I look at her intently and don’t see any doubt on her smooth face, perfectly enhanced by her overpriced makeup. This girl knows tons of people—guys and girls—and yet she is dead set on being friends with me. I should tell her I don’t want any kind of friendship or anything with other students, but I don’t want her to see me as even more of a freak than I’m sure she already sees me. She’s too nosy for her own good.
“Just let me study and I’ll come. However, I won’t stay long,” I warn her, boredom perfectly audible in my voice as I open my Psychology textbook to resume my homework.
She squeals and munches excitedly on her M&Ms. I can’t help the small smile that appears on my face, so I hide myself behind the thick book and force my face to put back on the blank mask I use most of the time. My cheeks hurt a little, since I don’t smile that often anymore.
* * *
“Skye! I’ve got tons of clothes you can borrow,” Kate says with an encouraging smile. Her ruby lips catch the light of the lamp of our room. She’s beautiful and will probably be the center of the male attention at this frat house.
I look at her outfit. She’s wearing black leggings under a flowing short red skirt and a cream colored blouse that I think is made of silk. She’s breathtaking without doing anything over the top.
I quickly glance down at myself and shrug. I’m wearing boyfriend cut blue jeans with a hole in the left thigh and one on the right knee, a large black turtleneck sweater with very long sleeves that go over my thin fingers, and at my feet are my red Converse. It’s my everyday kind of outfit and I feel comfy, safe, and almost invisible in it. I don’t see the point to dress up if I don’t plan to find a guy with whom to spend the night at the party or in his bedroom. No, thank you very much.
“I’m fine like this.”
Kate grumbles something under her breath and takes her car keys. She’s not going to drink, which is something that unsettles me about her. She told me she never drinks and I have never seen her hung over so far. It’s funny coming from a party girl like her.
She parks outside a huge manor-style house and I gulp. A couple of guys are already drunk in front of the house, laughing their asses off at something that is probably ridiculous. Loud music can be heard down the road, where we manage to find a space amongst tons of other cars parked haphazardly. I get out of the car and eye her slick black BMW. I hope for Kate she’ll find her car in one piece with all the drunks here tonight.
“Kate, I can’t come with you,” I say in a voice that I barely recognize. It’s too high-pitched and frightened for my liking. I hate myself in this moment.
“What?” she says incredulously. She looks from the house to me and frowns. “Why?”
My breath accelerates, my head pounds, and my hands shake in the pockets of my leather jacket. I shouldn’t have to justify myself. I shouldn’t be here in the first place. “This frat house ...”
“Do you have something against frat? You knew it’s was a frat party.”
Yeah, I knew, but I didn’t know which house it would be at. I purse my lips and almost lash out on her, but it’s not her fault. She doesn’t know because I never wanted to tell her anything. “It’s my ex-boyfriend’s frat house,” I mumble, my eyes burning with tears that are ready to fall. How I hate this! I’m not the kind of girl who cries easily, nor am I a person that can’t face her past. Right?
“Oh.” She walks to me, puts her small hand on my forearm, and bites on her perfect lower lip. “I didn’t know he was a frat boy.”
How could she know it? She met him something like twice the first week of last semester and they never exchanged words beside the usual hi. And everything was over before he agreed to enroll in this frat.
“So now you know why I don’t want to go in there.” I fidget with the sleeves of my sweater under my jacket. I don’t like this bonding moment; I don’t like to depend on anybody, even if it’s about a stupid party or transportation. Clearing my throat, I force myself to look at her and step away, breaking the contact of her hand on me.
“Aren’t you over him? I mean, it’s been months.”
“I am over him, but I don’t want to see him. It’s weird when I cross his path. He doesn’t even say hello.”
“What a jerk,” she says with venom in her voice, her light green eyes darkening all of a sudden. Despite myself, I laugh softly. This girl who knows nothing about me is defending my honor. “I can set you up with a guy so you can show him what he lost.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not like that. I can’t hook up with a guy I don’t even know.”
“It’s not like you’re marrying the guy, Skye,” she replies dismissively, smiling at my scandalized face.
“I just want to go back to our dorm.”
She takes my hand and forces me to walk toward the house. I don’t know how she manages to walk that fast in her mile-high heels, but it’s almost difficult to follow her. “It’s a big party. You won’t even see him.”
I push away the panic attack ready to take over the remaining calm I can muster. Of course I’m going to see him. I can always spot him in a room, even a packed one.
In the house, the party looks out of hand but I know from some of Kate’s stories that it’s a typical frat party. Kegs are in every room, empty red and blue cups are on every surface and on the ground, sweating bodies are grinding against each other to the upbeat of the music and laughter is everywhere. I cough several times, not just smelling your usual cigarette smoke. There’s pot in here and I know it’s going to give me a massive headache.
Kate waves at a guy and walks to him, releasing me from her death grip. It must be the guy who invited her. My roommate disappears through the mass of bodies and I’m alone, feeling like an idiot. I push away my hair, far too frizzy for my liking, and head toward one of the kegs. I wait my turn. The beer is cold but doesn’t taste that good. I’m more of a Coke and rum kind of girl, but it’s safer to take just one cup of beer fresh from the keg where nobody can put anything in it.
I walk toward the edge of the main room that I think is normally the living room, but stop in my tracks when a hand grabs my upper arm with a death grip that freezes me and makes me cringe. My heart misses several beats, and cold sweat runs down my spine.
“What are you doing here?” a male voice growls in my ear, a voice I recognize as much as the death grip on my arm, which will probably leave a blue mark tomorrow. His breath fans my cheek and it smells of tequila.
My body stiffens, my heart beats louder, and I whimper. I can’t say a word, can’t look at him. I don’t want to see his blazing blue eyes murderous on me. I have enough nightmares like that.
“I came with my roommate,” I say in a wobbly voice I loathe. I try to extricate my arm from his tight grip, but he only tightens his hand around it. My fingers are already losing their sensation.
“You think you can bring your little ass in here and drink our beer? You think you’re worthy of me? You think I want you back? You’re so pathetic.” I shake my head vehemently, both to say no and because I can’t believe what he’s saying. “Leave now or else ...” he threatens me.
Then he releases his grip and walks away, but not before I see the murderous glare he gives me and the satisfied smile plastered on his face. He loves this pseudo-power he has over me. I swallow loudly and weakly massage my arm. It hurts and wakes up old scars I’m desperate to bury inside of me. I take a tentative step, but only manage to trip on the rug and my half empty cup flies from my shaking hand. Of course, instead of falling to the ground, it falls in a guy’s lap. A guy obviously flirting with a blonde girl with big tits and a micro mini skirt that leaves nothing to the imagination. The girl shrieks and glares at me before heading toward what I assume is the bathroom to clean her bare arm slightly damp from the beer.
I’m blushing furiously, and for once I’m glad for my untamed hair that can hide me a little right now. The guy stands up and faces me, but I don’t look up. His jeans are damp from the beer and I’m waiting to hear him yelling at me or something, but nothing is coming.
His hand comes toward my face and I jump away. I can’t be touched right now. Not again. I just can’t. His hand falls against his body. I take a deep breath and look up, locking eyes with very expressive black irises. Too expressive. It’s the TA from my Psychology class. Great.
“Do you recognize me? I’m Drills’ TA,” he says with a smile, not caring about the beer on his clothes or the fact that the girl he was talking to, and probably planning to sleep with, disappeared.
“I know. Sorry for that,” I mumble, waving at his crotch where most of the beer landed. It looks like he peed in his blue jeans. I’m mortified. How can I always be that clumsy around the same guy? Oh yeah, because my ex put me in knots just a moment before. I need to go back to my room. It was a mistake to come to this place. I knew it!
Absentmindedly, I rub my upper arm and wince at the pain. It’s already bruising.
“Are you hurt or something?” he asks me, his dark eyes following my movement. I let my arm fall against my body and straighten my back.
“No,” I answer in a clipped voice, too defensive not to attract his attention.
He frowns and plays with his necklace. The sleeves of the brown sweater he’s wearing are rolled up his forearms, showing a complicated and colorful sleeve tattoo on his left arm and a tattoo of two American-Indian feathers on his right forearm. I’m not a huge fan of tattoos, but somehow it works on him. It works very well.
“I call bullshit,” he says seriously, towering high above me, making me claustrophobic all of a sudden.
I can’t deal with this, with him. I can’t take any more crap from another guy tonight. Or ever. I want to walk away … to run away, calm down, and breathe again. It’s like my heart is ready to explode, and my brain is expanding in my head so much that it hurts just to force myself to breathe as normally as I can. All I think about is how my ex still has some kind of power over me, how I’m still afraid.
I turn, glancing frantically around the room, looking for Kate. I find her enthusiastically kissing the guy who invited her here. Brushing past couples dancing or kissing and groping each other, I tap on her shoulder. She comes up for air and looks at me, her eyes bright from lust if I’m guessing right.
“What’s wrong?”
A tear falls down my cheek before I can hide it and Kate comes to me, hugging me tightly. “I need to go home,” I mutter weakly in her ear.
She nods, talks quickly with the guy who is obviously mad at her for leaving him when they were about to go upstairs to have some more fun, and takes my hand to walk outside. She pauses briefly. “Did you see that tall, dark-haired guy? The hottest guy I’ve ever seen. I think he was trying to come after us.”
“Let’s go, please.” I know who she’s talking about—I saw him waving at me—but I don’t want to see him, to be confronted by his intense eyes seeking a part of me that I desperately want to hide.
She doesn’t question me and we walk to her car hand in hand. For once, I don’t want to let go of this comfort. I need some kind of contact, a contact that’s not making me so afraid that I’m sweating like I just ran a marathon. Kate doesn’t question me, doesn’t ask me who the handsome guy is, or what happened and I’m thankful. She never hesitated a second to leave the party and the guy she was having a good time with. She just followed me. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I do need a friend, but I don’t know how to do this anymore. I don’t even know if I’m ready for this.
There is one thing I do know. Now I’m dreading the next Psychology class and the tattooed TA that, I’m positive, won’t leave me alone.
Chapter Two
The weekend passed in a blur. I was too caught up in my studies to think about anything else. It’s my way to cope even if I’m aware it’s just delaying the after effects of my confrontation with my ex and the thing with the TA who remains to be named.
Kate tried several times to force me to open up, but finally decided to leave me alone after I lost my temper and broke my bedside lamp just to stop the flow of questions. I don’t like violence. I loathe it, really. Sometimes, I don’t recognize this girl I have become, slowly sinking and yet holding everything together … just barely!
And now it’s Monday and I’m back in my Psychology class. Somehow, I’m back at the same seat as the last time, down in the front and close to the door. I fidget with my long white sleeves and don’t look up from my MacBook Air. Even if I ignore everybody, I can hear some of them laughing and making bad Star Wars references with my names and poor imitations of Yoda. What went through my parents’ heads when they named me Skye? Seriously? I love my name, but when your last name is Walker, it’s far too easy to be the target of those bad jokes about the Force and all this crap. Skyewalker, really?
The funny thing is, when I was a little girl I heard these jokes, which meant that I never wanted to watch the movies. My father tried—and is still trying—to convince me to watch them with him, but I don’t want to.
I recoil even more in my chair, trying to make myself disappear even if my five foot and four inches can’t disappear that easily. Well, I’m pretty sure it’s mostly my wild hair that makes me visible in the sea of students.
“Hey! What’s the thing with Star Wars?”
I look next to me and realize there’s nobody in the seats yet, so I glance up. The TA again. Today he’s wearing a black T-shirt over a long sleeved white shirt and jeans so washed up that holes begin to appear by themselves. The silver necklace is probably under his clothes, hidden from view.