Third Degree (16 page)

I almost deny it, but then I remember what he said yesterday about lying being another method of avoiding assimilation. “Yeah, last year I had a
thing
with one of my professors.”

Marshall grabs my arm, pulling me to a stop, allowing even more distance between us and the other guys, who by now have joined up with some more kids from our floor. “Seriously? A
college
professor? How old were you?”

Hearing his tone, seeing the shock all over his face, makes me wonder if my relationship with Sam could have had a bigger impact on me than I realized at the time?
Oh, God. Not more psychobabble
.

I shake out of his grip and continue walking.

“How old, Izzy?”

“Seventeen,” I say finally. “Almost eighteen. But it’s different for me. I had very little choices outside of college students—”

“Professors are always off-limits for students,” he says, a hint of anger hitting his tone.

I haven’t thought about Sam for a long time. Maybe because that was only three months of my life. And it was me wanting to get his attention, not as a child but as a woman, wanting—no, demanding—to get my way, like I’d done with everything else back then. In my mind, I’d been in control the whole time, I’d called the shots. But maybe it wasn’t just about physical attraction and a teenage crush on a teacher.

“Technically I wasn’t a student. I was his TA.”

Marshall shakes his head again. “That’s fucked up, Izzy, seriously. Didn’t your parents do something?”

“They didn’t know. They
don’t
know.” That dreaded dark feeling is throwing a cloak over all the determination I had heading into today. I point at two girls on my floor. “I’m gonna go chat with them. You know, social studies and all that.”

“I can’t believe you got to meet Marsh’s brother,” Yoshi shouts from my left. I can barely hear him over the cheering students and hyperactive marching-band drummers. “Jesse Collins is a legend here.”

Hmm … something new to study up on
.

“Really? I had no idea.” My shouted conversation with Yoshi has lasted a full ten minutes, which is totally progress for me. I have a new mantra playing on repeat inside my head every time Yoshi or the two girls from my floor seated on my right side speak to me:
be honest
. Well, as honest as possible without revealing more than I want to reveal, without mentioning subjects that don’t pertain to the current conversation (another tip I snagged from Marshall, which is especially helpful when I’m about to dive into my nervous habit of reciting random facts).

“Seriously,” Yoshi says, “he’s the fastest wide receiver NIU has ever had.”

“We could use some of that speed right now.” I shake my head at the scoreboard, which proclaims our twenty-one-point deficit. “There were an unusually large amount of cars parked at the campus IHOP when I drove past this morning. I feel like the entire team hit the all-you-can-eat stacks before the game.”

Both Yoshi and Lacey, the girl directly to my right, laugh. It takes a good bit of effort to hide the surprise on my face. They laughed at my joke. Not at me.

Now what?

I spot Kelsey down on the sidelines. She’s standing on one leg, on top of a guy’s hand,
his arm extended high above his head. Her other leg is up by her ear. “God, how does she do that?”

Yoshi’s gaze follows mine down to Kelsey. “I know. She’s a strong gust of wind away from face-planting, knocking all her teeth out.”

“Is it me or is that cheer dude staring right up her skirt?” Lacey says.

Both Yoshi and I lean to the left, around a tall girl in the row in front of us, to get a better view of the cheer guy on the bottom. “Definitely,” we say together. Before I can lean back into my own space, Yoshi tugs on the sleeve of my shirt and points at two people seated four rows down.

“Look at Marsh,” he says, “snagging the blonde with the big rack.”

I don’t need Yoshi to show me where our RA seated himself—or, more important, whom he seated himself with. “She’s barely a C-cup,” I say with a shrug.

Yoshi flashes me a wicked grin, his eyebrows shooting up. “Trust me, she’s a C. And you are totally jealous.”

I force my gaze away from him and back to the field. The other team has just scored three more points, and people around me are booing and shouting out profanities even I’ve never heard before. “True, I’m a B-cup. And who doesn’t want to have a little more cleavage every once in a while? According to
Cosmo
this month, a C-cup allows a female to be able to pull off thirty percent more of today’s fashion trends.”

Fahima, the other girl from my floor, leans around Lacey and says, “If that’s true, then why are models so fucking skinny and flat-chested?”

Fahima’s sporting double D’s. Maybe E’s.

From the corner of my eye, I catch Yoshi staring at the large amount of exposed flesh Fahima’s flashing as she leans forward in her V-neck. I grab his face with one hand and tilt his chin toward the sky. “Eyes up, buddy.”

Both girls laugh, but Fahima sits back, quickly adjusting her top, and Yoshi turns a bright shade of pink. His gaze returns to the game. “Sorry,” he says, only loud enough for me to hear. “It’s like Tourette’s sometimes. The more I repeat ‘Don’t look at her boobs’ to myself, the more I look.”

I can totally relate. Though Fahima’s boobs aren’t of much interest to me, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from swabbing Kelsey’s one-night stand for microscopic study. I’d say staring at breasts is probably way more socially accepted than my faults.

“There’s been a bunch of studies proving that staring at well-endowed female breasts is medically beneficial for the men who do it.” The words slip out before I can stop them. I know that’s a very Dr. Isabel Jenkins thing to say, but luckily Yoshi laughs, rubbing his hands over his face, like he’s trying to wash away the pink.

“Seriously?”

I nod. “Dead serious. Ten minutes of eyeing some pretty cleavage is equal to a thirty-minute cardiovascular workout. Sexual arousal is good for the heart and circulation.”

“Those are some pretty strange studies. Probably a bunch of pervs who want an excuse to be rude.” He glances at me and then back at the game. “And your diversion tactics are pretty sick. By sick, I mean good.”

I stare at him blankly. “What diversion tactics?”

“You never really answered my question about being jealous of Mr. RA down there.” He nods toward Marshall and the blonde again. I swear, even if I ever learn her name, I’m not going to be able to call her anything but “the blonde.”

Since I’ve got that
be honest
mantra going on, I zip my lips. “I plead the Fifth.”

There’s a tap on my shoulder and both Yoshi and I turn around. Joe Longfield, the bee sting guy from boot camp class, is standing behind us holding hands with a redheaded girl. “I spotted you from five rows up,” Joe says at the same time I notice the fact that they’re hovering in front of two people. “I haven’t been back to class since … well, you know.”

Now that he’s not suffocating to death because of his body’s autoimmune reaction to bee venom, he looks pretty embarrassed. The girl he’s holding hands with interrupts. “He’s attempting to say thanks for saving his life.” She rolls her eyes, but there’s too much affection flowing between them to believe she’s annoyed in the least bit. “Joe completely blanked about his EpiPen, and if you hadn’t been there …”

“I’ve never even used it before,” Joe says.

There have only been a couple of occasions when I’ve found myself in a situation where I might potentially receive some form of gratitude from a patient, and I hate it more than I hate Kelsey’s psychobabble and Justin’s superior bedside manner. I get this awkward string of responses bubbling up in my throat, and never once do I say the right thing.

“You can practice on an orange,” I suggest to Joe. “I did that in—” I’d started to say med school, but luckily stopped myself. “I mean, I saw it in a YouTube video.”

The girlfriend gives him a stern look. “You are
so
doing that, Joe. I will kick your ass if you die from a fucking bee sting.”

Just then NIU manages to score a touchdown, everybody’s on their feet, and Joe and his girlfriend return to their seats. I release the biggest sigh of relief and shake the awkward tension from my arms.

Not only are Yoshi, Evan, Lacey, and Fahima watching me carefully, trying to figure out what that interaction was all about, but when I glance forward I feel Marshall’s eyes on me, too. The honesty mantra replays itself. I shake my head. “What? All I did was stab the guy with an EpiPen. Those things are made for preschoolers to use on themselves.”

“I went out with a girl in high school who had a peanut allergy,” Yoshi says. “I think I gave myself an ulcer from constantly worrying about what I ate before sticking my tongue down her throat. Talk about high maintenance.”

Lacey leans over me and glares at Yoshi. “Medical conditions do not fall under the high-maintenance category, you asshat.”

Yoshi shrugs. “I was fourteen. I decided basketball was much less complicated than girls, let alone girls with deadly allergies.”

I sit back in my chair, stretching my legs in front of me and drawing in a slow, deep breath. I’m doing this. I’m really doing this. Normal conversation. Well, close to normal. Nobody looks disturbed by some of the unusual topics we’ve explored today. Though Evan has been mostly talking football with the guy on his other side, so he’s been out of our loop, and since he’s the one I made such an awesome first impression with by diagnosing his herpes, I’m not quite ready to give myself an A+ in social studies. Maybe a B+.

Marshall catches my eye all the way from four rows down. I hold his gaze for several seconds, and then he gives me that sexy half smile and a nod of approval. And even though Marshall has been my diversion from trying to fit in, I can’t help but feel this swell of pride. There’s no denying the fact that I care what he thinks. That maybe I care about him.

Chapter 13

“I hate my name,” Fahima says, stumbling into me and reeking of cheap beer.

The party Jesse insisted I attend is much cleaner and more civil than I had imagined, but now that midnight has nearly arrived (and we started right after the game, so before 5:00 p.m.), things are taking a sharp turn toward drunk and disorderly.

“Why?” I ask, though I doubt she’s in any condition to have a real discussion on the matter. “It means ‘quick-witted.’ What’s wrong with that?”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Yoshi asks.

He’s sitting on one side of me, on the bench that wraps around the deck of this house. I’m not sure who the house’s owner is. I’ve only seen Jesse or Marshall in short bursts throughout the night. And we left for a little while to get pizza. The house is very nice and just barely off campus. I’m thinking maybe it belongs to an alumnus, because there doesn’t appear to be many underclassmen besides us here.

I shrug and focus on the back door, where Kelsey is stepping through, carrying two cans of beer. “Don’t know. I guess I just like to memorize weird stuff.”

Not untrue at all.

Yoshi’s already got an arm around the bench behind me, though he hasn’t made any move to touch me, but I sense it coming as his blood alcohol level rises. Sure enough, his fingers take hold of a strand of my hair and study it like it’s some odd piece of clothing. “I think it’s kind of hot.”

I lean back a bit, toward Fahima. “It’s only sixty-eight degrees. Maybe it’s those shots of whiskey you just drank?”

Yoshi laughs. “No, I mean your random fact-reciting skills. That’s what’s hot.”

The screech of Kelsey’s heavy chair being dragged across the deck and turned to face our group prevents me from having to respond to that awkward comment. She hands me one of the cans and sits down. I open it but take only a tiny sip. It’s my third, so I might be hitting the limit.

“Did I hear right? Izzy’s making you all hot and bothered with her knowledge of strange things?” Kelsey says.

“You know …” Fahima leans forward and smacks Kelsey’s knee. “I think I do like my name after all. ‘Quick-witted’ … that’s like … huh … that’s like, yeah … totally.” She nods as if having stated something brilliant.

Kelsey snorts back a laugh. “Yep, quick-witted. That’s you.”

Not only has Yoshi made up the distance I put between us a minute ago, he’s now scooting even closer, our thighs touching. Kelsey smooths her skirt—she’s still in full cheer uniform—and silently communicates her question to me with a lift of one brow. She’s wondering what’s up with me and the boy next door. I shake my head ever so slightly and then stand, clutching my drink. “I’m gonna go mingle. Trying to do that meeting-new-people thing, so, yeah …”

Kelsey takes the hint and quickly occupies my abandoned space. She turns her attention to Yoshi. “So, tell me what you thought of the game.”

And I’m not blowing smoke about the meeting-new-people thing, either. I feel pretty satisfied about my progress with the other students on my floor, and I’m ready to try getting to know someone new. I head into the kitchen to swap my beer for a bottle of water. Jesse’s standing over the sink mixing up a cocktail.