by Lily Foster
“Never,” I reassured her. “I hate bimbos and groupies.”
“Speaking of, am I going to meet all of your friends this weekend?”
“Yeah, but don’t call anyone besides Brandon a bimbo, ok?”
“Right, like you haven’t met any cute girls at school yet, Declan. I’m sure they’re following you around just like they were in high school.”
I wished Tess had more confidence. She was beautiful and had a big heart. She had no reason to feel less-than compared to any other girl. Her constant demand for approval and reassurance pissed me off sometimes. “Did I even notice them, Tess?”
“I don’t know if you noticed them. For all I know you were thinking about one of them while you were buried inside of me.”
“Cut that shit out, ok, Tess?” When my tone changed and she knew she’d gone too far, she’d backpeddle.
More upbeat, she said, “I’m just joking, Declan. I really can’t wait to meet your friends. I’m betting your campus life is better than the nonexistent social scene here.”
“Tess, you’re at Southern Maine, not some community college in the boonies. There have to be some cool girls and some things to do around there.”
“Not really. I feel like I’m in the middle of North Dakota. I wish we’d been able to go to school together.”
It went unsaid but she had neither the grades nor the money to attend here. Not that I’m a genius, but I didn’t struggle academically. I also had the added bonus of being a sought after hockey recruit. It didn’t matter if my SAT scores were just a little bit lower than what was typical at this school.
“So I’ll meet you at the bus on Saturday?”
“Three more days, Declan. I cannot wait to see you.”
“Love you, Tess.”
“I love you, too.”
I felt funny as we hung up. I was looking forward to seeing her. I’d missed the person I’d spent every last waking moment with over the past two years. I’d missed her in my bed too, if truth be told. It had been four weeks since we’d said goodbye and I had replayed that last night together out in my pool house over and over to sustain me.
The reason I felt unsettled, though, was that I was wary of mixing my two worlds. I’d made a nice little life for myself here. I’d made friends, mostly guys but some girls. They were only acquaintances but I knew that if Tess was witness to girls sitting with me at lunch or popping by to swap class notes, it would not go over well. It would result in cold resentment that could only be alleviated by groveling and pledges of my unyielding fidelity. I felt tired just thinking about it.
I’d decided my best strategy would be to avoid the Saturday night parties and instead, take Tess out for a nice dinner in town. Sunday I’d tour her around campus and then she’d be off again before my four o’clock hockey practice.
Wasn’t a good sign that I was planning Tess’s departure before she’d even arrived.
Anna
“Danielle, are you ok?”
Last night we were at another party in the woods and Frank had proven that, yes, he did fall into the douchebag-jock category. Danielle had just done the deed with him the week before, after knowing one another for a total of four weeks. Some people considered that to be a respectable length of time and, Danielle asserted, he had proclaimed his love to her. Love must not be a word he reserves for women who are special in his life. Maybe Frank also bestows the term on things like cheese fries and XBox because “loving” Danielle did not prevent him from making out with some other girl right in front of her face just one week later.
After witnessing this shameful disregard for another human being’s feelings, we all decided to get wasted in an effort to show solidarity with Danielle. Now, the next morning, we were all paying the price.
“I am going to be sick,” Danielle whispered before bolting out of bed and running for the bathroom. I’m glad she made it there before unleashing because if the rest of us had been witness, there would have been a massive mess to clean. Never, I thought to myself, will I drink like that again.
I wasn’t a big drinker, smoker, or anything else. My high school, located in one of the more affluent enclaves of New England, had its share of privileged kids with unlimited disposable income. Drugs and hard liquor were readily available at anyone’s home any day of the week and at every party. I wasn’t a total abstainer, but more kids did partake heavily than those who didn’t. Jonathan was no saint but he was careful, measured, never out of control, and that was fine by me.
When Danielle crawled back into bed we were all still squished together, flopped on Lauren’s bed, across from hers.
“So, are you going to confront him?” Lauren asked.
“Not my style,” she replied, still only capable of whispering.
“I’d march right up to that asshole in the cafeteria and dump a plate of scrambled eggs right onto his head,” said Colleen as she filed her nails. She was the only one of us that seemed pain-free.
I knew it was a long shot but I had to ask, “Are you sure it was him, Danielle? It’s always so dark out there in the woods and there were like a hundred people. Could you have mistaken him for someone else?”
She looked at me, sadly. “I walked right up to him, Anna. I tapped his shoulder, looked right into his eyes.”
“He didn’t say anything, Danielle?” Fiona asked.
“He smiled at me. Like a lazy, friendly fucking smile! He was obviously drunk but it’s also pretty obvious that he isn’t into me.”
“Who was the girl?”
“Her name is Samantha, that’s all I know. I heard him say her name,” she said as she broke off crying. “I’m never doing that again. I’m never giving up the goods unless I know for certain that it’s for real.”
Colleen said soothingly, “Don’t beat yourself up, Danielle. He’s the jerk here. You did nothing wrong except trust a dumb-ass jock.”
Fiona said, “Well, I can say for certain the guy isn’t dumb. He’s in my bio class and he’s a science whiz.” She looked to Danielle. “A science whiz but an absolute dickwad.”
“Come on,” I said. “I have to put some food in this belly. I’m dying right now.”
Fiona and I went back to our room to change and then we all made our way to the cafeteria unshowered, dressed in sweats and tshirts. When we walked into McCleary Hall, Danielle stopped in her tracks when her eyes immediately met Frank’s. He quickly looked away. Lauren whispered in her ear and nudged her reassuringly when she stood stuck in place, staring at him.
I didn’t really know Frank but I thoroughly disliked him. Since we were a month into school already and he had hooked up with Danielle repeatedly, you would think he would be well acquainted with all of her friends. This wasn’t the case, though, because Danielle was someone who Frank seemed to sneak off with at the end of the night, not someone he spent time with during the daylight hours. She had fallen for his bullshit and he had used her cruelly. I’d witnessed these one-sided relationships too many times to count while in high school and wondered why the girls didn’t seem to learn. Maybe I was smart, or maybe I was just shrewd and jaded from the environment I’d grown up in, but I knew that if a boy didn’t want anyone to know about me, didn’t want to make his desire for me public, didn’t want to hang out with me unless he was buzzing, then it was bad news. I felt sorry for Danielle but wanted to shake her at the same time.
We all filled our trays with greasy breakfast foods and sat surrounding Danielle at our table. She put on a brave face. Lauren and Colleen were making jokes and prompting her to smile whenever they noticed Frank or one his friends looking over in our direction. I sat with my back to the group of boys who were seated three tables over, but I could feel someone’s eyes on me. I turned back once briefly but only saw Frank, looking our way for a split second before one of his asshat friends said something that made him and all of the other guys at the table erupt into raucous laughter. He clearly wasn’t that broken up over what he’d done last night. I only hoped Dan
ielle had learned her lesson.
Declan
“Is it like this every weekend?” Tess groaned as she pulled the comforter over her head in an attempt to block out the noise coming from the hallway.
“Pretty much.” It was loud. Guys and girls were carrying on, obviously drunk, laughing; the sounds of Saturday night on a college campus. Every so often, someone would bang on my door. “Banks, where the fuck are you?” Or, even better, “Oh, his girlfriend is here?” I heard Jimmy and Terrence then, affecting female voices, “Oh, Declan, do me, Declan!”
I thought Tess was going to freak. “Seriously, Declan? Are you in this shape every weekend too? Falling down wasted?”
“No!” I was definitely drinking more now that I was here, but I didn’t go as hard as most of my friends did. I took my training seriously and although I could still perform after a night out, I didn’t ever want to run the risk of showing up to practice dragging.
I turned on music in an attempt to drown out some of the noise coming from the hallway but it was useless. I was just praying that none of my friends who happened to be female decided to pop over tonight and say hello in a drunken state. I had been completely faithful but I did have girls whom I considered friends. That would not have been cool with Tess.
I rolled over onto Tess, caging her in, in an effort to distract her, to make her happy again. “Come on, baby, it’s got to be like this in your dorm too, right?”
“I guess. I just hate that you’re here and I’m so far away. Sometimes, Declan…,” she said, beginning to weep. “I just don’t think I can take it.”
“Hey, don’t say that.” I never knew what she really meant when she said things like that but anything along the lines of being unable to cope scared me, triggered me. I couldn’t bear to hear it.
I showered her with kisses and made love to her, trying to go back in my mind to that place where it was just us and she was all I needed. After, as I lie with Tess in my arms, I told myself I was happy. Whereas it once felt like this feeling that overwhelmed me every time I was with her, rode me high along the crest of a wave, now it was something I was telling myself, something I was trying to convince myself of.
That next morning, Tess and I were up earlier than the rest of my floor. I’d arranged for her to have the R.A. on the girl’s floor unlock the bathroom for her so she could shower and then we left to have breakfast. No one was in the cafeteria, except for a few stragglers who actually liked to get their day started early on a Sunday. After we ate, Tess and I walked all over campus. I showed her where my classes were, where she’d be coming to see my hockey games, and other places around campus, like the bookstore and library. “Well, you’re a great tour guide, Declan. What other fun things do you have planned for us? Am I going to get to watch you type a paper next?” she asked playfully as she pinched my ass.
I backed her up against a wall then and pressed into her. “Ok then, next time you’re here we’re hitting parties all weekend long. You asked for it.”
“Why didn’t you take me last night?”
“I don’t know. You were never into that kind of thing at home so I figured it would be torture for you going to parties if you knew absolutely no one.”
She shrugged it off. “So next time you come to see me.”
“Tess, we talked about this. I can’t leave with practices and training. I’m on scholarship; they practically own me.”
Her face was petulant. “So I’m going to have to come here all the time?”
“Only when you want to, Tess. I know you’re busy too. We’re in college now, it’s a little different.”
“Maybe I can’t do different, Declan. Maybe I need you more than you need me.” She looked so goddamn sad. “I think you really like it here.”
“I do but I love you, Tess, and I need you too.”
She nodded her head. Thankfully she wasn’t up for a fight. “I love you too.”
After she left, I felt badly, I felt guilty. The real reason I didn’t take her to the party last night was because I was different here; I was closer to my old carefree, happy self. Day by day I was shedding the brooding, needy side of myself, the one that clung to his sadness like a lifeline.
Tess didn’t know the ‘me’ that existed before my mother’s suicide. I couldn’t shake this odd feeling that she wouldn’t really know what to make of that person.
Anna
Another small gripe about college was the need to do one’s own laundry. At home, my clothes magically made their way from the ball on the floor where I’d left them, to my closet, perfectly clean and pressed again. Didn’t know when or how exactly it happened, it just did. Here, my clothes accumulated on the floor until I picked them up and my clothes got cleaned only after I hauled them to the laundry myself.
We all did our laundry in the basement of Fisk Hall. There were probably fifty washers there, as four dorms used this same facility.
I hated doing wash for several reasons. First and foremost? Clueless boys. I’d never operated a machine prior to coming here either, but you didn’t see me sidling up to people, acting pathetic, asking for help. For crying out loud, they had stick figure drawings showing you how to turn the thing on. Did you really need to have some babe show you how to press the start button? Or show you to dump a capful of detergent in? Seriously, would these boys dump an entire bottle in if not closely supervised or would they dump the detergent on top of the machine after closing the lid, rather than in with the clothes? It was nauseating.
For the guys, the laundry room was a major hook-up spot. Some of the heaviest flirting on campus was done there. I wasn’t having it. I mean, I resented having to do my own wash—I certainly wasn’t taking on yours too. I also didn’t like that I had to stay there and watch my stuff. There were some obnoxious people who couldn’t wait and sat like vultures, ready to dump the contents of your washer or dryer into a bin the second it stopped. I certainly didn’t want some guy touching my undies, so I typically sat there with a book. And that—you guessed it—would leave me open to multiple overtures from clueless boys looking for either a hook-up or a wash maid. Ugh!
An hour and twenty-seven minutes later—but who was counting?—I finally finished up and was lugging a large, overloaded basket of my clean, folded clothes back across the lawn towards my place. It was a beautiful day and people were hanging out outside, reading and playing ball. I was calling out to a girl I knew when a Frisbee practically decapitated me. Stunned, I dropped my laundry, spilling the contents of the basket onto the grass. Where’s the asshole, I thought as I looked around to see who had the bad aim. I saw some guy trotting towards me, cocky smirk on his face, and then another, who practically stiff-armed the first guy and said something that made him stop in his tracks. As he got closer, I noticed his build. He was tall and strong-looking. And his face? Well…face, body, smile…he was hot. As he came into better focus, he also struck me as familiar.
Holy crap.
It can’t be him.
Declan
It was a relief to get back to my routine after Tess left. Trying to shield her from what she might not like about my life here and trying to keep her happy and reassured in general, was an effort.
I like it here, I thought to myself one morning that week as I was getting dressed for class. I liked my routine, loved the camaraderie of my teammates and friends, and I liked the social life—simple things, like talking with people before class, eating lunch and dinner with my group of guys and girls. I even enjoyed study groups, as they were usually fifty percent study, fifty percent just hanging out. And, despite what I’d told Tess, I loved the weekends, the parties, the lazing around on Sunday mornings.
During phone conversations, I only relayed stuff about classes and what went on between me and the guys on my team and in my dorm. Like I said, I had been faithful but there were girls that had expressed a not so subtle interest in me. Melissa was a friend of Brandon’s from home and lived one dorm over. Melissa and her roommate Paige were o
ften at our table at lunch and we would often hang out with their crew of friends on the weekends. On two different occasions, Paige had all but mauled me after consuming a few drinks, to the point where I had to peel her off of me. Their other friend, Charlotte, was more subtle about it but I noticed the lingering looks and the frequent attempts to get my attention. I wasn’t blind and wasn’t completely unaffected. These girls were beautiful and they were also carefree and more fun to be around. I would stop myself then. It always felt wrong to compare these girls to Tess. It made me feel like a cheat. Technically I was doing nothing wrong, but in my heart I knew that having even a passing desire for someone else was cheating in its own way.
As I made my way home from class that day, I ran into Terrance, Jimmy, Colin and Brandon outside of our dorm. This campus was just how you would expect a quaint New England university to look. Expanses of green lawn where Boden and J.Crew-clad coeds sat cross legged talking and laughing with one another, throwing Frisbees or reading underneath the branches of an ancient sycamore. The four of them were standing, Terrence holding a Frisbee, all of them looking in the direction of a girl. “See anything you like?” I broke in.
“Yes, me sees something me likes a lot.”
Brandon chimed in, “Terrence has been talking up this girl from his advanced calculus class since the first day of school.”
“Yeah,” Colin added. “She’s been the inspiration for his nightly jerkoff sessions. Do you know what it’s like rooming with this guy? He’s a fucking pig.”
Terrence then served Colin with a low roundhouse kick, taking his legs out from under him and landing him on his ass. “Do not talk about my girl like that.”
“Your girl,” Brandon mocked. “You haven’t even spoken to her.”
