Chapter 10
10
MADDIE
A fter a long day of classes, Jasmine and I are relaxing in our room. I have the album that Rhys snuck in spinning on my record player. I’ve quickly grown obsessed with it, listening to the track Under Control in particular over and over again. Jasmine’s lying on her bed, reading something on her Kindle.
It’s just what both of us need as we’re nearing the end of the third week of the semester. The easy, exciting first week of classes where you’re just reviewing the syllabi is firmly in the rearview mirror. The weight of assignments, upcoming quizzes, and the need to actually study is just starting to bend our backs.
But the calm of the moment shatters like a vase clattering from its shelf when we hear an ear-splitting scream from another room on our floor.
Jasmine and I leap off our beds and step into the hallway. We peek down the hall in the direction of the scream, just in time to watch a girl emerge from her room a few doors down, soaked head to toe in water.
I’m too stunned to react at first, and judging by her silence, so is Jasmine. The door across from the mysteriously wet girl opens, and another girl pokes her head out.
“Oh my gosh,” she reacts. “Are you ok—what the!?” She turns around and jumps backward with a yelp as a puddle of water quickly expands through her doorway and into the hall.
“What’s going on?” I exclaim.
The explanation clicks—a split-second before I hear a crash and the sound of plunging water from behind us in our room.
Jasmine and I turn around to see a cascade of water falling through the drop ceiling.
Water splashes everywhere, but the worst of it is plummeting right onto Jasmine’s bed.
“My Kindle!” She surges forward before I can hold her back for her own good, fearlessly braving the watery assault to retrieve the device.
She breathes a sigh of relief after a brief inspection of it. I guess that waterproof case I got her for her birthday ended up being a pretty good present.
A spark in my brain kicks me into gear. I run around, gathering up my notebooks, my textbooks, and anything else easily damaged by water. I try to move them out into the hallway, but judging from the water that’s seeping through multiple doorways up and down the hall, they won’t be safe there for long.
The next hour or so is one of frantic movement as everyone carries their most valuable belongings down the stairs and out to the lawn in front of our building. A growing crowd assembles to gawk at the drama.
Jasmine and I are soaked by the time we’ve saved everything from our room that we can reasonably bring down.
Jasmine lets out a heavy sigh and drops to her butt on the grass that’s now damp from so many wet feet traversing it. “Well, Maddie, let’s look on the bright side.”
I huff out a laugh. “I’d love to hear what that is.”
“Our first three weeks as roommates haven’t been boring.”
“Now it’s really like old times,” I say as I twist off the cap of white wine and pour a little bit into our two cups.
We pilfered both the cups and the wine from the kitchen of the house where my brother and his teammates live. That’s where we’re staying for at least the next couple days until the repairs are finished in our dorm building.
The whole building was evacuated in the wake of the pipe leak on our floor. The pipes need to be fixed, and then all the water damage caused by the leak. The college said they hope we’ll be able to move back in by the end of next week, but who knows.
When Lane found out, he immediately offered their living room to me and Jasmine.
The college is giving all students affected by the evacuation permission to not attend classes tomorrow, and an automatic extension on all assignments or exams due.
It’s like when you’re a kid, and snow starts falling heavy on a school night, and you know you have a snow day tomorrow to look forward to.
Jasmine and I decided to run with the nostalgic feeling and get heavy into sleepover vibes.
We’re wearing comfy pajamas, we’re sitting under a pillow-and-cushion fort that we’ve set up in the middle of the living room, and we snuck a bottle of wine from my brother’s refrigerator just like we used to do from my parents sometimes when Jasmine would stay over when we were in high school.
The inner sanctum of our fort made of couch-cushion walls and topped with a throw-blanket roof is illuminated by my laptop screen, on which we’re having a marathon of random Gilmore Girls episodes.
It’s made especially cozy by the fact that tonight the air carries just a hint of chill, and the wind is howling loudly as it whips around the house.
Jasmine sighs with satisfaction after a first sip of the wine. Then she turns to me with a glimmer in her eye and says, “So, tell me more about James .”
I roll my eyes. “There’s nothing more to tell. Trust me.”
I took the advice Rhys gave me over our plate of nachos a couple weeks back and asked the guy in front of me in my Figure Drawing class if he could take a quick look at my first drafts of our assignment.
He was actually really nice about it, giving me some constructive criticism but overall telling me it was solid work. Since then, we’ve been talking before and after class regularly.
He’s pretty cute, too.
That thought has a voice squawking in the back of my head, saying, Who cares? He’s not Rhys.
The thought brings a tightness to my chest, so I take a sip of wine to loosen it. If I keep thinking that every time I talk to another guy, then I’ll really stay a dateless virgin forever, all throughout college and beyond.
And that’s not what I want.
Rhys and I are never going to happen. I can fill a book with the reasons why.
He’s my best friend other than Jasmine, and I don’t want to risk a relationship that means the world to me. He’s my brother’s best friend, and I don’t want to mess that up. He’s Rhys Callahan, one of the most lusted-after guys on campus and a future multi-millionaire star athlete. I’m Maddie Larsen, mousy wallflower and future starving artist.
We’re not a match in any sense of the word. I’m not telling myself anything I haven’t already told myself hundreds—thousands—of times over.
“Well, let’s try to make sure there is more to tell by this time next week,” Jasmine says.
“We’ve just made small talk a couple times. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Except for the fact that you think he’s cute,” Jasmine chirps. “And he thinks you’re cute.”
My brow scrunches. “Huh? How do you know that?”
“Because duh .” Jasmine exclaims, gesturing toward me.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Jasmine makes a disappointed sound in her throat. “Girl, I don’t know how you’re still talking yourself down like that. You’re beautiful, smart, talented, and I’d bet everything I own, even my Hello Kitty pencil, that no fewer than ninety-seven percent of guys at this school would kill for a chance to date you.”
I open my mouth, my instinct to protest cresting inside me—but I stop myself.
All summer, I was looking forward to this semester as the start of a new, better chapter in my life.
A second chance at a real, memorable college experience that I was so painfully conscious of missing out on last year.
But if I really want to make this a new chapter in my life, instead of just a new paragraph, I need to actively work on myself. I can’t let my own lack of confidence and my silly, one-sided yearning for my brother’s best friend keep holding me back from experiencing what I’ve been missing out on.
“You’re right.” I utter those words decisively, nodding my head.
Jasmine stops in the middle of a sip of wine. “Wait, wait.” She grabs her phone and points the camera at me. “Say that again, for the record.”
I sputter a laugh. “You’re right, Jasmine.”
“I’m going to get a lot of use out of that video.”
I shake my head, knowing full well she isn’t lying. I take a big sip of wine. Fortified by the warmth of the wine spreading through me, I make a declaration.
“I’m going to make it happen this semester. No more excuses.”
Interest twinkles in Jasmine’s eyes as she lifts a brow. “With the cute art guy you mean?”
“Maybe. With some cute guy, art or not. I want my first kiss already, darn it. My first fling. My first hookup. I’m ready to finally lose this V-card and experience what I’ve been missing out on.”
Excitement lights up Jasmine’s face. “Girl, I am so here for it. But,” her tone momentarily becomes more serious, “you know there’s nothing wrong with still being a virgin, right? You’re ready when you’re ready, not when society says you should be.”
“I know that. But I am ready.”
Ready as I’ll ever be, considering the guy I’m holding a candle for is never going to think of me as anything but a friend.
Jasmine claps her hands, letting herself get excited for me again. “Girl, we are going to get you so laid this semester.”
Our laughter fills up the cozy space of our silly little pillow fort.
Excitement and anticipation ripple through me; but at the same time, there’s a twinge of disappointment and apprehension that settles low in my belly.
It’s a familiar feeling, the same feeling I get when I picture myself with any guy—any guy except for one.
That one guy is in this house, upstairs in his bedroom right now.
I know I need to get over that feeling. Because that one guy might invite me into that room of his to hang out, to talk, to listen to music—but he’d never invite me into his bed.