Cam had given us. When we got there, we all went to the bathroom together, did a few bumps, and took the E. Andrea took something else, too. I kind of drew the line at coke and E and obviously weed if it was around, but I tried to stay away from the really hard stuff. This coke was seriously the best I had had up to that point. I remember feeling so good and happy and just ready to dance. I could feel the music pumping through the bathroom door and I couldn’t even stop myself. I just opened it and went out into the shitty Fiji living room where they had this crappy DJ that I thought was incredible because of the coke and I just started dancing. Andrea danced with me a little bit, but I could tell she was having a way different experience. She was kind of just staring at the ceiling and trying not to fall down mostly. Whatever that other pill was, it didn’t seem like it went very well with the coke.

And then like fifteen or twenty minutes after I started dancing the E kicked in and I swear to fucking God I felt like I was made of light or something. I guess it must have been really good coke and really good E mixed together or something, but I seriously didn’t even feel like I had a body. I just felt like I was the music or something. It was intense.

I think I saw Brett walking around at one point and I tried to give him a hug but he just walked away or something. So I grabbed Andrea and rubbed her shirt, which was kind of silky and smooth, for a few minutes. At that point I didn’t really think I was going to do what I ended up doing. Then Brian showed up with Annie.

Annie was like, “Hey, you rolling?”

I was like, “Oh yeah.”

She was like, “Where’d you get it?”

I was like, “Cam.”

She was like, “How much?”

I was like, “He gave it to me for nothing so I don’t know. Probably like thirty.”

She was like, “I’m gonna go find him.” Then she left.

Brian was like, “For real, are you okay?” And I guess I was kind of sweaty or something because he was like, “You need me to get you a towel?”

I was like, “No, I’m great. I’ve been dancing for a while is all.”

He was like, “How was your summer?” I guess I hadn’t seen him since we all came back.

I was like, “Awesome. I went to Europe with my mom and sister. How about you?”

He was like, “I actually couldn’t stop thinking about you and about that last party at the end of last year, for real.”

I was like, “Yeah, me too.”

He was like, “Can we go somewhere that’s not two feet from a speaker?”

I was like, “Okay.”

He took me by the hand and led me off to some guy’s bedroom that had the old beer and sweaty-nuts smell. We sat down on the guy’s bed and Brian just leaned in and started kissing me, pretty much like right where we left off the year before. Oh my God, it felt so fucking good and I know it was because I was so fucked up from drinking and E—I’m pretty sure I was over the coke at that point, but the E was like hitting me right at its most intense point. I didn’t know if Brian was high or anything, but he was definitely drunk because I had to suck his dick for like five minutes before it even got hard or before I even really realized what I was doing.

It just kind of happened in the heat of the moment type of thing, you know. We were making out, and then I was sucking his dick in some guy’s room in the Fiji house. At some point he tried to push my head back to stop me and he was like, “Wait, what about your boyfriend?”

I was like, “Shut up,” and just kept sucking his dick. I don’t think he took a shower before the party, because his nuts were worse than the nut smell in the guy’s room, but his dick was clean, it wasn’t too salty or anything. And on E, sucking his dick was so fucking nice. At some point during it I think the guy whose room it was came in or something, because the door opened, but he must’ve seen what was going on and left because he shut the door and everything.

So I sucked his dick for like another five minutes after he got hard and he came in my mouth, which was also really hot on the E Cam had given me. He came a lot, too. It was like a huge amount, which was also kind of hot to me in a way it never had been when other guys had done it—like I had given him such a good blowjob that it emptied everything he had. I swallowed all of it that went in my mouth—some kind of dribbled out because there was so much—and then went up to kiss Brian. He turned his head, though, which wasn’t a big deal. Some guys won’t kiss you after you’ve sucked their dick. There have been times when it’s close to my period and I’m not really into kissing a guy after he goes down on me. So I just lay next to him.

He was like, “Are you going to tell your boyfriend about this?”

I was like, “Uh, that would be pretty fucking stupid.”

He was like, “For real.”

Then he passed out and I just lay there thinking about Kyle for a few minutes. What I was doing hadn’t even really dawned on me while I was doing it. I mean once you start sucking a guy’s dick you really aren’t thinking about much else, just hoping he cums before your jaw starts hurting. I wondered if Kyle would be able to tell. I still hadn’t fucked anyone else since we started fucking, or since we were officially exclusive, I mean, so I hadn’t really cheated on him. I just gave some guy a blowjob. I mean I knew he wouldn’t be happy if he found out, but I thought I could hide it from him, like he wouldn’t be able to tell what I had done just by looking at me or anything. For a split second I thought about breaking up with him. I was too fucked up to think straight, but like the next day or something I should have realized that if I was sucking some other guy’s dick I probably didn’t want to be with Kyle at that point, you know? But I didn’t. As stupid as it might seem, when I was lying there on that guy’s bed with Brian’s cum still clinging to the back of my teeth, I kind of realized that I actually loved Kyle like a lot. I was too high to feel bad for what I just did, but I knew Kyle didn’t deserve to be treated like that. Now I obviously totally wish I would have sucked a million dicks a day when Kyle and I were together, but then I thought he deserved better.

So I left Brian sleeping on the guy’s bed and went back to the party. I made a deal with myself that if I didn’t pass out somewhere at the party I would try to make it back to Kyle’s room at the end of the night and fuck him, kind of so he wouldn’t be suspicious, but also because I felt like I owed him that much. I ended up not making it, though.