Chapter 1
Chapter One
KAMILA
August - Fall Semester - Junior Year
“ I ’m dying, Kamila.”?
I roll my eyes at my sister's dramatics. “You say this almost every weekend, and every weekend, you swear you’re never going to do it again, yet here we are.”
My sister Ana decided to call me in the middle of the night to hear the wonderful sounds of her throwing up due to another crazy weekend. Unfortunately, it isn’t the first time, and I doubt it’ll be the last.
I’m her go-to call. Every. Damn. Time. But I always answer, afraid that it’ll be an emergency. In the end, it never is.
“Why do you always call me when this happens? Driscoll is two hours away from you, there’s nothing I can do to help.” I take a calming breath, a must when speaking to my sister. On the other side of the phone, there’s a heavy sigh that’s followed by gagging sounds but no vomiting.
“ Hermana, I think you’ve emptied your stomach.”
“Yeah.” The toilet flushes. “I called you because I find comfort in hearing your voice. I’ll slow down, I swear, but I was miserable about my breakup with Mason.”
“You mean Jason?”
“You know who I’m talking about,”she whines
“Yeah. Sounds like he was the love of your life.”
This is also a never-ending cycle with my twin. Partying all the time, not caring about her classes, trying to find the right guy, and ending up with the wrong ones.?I blame the latter on him, the first one who broke her heart. The one that I truly believe she never healed from. Even though neither of us has uttered his name to each other in years.??
“Whatever, sis, I’m drunk…and a little high,” she says playfully.
That’s where I draw the line. “It is two in the morning. Are you with a friend?”
“Yes.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes,” she huffs.
“Then hydrate, get into bed, and please don’t call me this late again unless it’s an actual emergency. I have an early start tomorrow, unlike other people.”
She giggles. “Only you would move back to campus three days before classes start.”
Rubbing my forehead, I bite my tongue before I say something I’ll regret. “Go to bed, hermana . Goodnight.”
She laughs. “Night, hermanita , love ya too.” There’s a click, and my screen goes black.
No thank you or real explanation as to what the hell happened earlier, and never an I love you . That’s nothing new. Ana has always been a little selfish and closed off, so I try not to take it personally.
Before going back to sleep, I check my messages and see some from earlier tonight. Most are from my friends or Mom asking if I got settled in okay. I spot two other texts, each sent after midnight.
Luis: I’ll be back tomorrow. Let me know if you want to have dinner :)
Mike: Wanna fuck?
Leave it to Mike not to beat around the bush. Mike is beautiful—full head of black hair and green eyes. We have sex, talk for a bit, and go our separate ways—friends with benefits at its finest. Luis, however, is starting to concern me. We haven’t slept with each other yet, and something is telling me that we shouldn’t.
After what happened with David, I had stopped dating altogether. When my friends realized how bad it had gotten, they recommended I go to therapy. I took their advice, and it helped me feel like myself again. I went to about seven hour-and-a-half long sessions and fled the second he was mentioned. Not wanting to dive into the shitfest that is my past, I called the same day and canceled all future sessions.
Em and I decided to take some self-defense classes before she left for vacation. I continued taking them for the rest of the summer alone. It helped in relieving my stress, and there’s the bonus of knowing I can knock somebody out if I wanted to.
My family’s short vacation to Colombia was also a great distraction. However, the news that my best friend Jake got a hold of about David officially graduating and leaving town was what really gave me the closure I needed. He lives hours away from Driscoll, and I will never have to see him again.
Deciding to leave the texts unanswered, I drop my phone onto the side table. My meeting with the gym manager is at eight a.m., and I have another one after that. I’ve made sure to keep my semester busy. I promised myself that I would focus more on me and my goals this school year. It has to be better than the last.
My first three days back on campus before classes started were a success. My meetings ran smoothly, my boss seems to like me, and thankfully, there aren’t too many freshmen in my dorm.
Now I’m reading a mystery book I’ve been trying to finish for months while waiting for Emma to get here. My best friend and I were randomly paired as roommates in Astor Hall our first semester here. She called it fate, and I have to agree. We’re polar opposites in more ways than one, but we clicked after one late-night conversation during our first week in the suite. And since then, we managed to find two other best friends who value loyalty as much as we do.
The sound of the front door opening echoes in the suite. Speak of the Devil.
“Kamila, where are you?” Em yells in a sing-song voice right outside my door before she bursts in.
She runs and jumps into my arms, both of us laughing.
“Em, I missed you so much.”
I haven’t seen her in months. We usually see each other often during breaks, but she stayed at her aunt’s beach house in Montauk most of the summer, and I only got to visit once.
“I missed you too.”
She lets me go and flops down on my bed, touching a piece of my hair. “Oh my God. Your hair didn’t look this dark on camera.”
I look down at my black hair, which was formerly light brown the last time Em saw me.
“Do you like it?”
“I adore it. It really brightens the yellow specks in your eyes.” She studies me some more. “You look more like your mom now. The darker tan and the new dark hair.”
“Really?” I’m surprised that I hadn’t noticed. Moving to my full-body mirror, Em’s petite frame comes up behind me.
She points to my hair and then the tan lines. “See?”
She’s right. My naturally medium golden skin tone , as my mom describes it, is now a tad darker, bringing me only a shade away from my mom’s natural tawnier brown skin.
“I really do look like Mom,” I whisper. Well, except for my eyes.
“You do.” Em saunters back to the bed. “You look even less like Ana now, thankfully,” she mumbles, but I heard it loud and clear.
It’s no secret that Em and my sister don’t get along. Although, she doesn’t ever get into the specifics as to why.
“Enough talk about me,” I say in an attempt to switch topics. “How was your summer? Tell me everything.” Moving her hand, I take a seat next to her.
Her voice is bubbly and sarcastic. “Not much to tell since we spoke on the phone almost every weekend.”
“There has to be something you didn’t tell me. Any boys you met or hooked up with? Drunken nights with friends? Arrested for anything crazy?” Leaning in, I hold my breath, hoping for a crumb about her personal life.
She rolls her eyes at me. “You asked the same questions every weekend, and you already know that I am not like that.”
My friend might be tame, but she’s not so innocent, and I can tell when she’s hiding something.
She huffs out a sigh. “Fine, I might have made out with one guy, but it was nothing crazy, and we barely got to third base.”
“Yes, I knew you were keeping something from me. I want all the dirty details.”
She shrugs. “That’s it. There’s nothing else to tell, sorry.”
Sighing, I rub her shoulder in disappointment. I still don’t understand why Em is so shy and reserved when it comes to talking about her own sex life yet loves to talk about everyone else's.
Changing topics once again, I offer to help her unpack.
She wiggles her brows while we walk to her room. “You must catch me up on Mike and Luis. ”
Laying a hand on my hip, I ask, “Oh, so I do have to tell you the nitty gritty?”
“You know you want to,” she sasses back.
My shoulders slump. “You know me too well.”
Em smirks and we start heading toward her suitcases.
“So tell me, how’s Mike?”
Mike and I were acquaintances until we ran into each other during the summer around the West Village. We got some food and then headed back to his place since his parents were out of town. He wasn’t looking for anything serious, and neither was I, so it worked out well.
“He’s good.”
Emma’s head snaps up. “Uh-oh.”
Avoiding her stare, I continue unpacking her clothes. “What? I said he was good.”
“Yeah, whenever you say that, it usually means the opposite.”
“Well…” I trail off. “He was a little vanilla, but he wasn’t terrible. A C plus if I were to grade him. But an A for effort.”
“Oof. Not the pity ‘A for effort’. Are you going to keep seeing him? Is he being respectful of your agreement, unlike the asshole who must not be named?”
I cringe at the mention of David. “Yes, I am, and yes, he is. Although…”
Emma stops what she’s doing. “Although what Kamila? Is he hurting you in any way? Because I will kick his?—”
“No, no, nothing like that.” My hand lands on Em’s shoulder to calm her down.
“Jesus, don't scare me like that.” She lets out a harsh breath, blowing her blonde curtain bangs off her eyes.
“I am going to take it down a notch with hookups this semester.” Clearing my throat, I focus on folding her clothes. “Luis was starting to catch feelings for me, so I broke it off with him yesterday in person before we slept with each other. ”
Emma sits on her bed, looking at me with her baby-blue eyes.
“Kami, not every guy is like David. David was a narcissistic asshole.”
“I know?—”
“And while I understand wanting to slow things down, it’s not like you were hooking up with somebody different every night. Which even if you were, it wouldn’t matter. It’s your business and your life, don’t let anybody else tell you otherwise.”
Knowing she’s right, I give her a smile. Liking sex isn’t a crime, and I hate that guys have shamed me for it in the past.
“You’re right. Even so, I want to focus more on my studies and Zumba classes. Maybe even find an internship.” I give her a confident nod.
She presses her lips into a straight line. “Just don’t stop having fun with guys because of that one asshole. Maybe try going on a regular date?”
My smile disappears at her words. I unfold her shirts faster. “I don’t have time for a boyfriend Em, you know this. It wouldn’t be fair to the guy or me if I force myself into being in a relationship just for the sake of having one.”
She raises both brows and says nothing else. Her and I know what this is truly about. It comes down to one guy and one big mistake made on a summer night over two years ago. But it isn’t something I like or talk about often, if at all.
As if reading my mind, she speaks up. “Okay, let’s put on some music and stop talking about guys.” She stands and connects her laptop to a speaker.
“Valerie” by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse sounds through the small but loud device. Em sings, her voice on key as always. Once I join in, the beautiful melody is drowned out by my terrible pitchiness. Em lets out a small laugh while we continue organizing her things.
After I finish helping her unpack, we decide to go straight to bed, exhausted from the long day. My first Zumba class is tomorrow, and just thinking about it makes my heart race a little quicker with excitement and nerves. I pop in a melatonin and pick my mystery novel up. A couple of hours later, I wake up looking forward to my first, hopefully perfect, day of junior year.