The Story of Us (3 page)

“You’ve also seen me slap him across
the face,” I point out. Sure, I’ve found myself having a soft spot
for Craig once or twice, thinking there’s more to him than the bad
boy everyone else sees, but in the end his true colors always come
out. “I’m not doing this again, Hailey. I’m not going to sit here
and try to convince you that I don’t have feelings for Craig. We’ve
had this conversation so many times before. Why can’t you just
accept that I don’t?”

“Because I think that you do, but you
don’t think that he’s serious about you. You think he jokes around
about being into you. But I see the way he looks at you, Val. He’s
serious. He just plays it off as a joke because he’s constantly
rejected by you.”

“You’re right. He’s so serious about
me, he has to mend his broken heart with a variety of willing
women,” I bite back sarcastically.

“Okay, he’s a bit of a player. But
still-”

“As my best friend, you’re supposed to
keep me away from guys like Craig, not push me towards
them.”

Hailey’s taken back, her
face stricken with seriousness as if I just slapped her. I didn’t
mean to make it sound like she’s not a good friend. She
is
a good friend. But
sometimes I think she pushes me towards Craig simply because it
would be cool for two best friends to date two best friends,
regardless of the fact that he’s a player and I will surely end up
brokenhearted.

“You’re right,” she whispers.
“Truce?”

“Truce,” I agree, not wanting to make
her feel any worse. “Now, let’s spruce up this place. This is
supposed to be fun and exciting. I need a serious pick-me-up after
seeing the overly irritating Craig Morgan.”

The first thing I unpack is my IPod
speaker. I search through my purse for my IPod, having a hard time
feeling for it with the millions of things cluttering it up. I
finally feel it and pull it out, at the same time making a mental
note to clean out my purse when we’re all settled. I set it to my
‘party songs’ playlist and Hailey and I get to work. That’s the
thing about music – you can always count on it to change your mood.
If you want a good cry, listen to a sad song. When you want to
cheer up, blast the fun ones. We dance around each other, unpacking
our clothes and putting them away first. Then, we start to set up
our room. Before we know it, Drew’s back with my coffee. I want to
ask him about Craig, if he said anything about me or not. But I
refrain. I don’t want to get the ‘why would I be asking if I didn’t
care?’ speech. Drew only stays for about twenty minutes and then
takes off back to his own dorm to finish unpacking
himself.

“Val, what should we do about the
common room?” Hailey asks.

“I guess we just wait.” The common
room divides two dorm rooms, forming a small living room for us to
hang out in. Neither of the girls from the other dorm room have
shown up yet. “They’ll probably be here tomorrow,” I
add.

“Knock, knock,” Hailey’s mom, Jane,
says through the open door. Hailey runs over to give her mom a hug
and I follow suit. Jane has been like a second mother to me for
most of my adolescent years. It’s nice that she’s here, since my
own parents aren’t.

“I brought pizza for my college
girls,” she announces with a bright smile.

The three of us sit around eating
pizza and talking for a while until it’s time for Jane to take off.
Since Hailey’s parents divorced, Jane has been more like one of the
girls than a parent. I’m sure it’s weird for Hailey, but I think
it’s great that we can talk to her about anything. I speak more
openly in front of Jane than I ever would my own mother. We don’t
have a long, drawn-out goodbye because we know that she’ll be back
to visit, and Hailey’s promised to spend every other weekend at
home. And if I’m being honest with myself, this means I’ll be there
every other weekend as well.

“So, this is it,” I say to Hailey,
after her mom leaves.

“Yepp. Our first night at WSC,” she
responds.

I can’t stop the smile that begins to
spread across my face. “Let’s go explore!” I exclaim, not giving
Hailey a choice in the matter, but rather pulling her along with me
as I exit our dorm room. She protests at first, but I keep pulling
until I hear her laughing behind me.

We find our way to Drew’s dorm and his
face lights up when he sees Hailey. He gives her a hug like he
hasn’t seen her in years and then introduces us to his roommate,
Tyler. From the looks of him, Drew lucked out. I always thought
when you didn’t request your roommate like Hailey and I did, that
you’d end up with some gothic, heavy metal punk. But Tyler looks
normal. He looks a lot like Drew actually, but with darker features
and slightly more refined. He looks like he comes from money, like
he could be a snob, except I don’t get that snobby vibe from
him.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” he
politely says. “I don’t know anyone here, so it’s definitely nice
to meet a few people before classes start.”

“Where are you from?” I ask
him.

“Connecticut.”

Well, I was right about his family
being wealthy. I’ve never met anyone from Connecticut who wasn’t
pretty well off. I guess it’s a ritzy state. “So why WSC? If you’re
all the way from Connecticut?”

“I guess I just didn’t want to follow
in my brothers footprints. He graduated from Yale last year. I
wanted something different.” He shrugs.

I nod in understanding. Although I
don’t have any siblings, I can definitely sympathize with wanting
something different from what your family expects. “What’s that?” I
ask, pointing to the blue and gold helmet on his side of the
room.

“Oh, my football helmet.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” I tell him,
without thinking of how offensive that sounds until I see the look
on Hailey’s face. “I mean… most football players are big, scary
guys. And you don’t look scary at all,” I add, trying to salvage
myself from completely offending the guy. It’s not that he’s small
and scrawny, but he’s not entirely jacked either.

He laughs, not minding the comment at
all. “Well,” he counters, “I can tell right off the bat that you
two are cheerleaders.”

“
I
am. But my bestie here has decided
to abandon me this year and take a break from cheerleading just
when it starts to matter.”

Hailey gives me a pointed look. “I
just don’t want to cheer this year. Drop it, Val.”

“Fine,” I sigh. I know it’ll turn into
an argument if I don’t.

“Tyler’s a great running back, from
what I hear,” Drew says, probably just to break the ice between
Hailey and me.

“Well, time will tell,” I
tease.

He smirks back at me, “At least I know
you’ll be there to watch all of my games, whether you want to or
not.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be cheering more than
watching.”

“Still, knowing you’re right there
will give me a reason to try harder.”

I pause for a moment, not expecting
the obvious flirtation.

“So when’s the first game?” Hailey
asks, saving me.

“Two weeks from Friday. You guys gonna
come watch it?” He asks Drew and Hailey.

“I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss Val
cheering. I might not be on the squad, but I’ll still support my
girl.”

“And if
my
girl is there, then I’ll be there
too,” Drew says with a smirk, holding Hailey tighter.

“Awesome,” Tyler exclaims, genuinely
happy.

After a few more minutes of small
talk, I see Hailey whisper something to Drew and then she turns to
me. “It’s getting late Val, wanna head back?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I thought there’d
be so much more nightlife than this in college.”

“A lot of the students aren’t here
yet. More will be moving in tomorrow,” Tyler informs us.

“Want me to walk you back?” Drew
asks.

“No. We’ll be fine,” Hailey insists.
She reaches up on her tiptoes to give him a small kiss as Tyler and
I stand awkwardly pretending not to witness it.

“So, Tyler seems nice,” Hailey says,
as we’re walking back to our dorm.

“Yeah, he does.”

“So…”

“So, what?”

“So, what do you think?” she
presses.

“Seriously, Hail? Why does every guy
you meet need to be a ‘let’s-fix-Val-up-with-him’ kind of guy?
Can’t I just be happy to be single?”

“Are you happy single? Because I think
you’d be happier not single.”

“Right now, I’m happy to be in college
and to be free to explore my options. Let’s just leave it at
that.”

Chapter 3

The next morning, I wake up to the
sound of people talking. Two girls, I decipher. And then banging.
And then laughing. And then more banging and some
rummaging.

“Hailey!” I half whisper, half yell. I
can see her stir, slowing waking up. “Pssst, Hail!”

“What?” she asks, groggily.

“Someone’s moving in!”

She pauses to listen. Just outside our
door, we can hear girls talking. I can only make out part of what
they’re saying. Something about a T.V. and couch. And
mermaids?

“Let’s go meet our neighbors,” I
whisper to her.

When we walk out into the common room,
the girls look surprised to see us. “Hey.” I yawn, still sleepy
myself.

They scrunch their eyebrows as they
look at one another. “Hi. You guys stayed here last
night?”

“Yeah. I’m Valerie and this is
Hailey.”

“Oh! I didn’t think you guys would be
here so soon. I’m Julie and this is Ashley.”

My first impression
is:
Shit.
Two
blondes. We’re practically living with two blondes. Not just
blondes, but bleach blondes. I don’t think they could get any
blonder. My worst nightmare. They look like they could be twins,
except Julie has a long, pointed nose and Ashely’s is more
button-like. Also, Julie’s hair looks natural; almost white. And
Ashley’s has the faint hint of brunette at the tips. They’re both
size double, maybe even triple, zeroes. And the contrast of Julie’s
eyeliner with her white-ish hair and fair skin is unnerving.
They’re like mini, modern-day Barbie dolls.

“You guys already know each other?”
Hailey asks them.

“Yepp. Best friends from the womb. Our
moms were best friends,” Ashley tells us.

“Were?” I ask, catching the past tense
she used.

“Were,” Julie simply states. “Now,
what are we doing about the common room?” She slyly changes the
subject.

“We brought an extra T.V., a small
stand for it, and a couple of chairs,” I tell them.

“Perfect,” Julie says, “We brought a
couple side tables, and a rug. That should be all we need. We don’t
want to clutter it up or anything.”

“Do you guys need help taking stuff
in? Hailey asks. This is why she’s a better person than I am.
Because my first thought is – why should we help them? They weren’t
here to help us.

“No. We actually have to get ready for
cheering practice and then Julie’s boyfriend and his friend are
coming to unpack us,” Ashley explains.

“Oh, Valerie’s on the cheerleading
squad too!” Hailey boasts.

“No way! Get out of here!” Ashley
screams.

“Awesome!” Julie smiles, but is
definitely less enthusiastic. “We didn’t see you at try-outs,
though.”

“I got there early, so they let me go
first. They told me I made it and told me when the first practice
was. That was it. I didn’t see anyone, other than the three judges.
Were there a lot of girls there?”

“Ashley and I went together. When we
got there, there were three other girls waiting, so we waited with
them until it was our turn. By the time we went, there were two
more girls who showed up. So only five others that we know of. And
we’re not even sure if all of them made the squad.”

“Well I guess we’ll find out how big
of a squad it is in about an hour. I’m actually gonna go get ready
now,” I tell them, heading into my dorm room to get my stuff
together.

“We can all walk over to the athletic
building together!” Ashley yells in my direction.

Hailey doesn’t end up walking over
with us because she wants to go see Drew instead of watch the
practice. So it’s just me and the bleach blonde twins. To be
honest, they’re not as bad as I thought they’d be. They’re actually
kind of nice.

“So how long have you been cheering?”
Ashley asks.

“A few years. Hailey’s actually a
cheerleader too. She’s got years over me, but she chose to take a
break from it this year.”

“That’s too bad. It would have been
fun for all of us to be on the squad together,” Julie softens,
seeming genuinely disappointed.

“How about you guys? Have you cheered
long?”

Julie answers, “All of high school.
It’s gonna be so weird trying to remember a different school name
in the cheers, and to wear different school colors.”