Stay Toxic

Chapter 1

Igot the wrong room. I must have opened someone else’s door, right? There’s a mistake, some sort of freak reason why my key opened the lock. Never mind that I saw the metallic number 17 fastened at eye level. Maybe it said 71? 117?

I’m tired, after all. I drove all the way from home today—which would have been sixteen hours straight except my stupid car broke down twice, so make that thirty-six. I slept on the side of the road somewhere in Arizona.

Except no amount of exhaustion has ever made me incapable of reading one simple number, and the shiny 17 definitely matches the key card in my hand.

The room in front of me is larger than I expected, painted in a neutral sage, and divided in two near identical sides. Two beds, nightstands, lamps, two wardrobes. There’s a large circular rug marking the center. To the right on the closest wall, there’s a small kitchenette and I’m guessing the left leads to a bathroom, from the dorm floorplan I was sent when I enrolled to Rothford University in Thorn Falls.

I’m ignoring all that, my eyes inexorably drawn to the sex fest happening on the small double bed to my right.

Tia, you’re definitely not in Kansas anymore. Or, you know, New Mexico.

A girl’s on all fours, her narrow waist bent impossibly low to give access to the guy behind her, sitting up on his knees as he plows her into oblivion.

I can’t see her face, given the fact that it’s pressed against the pelvis of a second guy who holds her dark hair out of the way as he fucks her face.

Wet, disgusting noises fill the room. Slaps of skin against skin, moans, grunts, choked slobbers.

Holy fucking shit.

So, I’m no prude. Sure, I dress like one, but that’s because that’s the only kind of clothes Mother buys for me. And I might have attended a Catholic girls’ school my entire life, but again, it wasn’t my choice. I read naughty novels and watch porn. But never in my entire life have I witnessed anything quite as filthy as the spectacle before my eyes.

They didn’t even bother to turn the lights off, so I see everything.

Oh my god, is the one behind fucking her ass? I assumed it was her vagina first, but the angle looks a little too high for that.

Heat pulses between my legs as I gasp.

I’m about to backtrack and close the door, any minute now, when cold eyes freeze me on to the spot.

I have to go. Ask for a change of room. If Mother knew, she’d make me return home right away and never let me leave again.

But those eyes have me in a fucking chokehold.

The guy doesn’t stop driving his hips into the girl’s mouth as he watches me. He’s still entirely clothed, in dark slacks and a burgundy shirt, shiny shoes and all, though the pants are unzipped. Somehow it makes it all the more depraved. At least, the ass-fucker had the decency to get undressed.

But decent isn’t a word I’d use to describe that guy, even if I’d met him in Costco.

He’s unbearably gorgeous. Ridiculously flawless. Cheekbones sharp as blades, a soft mouth meant for sin, a strong, angular jaw and those fucking eyes, still trained on me. A smirk slowly arches up those lips. Yikes. Retreat, retreat!

Now that I’m caught, I don’t know what to do. Run away? Clear my throat and let them know this is my room?

I’d like to be the kind of person who could do that, but the first option is more like me. Yet, for some reason I’m still here.

The decision is taken out of my hands when I hear someone giggle at the end of the corridor. Panicking, I shut the door violently and run back to my car, hauling my two duffle bags and my suitcase back the way I came.

Holy fucking shit. What was that?

* * *

I immediately make my way back to the registration office where I picked up my keys less than half an hour ago. It’s blissfully quiet, as I arrived well past eleven after the hellish drive.

The polished, beautiful blonde at the reception desk smiles at me like I’m not interrupting her binge of ER reruns.

“Hello again. Ms. Cole, was it?”

She’s probably seen hundreds of students just today, given the fact that the campus opened at six this morning for the new semester, so it’s pretty suspicious that she remembers me. I make myself smile anyway.

For once, it likely has nothing to do with my family. Back home, everyone knows who I am, but I doubt she’s heard of my mother. We’re thousands of miles away. If her memory latched on to my name, it’s because it’s simple, easy to remember, and I was here not long ago. I bet she hasn’t even seen any students in the meantime.

“That’s me.” I chuckle awkwardly, stepping into a familiar persona without much effort. I grin, tilting my head, and lowering my voice. “Listen, I have a little favor to ask you.”

God, I hate that voice. I hate the fact that I know just how to get people to like me, to relate to me, to do what I want. Almost as much as I hate the fact that if you remove my rectangular glasses and undo the braid down my back, I don’t only act like Senator Cole. I am her, just twenty-five years younger, twenty-five pounds heavier, and without the hypocrisy. And the cruelty.

The blonde leans in, fingers spreading over her keyboard, ready to comply. “What can I do for you?”

I clear my throat. “I wonder if it could be possible to switch room? I’ve been paired with someone…” I hesitate, weighing my words.

I might be a bit of a nerd, and I’ve definitely followed the rules my whole life, but that’s because the alternative just wouldn’t have been worth it. My mother’s punishments are harsh enough when I fail to hit fifteen thousand steps per day; I wouldn’t have wanted to know what she’d do if I’d actually broken Blossoms Academy for Girls rules.

For all that, I’m not a snitch, so I’m not about to say that the roommate they picked for me is getting double penetrated. Or is it spit-roasted? I’m not sure about the difference; I’ve read both. Maybe I should google it.

Then again, maybe not.

“Someone I can’t see myself getting along with,” I conclude diplomatically, glad to leave cocks and asses and mouths completely out of it.

After twenty-two years of scrupulously analyzing facial expressions, I can tell something’s wrong, watching a muscle tick in the woman’s jaw, and the way her eyes narrow slightly after a glance at her screen.

“Oh?” Her voice is wrong, too. Just a tad too high-pitched. “Did you have a fight already?”

I don’t know what to say. Yes, and I’m trouble before I even started school; no, and then, why do I want to switch room?

“I just don’t think we’re the same kind of people. I’m an early riser, you see, and she seems more like a night owl?—”

Yeah, that’s not gaining me any points. She chews on air, as if to swallow whatever word she wants to say first.

“Well, Ms. Cole.” Where the woman was perfectly friendly moments ago, her voice is frosty now. “Things are a little different in California than they can be elsewhere, you see. If you do have a complaint based on more than bigoted opinions, do feel free to submit it by email and the faculty will address it within forty-eight hours.”

Oh.

Oh god.

She’s assuming I’m…

Oh god!

My jaw falls. I didn’t even see my roommate, but if I glean the situation correctly here, she’s not white, and the receptionist is assuming I took one look at her and refused to share her space like a racist pig.

I don’t know how to extricate myself from this. There’s no polite way of blurting out, “look, I really don’t give a shit about her skin color, I just don’t want to sleep with a knife under my pillow every night because strange dudes are walking in and out at whatever hours!”

“That’s not?—”

Shit! What do I say? I have a black friend? Our driver’s Asian? I’m not my goddamned mother?

I clear my throat. “That’s a misunderstanding.”

“Quite,” she doesn’t quite snap, but close.

“I’m just gonna…go?” I say, retreating without turning on my heels.

Maybe a bus will hit me on the way out and save me from this mortification.

I’m out under the dark evening sky in no time. The cool air, atypical of what I would have imagined for California in August, is a relief on my reddening skin.

I was so excited at the prospect of leaving New Mexico, after all these years. It took four years of perfection—attendance records, grades, extracurriculars, appearances at Mom’s rallies, dates with Rob—to convince Mother that I was trustworthy enough to come here for my JD. The fact that it’s one of the best law schools in the country swayed her.

And after all that, I’m fucking it up in the first half hour. I bet the receptionist is furiously typing a long note to embed in my file now.

I’m here because California isn’t like back home. My father was the mayor in a small, backward town near Albuquerque, my mother’s a conservative senator. They shackled me with their expectations from the moment I was born, choosing every single thing about my life, and punishing me severely when I dared stray off the path.

This was my chance at freedom.

Is.

This is my chance at freedom.

I’m not letting anything—or anyone—blow it, however literally.

I march all the way back to the dorm, and make my way up the elevator, until I’ve reached the fourth floor, door number 17.

I have my key card in hand again, ready to fight my battle, when the door flies open.

In front of him.