“Well I don’t know whose fault that is, but they haven’t done me any harm yet,” he said and gave her a smile.
“Sure. They’re your friends. You have yours and I have mine,” Carmela said and looked away from him. She wondered if he could see the hurt expression on her face. When she looked back at him, his eyes were on her chest. She blushed immediately and started fidgeting in her seat. She had no idea what this hold on her that he had was. He could so easily offend her offhandedly but in the next instant he could melt her heart as well. She could see his hands as they drummed the table top. His thick, masculine fingers looked twice the size of her own and she wondered how they would feel against her lips.
“Wanna get out of here?” she heard him say and she looked at him again. Carmela nodded and gave him a smile while sipping the last dregs of her milkshake.
“Where did you want to go?” she asked him as he got up from his seat.
“I don’t know yet. But I get the feeling that we could very easily go for a walk and not bore each other,” he said with a smile as he dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Carmela noticed how his black t-shirt stretched against the ripping muscles of his shoulders and chest. She licked her lips self-consciouslyand rose from her seat. This was not the way she had expected to spend the evening!
Outside it was cold again. Carmela wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to acclimatize herself to the outdoor temperatures. Rory was wearing a thin, weatherproof jacket but seemed to be completely comfortable in it. He smiled deviously as he noticed her posture and how cold she was. He blew a misty smoke in the air with his mouth and Carmela did the same and they both broke into giggles.
“Yeah it’s cold alright,” he said and without a warning leaned in towards her and stretched an arm around Carmela’s shoulder. His touch, even through the several layers of clothing between them, was like a shock of electricity for her and she snuggled up towards him quietly, simply enjoying the unusual moment that they were having.
They started walking in the direction of the college campus again and were quiet for a few minutes.
“Carmela I’m sorry that you got hurt this morning,” Rory said out of the blue. She turned her head in shock to see his side profile while he looked ahead, his eyes were narrowed against the cold breeze.
“I wasn’t hurt, other than my ego being bruised,” she said trying to lighten the mood and he gave her a short laugh. He stopped walking as their laughter died and turned to face her, letting go of her shoulder. Their faces were inches away from each other and she could smell the burger that he had just eaten on his breath.
He was looking deep into her eyes and she tried to stop herself from blushing.
“No I am truly sorry that it happened to you. It was mean and wrong,” he said, gruffly, speaking almost in a whisper into her ear. Carmela pursed her lips and nodded her head. Before she knew what was happening, Rory Pritchett was kissing her. She could feel his tongue on her lips and then inside her mouth. Her breathing grew ragged as she kissed him back. His hands slowly encircled her tightly and he pressed her up against his body. Her heart was racing while he gently tugged her lower lip with his teeth.
They finished kissing after what seemed like more than fifteen minutes to Carmela. He slowly pulled away from her and tipped her head up towards him with his forefinger.
“You look lovely by the streetlights,” he said in the same sensuous gruff voice. All Carmela could do was blush in response and lean her head against his chest.
*****
Carmela snuck into her room around 6AM on tiptoe. Her clothes were crumpled, her shoes were in her hands and her hair definitely looked a mess, even though she hadn’t checked herself in the mirror before leaving Rory’s room. The lights were off and barely any sunlight entered the room through the thick dark curtains that she and Laura had picked out a few months ago. She tiptoed over to her bed and sank in under the crumpled covers, wrapping herself in the blanket.
In the darkness of the room, Carmela blinked and then smiled with her eyes wide open. There was no way she would be able to sleep at all. Moments of the night that she had spent with Rory kept playing in her mind. He had been all that she had expected and so much more. He made her laugh, he genuinely wanted to listen to what she had to say, he was gentle and of course very, very sexy! While a part of her wanted to jump up in bed, wake up Laura and tell her exactly what had happened, she also knew that her best friend would disapprove of her relationship - with the biggest womanizing football heartthrob of the college. So Carmela just lay in bed, replaying the night over and over again in her head. His hands on her skin, his breath on her cheeks, his jeans lying on the floor, their bodies pressed against each other…
She was still awake when she heard Laura moan and then wriggle around on her bed a few hours later. She eventually got out and came over to Carmella and nudged her.
“Don’t you have class in like half an hour?” Laura sleepily said to her and then walked over to her closet.
Carmela sat up in bed and fluffed up her pillow behind her against the wall.
“How was your date?” she asked Laura while rubbing her eyes. She had never felt so tired early in the morning before.
“Where on Earth were you? I tried staying awake for you till like 1 Am and you still weren’t back,” Laura said and turned around to look at her. Carmela yawned and slid back down under the covers.
“Oh I was just chilling with some of the guys from my class,” she said hastily and turned around to face the wall, away from the prying eyes of Laura and her judgements.
“So why didn’t you respond to my texts?” she heard Laura ask and she quickly tried to come up with excuses. She hadn’t checked her phone since the time she met Rory at the diner.
“My battery drained out. I couldn’t check my messages,” Carmela said and hoped Laura would stop with all the questions.
“Aren’t you getting up? You’ll be late.”
Laura said and started rummaging through her closet for clothes.
“I think I’ll give today a miss. I’m not feeling too well,” Carmela said after a few seconds and turned over on to her belly and covered her face with the pillow. She could sense that Laura’s attention was on her now. Carmela had not missed a single day in the past two and a half years in college, the fact that she wanted to stay in bed all day definitely triggered some alarm bells for Laura.
“Are you alright?” Laura asked and walked over to her bed again. Carmela mumbled into the pillow. She wanted Laura to just leave her alone.
“I didn’t catch that. What did you say?” Laura urged again and had now placed her hand on Carmela’s covered arm.
“I said I’m alright just leave me alone,” Carmela almost yelled out to her. She had raised her head a little in order to say this and she could see Laura inching away from her.
“What has gotten into you? You stayed out all night and now you’re missing classes and yelling at me? What happened last night?” Laura asked her. She was rummaging through her closet again.
“I said I’m alright. I’m just feeling a little ill and I want to sleep it off,” Carmela said and shoved her face into the pillow again. Laura kept quiet as she pottered around the room and Carmela could hear her getting ready for class. She heard the door open and then shut, which is when she turned in her bed again and breathed out a huge sigh.
This is not how I’m supposed to feel after a night with the man of my dreams! Carmela thought while trying to make sense of her feelings. She had been feeling overjoyed and happy till some time ago and then suddenly her mood was off. Slowly as she replayed the night over again in her head she realized what the root cause of her unease was. Just as she had slid off Rory’s bed and was slowly dressing herself, Rory had woken up from his sleep and wrapped his arm around her waist. He had pulled her back towards him and kissed her shoulder. When she wriggled out of his arm and got up to leave his room, he had called out to her.
“We should keep th
is a secret,” he had said and Carmela had turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised, “At least for the time being. You know how people love to gossip” he added quickly.
*****
“I have a question. What exactly are you still doing here?” Carmela heard Janice’s voice while she was bent over her shoes, tying the laces.
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,” Carmela said as she stood up and brushed past her.
“Haven’t we made it clear to you that it’s time for you to leave the team?” she heard Janice hiss behind her. Carmela shut her eyes tight and continued walking away. She had changed out of her cheerleading outfit and back into a pair of faded jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. Her comfort clothes.
“I’m talking to you!” she heard Janice’s shrill voice behind her. Carmela shook her head and rolled her eyes in disgust. Just as she was about to push open the doors of the gym she heard Janice’s voice again.
“She’s still dancing about in the middle of our formation,” something in Janice’s voice sounded flirty and Carmela whipped around to find that Rory had appeared with a few of his football teammates. He wasn’t looking at her. Carmela stood at that spot glaring at the group that stood several feet away from her, in the middle of the gym.
Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. It had been nearly a week since she had crept out of his room in the wee hours of the morning after they had spent the night caressing and cuddling. He was in his jersey, the muscles of his torso, the same ones that she had run her fingers over, now ruggedly visible under the synthetic material of his clothes.
“She needs to go,” Janice said and stared at Carmela, a wicked grin on her face. Carmela kept standing there, meeting Janice’s glare with her own narrowed eyes till she saw in shock as Rory stretched an arm around Janice’s waist and pulled her towards him. Janice giggled and Carmela could feel a retching sensation in her throat. The sight of Rory’s arm around Janice, the look of pleasure and victory in Janice’s eyes - were all enough to make Carmela physically sick. She turned on her heels and burst through the doors of the gym.
She could feel tears pricking her eyes as she ran down the halls till she reached the toilets at the end of the corridor. She ran in and locked herself inside a cubicle and bent over the toilet and threw up. Her breath was caught in her throat and her eyes watered as she remained kneeled in front of the toilet. She couldn’t believe she saw what she had seen. She had honored Rory’s wish of keeping their shared night a secret but she had no idea that he would proceed to flaunt his conquests with other girls in front of her. She felt foolish, angry and disgusted - all at the same time.
After what felt like hours, but had probably not been longer than a few minutes, Carmela came out of the cubicle and rinsed her mouth furiously with the water from the tap. She raised her head to look at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were reddened and her hair was moist and matted across her forehead. She wanted to go back to her room and lay alone in the dark on her bed.
She popped a few mints in her mouth and eventually came out of the toilets. Rory was waiting, leaning against the opposite wall. He had a forced smile on his face, which looked too fake to be anything close to being polite.
“Hey, you ok?” he said as Carmela started walking away from him.
“Hey,” she heard him say behind her till he had reached her side and started keeping pace with her quickened speed.
“Please just go away,” she said to him, the words came out in a hiss, but they didn’t make her feel any better.
They had reached the doors at the other end of the hall that opened up on to the street outside. Carmela pushed open the doors and Rory followed her outside.
“What’s the matter?” he said and grabbed her hand and Carmela immediately jerked it away from him.
“How are you asking me that Rory? You know what happened?” she screamed and she was grateful that the street was deserted.
“I don’t understand. I shut her up,” he said, his eyebrows were furrowed and she could see a pulsating vein on his forehead.
“By canoodling with her?!” she roared at him and stepped away from him, clutching the strap of the backpack on her shoulder.
“Wait a minute,” Rory said and held up his hands in a defensive motion.
“I thought we were clear on this,” he said and took a few steps towards her.
“I told you that I didn’t want to be public about what happened between us.”
“I didn’t know you meant that we should carry on as usual,” she said, she could feel tears pricking her eyes and the last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of him.
“What else did you want us to do? Share milkshakes in the cafeteria?” he asked through gritted teeth. His words struck her like a slap across her face and Carmela turned away from him and began to walk in the direction of her dorm.
“Carmela I thought we could be friends. I was trying to make her stop,” she heard him yell out to her from behind, but she didn’t turn around to look at him. She didn’t care how cold it was anymore. She kept walking, her breath fogging up in front of her and she was suddenly reminded of how Rory had giggled outside the diner that night and she couldn’t control it any more. Carmela broke into tears as she started running down the winding paths that led to her dorm. She couldn't be far away enough from him.
*****
It had been three weeks since Carmela had stormed out of the gym and away from Rory Pritchett. Not that she had stopped thinking about him or imagining him at every corner of the college. She had seen him a few times out of the corner of her eye during cheerleading practice, but always pretended that she hadn’t noticed him.
A few times she could sense that he was looking at her, while she was stretching for warm up or extending her feet in a modern take of the traditional ballet pose. But she had made up her mind, after what he had said to her, there was no way that she was going to humiliate herself by keeping up a fake friendship with him. She had kept her word, nobody, not even Laura, knew about what had happened between them.
She was sitting in the examination hall unconsciously chewing the end of her pencil. In a few weeks’ time, it would all be over. She could go back home to her parents’ house and while waiting for results she could apply for a few jobs in New York City that she had her eye on. A part-time job in New York would give her the time she would need to pursue a serious career in contemporary dance and what better place to start with that, than NYC?
She only had the last two questions to answer as she sat in her chair thinking about her future. She looked at her wristwatch to check the time and realized that she had very little time left. She circled the last two options for the questions and breathed out a sigh of relief, a broad smile was pasted on her face. No more cheerleading, no more college, no more Rory!
The thought of Rory made her feel queasy again and Carmela breathed in deeply in an attempt to make herself feel less sick. For some reason it didn’t seem to work and she could feel her stomach revolt in agony. She had no idea why the thought of Rory was making her this physically sick.
She took in a deep breath again but that didn’t work either. She was going to be sick. She hurried out of her chair and ran to the teacher sitting at the front of the examination hall. She didn’t have the time to make small talk so she flung her answer sheets at the teacher and ran out of the hall and to the toilets again.
*****
Carmela was sitting on the tiled floor of the toilet cubicle leaning against the wall. She was chewing on the mints in her mouth and had her eyes shut tight. In her head she tried to recall memories of Rory but for some reason she didn’t feel sick this time. She couldn’t make the connection. Initially she had assumed that she got sick every time she thought about him, but that could have been a mere coincidence she was thinking now.
It was only after fifteen minutes of sitting and contemplating by herself in the toilet that she allowed her mind to wander to the other possibility. That she ma
y be pregnant. The very thought of it made her tremble. If she was pregnant and carrying the child of a man who didn’t want anything to do with her, then this would mean the end of the future she was planning only half an hour ago.
With shaky hands she hauled herself off the floor and walked out of the cubicle. She looked at her watch again unnecessarily and breathed in deeply. Just before she walked out of the toilets she caught herself in the mirror. Her curls framed her face like a halo while her orange lipstick made her look cheerful and bright, the way she was feeling while writing the exam. Now, nothing on her face reflected her true feelings and she was thankful for that.
She was walking to the college pharmacy and started worrying if anybody she knew might catch her buying a pregnancy test. She entered the store and pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt. She kept her head hung low and walked straight to the aisle that carried the tests and just grabbed the first one she could find. Just as she was walking away she turned on her heels, went back and grabbed three more of different brands and stuffed them into the pocket of her sweatshirt.
She tried to keep her head low and her eyes averted as she walked up to the counter. While she was waiting for the girl in front of her to finish paying, she kept her hands inside the pocket with the pregnancy tests. Her mind was racing, her heart was thumping out of her chest; she could feel a film of sweat forming on her forehead.
When it was finally her turn, Carmela gingerly fished out all the tests from her pocket and placed them on the counter. She still kept her head hung low and started rummaging in her backpack for her wallet.
“Well, what do we have here?” she heard a familiar voice and couldn’t help but jerk her head up. Janice had all the tests in her hand and was standing behind the till with a huge smile on her face. Carmela’s heart sank and for a second all she wanted to do was run.
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