Mistakes : A College Bully Romance

by Candace Wondrak

  Didn’t we go through this a while ago? Guess what they said was true: old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks. If that fucker thought he was getting back at me for the kidney punch by releasing the video of me again, he had another thing coming.

  He was slow to release his hold on my arm. Levi appeared strained, his eyes narrowed just a bit, their blueness holding a certain type of anxiety I couldn’t place. “I needed to talk to you, to tell you that I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t going to sit back again and let shit fall when we’d just started to—”

  My eyes read the first text he’d sent me, and I had to read it three times before it sunk in. Oh…oh, fuck.

  “I have to go,” I said, my heart in my throat for the worst possible reason.

  “Kelsey, I—”

  I said nothing, taking off in a run. Now would be a good time for me to whip out a skateboard and skate my way across campus, making the journey a lot faster. Alas, I was not that well-balanced. It took everything in me to ignore Levi and his shouting as I ran as fast as I could through campus, heading to the dorm. I nearly tripped myself on the sidewalk when I opened up a new message and sent it to Mel.

  Please, respond. Please, please, please.

  She didn’t.

  Shit.

  I called her, and the call went straight to voicemail, which either meant her phone was off or it was broken. Either way, not good. Either way, I had to get back to the dorm as fast as possible to make sure she was okay.

  That fucktard Dean didn’t release the same video of me guzzling down Levi’s cum like some greedy cumslut. No, apparently he had one of Mel and Levi, and he personally sent it to all of his contacts, along with posting it on every single site he was on. And his email contacts, too. Who the fuck used email nowadays?

  Ah, that was beside the point. I just had to get back.

  I had to make sure she was okay.

  She had to be alright. She blocked Dean’s number. She wouldn’t get a text from him. Maybe I was overexaggerating and she didn’t see it. She’d once told me she wasn’t friends with anyone on campus, so she wouldn’t see it on any of the sites.

  Maybe that was just me wishing. I guessed I’d find out soon enough.

  My feet took me at a rapid pace throughout campus, practically flinging me through the darkness like some Olympic sprinter. I could barely breathe by the time I was back at the dorm—I’d also had to slow my pace about halfway through campus. I wasn’t the most athletic girl around. Me and gym class never really got along. I was so out of shape it wasn’t funny.

  I hit the button between the elevators, and watched to see which one was coming down. I stood before the door, pushing past the students that were on the elevator before they had the chance to get out once the door opened. I hit three, and when another student called for me to hold the elevator, I didn’t.

  Couldn’t waste any more time than I already did, sitting in that library, trying to actually be a good student and do my work.

  Nothing good ever came from trying, apparently. Nothing but shit.

  Shit, shit, and more shit.

  Man, I would’ve sworn the elevator freaking stopped time. From the moment I got on to the moment it finally opened on the third floor, it felt like eons. Years had gone by in that elevator, aging my soul. Still out of breath, I sprinted to our room as fast as I could.

  Didn’t know why, but I couldn’t shake the uneasy, ominous feeling dwelling in my gut. It was like, deep down, I knew something wasn’t right.

  She couldn’t handle this. She wasn’t strong. Mel had been teetering on the edge of despair this whole time, and I’d been too wrapped up in myself and my own problems to pay attention to her, to be a good friend, like I should’ve been.

  I tried the knob, but it was locked and—

  Wait a damned second. I had the key to this fucking lock.

  I dug the key out of my hoodie’s pocket, trying to hurry the fuck up as I struggled to fit the key into the lock. If there was someone you could count on under pressure, it sure as shit wasn’t me.

  It took me about a dozen tries, but finally the key slid into the lock and I was able to turn the handle and push inside. If there was one time when I really didn’t want to be right, it was now. If there was one day when I really wished I could press the rewind button and redo, it was today.

  Mel was on the floor between the two beds, her limbs splayed out awkwardly around her, as if she’d been sitting on the side of her bed and had fallen off. Her head was tilted to the side, her eyes closed. Her skin, which was already pale as ash, looked ghostly now.

  “No,” I whispered, running to her. I threw my bag aside as I dashed to her still frame, dropping to my knees beside her. “No, no, no. Mel, are you in there?” I shook her shoulders, kneeling over her, but the only movement in her body was from me. I lowered my head to her face, putting my ear near her nose.

  It was faint, but I felt a teeny, weeny breath on my ear.

  Still alive. Still alive, thank God.

  “What the fuck did you do, Mel?” I asked an unconscious girl as I grabbed my phone out of my back pocket. Before I could call an ambulance, I spotted an orange bottle that had rolled under her bed.

  Pills.

  Fuck. Where the hell did she even get those? No, now wasn’t the time to wonder about that. Now was the time to freak the fuck out until I knew she’d be okay, until I knew this wasn’t going to be the last night of Mel’s life.

  My own breathing came up short, erratic; it was like I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs as I stared down at her motionless body. Her chest barely moved when she breathed; I didn’t know how much time she had left.

  I dialed my phone, and once the dispatcher answered and asked me what my emergency was, I said, “I just came home and found my roommate unresponsive. I think she took pills. I don’t…I don’t know.” My hand shook so hard I could barely hold the phone near my ear.

  This was not how I imagined spending my night.

  This was not ever something I wanted to do.

  This was…it was fucking terrible.

  “What’s your address?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure, but we’re in SCC, in Kemper,” I rattled off the dorm building’s name, hoping she’d be able to find it. After I told her the room number, I asked, “How long until someone gets here?”

  “Less than ten minutes. Dispatch has already been notified,” the dispatcher spoke, pausing before he added, “Stay on the line with me until they get there, okay?”

  “Okay,” I muttered, wondering if I should do more. Should I stick a hand down Mel’s throat and make her throw up? Would her gag reflex even be there since she was passed out? I had no idea. I didn’t know these things. I wasn’t prepared for this.

  Was this how she tried to kill herself last time, pills? Where the fuck did she even get them?

  Pinning the phone against my ear with my shoulder, I moved around Mel and bent to reach the container under her bed. When I pulled it out, I saw that it was her name on the prescription—some long-ass drug name I couldn’t hope to pronounce—and that the prescription needed to be refilled every month…but, judging from how many refills there still were and when the prescription was given, I doubted she’d ever gotten them refilled at all. Maybe once, but didn’t doctors usually force you to meet with them at least every year before refilling the prescription?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t have problems like that. I didn’t know how these things worked, or why Mel had kept something like this from me. Not once in all of the time I’d lived with her had I seen her take any pills, and not once did I hear the jingle of pills in a bottle.

  Was she trying to be better by herself? Was she trying to fight to live on her own terms? Stupid. Everyone needed help once in a while, and some people needed to take pills. It didn’t mean they were less of a person than others; it’s just how things were.

  “Mel,” I whispered to her, setting the pill bottle on her nightstand, right in front of her TV, “wh
at did you do?”

  My heart damn well stopped when I watched her lids crack open, her gaze glassy and hazy. Her lips were dry and cracked, but she still managed to whisper, “It’s my fault.”

  “What?” I leaned over her, shaking my head. “No, no, it’s not your fault.” I knew though nothing I could say would convince this girl otherwise. She had it in her head that everything bad that had happened to her was her fault, that everything with me was her fault. People like her…I didn’t think you could ever convince them that they were wrong, to not put the weight of the world on their shoulders.

  Her shoulders couldn’t handle it.

  “I’m sor—” Mel’s eyes rolled back, and her lids remained half-open and half-shut. It was a horrible thing to see. She was seconds from telling me she was sorry, as if she had anything to apologize for.

  Damn it. I should’ve paid more attention to her, should’ve been there with her. I should’ve anticipated something like this happening, but I was too lost in my own world, playing pretend with Levi and then hating myself for what I did to my best friend. All the while I’d neglected poor Mel.

  “Wake up,” I told her, shaking her shoulder, trying to get her to open her eyes again and talk. As long as she was talking, I knew she was alive.

  But she didn’t come back to consciousness. She did start moving, however.

  Not just moving. Seizing. Her body started to shake, every part of her shuddering fast, including her head. I immediately had to look away, water forming in my eyes as I heard the dispatcher speaking into my ear, “Did your roommate regain consciousness?”

  “For ten seconds, and now she’s seizing,” I said, unable to look at her, unable to watch.

  “How is she laying?”

  “On her back.”

  “Do you think you can turn her onto her side? Or at least her head? She might choke—” That’s all I needed to hear. I didn’t need the dispatcher to go on, but he did. He did, and I tuned him out as I grabbed Mel’s thin, almost weightless body and rolled her.

  She was still shaking, too.

  Suddenly a knock bounced through the air, and even though it was hard to both hold Mel’s seizing body and the phone against my ear, I barely had time to glance to the door before it opened. I hadn’t locked it.

  Never had I been so relieved to see another face, especially the face that appeared.

  “Levi,” I said, offering him the phone. I couldn’t talk anymore, and I didn’t want to listen to the dispatcher. I needed to focus on Mel, as difficult as that would be. Her seizure stopped the moment Levi fell to his knees beside us, taking the phone.

  As Levi talked to the dispatcher, I wiped aside Mel’s short blonde hair. No longer was it in a cute pixie cut. It was nearly three inches long all around, long enough to get stuck on her face with sweat. And her body was sweating, but it was a cold sweat, the kind of sweat your body exerted only when it wasn’t feeling well.

  I wanted to tell this girl not to leave me, that this wasn’t over yet, that she was stronger than this, but I couldn’t. I could only stare down at the pale, unconscious face beside me, at her body which I’d heaved onto its side.

  To think, I thought that night I fucked my best friend’s crush was the worst night of my life. It was the night I realized just how fucked up in the head I was, how badly in love with Levi I’d fallen. But this? This took the cake. Mel might actually die, and I…I didn’t know if I could handle that.

  Everything else, everything that had happened, felt like small, petty worries compared to this. This was life or death for Mel.

  Chapter Eleven – Levi

  If I’d been the me of two months ago, I wouldn’t have chased after her. I would’ve just let the pieces fall wherever they may and withdraw myself from the whole thing. It was a damned good thing I didn’t, though, because the moment I stepped into Kelsey’s room, I spotted her on the floor with Mel.

  Everything happened so fast after that.

  Kelsey gave me her phone, and I talked to the dispatcher, told him who I was, what was happening. I sounded almost too calm, but that was because I was a better faker than Kelsey. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but it came in handy in times like this.

  It wasn’t too long before I saw flashing lights outside, and I told the man on the other line I saw the ambulance. I hung up as I hurried down the hall, taking the stairwell, two steps at a time. The ambulance was in the turnaround, and a man and a woman were in the back, unloading a stretcher.

  I met the paramedics. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you to her.” Didn’t know whether either of these people had ever been in the dorm before, so it’d be quicker if they had someone leading the way.

  “How long has she been out?” the man spoke to me as I held open the side door for them.

  After they were inside, I led them to the main hall, past the laundry room and the lounge, leading them and their stretcher to the elevator. “I don’t know. I just got there.” Kelsey would have more details, but she didn’t look like she wanted to talk.

  The kid working at the front desk was the same kid who I’d charmed to get Kelsey’s room number from. He stared at us all with wide eyes for a few moments before bending his head and jotting something down, probably some kind of incident report.

  I hit the elevator’s up button, the silence almost overbearing as we waited. Felt like an eternity until those stainless-steel doors slid open and we got on, riding it up. Soon enough I was leading them down the third floor’s hall, towards the wing the girls lived on. I pushed into Kelsey’s room, letting them in first. It took a bit of maneuvering on their side to get the stretcher into the room, but they managed.

  The man and woman jumped into action, allowing Kelsey some breathing room, although she still didn’t stray too far from Mel’s side.

  “When did you find her like this?” the woman asked as she and her partner slowly rolled Mel to her back, lifting her up and setting her on the bed of the stretcher. They strapped her down, Mel’s head hanging loosely to the side.

  “Uh,” Kelsey spoke, looking a bit green, like she wanted to throw up, “I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes ago. I was at the library, so I don’t know when she took the pills.”

  “Pills?” The man glanced at Kelsey, and Kelsey went to the nightstand to pick up an empty orange bottle.

  “These.” She handed them over.

  The paramedic told her, “This will help. If we know what’s in her system, it’s easier to fight.”

  “Can I ride with you?” Kelsey asked, blinking those wide, innocent eyes at the paramedics. “I don’t want to leave her—”

  “I’ll drive you,” I told her. “We’ll ride separately.” That way, hopefully I’d be able to convince Kelsey to come home. She couldn’t sit in a hospital waiting room all night.

  I mean, I guessed she could, but it wasn’t good for her.

  “Grab your keys,” I told her, watching as she nodded, looking almost lost as she picked her keys up off the floor, where she’d dropped them with her bag. The paramedics were in the process of rolling the stretcher out, and I held the door open for her afterwards.

  We rode down the elevator together, and the paramedics told us to head to the doors labeled ER once we got to the hospital.

  Kelsey said nothing as we parted ways with the paramedics, continuing to say nothing as we headed across campus to the giant parking lot, where most of the cars were parked. I was a second-year here, so I could have my own parking permit that let me park in the big lot even during the week. Nothing too fancy, just a used black Ford Escape, but it was mine.

  I hit the button on my keys, unlocking the doors, and went to hold open the passenger side door for her. Kelsey got in, biting her bottom lip, looking anxious. I was anxious too, but one of us had to hold it together. I could be the rock in the storm if I had to. Kelsey could lose herself if she wanted; I’d be there to keep her grounded.

  As I drove us to the hospital—luckily it wasn’t that far away from ca
mpus—I couldn’t help but picture how Mel looked on the floor. Her body curled into itself, her skin so pallid she looked sickly. The dispatcher on the phone asked about her seizure, which meant this wasn’t just a slip. Whatever pills she’d taken had obviously already entered her system.

  I felt awful. Of course I did. Last year, it was different. I didn’t see it firsthand, didn’t see how helpless Mel looked unconscious, how her body looked like a corpse even though she was still alive. I didn’t witness it, so it was easier for me to look at it more objectively, more coldly.

  But this? This was different. This was so much worse.

  Kelsey was like stone, even as I pulled into the hospital’s parking lot, even as I grabbed her hand as we walked to the big red sign that read Emergency Room. Her hand was sweaty, but I had an iron grip on her. I wasn’t going to let her go. This wasn’t something anyone should have to deal with alone. I knew Mel was just her roommate, but Kelsey had been willing to give me up for her. They were friends, too.

  We walked up to the front desk, where a nurse sat, filling out some kind of form. She glanced up, looking between the both of us. “Can I help you? One of you here to check in?” I assumed she must see a lot of college kids here; SCC wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of good behavior, especially where its students were concerned.

  “Her roommate was just brought in,” I spoke when it was obvious Kelsey wasn’t going to. “Anything we need to do for her?” I squeezed harder on Kelsey’s hand as I watched the recognition dawn in the nurse’s eyes.

  “Yes,” she said, reaching for a few empty forms and attaching them to a see-through clipboard. “If you could answer what you know to the best of your abilities. If you’re not sure about something, leave it blank.” She set a blue pen on top of the clipboard and handed it to me.

  I gave her a smile as I took it, leading Kelsey to the seating area, where a few other people sat. Most of the other chairs were empty, so I sat Kelsey down in one of the corner seats, sitting on her other side.

  Tearing the cap off the pen, I said, “I might need your help to fill some of this out.” The first line I knew, and that was the patient’s full name. Her sex was obvious, and her birthday…I was pretty sure I remembered it correctly. Allergies, health problems, a bunch of random questions that I honestly didn’t know the answer to…