Chapter 6 Survival Of The Fittest
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
STATEN
Knox Mulligan. The hockey horror that’s been plaguing the subconscious cornerstones of my mind. Not only has he coincidentally shown up wherever I am, but he and his iron-wrought ego have metastasized inside of my bone marrow like cancer. I can’t evade him.
After he showed me up at the bar three days ago and swung his big dick around to impress me—which did not work, by the way—I went back home to do some much-needed recon on the dark horse of Minnesota University.
I’ve had plenty of experience cyberstalking my past crushes, so digging up dirt on Knox was child’s play.
(And no, I’m not insinuating that he would ever be good enough to make it onto Staten’s Wall of Fangirl Fame.)
He’s the local troublemaker, but he’s also one of the most eligible bachelors at this college according to Mustang Mania, the biggest news outlet to grace the forgotten, fog-swept town of Maple Grove.
And judging by the way that girl practically drooled over him at Dusky’s, his reputation precedes him.
I can’t believe he thinks that I need help in the flirting department.
I was doing just fine on my own! Plus, his whole spiel was totally wrong.
Guys appreciate it when you show interest in them.
Why would I want to make someone chase after me?
That seems so redundant, especially if I want to be with them.
I want to increase my chances of being noticed, not run the risk of coming off uninterested.
Even if what Knox was saying was true, I’d never take the advice of some narcissistic imbecile over cold, hard facts.
Everything in life has an equation: success, love.
There’s a certain order in which things should be done to guarantee the best outcome, and assuming that the first warm-blooded person to glance your way is hankering for a quick fuck is absurd.
It’s an outlier, if anything—a once-in-a-lifetime mutation in intimacy’s genome sequence.
Perhaps it’s becoming more common in this generation’s hookup culture, but Leif Kennedy isn’t some lustful fuckboy just trying to get his dick wet.
Leif Kennedy is a god.
A god with golden morals, a laugh that could end long-term loneliness, and talent that this side of Minnesota has never seen before.
Leif has no trouble scoring on and off the basketball court, especially with that million-dollar smile of his that could melt even the coldest of hearts—mine included.
But despite all his record-breaking achievements and flawless grades, it’s his kindness that sets him apart from the greater population.
He’s everything that Knox isn’t: selfless, understanding, compassionate, my friend.
I’ve never despised a word more in my entire life.
Leif and I have been buddies since freshman year, when we were crane-lifted and dropped into the same orientation group.
He’s…magnetic. People are drawn to him instantly, as if he has some high-frequency aura that promises kindness in a world strife with pain.
Not to mention he’s drop-dead gorgeous with the looks of a high-brow model.
Caramel skin, dark-brown curls, Aegean-colored eyes, and a bone structure that could put a Michelangelo sculpture to shame.
Every second with him is inebriating. I have a pretty low tolerance for socializing, but I’ve never gotten tired of Leif’s presence. I’d trust this man to cure the chemistry imbalance in my brain better than my own antidepressants. The only downside to this otherwise perfect human being?
He has no idea that I’m secretly obsessed with him.
Hell, I wouldn’t classify myself as a hopeless romantic, and yet he has me doodling his name in my notebook whenever I can’t concentrate in class. With hearts. HEARTS, PEOPLE. That’s sociopathic behavior.
I know I should be honest with him, but I don’t want to ruin our friendship. I don’t want to…lose…him. So, I’m stuck laughing too hard at his jokes and flipping my hair and trying to wink with one eye to hint at the fact that I’m dying for a second of his attention in a more-than-friends way.
I didn’t know having a crush was so humbling.
My belly festers with a flurry of butterflies whenever he looks at me, my heart has nearly given out on two separate occasions when he inadvertently brushed my arm, and my mind has started to curate these fantastical scenarios of our married life in the future.
Little House on the Prairie-style. I’m setting feminism back a hundred years.
I’m imagining myself in an apron cooking for a man.
A man! Me, who thinks compliance is subordinance.
I have too much self-respect to give my autonomy up for a white picket fence.
I pass by the forsythia bushes flanking the gravel-grouted walkway to my mom’s and my small, two-bedroom cottage, whisking past the tissue paper petals of ochre flowers and the trimmed hedges of dark green foliage.
A boscage of pine trees cossets our small plot of land, creating a subtle property line between us and the barrack-like row of our neighbors’ equally weathered houses.
Quaint and rustic, the front-facing, high-pitched gable welcomes me home—framework for the chipped, cedar shingles that overlap each other beneath a profusion of overgrown vines.
Ironwood trim contours a few external fixtures, sundering the monochromatic colorscape and exuding an air of timeless charm that gets mottled closer to the beating heart of downtown.
The stone siding of the house harbors tracts of golden-dot lichen, and the six-paneled windows on either side of the decorative, arched doorway reflect the alternating shades of gray dancing across the sunless sky.
The forecast is still as dismal as always, the promise of rain hovering in the air like an omen.
It doesn’t matter what season it is in Maple Grove—a storm is always a thunderclap away.
I race inside before the first drop falls, slamming the door and shucking my backpack onto the floor.
The unmistakable aroma of my mother’s famous pan-seared chicken wafts through the air, evoking a hungry rumble from my stomach.
I forgot I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Back-to-back classes aren’t for the faint of heart.
Even with her busy schedule, I’m grateful my mom still finds time to cook for us. I wouldn’t mind if she relied on frozen dinners occasionally, but she values family time above all else—even her own debilitating exhaustion.
“Hey, Mom,” I greet, strutting into the kitchen to find the makeshift dining table—an unvarnished slab of wood in the corner—overloaded with lemon herb chicken, buttery mashed potatoes, salted green beans, and steaming crescent rolls. “Dinner smells delicious.”
“Hey, Buttercup,” she coos, her words webbed with tooth-aching sweetness. “You got here just in time.” She finishes setting the table with two gingham napkins before taking a seat.
My mouth begins to water, and I sit down before my belly starts to cannibalize itself. I shovel a little bit of everything onto my plate, disregarding the portion sizes as my mother unfurls her napkin and sets it daintily in her lap.
“How was school?” she asks.
My answer rarely ever changes, but I welcome the small talk anyways. “Good, boring, the usual,” I respond, stabbing a clump of green beans and slipping the tines of my fork between my lips. Perfectly seasoned as always.
While I’m lost in the culinary pleasure that will undoubtedly lead to a post-dinner coma, it suddenly dawns on me that I have yet to tell my mom about my little scholarship complication.
Partly out of shame, partly out of a full-bodied resistance in adding to her already-heavy workload.
My glorious, glorious legumes—now macerated between my molars—aggravate the acid in my empty belly.
I…shit, I don’t know what to say. I need to tell her, I know I do. I’ve already kept it from her for far too long. I’m lucky she hasn’t sniffed out the truth yet. I’m notoriously terrible at lying.
Pulse flatlining, the collar of my shirt tighter than a tourniquet around my throat, I slow my passage of food, relying on my burnt-out brain cells to try and change the subject.
It’s way too hot in here, and the temperature in the house is never higher than sixty-eight degrees.
My appetite wanes almost instantly; I lose my footing on the conversation like I’m scaling the vertiginous side of a saw-toothed mountain.
I swallow harshly. “Uh, how was work?”
My mother, thankfully, is too preoccupied with her meal to pay any notice to my deafening guilt. “It was good. Picked up another midnight shift at the hotel so we can pay to get our washer fixed this week. You know how it is, making all that unnecessary clanking. It’s a miracle it still works.”
My lips twitch into a frown. “Another? You haven’t had a day off in weeks.”
She flaps her hand, breaking off a chunk of dough before popping it in her mouth. “Oh, hush. If I had a day off, I wouldn’t even know what to do with my free time.”
The worst possible thoughts sieve through my head, crawling up my brainstem and suffusing gray matter: disappointment, death, DISAPPOINTMENT.
How do you think she’s going to react to the fact that you can’t pay for your own scholarship, Staten?
You’re her whole world. You know she’d do anything to help push you toward your dreams, and school is a direct pipeline to making it out of this dead-beat town.
You’re supposed to take care of yourself so she doesn’t have to.
You need to pick up the financial slack. She’s already working two jobs.