Chapter 3
Willa
Jocelyn comes into my room and sits on my bed as I get dressed.
“Are you still going to the Kappa party tonight?” She plays with the fringe on my pillow.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I wouldn’t miss my boyfriend’s birthday party. It also happens to be our third anniversary.
We met freshman year on his birthday. I found him on the curb, puking his brains out after his friends fed him too many shots, and couldn’t leave the poor guy by himself. I gave him water from the bottle I had and helped him back to his dorm room. He begged me to stay. It was the first time he ever got drunk and was so scared.
The next morning, he woke to me in his bed, fully clothed and over the covers. We talked all morning, spent the entire day together, and the rest is history.
“Because they screwed over every plan you tried to make for him,” Jocelyn says, listing off all the reasons why she thinks it’s ok to bail on my boyfriend’s birthday. “Because he’s not going to acknowledge your anniversary, and I’ll have to hear about that tomorrow. Because he doesn’t respect you and is a lousy boyfriend. He’ll end up disappearing halfway through the night, you’ll get upset, and—”
“Wow. Ok. I get it.” I stop her from saying everything I don’t want to hear. “Tonight will be different, and even if it’s not, I can”t bail on his birthday. You know that.”
“Yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “I wish you’d see what we all see.”
Every day I’m defending my relationship to someone. It’s been even worse this semester with Luca. He doesn’t waste a day to tell me his opinion on my relationship.
I do see what they all see, but no one sees what I do. Our relationship isn’t perfect, but whose is? How can they judge ours when they merely get a surface view of what’s really happening?
Vic loves me, and I love him. I wish my friends could understand that.
“Are you going to go?” I ignore her opinion. “Luca is bailing. He thinks he has a shot at getting Kandi to go out with him tonight.”
“I have other plans.” She stands from my bed and throws my pillow back on the bed.
I almost stop her to find out what plans she has, but I’m running late. I had an entire day planned out for us, but Vic’s friends took over the party planning. They’re better at planning parties than I am, but that meant putting aside any plans I made for our anniversary.
It’s not every day someone turns twenty-one.
“Willa.” Vic smiles as he sees me coming up his lawn. “You’re the most gorgeous sight…” His words get cut off as he swallows back a belch. His dark chestnut eyes are glossed over, and the breath that comes out is a powerful stench of beer. “Sorry.”
“I guess you guys already started?”
“One funnel.” He holds up a finger with a smirk. “Only one.”
Vic is a Kappa Delta, the fraternity known for its hard parties, and their occasional breakfast of shotgunning and funneling beers when they”re celebrating something big. Such as, a twenty-first birthday.
“Happy Birthday, baby.” I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss his bitter tasting lips. Only one funnel is a load of crap, but it’s his birthday. I can’t be mad at him for having a little fun.
“Do you mind helping me set up the lawn?” He pouts, swaying in place as he holds my hips. A strand of hair that matches the chestnut in his eyes falls onto his forehead. “The guys are all a mess inside and you know how much I love the games.”
Tables are haphazardly strewn across the lawn. Whoever put them out was lazy, and Vic loves playing drinking games. He’ll start the night by playing beer pong with Drake, his best friend and fellow Kappa. They’ll be on the pong table the entire night until one of them gets bored.
“Sure thing, babe.” I move most of the tables around the lawn while Vic watches me. He tries to help, but isn’t faring well at standing steady on two feet.
“Vic,” Drake calls out from inside the house. “It’s time.”
Vic tilts his head my way.
“Go on, I’ll be fine.” I give him permission to leave me out here by myself.
It’s their Kappa Delta ritual they do every night before a party, and Vic is always at the center of it. They all circle around, taking shots or funneling more beer. Barking like dogs and howling at each other. It’s ridiculous, but it’s a tradition passed down through the fraternity from who knows when.
“How did you get stuck with this job?” The weight of the table I was moving lessens as Carter lifts the other side to help me.
“Vic just ran inside.” I try my best at being pleasant.
Carter’s never been anything more than a pain in the ass to me. Him helping me set up a few tables isn’t changing that. He’s at the center of every fight, and the first to run his mouth, always getting into trouble and anyone near him suffers by proxy.
I move on to setting up the large pails with garbage bags to spread out through the lawn between the tables.
“Yeah, sure, and he didn’t leave you to set up the party for him.” He takes one of the garbage cans and brings it to the other side of the porch.
“It’s early. What are you doing here?” I toss him a bag of red solo cups to put at the first table.
“I got bored.” He shrugs.
Braxton, the president of the Kappa Delta’s, comes out and gives Carter some kind of friendly handshake. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” He motions his head for Carter to follow him around to the back, but stops to look at me first. “Your boyfriend is not looking too good already.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.” I sigh and look up through the front door to see Vic on his knees, holding the end of a funnel to his mouth as Drake pours the beer in.
This was never meant to be a fun night for me. It’s Vic’s birthday, and I”m supposed to maintain a cool head and keep a watch on him to make sure he doesn”t do anything reckless.
And halfway through the party, he’s sitting on the floor in the hallway, unable to pick himself up. I sit next to him, rubbing his thick dark hair in my lap.
“One more minute, and then I’m going back out there,” he declares while picking at the pocket of my hoodie.
“One more minute, then we’re going straight to bed.” I smile down at him, watching his eyes roll closed.
“What are you going to do to get me into bed?” He teases and reaches under my shirt to tickle my side, making me jump. Sitting up, and leaning on my shoulder, his face turns serious. “One…” He taps my lips. “More… Game.”
“If you go to bed now, I’ll give you a birthday blow job.” I entice him with my best sultry gaze under my lashes and a lick of my lips.
He smirks, lazily running his thumb over the same spot my tongue licked. “You know you’re not good at that.”
“I thought I was getting better.” I frown, thinking about the last time I gave him a blow job. It’s been a while, but he said it was good.
Vic and I were both virgins when we met, and it’s been a learning experience to try new things and figure out what each other likes.
“You are.” He nudges my shoulder to cheer me up. “Alright, fine, let’s go to my room and we can work on it.”
I perk up, getting exactly what I want; Vic agreeing to go back to his room. There’s no way he’ll make it through another game of beer pong tonight. I doubt he’ll make it through the blow job.
“I’ll teach you how Deeana does it.”
“Deeana?” I help him up to his feet and stop him from taking the three steps to his room. Deeana is the girl Drake has been hanging out with lately. “How do you know how she does it?”
Vic swings around and rolls his head back with an aggravated groan. “Guys talk Willa.” He tugs my hand to keep going. “Let’s go before I change my mind.”
That makes sense. Drake must’ve told him something, but I don’t get to find out what it is. Vic passes out before I can even get his pants down to his ankles. I knew that was going to happen. He could barely keep his eyes open in the hall, and had way too much to drink.
He moans Deeana’s name in his sleep and curls into the blanket that I laid over him. If Jocelyn or Luca heard that, they’d have a field day telling me he’s cheating and there’s my proof, but someone you were just talking about popping up in your dream proves nothing. And he wouldn’t do that to Drake.
Still, their accusations make me doubt everything.
I can hear them now.
“He goes after every girl that gives him the slightest bit of attention.”
“He made a pass at me.”
“He’s cheating on you.”
Unable to bear him saying someone else’s name, I leave Vic to sleep and go through the overcrowded house with his birthday party in full swing. The crowd outside had dwindled, with it getting colder out. I heard a few Delta Nu girls say they were moving the party to their house before I went inside to chase after Vic earlier.
The chilly air penetrates through my thin hoodie and I barely have the door open before it’s pulled from my hand.
“Screw you, Carter!” Chelsea shouts and almost knocks me over while trying to get away from him.
We dance a bit to go around each other before she barrels inside, slamming the door behind her. Carter stands at the corner of the porch, looking out over the lawn as if nothing happened.
“What did you do now?” I elbow his side to get his attention.
He shrugs and drinks his beer.
“Would it kill you to be nice to someone? And maybe stop screwing around.” I stretch against the porch railing next to him, taking in the mess of garbage strewn across the lawn. They couldn’t even bother to keep it in the cans we set up.
Carter laughs as he sets down his beer on the thick wooden ledge between us. A sinister laugh that I shouldn’t be surprised to hear.
“You’re so quick to assume I did something. And yet,” he swipes his mouth as if in a deep thought, “your boyfriend is screwing around right in front of your face, and you don’t make those same assumptions against him.”
His sinister laugh with his harsh words cut through me.
Everyone says the same thing, and it shouldn’t hurt me the way it is. I’ve heard it repeatedly, and it means nothing coming from Carter Pierce. He doesn’t know anything.
“Hey, have ya’ll seen Vic?” We’re interrupted by a sweet southern accent before I can counter a response.
I whip around to face Deeana. She’s shivering in her short little red dress and her ridiculous faux fur white coat.
“Oh.” She straightens up and moves back. “Hi, Willa.”
“He’s sleeping. In his bed.” Daggers shoot out of me and right into the large tits coming out of her overly revealing dress. I force out a smile. “Drake is inside. I think I saw him dancing with some girl.”
“Oh, yeah.” She giggles. “We broke up. I just wanted to say bye to the birthday boy.” She smiles uncomfortably while strolling down the steps of the porch. “See you around.”
All the breath I was holding leaves my lungs once she’s fully off the porch and making her way down to the street, being whistled at by the several guys she passes.
“Are you ok?” Carter’s demeanor immediately changes, his stance softening, appearing as if he actually may regret what he said.
I steal his beer from the ledge and chug it down.
“Ugh, that’s gross.” I cough and force the warm liquid back. “It’s piss warm.”
Carter laughs. “Yeah, well, I’ve been nursing it for a while.”
“Disgusting.” I try to use my saliva to wash down the taste.
“Seriously, are you ok?” He nudges my shoulder with his. “That was rough to watch.”
“I’m fine.”
We both lean on the ledge and quietly watch the flip cup game happening on the lawn from afar.
“I see it,” I admit, feeling the urge to talk and defend myself. “And everyone says he is, but no one sees how he is with me. I may see it happening, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to throw away what we have.”
He nods, listening to what I can’t tell my friends because they’d never understand.
“Even if it’s true, I don’t want to know.”
“He’ll never change, and it’ll only get worse.” Carter drinks the rest of his piss warm beer. “You’re just like every pathetic woman who wants to believe their men truly love them. If he loved you, he’d respect you. He wouldn’t slap you around when no one’s there to protect you.”
“He’s never hit me.” I can’t be sure, but I don’t think we’re talking about Vic and me anymore.
Carter’s fist tightens around the empty bottle he’s still holding.
“Braydon is exactly like them.” He nods to his younger brother out on the lawn, celebrating winning the drinking game by wrapping himself around the girl next to him. “That’s not his girlfriend. He’s going to grow up to be just like our dad, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. Cheaters and abusers, they’re all the same.”
“That’s not always true,” I mutter, trying to gauge what’s going on in Carter’s head. “Does your dad hit your mom?”
Carter breaks out of the hypnotic state he was in and smirks at me. Going right back into that cruel and indifferent presence he always has. It’s a defense mechanism. It’s hard not to see it now.
“That, Willa, is above your friendship status.”
“I didn’t realize we were friends.”
He throws the bottle into the garbage can below us and hops over the railing to land on his feet. “Exactly.”
He says something to his brother. I tense up, expecting a fight, but Carter backs off with that same cruel smirk after Braydon pushes him.
Vic hasn’t moved from the position I left him in until I slide under the covers, and he rolls over, draping his arm over me, and nuzzling into my neck.
It’s comforting and warming all my doubts away, but those doubts are coming to a head. They’re too much to keep punching down. What if Carter is right and Vic never changes? I’ve been holding onto the hope that it’s just college, and after we graduate it’ll all change. But what if I don’t get on a team close to him? We’ve never talked about what will happen after we graduate.
I wake up a couple of hours later, cold and alone in Vic’s bed. It’s still dark out and the house is quiet. Some guys are still up, hanging out, and they look away when they see me searching for Vic.
He’s nowhere to be found.
Not sure what to do, I crawl back into his bed and cry myself back to sleep.
“Sorry, babe.” Vic grunts when he climbs back into bed, apologizing for waking me. “I had to pee.” He wraps me up into him, but it’s been over an hour since I noticed he was gone.
I won’t question it, and he’ll never tell me the truth.