Levi, even after what I did, what I said, refused to give up on me. If I was a better person, wouldn’t I feel the same about him? Maybe I did, deep down, but that still left Mel out of it, not to mention Dean. Two people who probably didn’t want to see Levi and me together. Mel’s reason, at least, was a good one. Dean, well…he could go jump off a bridge for all I cared.
I said nothing else as I flipped up the hood, breathed in Levi’s scent, and then hightailed it out of the union at the speed of light. I could not get away from that man fast enough.
He was persistent, I’d give him that.
Annoyingly so.
God, I loved his fucked-up ass so much.
Chapter Eight – Kelsey
The weekend passed in a blur, and before I knew it, Monday morning came with swift vengeance. Okay, I was mostly tired because I’d been up all hours of the night the past few days thinking about what Levi said.
I couldn’t get back with him, not after everything with Mel. Not after what I did.
But he wanted to try…
But he fucked her. Both literally and figuratively, and she’d nearly killed herself. What kind of message would that send Mel if I started dating him? Hey, I know you’re my roommate and all, I know I said I cared about your feelings and all that, but I decided to start fucking Levi behind your back again. Don’t be mad, ‘kay?
Yeah. Somehow I didn’t think that would sit well with her, mostly because it didn’t sit right with me, either.
As I sat in class though, as I pretended to listen to my professors drone on and on, I wondered if it was really the case. Maybe I made excuses to not try harder. Maybe I was just afraid…terrified of letting someone else in.
I’d never had a broken heart before. Never even came close. I’d been so closed-off to love during high school that it was the last thing on my mind. Never had crushes; didn’t see the point. Me and love didn’t fit in the same sentence. It didn’t sound right.
So, I guessed, deep down that could be the reason I was so reluctant. It certainly wasn’t the sex. Sex with Levi was…hell, it was the best sex I’d ever had, no matter which position we were in, or where we were at. His lips on mine were like lava, heating me up in all the right places, and his touch…oh, his touch could set a fire even in the most barren, coldest of places.
If I was just afraid, if I was making excuses for myself, soon enough my excuses would run out.
Who the hell did I turn into when I wasn’t looking? I never made excuses for anything. I never second-guessed myself or wallowed. The Kelsey I’d been lately…just wasn’t me. I needed to get back to myself, ASAP.
That’s what I swore to myself, and what I continued to swear to myself as the Monday wore on.
It was early afternoon, and I was walking to the union to get food, steeling myself to snap the fuck out of the funk I’d been in, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. My heart actually skipped a beat because I thought it might be Ash or Levi—but it wasn’t. It was Mel.
And it was so, so much worse.
Mel thought Dean was following her. She was making circles near the psychology building, not wanting to walk back to the dorm. She was afraid he would follow her, and she was asking me for help.
Eh, it was a nice enough day outside. Chilly, but that’s because I only wore a tank top underneath my hoodie. The sky was clear, however, and the sun was bright. The day was as good as any other day to start a fight with a dick.
I’d actually been itching for a fight. Didn’t get into them often, but I liked to think I could hold my own. The bigger the ego, the better it was to watch them fall.
Not the saying, but it fit.
I texted her I’d be right there, and I spun on my heel, nearly knocking into the group of SCC students walking behind me. “Sorry,” I apologized to them when they started muttering something about me watching where I was going. Sorry. What I really wanted to say was fuck you, but that was my general response to pretty much everyone.
I hurried through campus, walking at a brisk pace, my eyes scanning the nearby area for Mel. Hell, at this point, I’d take Dean. Tackle him, punch him in the dick so hard he’d never cum again without thinking of me.
Yeah, that’d be a mood killer, wouldn’t it?
The psychology building was an old-school building, one of the first built on campus, only four floors high and made of the same red brick that all the older buildings on campus were. Hardly any windows, and the glass on the doors was tinted so you couldn’t see inside. The newer buildings weren’t like that, and had an overabundance of natural light inside. A building like this wouldn’t be caught dead in Hillcrest, not that a building itself could be caught dead anywhere.
My brain was tired, okay? I did my best.
Near the north side of the building, I found Mel walking, though it looked more like she was pacing. And, surely enough, Dean was not even thirty feet behind her.
He looked…like shit, actually. Dean looked like shit. It wasn’t a sentence I ever thought I’d think, mostly because the dipshit never looked terrible, even when he was drunk or saying piss-poor stupid things. He was a good-looking guy normally, which was why I gave Mel a pass when it came to her weakness for him.
But today? Oh, today he looked terrible. His nose was in some kind of splint, and it looked as though dark, splotchy bruises lined his jaw.
Wondered how much uglier he’d be once I was up close.
The angle I came upon them, I had to walk past Mel to get to Dean. Both of them saw me coming, but it was too late for either one of them to do anything. I was on a warpath, and I would not be dissuaded.
Mel’s face brightened at my presence, and I stormed past her, throwing down my bag. A good thing I was too poor to afford my own laptop; would’ve broken it in half or cracked the screen at that display of aggression. But it needed to be done. I needed to get Dean’s attention, and me slamming down my bag in the middle of the sidewalk in between classes was sure to get his—along with everyone else’s who was nearby.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I practically hissed out the words as I met his bruised face head-on. He was a bit taller than me; if I had to guess, I’d say he was dead near as tall as Mel, maybe an inch higher. Now that I was less than a foot away from him—standing far too close, but in instances like this, you had to be close to get your point through—I was able to see just how bad the bruising really was.
Looked like I wasn’t the only one Dean had been in a fight with.
“I’m not doing anything,” Dean spoke, narrowing his eyes down at me…although his tough-guy expression was basically nullified by the fact that he wore some kind of nose brace. Beneath it, his nose appeared a tad swollen. Did somebody break the poor boy’s nose?
Good for them.
“I’m just walking,” he added, pushing his luck. Each word he said pushed his luck with me. I was so not in the mood to deal with his shit.
“No, you’re not just walking,” I informed him. “You’re following my friend, being the worst stalker I’ve ever seen. And that—that’s not something I can sit back and watch.”
Dean’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding in the ugliest way possible. This guy might normally have a pretty face, but he did nothing to hide his inner ugliness. If he wasn’t this terrible back in high school, college changed him for the worse. I highly doubted Mel would spend years with someone who was as dickish as Dean. No, the dickish behavior had to come after.
“What are you going to do about it?” Dean posed the question. “You think you can beat me in a fight, Kelsey?” He laughed, right in my face, too. The bastard.
“I think it looks like you’re pretty shitty at fights,” I told him, sizing him up, paying extra special attention to the bruising and whatever was on his nose. “I mean, have you looked in a mirror recently? You look horrible. You really want to look even worse? Because you will, by the time I’m done with you—”
Dean scoffed, his brows furrowing, and he leaned closer t
o me to whisper, “Just like Levi. So headstrong. It’s going to get you into trouble one of these days.” Worded and spoken like a threat, one I took seriously.
“Are you going to stop following Mel, or am I going to have to show you that I mean business? I’ve taken down bigger guys than you.” Okay, couldn’t recall offhand exactly when or where I’d taken down bigger guys in a non-sexual way, but I was sure I did. I got into some shit with Ash, back in high school.
Seemed like ages ago, even though it was really only half a year.
“I’m going to do what I fucking want.” That was all Dean could say, all I gave him a chance to say.
I mean, I did give him a fair warning to admit he was being a douchebag in stalking her, but now? Now I was kind of pissed. He thought he could walk around campus, doing whatever the hell he wanted, when he wanted? Oh, he had another thing coming.
He’d see a blow to the face coming; it looked like whoever it was gave him a few good punches, so he’d probably learned from his mistake of not guarding his face enough. I could take a chance and go for it, but I didn’t want to gamble.
No, I’d go somewhere lower.
“Okay,” I said, sounding like I’d had enough, that Dean convinced me he was the almighty and I was just a slave to him, that I’d let him go on and do whatever it was he wanted. An innocent voice. A voice he believed, judging from the way his stern, annoyed expression relaxed. Not for long, though.
My right hand curled into a fist, and in the blink of an eye, I gave him the hardest punch I could at this angle. Underhanded, right in the kidney. Right where it would hurt something fierce.
Dean took a step back, his eyes widening, his hands moving to touch where I’d punched. He wasn’t the kind of guy to stand back and not retaliate, so I knew I had to leave. Plus, there were too many other students watching; that meant no ball-kicking, for now. If I found out he stalked Mel again, a punch to the kidney would be the least of Dean’s worries.
“You fucking bitch,” Dean muttered, his face red. His posture was hunched, and he stepped towards me, swiping an arm through the air, but I was already gone, picking up my bag and linking my arm through Mel’s.
Together, arm in arm, we walked away from Dean’s screaming form.
Mel kept throwing looks over her shoulder as we rounded the sidewalk near the adjacent building, clearly worried Dean would still follow. He wouldn’t. Not yet. I’d made a fool of him in front of quite a few people. He’d lick his wounds and then try again. Maybe he’d try to get back at me, put all his focus on me and not Mel. That was something I could handle.
He’d already released a sex tape of me. What more could the prick do? I wasn’t afraid of him. This girl knew how to take care of herself. You didn’t go to bars and other skeevy places without knowing how to take down a guy who was bigger than you. That was common sense.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Mel spoke once she was sure the coast was clear. She let me drag her through campus, our arms locked together. “That was…wow.”
“He was being a dick. I don’t like dicks.” Well, I liked dicks, but not those kinds. I liked the real deal, the kind that filled you up and made you forget everything else. The kind attached to Levi.
Okay, right now it was only Levi’s.
“You have to be careful,” she told me, as if I didn’t already know. “He’ll want to get back at you.”
“He already released a tape of me and Levi,” I said, shrugging. “What more could he do? My reputation is shit, not that I had much of one to begin with anyway.” I’d never been a girl to worry about shit like that. A reputation? Who cared? As long as everyone was living life and having fun, what did it matter?
Mel’s feet abruptly stopped, and she managed to pull her arm from mine. She turned to look at me, causing my own feet to halt as I met her stare. “Dean was the one who released the tape?” Her voice shook a bit.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s what Levi said,” I spoke, trying to sound like I didn’t care either way. “I know I can’t trust what Levi says, but…” I shrugged again. “Kind of seems like something that bag of dicks would do, doesn’t it? I know Levi is a fuckup too, but Dean is the king of the dicks.”
She started to walk again, and I stuck by her side, going at her pace. She hooked her fingers through the straps on her backpack, tossing me an unsure look. “So you’ve talked to Levi?”
Ah, shit.
Too late now to rewind and take that back, huh?
“Yeah,” I admitted. “A little. He wants to…he says he wants to be with me, that he fucked up with you and he regrets it. He seemed genuine, but I know how liars are.” Liars tended to lie so well you never really knew until it was too late, and I didn’t want to be one of those girls, even if Levi had my heart.
Mel was quiet for a while, and our dorm building loomed on the horizon. “Do you like him?”
Her question came out of nowhere, startling me, and I whipped my head around to stare at her. My mouth might’ve dropped open at that. Okay, so cool Kelsey wasn’t exactly making a comeback yet, but she would be.
“I…I don’t know,” I muttered, inwardly frowning at how unconvincing I sounded.
“You do,” Mel whispered. “I can see it.”
I let out a harsh sigh as we walked through the front vestibule of the building, coming into the lobby and heading straight for the elevators. “It doesn’t matter, Mel. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him, because I know he fucked you over. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Mel pressed the up button, and we waited for either elevator to come down. “I don’t want you to not do something because you’re worried about me.” Her head tilted down, her chin touching her chest. “I don’t want to be a burden on you.”
“You’re not.”
The elevator to our left opened, a few students trickling out before we could get on. Once we were on, I hit the third-floor button and let the doors close.
“I am,” Mel said, amber eyes glancing to me. “I’m a burden to everyone. To you, to my parents…I was a burden to Dean when I was with him because I wouldn’t sleep with him. Everything would be so much better if I wasn’t around—”
She didn’t even finish the sentence before I cut in, “Don’t say that, Mel. Don’t ever say that. You’re my friend, and I care about you. If you weren’t here, I’d be lost.”
The elevator door slid open, and we got out. Mel was busy shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I know so,” I said, hoping to convince her. Sometimes she got in these funks, radiating depression and sadness, and they were the worst things ever. I hated that I couldn’t make her feel better; I hated that I didn’t know what to say. She was my friend, and I was failing her just like how I failed Ash.
Mel said nothing else as we walked to our room. She had her key out, sticking it in the lock and opening the door for us. I watched as she went to set down her bag and take off her jacket, her frame like a skeleton.
She…she really wasn’t doing well, was she? She might put on a smile every once in a while, might laugh at the stupid jokes I made, but deep down, she barely hung on.
“There’s nothing I can say to convince you that you matter, is there?” I asked softly, hating how weird this was. Never before had I had to deal with someone like Mel. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I was boisterous Kelsey, and she was…she was just sad, depressed Mel.
Her thin shoulders went up and down once, and she was measured in looking at me. “No,” she answered honestly. “I’m sorry, but there’s not.”
“Well, you might not believe me, but it’s true.” I was slow in setting my bag on my desk, my hands feeling limp at my sides. “I do care about you, and you are my friend. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Mel’s lips curled into the smallest smile I’d ever seen, but she said nothing as she sat at her desk and pulled out her laptop, getting to work straight away. That, or pretending to, so she wouldn’t have to talk to me anymore abo
ut this.
I went to sit on my bed, working to take off my shoes, staring at her back all the while. Her shoulders were hunched, her body almost curling in on itself as she sat there on that chair. She really was in dire straits, wasn’t she?
Shit.
Chapter Nine – Levi
When it was time for bio lab again, I couldn’t help but wonder if Kelsey would come up and talk to me, if she’d come to her senses and realized she belonged with me. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten what she’d done while she was gone—if I ever saw that fucker in person, I’d lay into him—but it was more that I needed her anyways.
She was mine. She was mine, even if she didn’t realize it yet. She drove me crazy, her mischievous smiles, her blatantly mean comebacks. Everything about her, really. I needed that girl, and somehow, someway, I’d make her realize that I wasn’t going to give up.
One day I’d told her that her resisting made me want to chase her more, that I never really wanted to chase anyone before. It had been true, and it still rang true to this day. I didn’t care if it made me weak or a fool; I was only weak for her, a fool for her.
By the time I arrived for lab, she was already in her seat, next to her partner. I hated that she’d emailed the professor and asked to change, but I understood why she did it. She felt she had to. I couldn’t blame her.
It just made the class period go by so slowly.
My eyes locked with hers as I walked in and made my way to my seat, though I eventually had to turn my back to her, since she sat behind me on the other side of the room. From her expression, I could tell she wanted to talk to me, but she didn’t want to admit it. This thing between us was a first for us both.
Today our professor brought in some pond water he’d taken from a local water source. Every pair got a petri dish of it, along with a microscope. We had to draw each organism we saw and try to figure out what they were. Fun stuff.
Not really. I hated this class. The only thing that made it bearable was Kelsey, and even now, without her as my partner, the time crawled by so slowly. Frankly, I didn’t give a fuck about biology or algae or whatever the fuck we were learning about. I didn’t care. Who the hell did?
Making Mistakes: A College Bully Romance (Playing Games Book 2) Page 7
