14. Jade
Jade
I lug my heavy-ass backpack off the elevator when it reaches my floor, hoping to get to my room and dump this load of books off before getting ready for my little date with Asher.
This elevator is too freaking old, and it smells like someone has already thrown up in it today. Joy.
I knew living in the dorms would be an experience, but I didn’t think it would suck quite so much. It’s nothing like the movies, and I haven’t met anyone who has wanted more than to get in my pants or to get a tampon.
Pulling my key out, I start to unlock the door but stop. A rhythmic thumping and very clearly fake moans come from inside.
My head drops. Fucking great. “You better not be fucking on my bed!” I yell through the door. I don’t get a response back, nor am I expecting one.
Ugh, this is annoying. My roommate has a new lover every other day, which wouldn’t be a bad thing except she always seems to bring them to our room. Can’t she ever go to their place? For once? When she’s not parading her sex companions, she’s demanding I be available to her at all times to “try to bond” and “be better roommates, maybe even friends.”
Yeah, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Her need to make sure I’m always available to her, even when she doesn’t act the same for me, is quickly getting old. It’s already started with the shitty, guilt-trip texts about how we never hang out, or the passive aggressive tone when I tell her I can’t go get food besides at the café. It’s fucking embarrassing to say I just simply don’t have the money to go on a late-night Micky D’s run. I guess I should be happy she wants to bond at all? But it doesn’t really feel that way.
It feels forced. And to be frank, I’m not exactly sure I actually want to be friends with this person anyway.
I haven’t heard from Asher yet, so I don’t know how much longer he has with his client and therefore, how much time I have to kill. The common area is just a blank, bare room that separates the two wings of the building. There are some nasty, beat-up couches and a few tables with chairs to entice people to sit and hang out, but I’ve rarely seen the commons be used.
Except when roommates have been kicked out due to their room being…occupied.
Like I have been, at least three times this last week alone.
Dropping my backpack into the chair, I plop myself in one and groan. This is not how I wanted today to go. But there’s no sense in wasting time.
I pull my Macro Economics textbook out and start studying. Since the fallout with my mom, I really, really , have to be careful to keep my scholarship. At least until I figure out what I want to do.
I know business is smart, but I just can’t wrap my brain around it. My brain has never worked that way; numbers and equations, strategy and moves, deals and trades. I don’t like that. But knowing business, knowing how to successfully build and run a business, might be invaluable one day.
I catch a glimpse of my sketchbook in my bag, and I desperately want to open it and sketch something out, but I need to do some homework and focus.
Art is… it’s beauty. It’s simple. It’s the best way I know of that shows others exactly how you see something, how you feel something, how something resonates with you. You can tell someone how you feel about them with a portrait. It’s magical when you think about it.
Shaking my head, I sigh.
I need to focus. Opening the textbook to the second chapter, I start reading the words the professor went over today to try and understand it even a fraction more. Honestly, it was like listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher. Whomp, whomp, whomp-whomp, whomp. Nothing.
“No, dude! It’ll be fucking epic! You remember, like this summer.” A guy’s voice rings out as the doors bang open with the force of their push. A whole group of guys walk through, talking and joking, and the room gets exponentially louder.
But that doesn’t matter.
Because the voice that spoke belonged to the friend of the guy that hurt me.
And next to him, smirking and nodding like a fucking prince, is the guy who raped me.
Seeing him in the light and in the flesh—not just through my hazy memories—is scarier than I ever thought it could be.
Ever since that night, I’ve tried not to think about things too hard. To not put blame on him or myself… but that’s bullshit.
He should be blamed. I should be angry—not scared. I should stride right up to him and smack him in the face so hard his eye bleeds.
But instead, I’m stuck in place, trying to remind myself to breathe. It feels exactly like I’ve peeked under my bed and the monster jumped out.
Only it’s not a nightmare.
It’s real.
The friend smirks at me, probably thinking I’m checking them out, and then he smiles brightly at me, winking as they continue to pass. I feel sick.
My eyes track them, keeping them in my sight from the moment they enter the room to the moment they step onto that elevator.
The figment of my nightmares stride towards the door and my rapist stares me down, a look of distant confusion on his face. Like he doesn’t remember me.
I hope to god he doesn’t.
I shrink down into the chair and try to move my textbook higher to cover my face, but I’m too late. The doors start to close and his eyebrows knit together, his eyes narrowing, and I scrunch down further. But right before the door closes, his eyes widen and a predatory smile, so disgusting I will need a shower, spreads across his filthy lips and I know.
He knows who I am.
He knows where I live.
And I run to the trashcan making it just in time to throw up everything in my system.
* * *
My hands are shaking.
I’m frozen.
What do I do?
My fingers inch towards my phone. To call the one person I feel safe with.
“ Asher ,” I whisper brokenly. I find his contact shakily in my phone and call him. After a few rings, it goes to voicemail.
Fuck. I need him. I need someone. I can’t… this… what do I…
I’m going to have a panic attack, damn it.
What if he comes back and I’m alone? What if he finds me when I’m coming back from classes? What if…
I re-dial Asher. “Please pick up, please, please, please,” I whisper.
After a few rings, Ty answers the phone. “Are you okay?”
“Ty,” I sob, “He was here. He… he was right here. He winked at me, and he knows where I am now. Ty,” I cry, trying to muffle my sobs but I can feel myself start to be hysterical.
“Where are you now?” he asks. I can hear in his voice that he knows exactly what happened and how I’m feeling. I need to get out—now.
“I’m in the common area, Hannah’s fucking someone in our room. I can’t, I can’t… What if he’s on his way back? Oh god.” I start to spiral and load up my book quickly. “I have to get out of here.”
Ty snaps me out of it and says, “Okay, go back to your room and I’m sending Asher now.”
“No, no you can’t. He’s got that big client, I can’t be?—”
“Yes, yes, chica , don’t argue with me.”
“I’ll be fine, maybe I’m making too big a deal about this. I just… I don’t feel safe at all. He knew. He knew who I was, what he had done and now he knows where to find me,” I say softly, the fear clear in my voice as it shakes.
“Go lock the door. He’ll be there in a few minutes,” Ty orders me, but I can’t. I can’t because I refuse to deal with Hannah and her bullshit.
“Tell him I’ll be in the café, toward the back. Nothing can happen if I’m in public, right?” My voice stutters, and I don’t think I believe what I’m saying, but… it’s all I’ve got. I hear Asher snapping at Ty in the background and it’s fucking amazing how just his voice calms me down.
The café is downstairs, I just need to get there.