The Story of Us (5 page)

“This is gonna be my favorite class,”
Ashley says, turning to me as she packs up her stuff. “I can
already tell. I might even switch my major to psych. Okay, not
really, but it’s a fun thought.”

“What’s your major right now?” I
realize I hadn’t yet asked.

“
I’m pre-law,” she states
matter-of-factly, like it’s no big deal.

My jaw hangs open. “What? Seriously?”
I never would have guessed that from one of the twins.

“Yeah, seriously. I come from a long
line of lawyers,” she explains. “What’s your major?”

“Undeclared right now,” I answer
blandly, still stunned.

“Well I gotta jet across campus. See
ya later.”

I smile as she walks out. It’s weird
how some people aren’t exactly who they seem to be. She’s a bleach
blonde petite cheerleader, who’s a one-hundred on the scale of
peppiness… and she’s pre-law. I guess it’s true that you really
can’t judge a book by its cover.

I have, like, twenty minutes to kill
before my next class starts and it’s in this same room. What to do?
I take out my phone and shoot Hailey a text to make sure she’s up.
Her first class is starting when my last one does. I know most
college students want the later classes, but I like to get them
done and over with so I can enjoy the rest of the day. Tomorrow
Hailey and I are in the same classes together though. We planned it
that way when we made our schedules. A day apart, a day together.
We didn’t want to take all the same classes and end up seeing each
other 24/7. But at the same time, who doesn’t want to be in the
same classes as their best friend? My phone buzzes back at the same
time as someone covers my eyes.

“What the hell?” I ask, half
irritated, half surprised.

“Guess,” I hear a deep, husky voice
whisper in my ear, so close that his breath tickles my neck and
sends shivers across my skin. I inhale the woodsy, earthy smell of
his cologne and I have to admit that, for a brief moment, my
irritation fades and I relax. This feels good – his closeness, my
head cradled in his chest, his touch. Then I snap out of
it.

“Are you stalking me?” I
accuse.

Craig laughs as he releases my
eyes.

“No, seriously. You’re stalking
me!”

“This happens to be my next
class.”

I pause for a moment, letting that
sink in.

“Yepp.” He watches the realization hit
me, “You have the pleasure of seeing me twice a week for the next
few months, princess.” He gives me a sideways smirk that I’m
all-too-familiar with.

I roll my eyes and get back to my
phone, opening Hailey’s response text.

“I’m up. Julie gets ready
with music blasting. I couldn’t sleep in if I tried. Thanx for the
text though. See u later.”

“Your new boyfriend?”

I roll my eyes. “None of your
business.”

When I look up, I notice he’s sitting
right beside me. Too close.

“Are you staying there?” I ask,
“Because if so, I’m moving my seat.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” His
voice is tight, but his features soft.

“You annoy me. And don’t even try to
act all innocent. You know you do it on purpose.”

“Because I call you
princess?”

“Among other things.”

“Okay,
Valerie
. I’ll try not to call you
princess anymore. Is that a start? Truce?”

I hesitate, trying to decipher what
he’s really trying to do here.

He takes my hesitation as a no. “See,”
he says seriously, “It’s not that. I think you’re just determined
to hate me no matter what.” And before I can respond, he grabs his
books and walks up to the next row. He sits down without even
looking back.

I can’t help it; it stings a little.
So I gather my stuff and move up a row too. I sit right next to
him. “Stop calling me princess. Stop irritating me on purpose. Stop
flirting. And maybe we can be friends, for Drew and Hailey’s sake,
if nothing else,” I offer.

“Well irritating you seems to come
natural to me. I don’t even have to try, so I’m not really sure how
I can stop.”

“C’mon, Craig. You know what I
mean.”

“Fine,” he agrees. But I
can still feel the tension rolling off of him. He’s still mad at
me. What the hell did I ever do to him for
him
to be mad at
me
?

The professor walks in before I can
address the issue with Craig. I hadn’t even noticed the classroom
filling up. The professor is a small, middle-aged lady, with dark
hair and glasses. The first thing she does is instruct us to move
the tables and chairs into a u-shape, rather than lined up in rows
like they are now. We all get to work adjusting the classroom. She
tells us we’ll have to do this every day at the start of class,
because she wants a more intimate feel, where all of her students
can see their classmates. Then she hands me a stack of papers and
tells me to take one and pass the rest along. I take the first one
in the stack and hand the rest to Craig, who is still sitting
beside me. She explains that the class is mostly lectures, broken
up by speaking days. On the speaking days, we’ll be responsible for
standing in front of the class and reciting an assignment. The
first speaking day, we’ll be allowed to read our assignment off of
a piece of paper. The second speaking day, we’ll be able to use
note cards, only looking down when we get stuck. And the third
speaking day will be completely from memory. Our final exam won’t
be an assignment at all, but rather just speaking in front of the
class about anything of our choosing: talking about our favorite
book or movie, debating an argument, soliciting people to join a
team or activity, reciting a poem, anything. The class wouldn’t
seem that hard at all, if it weren’t for my fear of public
speaking. I don’t understand why a public speaking class is even a
requirement. You can’t graduate college if you can’t successfully
stand in front of a crowd and speak? I know plenty of successful
people who would cringe at the thought of public speaking. But
nonetheless, it’s a core requirement at WSC.

When the professor
releases us, I look over at Craig to see him bolting out of the
classroom, off to his next class, without even turning in my
direction.
Friends. Yeah,
right
.

I stop at The Grind before heading
back to my dorm. It’s not as crowded as yesterday, probably because
most people are in class right now. The girl Craig hooked up with
the other day is working behind the counter. Instantly, I can tell
she doesn’t like me. Between her and Craig working here, I should
seriously look up another coffee shop in the area. When I get back
to the dorm, I realize no one’s here and it’s kind of nice to have
the alone time. I sprawl out on the couch in the common room and
turn on the T.V., channel surfing until I get to an old episode of
Saved By The Bell, one of my favorite shows when I was in Junior
High. I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I wake up to Hailey and the
twins all coming back at the same time.

“You’re the only person I
know who can fall asleep
while
drinking coffee,” Hailey teases, noticing the
coffee cup still in my hand.

“What time is it?” I ask,
sleepily.

“Two-thirty. We’re all gonna go grab
some lunch. We just came back to see if you wanted to come too,
since you weren’t answering my texts.”

“Yeah, just give me a minute to wake
up.” I stand and stretch, trying to get rid of the heaviness that
sleep brings.

In the cafeteria, I meet Julie’s
boyfriend David, who just stopped by to visit. He goes to a college
about twenty minutes away. Evidently they were high school
sweethearts, so it amazes me that they didn’t decide to go to the
same school like Hailey and Drew did. I guess they thought twenty
minutes apart wasn’t that bad. After lunch, Hailey takes off to
meet Drew and I go back to the dorm to get ready for cheerleading
practice. I don’t see Hailey again until the next morning when
we’re both waking up at the same time because it’s a day that we
have the same classes.

“What time did you get in last night?”
I ask her.

“Late. I fell asleep at Drew’s and
didn’t realize it until Tyler woke us up.”

“I was worried. I mean, I know you’re
a big girl and I’m not trying to be all motherly or anything. But,
wouldn’t you be worried if I didn’t come back to the dorm until
early morning? We don’t even know 10% of the people here. Anything
could happen.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll try to
check in next time?”

“Okay. Did Drew at least walk you
back?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Good.”

English Lit and Algebra go just as
smoothly as yesterday’s classes, since there’s no actual work yet.
The professors just hand out the syllabi and read it off, going
over specific assignments we’ll be responsible for throughout the
semester. It’s nice having Hailey with me and I almost wish we
scheduled all of our classes together after all. After lunch,
though, she takes off to be with Drew and I get ready for
cheerleading practice again. After practice, she’s nowhere to be
found and not answering my texts again. I know I seem like a
paranoid mother, but I literally sigh in relief when I hear her
come in around eleven o’clock at night. This goes on for the next
few weeks and I contemplate confronting her. On one hand, who I am
to tell her what to do? She’s in college now and she has the
freedom to be with her boyfriend as much as she wants. If I say
something, she’ll probably just think I’m jealous of her spending
more time with Drew than with me. But on the other hand, maybe I do
worry that Drew is all she cares about lately; that he’ll distract
her from having a real college experience. Plus, colleges aren’t
necessarily known for being super safe at night.

I finally work up the nerve to say
something when we’re sitting around the common room with the twins
one night. They’re having an argument over Ashley’s need to keep
their dorm room neat and organized, while Julie leaves things
laying around, claiming she doesn’t have time to pick up every day.
Hailey looks over at me and smirks, because honestly it is kind of
funny how they’re bickering like an old married couple.

“Hail?” I ask.

“Yeah?” She’s still suppressing a
smile.

“Don’t get mad, okay? But I think that
maybe you’re spending too much time with Drew. You leave to be with
him every afternoon and I’m usually sleeping when you come back to
the dorm late at night, sometimes early into the morning. Doesn’t
Tyler get weirded out that you’re there all the time? And it’s not
really safe late at night either…”

“Val, he’s my boyfriend. Of course I
want to spend a lot of time with him. But I think I’m still making
time for you too. We have lunch together almost every day. We have
the same classes every other day. I usually don’t even see Drew
until you go to cheerleading practice. And Tyler doesn’t mind.
Besides, a lot of the time we’re not even in the dorm.”

This surprises me. “Where are you
then?”

She sighs like she doesn’t want to
tell me. “The library,” she reluctantly tells me.

“The library?” I ask in disbelief. Why
would that be a secret, I wonder.

“Yeah, the library. I’m helping Drew
with some research.”

“For a class?”

“No. Just some personal
research.”

I give her a look that shows I’m
skeptical. I don’t know what she’s getting at, but it all sounds a
little fishy to me.

“Okay, look, I doubt Drew wants anyone
to know about it, so I didn’t want to say anything, but we’ve been
researching his family.”

“I don’t understand. He reunited with
his mom. I thought he didn’t really have much family around other
than her?”

“He does on his dad’s side.” She
pauses, noticing my confusion. “His biological dad’s side,” she
clarifies.

“Oh,” I say, a little stunned. I know
Drew never knew his biological father, but I also know that he
passed away. I never thought about the rest of his family on that
side. “Why now?” I ask.

“I don’t know. His mom mentioned
something I guess, and he got to thinking that maybe he had
grandparents or aunt and uncles, maybe cousins, in the area. It’s
important to him and it’s a big decision to reach out to anyone he
finds. I’m just trying to be supportive. I love him, Val. And he
needs me right now.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure what I can say to
that. I get it. It makes sense why she wants to be there for him
right now. “Okay, I understand then. I just get nervous with you
being out so late and I guess I just kind of miss you not being
here at night too. I still don’t know many people here and the
twins are so close that sometimes I feel like a third wheel. Maybe
I just need to find some single girlfriends to keep me
company.”

“You make it sound like we’ll never
hang out again. I’m still here. I’ll always be here for you. I’ve
just been a little preoccupied. Let’s plan to do something fun this
weekend,” she offers, “Just us girls.”