Was he, though? I wasn’t sure. He had just shown up out of the blue and asked to share my room with me, and he wasn’t telling me why he’d travelled all the way over during class time either. I was confused. I was confused about why he was in my room and I was confused about how I felt about him being in my room.
And there was that little line of dark hair pointing downward from his navel.
CHAPTER 4
I wished that Sam would stop looking at me like that. It was a look of total disbelief and it was irritating. “It’s really not that hard to believe,” I said firmly. I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to just drop it, because it was already kind of a sore spot.
“It’s just, it’s just weird, that’s all,” he stuttered, as though this was the biggest deal he’d ever come across. “I knew you in school and you were hardly the stay-at-home type.”
“How would you even know that?” I snapped. “It wasn’t like you were at any of the parties.”
He held up his hands as though I was pointing a gun at him. “You have me there. “Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t go to any parties in high school, though?”
That wasn’t what I was saying, although it would have been a useful point to make, if it had been true. “No.”
“So, the point stands then, even though I wasn’t personally there to witness it?” He was enjoying himself too much. He could tell that he’d found a sore spot and he was poking at it to see how long it would take for me to hit back.
“It’s not a big deal,” I told him again.
“Of course it isn’t. Except it is a big deal and I personally cannot allow for it to continue.”
My eyebrow arched at his words. “You cannot allow for it to continue?” Who did he think he was? Did he think he was some kind of caped crusader or something? “What are you going to do about it? You can’t force me to go out.”
“Well, actually, I’m pretty sure that I could force you, I don’t want to force you, but I could.”
“Why does it even matter?”
Sam looked at me. I mean, he really looked at me. I could feel his eyes inspecting every inch of me that they could see. I didn’t know what he was looking for. I didn’t know whether he managed to find it. He just took his time, as he scoped me over.
“Cassie, I get that things went crappy for you in high school, but you’ve started to hold back too far because of it. You need to go out there and enjoy college life. You need to go to parties and get drunk. You need to do stupid stuff and have fun.”
“Look, I get that you’re having a great time doing that,” I tried to talk him down. “But, I’ve already done all of that.”
“I’m not taking no as an answer,” he told me simply. “I’ve already heard about a party happening this weekend, so I propose we go to that.”
“How have you heard about a party already?” I asked. “You’ve been on campus for the whole of ten minutes.”
He shrugged and gave me a sheepish smile. “College life seems to be agreeing with me in a way that high school never did.”
“I can see that,” I agreed. It was clear to anybody who had known him that he was at a happy peak in his life. Everything about him seemed better. He was more confident in every way, and it suited him.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“I would have been shocked if you didn’t.”
“So, we’re going to the party this Saturday?” he tried to get me to agree.
“I never said that.”
“You’re honestly going to let me go to a party on my own?” He was playing the guilt card. “I don’t even know anybody here. Why would you do that to me?”
“I’m not doing that to you,” I fired back quickly. “You’re doing that to yourself. You could always stay in with me on Saturday and then you won’t have to deal with any of that.”
He looked mildly offended. “Are you really suggesting that we miss the party? Are you, Cassie, really telling me that you’d rather stay in?”
“I think I am,” I told him with what I hoped was enough resolution to stop him from pestering me.
I got his excitement about being involved in the party scene. I got the fact that to him it was a whole new world of shimmering possibilities, but it just wasn’t like that for me. I knew about the dirty underbelly. I knew about what the guys were planning and how unsafe the girls were when they’d moved on to their third or fourth red plastic cup for the night. It wasn’t fun. It had never been fun. I’d just let the smiles trick me into thinking they were.
He frowned. “Will you go for me? As a favor?”
Shit. That was probably the only way he could have got me to agree and he’d struck upon it so early.
“Do you really want to go to this party?”
He nodded. “I want to see what the nightlife is like here.”
I couldn’t say no to him. He’d come all this way to see me and the campus. I couldn’t force him to stay in, when he so clearly wanted to go out and play.
“Fine,” I sighed. His eyes lit up. “If you really want to go, then I suppose we can.”
“You’re going to love it.” He jumped to his feet. “You’re going to remember all the fun that you used to have and you’re going to love it.”
Was that what all of this was about? Did he think that I was turning sour or something?
“Sure, it’s not because you want to check out the talent?”
He grinned. “Well, I’m only human.”
I threw a heart shaped cushion and at his face. It was more solid than it looked, and he rubbed the spot where it had bounced off.
“What’s in that thing?”
“Rocks,” I smirked.
CHAPTER 5
I could hear the music flooding the otherwise quiet street. It was dark and the air felt damp from the rain that had been falling all day.
The frat house was at the end of the block. I could see it standing out from the rest of the houses like a sore thumb. The outside had been draped with glistening, multicolored Christmas lights and a banner made from unflattering boxers was hanging from the porch.
“Are you excited?” Sam asked, as we turned off the street and onto the small driveway, which was already covered with empty plastic cups and dubious pools of liquid.
“Super excited,” I told him dryly.
I stepped over one of the puddles that had large chunks of what looked like chips in it. “I can’t believe I’ve been keeping myself away from places like that.” I turned to him. “What was I thinking?”
He looked like he was trying to be patient with a bad puppy. “You’re not even giving it a chance.” His hand found the small of my back and he pushed me forward.
I walked forward, but my entire attention was focused on his hand, hot and firm against my barely covered skin. His hand fit the curve of my back with ease. I could feel him slowly shifting the weight in his fingertips, as though he was afraid of touching me with the entirety of his hand. It was a fear I understood. I could sense the air in my body starting to tremble, as I tried to keep myself steady.
We reached the top of the steps and his hand fell back down to his side. My head turned and looked at it for painful second, before I realized what I was doing.
Sam was looking at me. He was soaking in the hurt puppy dog look on my face and he was trying to work out the source of it. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that the look had been born from the cold that his missing hand had brought to me. I wanted it back. I wanted him to put his hand back where it had been because it had felt right.
“We should go in,” I said after an awkward exchange of looks that had him questioning me without words.
He looked over at the door in surprise. It was like he’d totally forgotten where he was, even though the music was playing loud enough to make my ears bleed. “Yeah, we should, uh, go in.”
He walked over to the door and held it open for me. “Do you want me to get you a drink?”
I nodded. “
You might as well, since we’re here.”
I walked into the busy house. There were people everywhere. I scanned the crowd. The party had been going on for hours and I could see girls wobbling on their skyscraper heels, as they attempted to skank against some guy they’d met.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Eric whispered into my ear. The feel of his breath sent goose bumps up my arms and caused my whole body to freeze for what felt like an eternity, but in truth it was probably on for a second or so. “I haven’t see you around recently. Figured you’d given up with partying.”
“I’m here with a friend,” I told him, turning so that we were facing each other.
He looked good, not that he ever didn’t look good. His hair had been cut, though. It was shorter than it had been in a while and he’d tousled it. His eyes scanned the crowd to find who I was with. “You probably don’t know him.”
“Him?” Eric leaned forward and suddenly the smell of puke and stale beer was covered with the musky, cinnamon scent that I’d only ever encountered with Eric. It stopped my heart. For a second my heart refused to beat and I refused to breathe, because my whole world was right back where it had been when I was happy. I felt my eyes flutter closed. They didn’t want to reveal the deception that my brain was currently allowing.
“You’ve already found another guy? I have to say, I’m hurt,” he continued with every word bringing his lips closer to my ear, until I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck.
What was he saying? Who was he talking about? Why would I ever be with another guy? Oh, right. My brain sent violent images of Natasha to my mind and I managed to snap myself out of his lure. “Good. You deserve to be hurt.”
He grinned. “Well, at least I know you still care then,” he pulled his body back from mine and for a second I had to fight the urge to pull him back. “I think your date’s here.”
His gaze slid behind me and I followed his look. It was Sam. He had two plastic cups in his hands and a hurt look on his face. Why did he look hurt? What had happened to him, since he’d gone to find the booze?
“I’ll see you later,” Sam said with a twinkle in his eyes, which told me that he meant it.
“Here,” Sam said, as he passed me one of the cups roughly. “You didn’t tell me that you two were talking again.”
I looked back to where Eric had been standing, but he was gone. I couldn’t even spot his gently tousled hair among the crowd, which was filling the front living area. “We’re not,” I told Sam when I’d turned back to him. “He just came over to me then.”
“Right,” Sam nodded, but he didn’t look as though he believed me. I wanted to ask him about why his mood had suddenly hit the ground, but he didn’t give me chance to.
“Do you love him?”
Did I love him? Why had he asked that? Where had the question even come from? “Do I love who?”
He sighed and took a drink from his cup. “So, you do, then?”
I could feel a panicked, deer caught in the headlights kind of look spreading across my face. “I don’t love him.”
“You do.” He said it as though he knew. He said it as though there was no point in me arguing. “I saw your face when you were talking to him.”
“I was just surprised to be talking to him,” I fumbled. “The last time I saw him, he was accusing me of being a stalker because I was at the same college as him.”
“You never told me that.”
I didn’t? No, of course I didn’t. I’d called him up to tell him, but they he’d said that he was going to classes. “Because, it didn’t matter, he doesn’t matter. I don’t see why any of this matters.”
“You’re right,” he said in a flat, dull tone. “It doesn’t matter.”
CHAPTER 6
Sam disappeared to get a drink and he hadn’t come back. I’d been standing by the front door for most of the night, so that I could make a quick exit if I needed to, but I was reluctant to leave without letting Sam know. I’d already had a couple of drinks and they’d gone straight to my bladder. The breeze pouring in through the door wasn’t helping.
I needed to pee. I tried the standard protocol. I tried shifting my weight and swaying a little to the music, but it didn’t help. I still needed to pee.
Finally I made my way up the stairs after deciding that whatever gross mess I would find would be worth it, because I’d be peeing myself otherwise. I found the bathroom pretty quickly. All I had to do was follow my nose and the smell of dried up piss to know that I was heading in the right direction.
It was grim. It was grim in every sense of the word. I tried not to look down the toilet, which looked like it had never seen the cleaning end of a brush.
I decided to go and wash my hands in the kitchen. I just felt as though any cleaning I attempted in the bathroom would be futile. I pulled open the door and started to make a dash out of the room.
Then I crashed into something and fell backwards. The cold tiles of the bathroom floor slapped my bare legs, and I tried to hold back the squeal that was forcing its way through my lips.
“Oh, shit,” Eric said, as he held out his hand to pull me back up. “I’m sorry.”
“You will be,” I snapped. “You’ve just got bathroom all over me.”
He laughed. “You’re cute when you’re angry. I’d forgotten about that.”
He leaned forward. I wanted to move back, so that his cologne wouldn’t get a chance to enter my system again, but the thought of the bathroom behind me was enough to send me scrambling toward him.
“What do you want?” I demanded, as I tried to push past him. He reached an arm around my waist and pulled me close to him.
I tried to fight it. I pulled my body away from him, but the combination of my heels and the couple of drinks I’d had wasn’t making it easy.
“I thought I’d made that obvious downstairs,” he said with his lips brushing up against my ear. “I want you, Cassie. I miss you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have fucked Natasha, then.”
I tried to pull away from him again by jerking my elbow into his stomach, but he didn’t loosen his grip. “Get off,” I struggled against him.
“You need to calm yourself down,” Eric told me under his breath. “You know that I made a mistake with Natasha. Why can’t we just move past this?”
He was drunk. I could hear a slur in his voice and the stench of whisky filled the air whenever he opened his mouth. “I miss you. You can’t tell me that you don’t miss me.”
“I’m here with someone.” I turned quickly and managed to get out of his arm. “You know I’m here with someone. You’re just playing games.”
A hurt look washed over his face. “That’s not true.” He paused to muster some logic. “I love you, Cassie. I’ve always loved you. You know that.” He sounded desperate. He sounded desperate and drunk. Part of me pitied him.
But the smarter part of me responded, “Well, you’re just going to have to get over me. What happened to you and Natasha, anyway?”
“She cheated on me,” he said looking down at the floor. “We weren’t even together a week. It totally threw me off my game.”
“I guess it sucks to be you.”
“Don’t be like that, Cassie. We were good together. Why can’t we just pretend like all of that stuff with Natasha never happened? Why can’t we just go back?”
“Because it did happen and pretending it didn’t isn’t going to do anything at all.”
“We could try.”
“I don’t want to try. Why would I want to try again with you? After everything you did, why would you even think that you deserve another chance? You ruined the last weeks of high school for me. You took away my best friend and you made me feel like I was worthless. Why would I ever come back to you?”
I could feel anger starting to pour out of me that I didn’t even know I felt. It was like I wasn’t realizing how I felt until I said it, but as soon as I said it I knew for sure that it was the truth.
Eri
c held my eyes with his. “Is that really how you feel?”
Why was he getting closer to me? Why was his body starting to press against mine? Hadn’t he heard what I’d said? He leant forward and tried to kiss me, but I pushed against his chest and moved my head away from him.
“Get off,” I told him sharply. “I’m not interested.”
“Oh, come on, Cassie,” he purred at me without taking my rejection seriously at all. “We both know that you miss being popular. I can make you popular again.”
He moved forward and tried to kiss me again. My previous attempt of rejection had made him smart and he held the back of my head, so that I had no choice but to meet his lips with my own.
“Get off me,” I said against his lips.
“What’s going on?” Sam’s voice broke through the music and backdrop of the party. “I thought you said that you weren’t interested in him?”
Eric’s hands dropped from my body and I found myself being able to get away from him.
“Sam it’s not what it looks like,” I pleaded with him. “He was trying to kiss me, but I pushed him away.”
“It really looked like it,” Sam said and I could see disappointment and hurt filling his eyes at a heart-breaking and crippling speed. “I’m getting out of here.” He turned and started to push his way through the crowd, before I had a chance to open my mouth.
“Look what you’ve done,” I turned back to Eric. “You’ve hurt him.”
“I didn’t do that,” he grinned at me. “You did.”
CHAPTER 7
I looked everywhere at the party, before I set off up the street and back towards campus. Sam was quick. He was quicker than I thought he would be. I found myself half running up the empty streets of the residential side of town, as I tried to catch up with him. The only sound I could hear was the clicking of my heels against the side walk and my tired and despair-filled breaths.
It took me longer than it should have done to get back. My heels had slowed me down and it wasn’t until I’d already covered half the journey that decided to take them off and run barefoot. Running bare foot came with its own problems though. Gum was one of those problems. I stepped in a person’s used gum, still damp from when they’d spat it out. It was gross and I spent the rest of the journey going slower so I could scan the sidewalk in front of me.
A New Start Page 2
