The Reality O

by Candy Sloane

  Was I seriously doing this? Damn if I didn’t wish I was at an all-you-can-drink happy hour to give me a little of my tried and true liquid courage.

  I could walk out now and forget this crazy scheme, but what did I have to go back to?

  I’d been fired and dumped by David on the same blackout of a night and was a year away from thirty with no prospects for anything better. Considering I lived paycheck to paycheck when I had a job, it meant if I didn’t succeed here I literally had nothing.

  This was my only choice. It was start over where I fucked up and flunked out last time, or give up.

  I had giving up to look forward to once I hit forty. It was time to make college-take-two my bitch.

  “Sorry about that, next time I’ll ask for directions,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “There’s a whole class here on how to work doors. You might want to enroll,” he said, lobbing back a devastating grin.

  Warmth flooded up from my stomach. I tamped it down. “I guess you already passed Smart Ass 101 with flying colors.”

  His face changed and he stepped back, like he was resetting himself, remembering himself. He scanned to the duffle on my shoulder, the rolling trunk suitcase in my hand. “Didn’t your parents come to help you today?”

  “I don’t have parents,” I said, blurting out my first lie without even thinking. Really, my mother was very much alive and very much my mother. Being the only child to a woman who was artificially inseminated meant she had wanted me desperately. The fact that I never asked to be born didn’t seem to matter to her at all.

  “Wow, sorry,” he said, his face downcast, his dimple hidden by his sunken chin. “That’s terrible.”

  Shit, what a stupid lie. I should have had a backstory ready. I was more worried about convincing everyone in my current life about where I’d be for the next four years—the Peace Corps—than remembering I’d have a whole new group of people to convince about more than my age.

  As penance, I’d made a donation. I wasn’t sure how many dams my small gift would build, but I figured it would do more for Senegalese farming than I could.

  “It’s okay, they’ve been dead a long time,” I said, thinking quickly, but saying the words made me feel like crap. My mom drove me crazy, but I loved her. She’d sacrificed a whole hell of a lot to have me. She was a working single mom by choice.

  My father was a sperm donor I’d never met, but apparently he had an immaculate background: handsome, a doctor, no mental illness in his immediate family tree.

  When I’d been caught doing something my mother couldn’t understand: sneaking alcohol at twelve, having sex on our basement couch at fourteen, flunking out of college at eighteen, she would always tell me my genetics did not align with the person I was becoming. Every time she gave me her speech about what a mess I was compared to the stock I came from, I couldn’t help but wonder if my real “father” wasn’t the hotshot in the listing at the sperm bank, but was just some homeless guy jizzing in a cup to get money for a fix.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” he replied finally. He stared at the floor, clearly uncomfortable that the wrong girl in the cute cat ears hat had wandered into his bathroom.

  It was good I couldn’t ever touch this guy because I was seriously blowing it. I was a dolt who couldn’t open doors and talked about her dead parents. I mean, legally, I could touch him, but rule number one for college-take-two was: no guys

  No wait—that was rule number two.

  Rule number one was: no alcohol which, if broken, meant I would break rule number two anyway.

  Noticing the way the sleeves of his polo shirt tightened against his biceps as he shoved his hands in his pockets demonstrated he was as good a specimen as any to break rule number two with. I shook away his superbly toned arms and what the hands attached to them could accomplish. I was doing everything differently now. School came first, middle, and last. There was no way that was happening by indulging in fantasies like this on day one.

  “What I mean is…” I paused, “…it’s been long enough that it’s not on my mind all the time.” I needed to stop talking about my fake dead parents. I needed to get onto the elevator across the lobby and get up to my dorm room.

  I understood that without alcohol I’d need a new addiction. It couldn’t be sex. Maybe I could fool my brain into making it studying. Could you get high from library fumes?

  “I get it,” he said, his face softening. “Sometimes I wonder why the past doesn’t come with an expiration date.”

  Hot and thoughtful, wasn’t that just my luck?

  “It does,” I said, swallowing hard, “but you’re the one who has to enforce it.”

  That was what I was doing, wasn’t it? My old life was over, expired. My new life had four hopefully productive years ahead.

  He didn’t reply, just watched me in a way that made my heart whack against my chest like a dog’s wagging tail. His eyes were on me and at the same time far away, clearly thinking of something else.

  This was a heavy conversation to have with someone whose name you didn’t even know, but it wasn’t likely I’d ever see him again. One good thing about a college campus was anonymity.

  “Not that I’m an expert or anything,” I said, hoping to terminate his trance.

  “It’s easier said than done,” he said, finally shaking his head like he was waking himself from a nightmare. He cleared his throat. “Sometimes I wish my parents were dead.” His lips tipped up at the corners but then, realizing it was a terrible joke, he closed his mouth tight.

  “Everyone does,” I said, “sometimes.”

  I thought about my mother. She’d called me a month ago on the morning I turned twenty-nine at the precise moment I’d shot out of her vagina, per usual. As she sang “Happy Birthday,” the memory of the night before came into excruciating focus: getting exceptionally drunk (even for me) at the Franklin Law Group holiday party, a shouting match in the elevator with David, my married fuck-buddy and boss of the past year. It wasn’t the first birthday where reliving my mother’s sacrifice, I wished I could have been shoved back in.

  That was what college-take-two was supposed to be about. Starting over literally as someone who would never do the things I’d done that led me to be who I was at twenty-nine—finally understanding my life could be more than just a series of bad decisions.

  He ran his fingers through his curly blond hair, “I’m not usually so stupid.”

  I wished I could have said that but, if my past was any indication, I always was. Never mind—it was time to climb on and ride the high that I was passing as a freshman. He might be sticking his foot right in his mouth again and again, but he was buying that I belonged here.

  “How are you usually?” It was a rush. My whole body was seemingly teeming with the number nineteen, becoming nineteen. It was bubbling out of my pores like a spell being granted in a fairy tale. Maybe lying could be my new addiction.

  He laughed, “Actually, probably this stupid.”

  “At least you know how to open a door.”

  He exhaled, his eyes focused on mine. “It must be hard to be all alone.”

  My body chilled, seemed to fold in on itself. He understood, truly understood, loneliness. It was something I fought against. It was, if I had to admit it, one of the main reasons I drank. You could cover up anything with enough booze, even the wailing of your heart, even never knowing where half of you came from.

  “I’m used to it now,” I said, but my voice was hollow. I wasn’t alone for the reason I’d given, but I was now. With no past and no alcohol, I had been reborn by choice into someone completely new. I had no attachments, but also no safety net.

  His toothpaste commercial smile came out again. “You probably don’t want to think about all this stuff. Let’s start over.” He bit his lip and readjusted his stance. “Welcome to Nixon Hall.”

  His saying it out loud reminded me: Nixon. Of course, irony assigned me to a dorm named after a liar. Hopefully, I wouldn’t en
d up leaving in disgrace too.

  “My name is Carter, but you can call me Chazz.” He put his right hand on his shirt where Resident Advisor was embroidered.

  I couldn’t help wanting to know what his pectoral muscle felt like under his shirt, but I definitely did not want to call him Chazz.

  I cocked my eyebrow. “No thanks,” I said.

  He smirked, a people usually do what I tell them to do and why aren’t you, smirk. “Don’t like Chazz, huh?”

  “No offense,” I said, trying to forget my own cat ears hat, “but it’s a little douchey.”

  “A little?” he laughed with his whole perfect body. “Fine, Carter for you then.”

  “Carter,” I said, with a small wave, “I’m Kate.”

  “I don’t remember you from last semester. Did you switch dorms?”

  “Just transferred,” I said, reciting the lie that had already been planned.

  That part of my backstory was kind of true. I should have transferred after I’d flunked out of college-take-one first semester, but instead I’d moved back to New York City. College didn’t want me, so I didn’t want it either.

  It’s amazing how stubbornness appears reckless in hindsight.

  “Lucky for you, I’m the RA for floor twelve and a senior,” he said, smiling purposefully.

  “So, if you have questions about anything, I probably have an answer. Including where your bathroom is.”

  “I’m on floor twelve,” I said, skipping over his joke. Crap, apparently I would be seeing Carter again and again, probably daily.

  There was something I couldn’t pinpoint in his eyes. “You sure you don’t want help with your bags?” he asked.

  “Thanks, I got it,” I said, moving away from him quickly. Carter in my room on day one was not a safe way to start college-take-two. It was hard enough to imagine having to stay away from him when he was coming down the hallway from the shower half-naked and glistening.

  I headed to the elevator, trying to ignore him watching me as he greeted more students and parents. Forget rule number one, with Carter around rule number two might be the bigger problem.