53. Haven
Haven
I fumble beside me on the bed, finding my way into a bag of chips without taking my eyes off the iPad in my lap.
Eating your emotions gets a bad rep. It’s the only thing that’s kept me going the past week.
That, and Netflix. Melissa shared her password and her spare iPad with me on the weekend, and I’ve been lost in a rabbit hole of vapid influencers, hot guys with bad acting skills, and horror movies with hilariously bad special effects ever since.
I’ve been studying too.
I am, after all, in college.
I’ve also been working on my day drinking skills.
I am, after all, in—
“I used to do that.”
“Eat your feelings?” I mutter before shoving a handful of crisps into my mouth.
The other sorority girls seem to get annoyed when I ask them if I can have things out the pantry or fridge, so I just started helping myself. Like the magic porridge pot of my childhood fairy tales, the kitchen somehow replenishes itself overnight.
I suspect elves, but the theory is yet unconfirmed. Too many seasons of Supernatural to get through.
And textbooks, of course.
Melissa scoffs, her bed creaking as she drops into it. “I wish. I’ve been counting calories since I was twelve.”
There’s a thump as she drops a shoe onto the carpet.
Which makes me think of the bunny slipper she dropped while I was under the bed with Kai last week, which makes me think about Bastian interrogating me about my injuries in the boutique the day after, which—
“Ugh!”
“Pre-party carbo loading,” she says, as if she didn’t hear my groan of frustration. “If I wasn’t at my ideal BMI, I’d join you.”
“I’m not pre-partying anything. I’m not going.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m serious.”
Melissa was busy kicking off her other mule, but stops to give me a forceful, wide-eyed glare. “It’s the Rain Dance, Haven.”
“And?” I reach for another handful of chips, but the fucking bag is empty. “Damn it.”
“Okay, that’s it. I’m calling an ambulance.”
I throw her a frown. “What?”
“You mean you’re not bipolar? Because it looks to me like you’re right at the bottom of the bellcurve in this depressive episode of yours. I’m not sure if you know this, but attendance kinda affects your GPA.”
I roll my eyes at her, but she’s not looking my way. “I’m not depressed.”
“So you’re happily skipping school and day drinking?”
“I’m…processing.”
She’s on her phone, not even bothering to acknowledge my scowl.
“Processing what? College?” She huffs out an unamused breath. “Better pace yourself, freshman.”
“My life.” I say it with a little more vehemence than I wanted to.
“Kai still bugging you?”
“Fuck, Kai,” I mutter, hunting through the debris on the bed beside me until I discover half a peanut butter cup I’d forgotten about. “Gotcha.”
I’m not being dramatic. Kai seems to be the least of my problems after he attacked me last week. I lie awake most nights waiting for him climb through the window or sneak in the door.
Maybe he finally realized he crossed a line.
Bastian, on the other hand…
I’m not an expert on the subject, but I don’t think my professor had any right to quit my job for me.
Yes, what he said makes sense.
There’s no way I can juggle shifts at the diner, go to classes, study, and deal with a bully. I am, technically, taken care of here at the sorority.
Food, shelter, Netflix.
But what about, I dunno, clothes? Tampons? Shampoo?
Fine, I still have a box of tampons, and I’ve never had an issue using soap as shampoo, but that’s beside the point.
What about freedom?
What about not owing anyone anything?
How about not becoming a kept woman before I’m even a fucking woman?
Melissa finishes the essay she was texting someone, sighs, and props herself up on an elbow to stare over at me. “Is this because you don’t have a dress?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Even if I had one, I’m not going.”
After the way I yelled at Bastian last Friday, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d returned those pretty dresses.
She glances off to the side, lips pursing. “I might have something that’ll fit.”
“Jesus…”
Fuck this. If I can’t phase out of this reality until a better one comes along, then I’m going to raid the fridge.
A shower of candy wrappers and packets falls onto the carpet as I stand.
Melissa follows me into the kitchen, because I guess it’s her life mission to terrorize me now.
I’ve never had this effect on people before. Back at Ashwood High, I was invisible. Just another nameless face in a sea of kids. Now it’s like everyone I come into contact with has a secret agenda to mess with my shit.
“Know what helps with boy problems?” Melissa says, leaning her hip against the counter as she watches me rummage inside the fridge. This thing is stocked. A veritable feast…if you like vegetables and low-fat dairy. Guess the snack cupboard will have to do.
“Food coma?” I mutter, swiveling a yogurt carton around so I can see the label. Fat-free. Yuck.
“No. This.”
I roll my eyes when she doesn’t elaborate, my curiosity forcing me to turn to her. “Is that…a joint?”
“It’s not not a joint.” She flashes me a smile and wriggles her fingers over the joint and stage-whispers, “Boy problems be gone!”
I don’t correct her.
Boy problems, man problems—same thing.
“You’ve discovered the cure,” I tell her, shaking my head. “Can’t believe it, but you’ve fucking discovered the cure.”
“Told ya.” She passes me the last of the joint, but I shake my head and my hand, just in case she missed the head shaking. “We take boys too seriously. This?” She holds out the last of the joint before pinching it in her fingertips and hitting it. “Perspective.”
I hold up a finger. “Clarity.”
She opens her mouth, but then closes again, shrugging. “Yeah. Those.”
We’re at the table under the gazebo in GAZ’s backyard. Sitting on it, because I’m guessing that’s how the cool kids do it. The heavy, gray clouds above make the shadows darker, the colors deeper.
It’s gloomy, and chilly, and I love it.
Melissa keeps brushing her hair out of her face when the wind blows it, then looking up at the sky like it’s got beef with her.
“Wait a sec…” Melissa looks at me with narrowed eyes. “You lied to me, you bitch.”
My heart gives a big thump. “What?”
She points at me, shaking her head. “You lied. You said you had, like, a job or something. You just didn’t wanna work with me.”
“I have a job!” I stop, swallowing. My mouth is really dry. “I had a job.”
“Had?” she says sourly. “Convenient.”
I clap my hands over my face. I’m nowhere near the point where I’m ready to tell anyone what Bastian did.
“I swear it, Melissa. I still had a shift at the diner that afternoon.”
“Thought you worked weekends too. That’s what you said.” Her eyes are slits now.
“I…quit.”
She sniffs, obviously unsatisfied with my answer. “Didn’t take you for a quitter,” she mutters.
I open my mouth to defend myself, then close it again.
I mean, fuck, she’s right.
I’ve spent this whole week hiding out. Considered—more than once—retrieving my car from Bastian’s house and driving off into the sunset…or as far as I could get on the gas left in the tank.
How is that not quitting?
“That’s…the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I tell her.
She shrugs. “I thought you were tough. Guess I was wrong.”
I snort. “You’re not wrong.” Pushing back my shoulders, sticking out my chin, I give her a cool stare down my nose. “I am tough. And you know what else? I’m not a quitter.”
She shrugs again. “Prove it.”
I laugh.
“I mean it, Haven. You can’t let a boy get you down like this.
” She holds up a hand to cut me when I try to interrupt.
“Please. I know it’s a boy. If not Kai, then someone else.
” Melissa stretches out her arms, fingers laced, cracking her knuckles.
Then she props her elbow on her knee and turns to look at me. “Move on.”
If only it was that simple.
“It’s not…” But I trail off, because what the hell am I supposed to say?
How can I explain Kai finger-fucked me under a bed and then jizzed in my professor’s car?
That that same professor threatened to make me walk home with his cum leaking out of me if I didn’t strip for him?
That I get wet whenever I think about either of them?
She wouldn’t understand.
Fuck, I don’t even understand.
“If a guy buys you things, that means he wants something, right?” I muse.
Melissa doesn’t hesitate. “Always. No exceptions. Guys are assholes.”
I turn to her, my arms dangling over my knees. “Do you even like guys? I haven’t heard you say a single nice thing about them.”
“I like them.” She gives me a coy smile, then flattens her lips. “But only if they know what a clit is.” She holds up a finger. “And where to find it.”
“Bonus if they know what to do with it, if they find it,” I say.
We both burst out laughing, and wow, I haven’t laughed like this in a long, long time. Like the time Kai made me laugh so hard milkshake came out of my nose? God, that was nearly a decade ago, at the same diner I’m working—
Used to work at.
“Okay, okay.” It says a lot that, despite the weed, it only takes me a second to sober up enough to talk again.
“What if, what if a guy does something so fucking outrageously fucked up that you want to gouge out his eyes with your bare fucking hands? But then, but then he tells you—” I hold up a finger, so she can have a moment to fully appreciate the fucking audacity “—that he’s helping you? ”
Melissa stares at me with wide eyes. “That he’s the cuntiest cunt that ever cunted, duh.”
We both burst out laughing again. It’s so bad this time that we hold on to each other so we don’t fall off the table.
“Please can I watch?” she wheezes.
I’m wiping away tears. “Watch what?”
She waves at me. “It doesn’t have to be in person. You can record it!” She breaks into gales of laughter.
“What?” I shake her.
“You and Kai hate fucking!” she wheezes, thumping her fist into my upper arm.
“Fuck you.” I slide off the table, my mouth squirming as I try to control my laughter.
“Wait, please, Haven!” Melissa yells, but then starts laughing again.