Chapter 6 – Clover
Chapter Six
Clover
Sylvia wraps her arms around me. She’s one of those friends whose touch instantly makes all your fear, worry and everything else melt away.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. I swear. I was just freaking out when I ran into Roger.”
My roommate Molly latched onto us when we wandered out into the kitchen.
She hasn’t really picked up any friends since getting here, so she sometimes tries to hang out with me and my friends.
I don’t mind her, but she doesn’t get any of our black references so it can get awkward having to explain things like the Cupid Shuffle to her or why we all love Beyoncé.
Kola nearly asked her to get the hell out of her room when she said (out loud for some reason) that she didn’t see the ‘big deal’ about Beyoncé’s iconic self-titled album. She’s plain clueless.
As for Roger. He’s the last person I wanted to find me in a discombobulated mess.
“We should find whoever did this,” Roger says. “Seriously, Clover. A man assaulted you. This is serious.”
“It was probably just a prank. Please, I don’t want this getting any more attention than necessary.”
When your parents upload a video entitled “CLOVER’S FIRST TAMPONS! MISTAKE PUTTING THEM IN!!” to the internet, attention makes you wary. Thankfully, no one in England gives a crap about D-list American celebrities. No offense to my parents, but it’s true.
“Did you see anything about the guy who did it?”
I shrug. “He was tall. He was heavy. He ended up running off so I don’t see what I can do. Honestly.”
“We can get Kola and find him. Somehow.”
“I don’t think we will. I just want to go home, but don’t let me spoil your fun.”
Sylvia scoffs. “Fun? Thomas just chased off the guy I was flirting with, so I might as well leave.”
She doesn’t tell me who she was flirting with, so I guess I don’t know him.
It’s weird that she’s friends with Thomas though, isn’t it?
Thomas’s energy doesn’t match Sylvia’s at all.
She’s all bubbly and exciting. She wears yellow all the time and flowers in her hair.
Thomas is like a walking rain cloud with too many tattoos on his ridiculously overgrown biceps and what’s with the hair?
It’s like he’s trying to act like he doesn’t give a fuck but he obviously puts a lot of effort into that dumb brown wavy ass mop.
I just don’t like him. I don’t know why.
“I don’t know why you’re friends with him.”
Sylvia shrugs. “We’re not that close. We just… I don’t know. We have a vibe.”
Sylvia could have a vibe with a serial killer, she’s that outgoing and bubbly. I can’t relate. Spending my whole life in the public eye, I got to see socializing and networking for what it really is: exhausting as hell. Sylvia would have been a better daughter to my mom than I was.
“Let’s find Kola,” Sylvia says. “We’ll get you out of here.”
“I could drive her home if you want to stay,” Roger offers.
“I’m staying,” Molly says dreamily, although I’m not sure who else she knows here. “Hope you feel better, Clover. I’ll see you later.”
Molly wraps me in a hug and leaves. There’s an uncomfortable few seconds of silence after she walks away. Roger’s face cracks into a smile. “I’m sorry, was anyone talking to her?”
Ouch. His comment strikes me as a bit rude, but at least he was offering to drive me home.
“Thanks, Roger. Sylvia, Kola and I can handle our ride home.”
“Are you certain?”
I get that he’s trying to be a gentleman, and he was cool on the dance team, but I’m not ready to spend more time with guys tonight. I’ve just about had enough of men for the time being. Thankfully, Sylvia’s the best at diplomatic rejections.
“Yes,” Sylvia says. “Have fun. We’ll see you at dance rehearsal tomorrow?”
“Cheers.”
After Roger leaves, Sylvia shoots off her emergency text to Kola, who comes bustling towards us with a look on her face like she has some very important gossip to share.
“You wouldn’t believe what I did tonight,” she gushes. “I talked to Jamal. I think he was into it. I don’t know. I’m going to get his number in class tomorrow.”
“Girl, we have an emergency,” Sylvia says. “We’ll talk about Jamal on the way home.”
Sylvia’s brother-in-law bought her a new car as a gift for her attending school here.
It’s nice. I’m still saving up my allowance from my parents’ channel to get a car of my own, but I don’t think I could afford one as nice as Sylvia’s brand new red Porsche Carerra.
She looks fly as hell behind the wheel. Her brother-in-law must have great taste in cars.
Kola and I scramble into the backseat, Sylvia takes the front and we blast Halo by Beyoncé all the way back to the dorms. Since it’s a party night, all our roommates will probably return home much later or spend the night at the mansion Kit rented out to throw the party.
I’m just glad I didn’t run into him tonight. Ugh. Hooking up with him was so awkward and I definitely regretted it when he confessed he was a virgin after. It wasn’t like he was bad in bed or anything but… I didn’t know why I was sleeping with him.
Thomas’ comments about my reputation make my cheeks flush and the uncomfortable encounter with my attacker only makes it worse.
For a split second, I wonder if the person pressing me to the bed could have been Thomas but…
I don’t think it was. Thomas sounds so distinctly posh and I couldn’t place that guy’s gravelly voice.
After our encounter in the hallway, Thomas wandered off in a different direction and honestly, Thomas can’t stand alone in a room without a crowd of girls surrounding him.
I doubt he would have had time to disappear upstairs and freak me the hell out before racing back to Sylvia and looking completely cool as if nothing ever happened.
No… it couldn’t have been Thomas. Maybe Jude.
Definitely not Kit. He’s too much of an idiot to try something like that.
He acts like an asshole but deep down, he’s not that bad.
Annoying, but relatively harmless. Back at the dorms, we all decide to bed down in my bedroom since Molly won’t be back for another couple hours.
My friends and I all have white roommates and love discussing the differences we find between us.
Kola’s roommate nearly lost her mind when she saw Kola use a silk scarf for the first time and she wanted to buy one online to protect her hair.
Sylvia made all the girls in our dorm try hot sauce from her family restaurant back in New Orleans.
I don’t mind Molly and she tries to keep her ignorant questions to a minimum, but she definitely seems suspicious of my dreadlocks and I’ve caught her trying to touch them when she thinks I’m not looking a couple times.
Still, this place is way easier on me than anywhere in America.
I don’t think I could survive another year of my parents tri-weekly uploads completely fucking with my life, especially not when the news about them hits the public.
I want to stay far as hell away from that, even if my parents’ job always comes back to haunt me. I hope I finally ran far enough away.
When I was a senior, some asshole guy in my math class thought it would be hilarious to pull up my first period video — the one with twenty million views — and remind everyone of what an awkward middle schooler I was.
I can still hear my voice in the video even without watching it.
Mom, turn off the damn camera! This is embarrassing!
They plastered my humiliation on the internet for the world’s entertainment and reminded me that this was the only reason I had nice things growing up, so I had better be grateful for it. I don’t know. Maybe my mom’s right.
Once we’re in my bedroom, I explain what happened again to my friends, giving as many details as possible. Sylvia and Kola both want to do something about it, but I insist that I can handle myself.
“At least let’s talk to the school about getting a self-defense class set up,” Sylvia offers.
She’s seriously the most activist minded person I know.
It’s sweet. In the family channel world, everyone is the perfect mixture of cutthroat and shallow.
It’s hard having real friends without knowing when they’re going to stab you in the back or help break up your parents’ marriage.
After my friends spend too much time comforting me, I insist that I can handle things on my own and I just need to go to sleep.
Kola reminds me to lock the door behind me and Sylvia reminds me that she’s just two doors down if I need her.
I crawl into bed and I do the only thing I know to do when I’m in trouble, even if a part of me knows it’s a mistake… She's still my mom.
I dial her number and hold my breath waiting for her to pick up.
After our phone call, I don’t feel better, but talking to my mom hardly ever makes me feel better.
She ends the call reminding me to comment and like her latest video and to ‘share it with my friends’.
Ew. The last thing I want to do is draw attention to my embarrassing online life back home.
Falling asleep after what happened isn’t easy, but I manage to get to sleep a few minutes before Molly slips in from the party and crawls into bed. I sleep peacefully until early in the morning when a piercing shriek awakens our entire dorm at once.
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