Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
EBONY
Megan reaches over and straightens the collar of my grey tye-dye shirt with the donut insignia and company name across the breast pocket. Food money had dried up almost immediately; the living wage stipend attached to my scholarship was barely enough to buy a coffee and a pastry each morning.
Megan had vehemently warned me off applying for the part time position in Glorie’s Donut Holes, a popular cafe on the outskirts of campus, something about upkeep of my reputation.
I cackled uncontrollably at that. She was ready and willing to become my sugar mamma to fund me, but I quite liked the idea of making my own money.
Although I appreciated her offer, the glint of mischief in her big blue eyes told me I didn’t want to know exactly what she had in mind to secure such a position.
A bunny costume and the creative use of a carrot were both mentioned, but I shut the idea down before it could fully form in her head.
I had spent the thirty-minute walk to my first interview on the brink of premature death by dehydration as the midday heat shone down on me, deciding that if I got the job, I’d be investing in a bike with my first pay check.
The poppy print summer dress that hugged my curves was a cutie classic as Megan liked to call them.
It was incredibly short, not remotely my style, and the opposite vibe to my usual don’t-breathe-in-my-space sullen mood - where impending peopling was to be a significant part of my day.
In my classes I found I could skulk away at the back of the room and lose myself in whatever project the teacher had set us.
The borrowed clothes, the plastic smile, the patchwork resume bolstered with big words, and the angelic school-girl braids I had allowed Megan to coax my unruly waves into—I was as ready as I was ever going to be. The promise of free coffees and pastries were a great incentive.
“What time does your shift start?” Megan asks and I groan. Even with the second hand bike, the ride into work was still torture for my thighs.
“4:30. I’ve transferred the class notes into my voice app so at least I can still revise while on cleanup duty.” We’re not even a third of the way through our first semester, and I am already lagging behind.
“Hey, Ebony, right?” My bid for patience doesn’t extend to the guy leaning on the edge of the table with his foot perched on the seat beside me.
Sleezy—that is how I would describe Bobby Masters.
One big ball of sleaze prettied up with old family money.
The navy blazer pushed up to his elbows paired with the pristine white shirt beneath screams affluence; the tan shorts that show off his stubby knees, however, tell me Mummy likely still packs his suitcase.
“Correct,” I reply tersely, trying to find a glimmer of kindness in his soulless brown eyes, but all I find is darkness.
There is something about this guy that has my skin crawling, but I can’t quite decipher what it is.
Determined not to appear weak as he towers over me, I keep our gazes locked.
Hoping he will feel uncomfortable and scurry away when he realises that I’m not like the other girls fawning over him for a crumb of his attention.
Wrong girl, buddy.
“You look like you could use some company.” He grins wide, running his palm over his slicked black hair, apparently oblivious to the other two people at my table as I share my confused expression between him, Megan, and Mateo.
“And you look like you struggle with basic maths,”
“Don’t be like that. We could be firm friends. I was reeled in by those mesmerising eyes from all the way over there.” he gestures over to the far end of the cafeteria where a table of football players jeer and hollar, like a scene ripped from every highschool flick you’ve ever seen.
I’ve met enough guys like Bobby in my time to know what the warning signs look like.
I don’t need a new friend, especially not one who tries chatting up women when he already has a girlfriend.
“I have enough friends. But feel free to broaden your search net. Preferably anywhere but here,” I snap back with a saccharine smile that doesn’t reach the eyes he is apparently so transfixed with.
“Cute and feisty. Let me buy you a drink, and you can drop this whole pretending you’re not interested act.”
“How about you walk away now, and I can stop pretending to be polite?” My annoyance at his mere presence is implied as I lay into the word and tighten my grip around my pencil.
I’ve done damage with weapons far smaller than this.
The warmth of my knife tucked safely into my boot reminds me I could teach this guy a lesson with a little flick of my wrist if it came to that.
I’d show him cute and feisty as he bleeds out all over those God-awful suede loafers of his.
“Hey, hoes.”
“And the hits just keep coming,” I groan aloud as Kaitlin fills my line of sight, draping her arms around Bobby as a show of ownership.
Little does she know I’d rather have crotch rot than try and entice her boyfriend into my bed, not that it would be hard.
Bobby has a fondness for all the ladies, pretty much anyone who will give him the time of day.
Well, this bitch is all out of minutes and severely lacking in self-restraint, so I will not be held accountable for my actions if she keeps it up. If I thought Kaitlin was unbearable before, it’s nothing like it is now after Mr Crane announced I had been selected for his TA position.
“Stealing jobs and boyfriends now. Do you have no shame, whore?”
Christ, this girl likes to throw that word around. Has she ever heard of female solidarity? As someone who likes a little debasement with their bedroom play this girl is going the right way about ruining that word for me.
My fists clench, but movement out of the corner of my eye holds me steady.
Megan flies up out of her seat and winds her hand in Kaitlin’s hair, sawing into the mound in her fist with her craft scissors until she has it hacked off.
Kaitlin doesn’t even have a chance to question the assault because it’s over in seconds.
Blonde strands rain down on the table, and Kaitlin whimpers with shock as her hands fly up to her head to assess the damage.
“Oh, you dropped this,” Megan chimes and hands Kaitlin’s hair back to her like it’s a cardigan that has fallen from the back of her chair.
“Now fuck off back under the rock you crawled out of and take your nasty-ass creep of a boyfriend with you.” Kaitlin doesn’t need to be told twice as she retreats in a hurry, dragging an amused Bobby along with her by his shirt.
“You didn’t have to do that. I had it under control.” I laugh, impressed with my friend’s take-no-shit response to the Bravencourt Bitch.
“I can see you twirling that pencil between your fingers; my way was less bloody.” She wasn’t wrong. Growing up the way I did, you learn how to turn everyday objects into weapons. “She got the point, and this way I get to keep my roommate,” she adds excitedly.
“I wonder how long it will take her stylist to sort that out,” I chuckle, swiping the loose strands of Kaitlin’s hair from off the table with my elbow and returning to my sketch, licking my finger and blending an edge of my charcoal line work, softening something that looks like an inkblot personality test in a psychiatrists office.
Butchering Kaitlin’s three-hundred-pound haircut has certainly lifted the sourness I started the day out with.
“What do you think?” Turning my pad to Megan, I watch avidly as she tugs her lower lip between her fingers, deep in thought.
“What is it?” She squints, titling her head to look at it from another angle as she tries to decide what the grey mess wants to be.
“Chaos, rage, and fury,” I deadpan as though it should be obvious.
“Looks like a couple of guys on horses in a black sea if you concentrate hard enough. Like one of those optical illusions where you swear you see a boat, but it turns out it was a camel riding a turtle all along.”
I pull the pad to my chest, and she sits back. “Well, it isn’t—no men, no horses, no sea of any kind,” I snap, my tone sharper than she deserves.
“Okay, it looks like what you said then—anger, menstruation madness, and stress. I’ve never been much for art.
” She throws out the words randomly around a bite of her sandwich, and I can’t help but laugh.
“So why is it we’re sitting here and definitely not drawing two stacked half-naked men on horses today, Ebs? ”
I don’t argue back that she’s still wrong because she isn’t; it would be a waste of breath, and we both know it.
She smirks around the rim of her Styrofoam cup, a brow raised.
She doesn’t need to verbalise the ‘okay, Ebs—stick with being delusional’ line, I can see it clear in her bright expression.
I’ve let my brain run away with me, losing myself in my drawing as my thoughts flit back to the two raven-haired boys who are never far from my mind.
It surprises me that it isn’t the loss of them that cuts the deepest, it’s the longing, allowing myself that kernel of hope that maybe today would be the day they came and found me, only to be left disappointed as I lay my head down on my pillow.
Warring with the onslaught of memories that haunt me when the world stills, and I succumb to the fitful darkness.
“So, we’re partying tonight, right?” Megan interjects.
“Mr Crane asked for my help with the art department duties for the summer play.”
“You know just because you’re his TA, it doesn’t mean you have to do everything he says?”
“He’s offering me extra credit, and if I am going to attend all these parties with my roomie, I’ll need all the help I can get keeping my grade average up.” I counter, playing to the part of her that has been trying to drag me out to a party for weeks now.