Chapter 3 #2
I almost laugh, but it gets stuck in the back of my throat, the way they sometimes do.
My chest compresses, and my face turns redder as I clamp my lips shut, nodding like an idiot instead.
I turn away before he has a chance to look at me like a freak, pretending to fiddle with the zipper on my backpack as his footsteps recede.
It’s only when I’m left alone that a strange thought pops into my head.
I can’t remember the last time I felt the urge to laugh.
It’s late by the time I close my math book, and I reach my arms above my head, stretching out my cramping limbs.
I haven’t quite worked up the courage to venture back to the library after my run-in with Alexis, so I spent the rest of Thursday cooped up in my room, shoulders hunched over the college-issued desk that’s the furthest thing from ergonomic.
Gathering my towel for a shower, I head for the bathroom I share with my ghost-of-a-dormmate, Quinn. I’m reaching for the doorknob when it turns, making me jump back in surprise. “Oh my god,” I breathe as the door swings open. “I’m so sorry.”
Quinn smiles at me from where she stands in the doorway. With her shaggy, ash-blonde hair, tattoos, and abundance of silver jewelry, she’s always reminded me of the word confidence incarnated. “Weren’t expecting me to be here, were you?”
I shake my head. “Not really.”
“Had to stock up on clothes before heading back to Remy’s,” she explains, referring to her boyfriend. Remy. I file the name away, so I won’t forget it. “Sorry I haven’t been around much. How have the other girls been?”
“T-they’re fine,” I say too quickly, stumbling over the lie, and I fight the urge to flinch.
Her brows shoot up, and she leans against the doorframe. “Fine, huh?”
I nod, doubling down because I’m not quite sure where Quinn stands in the precarious pyramid of roommate relationships. Just because I never see her doesn’t mean Kinsley and Ava don’t.
Before Quinn can respond, the door to the apartment opens, cold air blasting into the dorm. When my other two roommates scurry inside, I wonder if there’s ever a time they’re not together.
“Fuck, it’s freezing,” Kinsley says, setting her giant latte clumsily on the counter. Coffee sloshes over the side, but she makes no move to clean it up.
“Quinn!” cries Ava, noticing us standing by the bathroom. “You’re alive!”
Kinsley unzips her jacket, shrugging it off and tossing it on the couch. “Wow, Quinn. Finally decided to grace us with your presence?”
I don’t wait for them to acknowledge me—they never do—but Quinn widens her eyes at me in a look I can’t decipher. Exasperation, maybe? Annoyance?
“Don’t guilt-trip her,” scolds Ava. “She’s been knee-deep in junior dick.”
Kinsley snorts. “What does that even mean?”
“You know what it means. She’s been busy getting laid.”
Quinn rolls her eyes before stepping out of the doorway, allowing me access.
I slip into the bathroom as she chats with the other girls, wondering if she was being nice to me because she wanted to or because she felt like she had to.
It could have been pity kindness, which is arguably worse than cruelty in my opinion.
I stay in the shower until the mirror fogs and my fingers prune and my skin splotches red from the heat. I stand under the hot water for as long as I can, waiting out the interactions in the living room and doing everything in my power to avoid another awkward encounter.
Kinsley and Ava rarely linger, and by the time I exit the bathroom in a cloud of steam, they’re gone. I’m not sure where Quinn went—she doesn’t make her presence known like they do—but I slip soundlessly past her door and into my room.
Shivering in my towel, I comb through my wet tangle of blonde hair, wincing as the bristles snag on a particularly brutal knot.
Once I dislodge it, I toss my brush on the bed and pull on thick sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
When I check my phone, I’m surprised to see some messages in the Sibs chat, which is usually reserved for special occasions. Sure enough…
Scott: Want to go in on a gift for Dad’s birthday? Was thinking orchestra tickets.
Noah: Sure.
Scott: Cool.
Dad’s birthday isn’t for another couple weeks, but Scott’s always on top of these sorts of things.
As the eldest child, the overachiever, and the only kid with any sort of musical inclination (like my dad), he never misses an opportunity to pitch a music-related gift.
Noah always agrees because he can’t be bothered to come up with anything else, and I agree because there’s no doubt that it’ll be better received than whatever I brainstorm myself.
Me: How much?
Scott: 50 each.
I sigh. It’s convenient, sure, but it’s hard to get excited for one of our “joint” gifts. My brothers will get all the praise, and I’ll get whatever’s left over.
After liking his message, I set my phone on the nightstand and crawl into bed. It’s only nine-thirty, but I’m exhausted. My body is exhausted, and I know why.
It’s all that nervous energy eating at me throughout the day. My overactive mind hyper-fixates on every small interaction. It over-analyzes people’s intentions, predicting all the ways that things could go terribly wrong and charting out the best route for retreat.
Minimal damage. That’s my motto now. If I can’t avoid it altogether then I focus on extracting myself with as minimal damage as possible.
What a sad, pathetic way to live.
At some point my brain stops rattling around in my skull long enough for me to fall asleep. When I wake up in the morning, it starts again like an engine, revving up and shifting my thoughts from carefree to anxious to high alert.
I wish I could move through the day on autopilot, sleepwalking through campus like most of the students I pass, but that’s just not the way I’m wired. I’m present for every moment of my three classes, fearful I’ll be called on, worried I’ll do something dumb, nervous someone’s watching me.
I don’t like occupying other people’s thoughts.
It’s one of the reasons why Wes makes me so uncomfortable.
When he’s looking at me, talking to me, focused on me, I know I’m front and center in his brain.
Maybe he forgets me as soon as he leaves the classroom and goes about his life, but for the duration of that class, I’m inhabiting too much space inside his head.
If I have to be a thought, I’d prefer to be a fleeting one, but for that hour-and-a-half every Tuesday and Thursday, I know I’m not. I fear I’m the star of the show, and center stage is the last place I ever want to be.
Especially when it comes to guys like him.
Shuddering, I push Wes out of my head and refuse to think of him for the rest of the day, though I have a feeling he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t mind being on a girl’s mind for any extended period of time. I keep to myself Friday night, holed up in my room with homework and design tutorials.
Eventually I sleep, and by the time I hear someone banging around the kitchen at two in the afternoon, I realize that I haven’t spoken a word to anyone in almost forty-eight hours.
Not my roommates, not my professors, not a single syllable of small talk to a service worker or a peer. No one since Quinn.
It’s not abnormal for me—I think the longest I’ve gone without speaking was a week—but it’s always a strange phenomenon when it happens. It makes me feel small, like I could cease to exist at any moment, and no one would notice for weeks…if they even noticed at all.
What’s worse? Being someone’s focus or dissolving into thin air?
Not the first one.
“You guys have, like, no food here,” comes a guy’s voice, drifting to my room from the kitchen. I tense at the unexpectedness of it. It’s rare for Ava or Kinsley to have guys over during the day, but it’s not unheard of.
Ava giggles in that way she does for male attention. “We have food!”
“Seaweed snacks, veggie chips, and hemp protein powder is not food. Jesus. I’m ordering pizza.”
“Oh, whatever.”
“Whatever,” the guy mimics. “Where’s your twin, by the way?”
“Kinsley’s with Brian.”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“Brian has a girlfriend.”
“They’re on a break.”
When I hear the TV turn on, I grow uneasy. I know where this is headed, and I have no desire to sit here, listening to headboard bangs and frat boy grunts and Ava’s exaggerated moans through the obnoxiously thin walls.
And so, gathering up my books, I push aside my reservations and decide to spend the rest of the day in the library. At least then I won’t be shut in here, breathing in stale air until the room is empty of it and I suffocate to death to the sound of Ava’s fake orgasm.
I can’t think of a more horrific way to die.
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I take a deep breath and leave my bedroom. After shutting the door, I pause for a second, giving them time to adjust themselves before I walk in on something guaranteed to make me nauseous. Sure enough, I round the corner to their flushed faces and disheveled hair.
“Hey,” says the guy, straightening a little on the couch. I give him a tight smile, barely registering his face. My vision blurs as my eyes go cross.
“I didn’t realize you were here,” Ava says, wiping at her mouth to hide the evidence that they were making out.
I clear my throat to make sure it’s working right and mumble a quick, “No worries.”
There. I spoke. Now the clock can reset.
Maybe this time I’ll make it to seventy-two hours.
“Who’s that?” the guy asks as I step out of the apartment, but the door shuts before I can hear her response, which is probably for the best.
It’s snowing lightly, but the temperature is too high for it to stick. The flakes dissolve as soon as they hit the sidewalk, leaving a damp sheen across the pavement. I’m glad I wore my boots as I shuffle through shallow puddles in the direction of the library.
Given that it’s just past four on a Saturday, homework is the last thing on most people’s minds, and the place is deserted.
I have my pick of tables, but I take my usual seat in the back out of habit and familiarity.
Spreading my books out on top of the desk, I relax a little knowing that there’s zero chance of running into Alexis Cane at this time of day on a weekend.
Hours pass with my head bent over my laptop. I document art history responses until my fingers cramp and my stomach starts to growl, hunger forcing me to pack up and head back to the dorm.
It’s dark outside now, and wind whips against my cheeks, a wet flurry of snow still falling from the sky.
Wrapping my parka tighter around myself, I balk as I pass a group of girls huddled together in mini skirts and crop tops, their jackets nowhere in sight.
They laugh as they walk toward frat row, completely oblivious to the cold, and I can’t imagine how thick their beer blanket must be to expose that much skin.
With the apartment in sight, I reach into my coat pocket, searching for the key. I stop in my tracks when my hand comes up empty.
It’s not here.
Panic washes over me, and I search through every pocket, flap, and crevice of my jacket, grasping at nothing but crumpled wrappers and old hair ties. Ignoring the cold, I drop my bag on the ground in front of me, sinking down to my knees to dig through its pockets as well.
Nothing.
I search my jacket again. I search my backpack two more times.
It’s not here.
Heart in my throat, I backtrack to the library, eyes scanning every tile on the floor in the hopes that it slipped free during my walk.
No luck. It’s not at my table either, and after checking with the apathetic student working the front desk, I wrack my brain, trying to recall if I left it in my room.
I can’t remember. I wasn’t paying attention, too preoccupied with Ava and her boy toy, which is so unlike me. I’m the person who triple checks everything.
With no other choice, I head back to the apartment, holding my breath as I knock on the door. The only person that might be home at this hour is Quinn, but when there’s no answer, I’m sure she’s probably at Remy’s.
Shit.
Slumping against the door, I text Quinn first because I’m a coward.
Me: Hey, I’m so sorry, but I think I left my key in my room, and I’m locked out. Are you coming home any time soon?
Once I hit send, I hold my breath, waiting for the appearance of that glorious ellipsis to signal she’s typing. It doesn’t come. Not for a minute. Not for five. Gnawing my bottom lip between my teeth, I suck it up and send the other two the same message.
Surprisingly, it’s not long before Ava responds.
Ava: Nooo but wer at Pike. You can come get mine if you wantt
It takes a moment to dissect her message, and then I stare at the words on my screen in disbelief. She wants me to come to her? At a frat party? Is she serious?
“Well, fuck,” I mutter, debating my options. Realizing that I have none, I force myself to turn around and head in the direction of fraternity row.
Freezing up at the street corner, I eye the line of party houses with apprehension.
I can hear the music blaring, along with laughter and squeals and screams, and I can’t make myself move any closer.
I don’t even know which one is Pi Kappa Alpha, let alone how I’ll find my roommates once I get there.
I check my phone again, hopeful for a text from Quinn.
Nothing.
A cluster of rowdy, drunk guys passes me, and I tense up, warning bells ringing in my ears.
Panic clogs my lungs, my chest, my throat, and I stumble back, slipping on a patch of wet pavement and nearly face-planting on the concrete.
When I right myself, I turn and start walking toward the Commons, away from the retreating group and frat row altogether.
I try to ignore the familiar burn of tears behind my eyes, but when my breath starts coming in short, sharp pants, I press my hand over my heart, swallowing down a sob—
“Hey! Hey, Poison Ivy!” calls a booming voice from the opposite direction. “Is that you?”