by Tijan
I could feel his gaze, and I looked up again, meeting it. I felt zapped. There was a fierceness in him, a smoldering emotion that I wasn’t sure if I was seeing correctly. I gulped. He wasn’t breaking eye contact as he started, “Spontaneous.” He scribbled the word down, then flipped to the back. “She’s down to have sex almost anytime and anywhere.”
I looked back down. The tips of my ears started to burn.
He continued, “She’s up for any adventure, too. Antonyms: boring or dull.” He coughed and then I heard him pull out a second flashcard. “Funny.” He flipped it over. “She can make me laugh just by being herself. She sits, and I think it’s cute and funny. She breathes, and I get aroused or I start chuckling. She gets upset about something, and I’m walking around with a hard-on.”
I didn’t think “funny” described all of that, but I bit down on my lip. I wanted to hear more, and I didn’t at the same time.
“Smart.” Backside of the card. “She’s a freshman, and she held her own with upperclassmen in a class I know she thought was boring as hell. She can challenge me to think beyond myself or my friends. How she acts makes me want to be a better man.”
My whole ear was inflamed. It was growing to my cheeks and farther down.
“Sweet.” He flipped it. “She had a roommate who treated her like shit at times, but she was so sweet, Kennedy never wanted to hurt her feelings. She could’ve humiliated her roommate and never did. She didn’t want anyone to know about our relationship in the beginning, which leads me to . . .” He pulled out a new card. “Fearful. She’s scared of being hurt by me, which is the opposite of annoying, which she thinks I am right now.”
I looked up, my hands clasped tightly together. I swallowed over a lump.
He wasn’t even writing. He was looking right at me, unflinching and unwavering, “The fact that you’re worried I’m going to hurt you is the very reason why I never will. It doesn’t make me want to run for the hills or jump on this chance to leave you. Because I could. I’m a guy. Guys know how to screw with a girl’s mind and insecurities, but I don’t do that. Not with you.”
He shoved the cards aside and stood.
He said, his voice eerily soft, “When I see you’re hurting, I want to wipe it away. When I see you doubting yourself, I want to give you the best damned pep talk in history. When you cry, I want to make you smile. When you laugh, I want to make you laugh harder. When you moan in my arms, I want to make you dissolve into a puddle. When you’re insecure about how I feel about you, I want to replace that with a proclamation that I love you so hard that I never want you to question us again.”
He was standing right above the bed, looking down on me, and I could only gape at him.
A moment passed.
A second.
Complete silence.
And a strangled gurgle left me. I was holding on to my sweater to keep myself from either jumping him or running away. I choked out, “You love me?”
“Completely.”
“I—”
“Do you love me?”
“I—”
HOLY.
FUCK.
FUCK.
FUCK!
My insides were screaming.
I only gutted out, “What?”
A glimmer of a smile showed, but then it was erased. He stared back at me, hard. “I’m not the nice guy who will say it and not expect a response. I’m not that guy. I’m selfish with you. I want to know. Right here and now. Do you love me back?”
My throat stopped working, but I nodded. I was crying—when’d that happen?
“Ye-yes.” I kept lifting my head up and down. “Yes. I love you.”
“Yeah?”
The hardness dropped from his eyes, and I saw vulnerability there.
He hadn’t been sure. His relief was so clear, and it humbled me. I thought I’d been the only one not sure.
I sat up on my knees, my oversized sweater fell to my legs. “I love you.”
We moved at once.
I went to him, and he caught me, his hand cradling the back of my head like that was the only place it was supposed to be.
Our lips met, and he whispered, “I love you,” before lifting me in the air and turning to sit on the bed. I was straddling him, my fingers in his hair, and I didn’t want to move. Fuck my insecurities. This night would be on repeat in my mind forever.
I didn’t think I’d doubt him again. Ever.
He showed me over and over again that night just how much he loved me.
Shay dropped me off at the front door instead of the back. It was late, around three in the morning, but I didn’t want to sleep at his place for the second night in a row after moving in with my new roommates. And since the last time I left from the back door and got creeped out, I thought maybe going the front way would be better.
I was wrong.
The lights were low when I walked through the front entrance. Only a single lamp was on at the front desk, and the girl there was sleeping, her head cradled by her arms over a textbook. Her snores were quiet as I went past and opened the door to our hall.
Like the last time I left, the hall was dark. There was minimal light from a few places down the hall illuminating the carpet.
I got ready for bed at Shay’s, so I only had to go inside my dorm room and slip into bed.
I hadn’t gone a few steps before I heard from the darkness, “He doesn’t know about me, does he?”
My heart leapt into my chest, fear slamming my throat. I stopped, and then a shadow detached itself from the floor.
Phoebe stood from where she’d been sitting and took a few steps toward me. Her hand was on the wall as if she was a little unsteady. Her eyes were narrowed, and her head cocked to the side, making me think she was deep in thought. I didn’t see any malice from her face, but a shiver raised the hairs on the back of my neck anyway.
I swallowed, taking an instinctive step backward before stopping myself.
“You don’t have to be scared of me.”
A grunt left me before I caught myself. “Not the best comment to lead with.”
She stared at me, almost calm, but I couldn’t shake the uneasiness growing in my gut. She laughed, half of her face lighting up in a smile. “That’s true. I never thought about that.” She itched at her ear. “I meant what I said, though. You don’t have to be scared of me.”
A slightly unhinged laugh slipped out. “A second comment you shouldn’t have to say.”
Her gaze grew clouded, her forehead wrinkling. “I haven’t been able to shake this feeling.”
The hairs on my neck were sticking straight up.
That feeling that I already knew her came back, and it was twisting inside me.
How did I know her?
“She still cares about him.” She frowned. That dead look in her eyes found me again.
I couldn’t stop myself. I took another step backward.
“Phoebe.” My voice started to shake. I stopped myself, waiting until I knew my voice would be firm. “I’m not trying to be rude here, but you’re starting to scare the shit out of me.” Fake the fear. Shake her. Make her feel insecure. Instead of being on the defense, go on the offense. It might jar her, enough where I could get to my room.
“I get that.”
Nope. Total failure.
She sounded completely normal, as if I wished her a casual goodnight.
Seriously, how did I know her? I know I did. I couldn’t shake it.
I needed a plan B. My gut was telling me to be prepared. Unlike the last time when I didn’t get warning, she was taking her sweet time. I had a whole bunch of warning here.
I reached inside my pocket where my phone was and felt over the keys until I hit 9-1-1.
If I hung up, I didn’t know if they would come, but I wanted to call Shay. He’d been promoted to speed dial number two. I could do it.
I ended the call and felt around, hitting the right buttons until I felt my phone buzzing from the ringing.
“I heard about you last semester. All the girls were talking about you. Shay’s like a celebrity here.” She lifted a shoulder, holding it against her cheek a moment. “I never told anyone I knew him. I mean, I kind of do. I kind of don’t. I didn’t actually go to the school where Cameron and Shay did. My parents homeschooled me. Said I was different. Special. They found out about my weird habits, and I became something else. Scary. I overheard one of Cameron’s girlfriends saying that about me. I don’t know why she would care. I mean, it isn’t like my brother cared about me or anything. Sabrina’s the only one who does. She visits me sometimes.”
I coughed. “She told me that.”
She nodded, letting her shoulder drop again, and she raised her arms to hug herself tightly. Her eyes didn’t track back to mine.
Maybe I didn’t need to worry?
Maybe I had overreacted?
I started to wonder, and then Phoebe kept talking. “You see, I normally wouldn’t care. I don’t care about a lot of people, but I like Sabrina. She’s the glue that makes Cameron still like me sometimes.” Her head whipped back to mine.
I sucked in my breath, startled by how piercing her gaze was.
It was so clear, like she knew exactly what she was saying, what she was doing.
She asked, “Your brother loves you. I can tell from the things I’ve heard. That’s nice. You’ve never had to feel like a burden to your family. I did. That’s how Cameron looked at me. Me and Shay. Cameron used to be so jealous of Shay. He liked him, but he hated him, too.” A soft laugh slipped from her.
It sent another wave of chills down my spine.
“I felt this camaraderie with Shay. He was all my brother thought about. He had to get the girls Shay got. He had to break the records Shay made. He had to get better grades than Shay. All these things.” Her head hung low. She was still hugging herself tightly. “It made it all confusing in my head. Things go round and round. You stop noticing what’s up or down, where the ground is. You just focus on what’s ahead of you.” She paused, lost in thought.
I edged backward, pressing against the closed door. I could run this way if I had to. Sprint for it.
“I came here because of Shay. I wanted to keep an eye on him for Cameron. If he did well, I wanted my brother to know. He could break Shay’s record at his school. That was the plan. Shay doesn’t know me, but I know him. I know him better than anybody.”
Her eyes found me again.
I felt sick to my stomach.
“I do know you, don’t I?”
She ignored my question. “I probably know him better than even you.”
My mouth was parched. I tried to talk, but nothing came out. A whisper then, “You’re a freshman?”
“Sophomore. I’m here because I couldn’t get a single in a regular sophomore dorm. No one wanted to room with me. The girl they assigned to me refused, so they put me back here. The RA knows about me, about my special circumstances.”
Her special circumstances?
That she was a psycho?
I tried again, my voice a little louder now, “What circumstances?”
“That I’m crazy.”
She said it as if it made total sense and I was the idiot for not acknowledging it.
My eyes shot to hers. “What?”
She rolled hers. “I’m angry at him because he’s only allowed my brother to be number two all his life. Cameron deserves to be number one. Then Sabrina entered the picture. Shay dated her, and I didn’t care. She didn’t know my brother. That changed one day.” Her eyes narrowed. Her face tilted to the side again, still watching me with the unnerving resolve. “It was the end of classes, and I begged my parents to make Cameron pick me up. He did, and Sabrina was there. We lived on the same dorm floor last year. She was walking out as he was walking in, and he did a double take. I think he fell in love that day with her.” Her gaze darkened, and her top lip curled up. “I knew it was my job to watch over them, and they were doing great . . . until she met you.” Her head lowered, but she never looked away from me. “She wants another chance with Shay, and as long as you’re here, as long as she keeps running into you, I know she can’t help herself. You’ll remind her what she didn’t have with him, and she’ll always yearn for a second shot.”
She snarled.
It hit me then. The library.
My eyes bulged out. “You were there, at the library.”
She pulled back, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes!” It came back then. “You were standing by the doors watching Shay. I saw you, and you saw me, and then you started reading like you hadn’t been watching him.”
I hadn’t cared, or noticed. I was avoiding Shay then. It was so long ago, but Shay found me. He walked right past her like she hadn’t been there at all and dragged me out to study for a quiz. I hadn’t looked for her again.
No—there was more.
I started remembering—the football game. She was there, too.
“You were there. The Dick Crushing moment.”
Missy’s words came to me. “Some girl stopped by the room and asked about you.”
“That was you. You went to my old dorm room, asking about me.”
Phoebe paused, her head tilting. Her eyes were so flat.
A chill went down my spine.
“You might not understand it, but you being here is a problem. You’ll bring him into her life again, and she’ll end up leaving my brother. Then my relationship with him will end, too. He’ll stop coming to see me. I can’t let that happen.”
I saw the two shadows again.
They’d been behind me before. They were in front of me this time.
They were coming, coming, getting bigger and bigger.
I couldn’t look away from her.
I barely glimpsed them before.
She became those two shadows.
And then hearing her last words, it was like seeing the bat appear for the first time again.
She said, “I’ve been racking my brain about how to handle you, and then I remembered that you were attacked.”
She started forward.
She said, “I need to finish what they started. That’s why you were brought here.”
She started for me—
No.
I knew what she was going to do in the back of my mind, but time turned off for me. It slowed. She was starting for me.
It didn’t matter.
An eerie calm came over me.
This was my make-up time. I was getting a second chance.
