Next Stop Love, #1

by Rachel Stockbridge

  “I don’t need his help,” Julian said, mirroring her clipped tone.

  “Don’t try to tell me you like living in this hellhole.”

  “I’m sorry it’s not up to your standards of living.”

  “It’s not up to a rat’s standard of living,” Fabiana replied, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “I could talk to him for you if you wanted.”

  Julian looked up from peeling eggs to glare at her. “Drop it, Fab.”

  “Whatever.” She pushed off the pantry door, going to examine the stack of library books and other random crap Julian had thrown on the shelves of the built-in bookcase across the room.

  Julian went back to ignoring her, pouring the ramen out into his one bowl and a chipped coffee mug. He added the eggs and a handful of chopped chives to finish it up. Not the most elaborate ramen he’d ever made, but at least it was food.

  “Still not drawing?” Fabiana asked.

  He turned and found her flipping through a sketchbook she’d given him on their birthday last year. He should have thrown it out, instead of sticking it in the bottom of his backpack when he moved.

  “Jesus,” Fabiana went on, thumbing through the final pages. “There’s nothing in here. At all.”

  Julian abandoned the ramen and strode over, snatching the sketchbook out of her hands. “Stop looking through my things.”

  “Is it your hand? Does it still bother you? You know Walter would still probably—”

  “Butt out, Fabiana.”

  She scowled at him. “I’m just trying to make conversation.”

  “Could you make conversation about something other than me?”

  “So I’m worried about you. Is that a crime now?”

  “You’re not worried about me,” Julian snapped, “you’re trying to avoid talking about how you got cut off again. You think that if you keep prodding into my life, you won’t have to stop and examine your own. You won’t have to think about why it is you always end up needing me to bail you out of shit you get yourself into.”

  Dead silence. Fabiana only looked at him, her expression dark and guarded.

  Half an hour in and he’d already crossed a line. Yeah. Sounded about right.

  Mentally cursing himself, Julian attempted a halfhearted backpedal. “I didn’t—”

  “Whatever,” she snipped, storming past him. She snatched the bowl and some silverware off the counter. And then she swept towards the bathroom, the only place inside the apartment with a real door.

  “Fab,” Julian began, knowing he should apologize. Knowing he didn’t have the patience to do it properly.

  “Screw you.” Fabiana slammed the bathroom door behind her.

  Julian shut his eyes and rubbed his temples. Why was today the Day to Bother Julian About His Failed Art Career? He had almost pushed that particular failure out of his mind over the past months. He’d gotten to a place where he didn’t think about it much at all. And then, today, the world seemed determined to remind him of his past hopes and how they’d all gone up in flames.

  And anyway, who told Fabiana to be so damn nosy? It wasn’t like she cared what he did. She wasn’t any more forthcoming about her own shit.

  He looked down at the sketchbook, squeezing the cover until his knuckles turned white. He’d had good doctors after he broke his hand. A narrow scar at the base of his palm and a slight inward crick in his small finger were the only visible indications that it had ever been in bad shape. It didn’t even hurt much anymore, except for the ache and stiffness he felt when it was damp and cold.

  Julian cursed under his breath, shoving the empty sketchbook in his backpack, where Fabiana couldn’t easily find it again. Trying not to be bothered that his sister was locked in his bathroom and unlikely to come out anytime soon, he crossed to the kitchen and dug into his mug of ramen.

  * * *

  Beatrice’s parents were arguing again. She could hear them through the front door as she walked up to the apartment. Which meant the neighbors could probably hear them, too.

  She hesitated on the third-floor balcony, a chilly breeze stirring her hair as it rushed through the branches of the foliage below. Her parents had been doing a lot of arguing lately. If it was about finances, as it often was, Beatrice could sneak past them to her room and drown them out with headphones while she finished her homework. But if it was about her, or—even worse—her younger brother’s disaster of a freshman year at Stanford, she could end up spending the next hour or so trying to referee the fight.

  And she still had so much homework left to do.

  Fortunately for Beatrice’s sanity, it sounded like her parents were arguing about her step-dad’s spending. Something about him sending money to someone—most likely his aunt in Baltimore—without discussing it with her mom first. From the sound of cabinets slamming, they were arguing in the kitchen. Unless Beatrice was very unlucky, she could slip through the foyer, into the living room, without either of them noticing her passing the kitchen archway.

  Holding her breath, Beatrice unlocked the door and slid inside. Her step-dad, Mike, was facing away from the foyer, talking to Beatrice’s mom as she unloaded the dishwasher in a rage. Mike was taller and broader than Joyce—who was short, like Beatrice—and he blocked most of the archway. Neither of them turned when Beatrice shut the door behind her, easing it into place so it wouldn’t make any noise.

  She left her keys and MetroCard on the narrow catch-all table by the door, for when the arguing petered out and it occurred to one of her parents to wonder if she’d ever made it home. She tried to tune out their raised voices as she edged between the TV and the coffee table, with its little piles of junk mail and bills. Neither of them noticed or tried to call her back. A moment later, she was safe in her room.

  She stood with her back against the door for a moment and let out a slow breath. She didn’t have to play referee. All she had to do was finish her marketing presentation.

  She’d wanted to do the bulk of the presentation in Greyson’s car, but it was awkward figuring out how to get her laptop set up in a way that didn’t hurt her wrist. Then she found the music Greyson was playing—some kind of club music whose sole purpose seemed to be blowing out eardrums—both annoying and distracting. She hadn’t wanted to say anything because he was going out of his way to drive her home. And he was going to have to drive all the way back to Manhattan afterward. She wasn’t even allowing him to talk to her.

  So she’d suffered through the music. But she’d only managed to write out the very roughest, sparsest bones of her presentation. She was going to have to do the bulk of it tonight, then race to finish on the train tomorrow morning. Which meant that she’d have to find the time to both memorize Spanish terms and start on the Jane Eyre paper during her long break between classes tomorrow.

  Wednesday night, and she was already woefully behind on her study schedule for the week.

  Wonderful.

  As she settled into her pillows, Sunny, the family cat, crawled out from under her bed, where he seemed to have taken refuge from the yelling. He sprang up next to Beatrice and settled by her hip, fixing his wide, yellow eyes on her imploringly. He was a gray Scottish Fold, with cute folded-over ears, a round face, and a habit of drooling when he got too enthusiastic with the purring. Which was pretty much any time anyone paid him any attention. Beatrice had named him when she was fifteen—We should call him Sunny because he looks like a fluffy little raincloud. It’ll be funny.

  She scratched Sunny’s misshapen ears. He started up the high-powered purring at once, kneading the fleece blanket with his claws.

  Smiling at her furry study buddy, Beatrice put on her headphones and turned her music up loud, drowning out everything but the bluesy beat and her own thoughts. The knot of tension in her neck started to loosen at the sound of Janice Joplin’s voice in her ears. She closed her eyes, stroking Sunny’s back, and took a few slow breaths.

  She was probably more irritable and tense than usual because of that incident in the libra
ry. She didn’t know what she would have done if the maybe-murderer—Vito—hadn’t bought her crazy ‘taking a nap’ story. He hadn’t looked like the kind of guy you’d want to meet in a dark alley. Or an empty study room, for that matter. Beatrice didn’t know what made her do it. Her legs shook the whole time, her heart racing. It just seemed like her options were to make up a wild excuse and hope for the best, or be found hiding behind a table with no way to defend herself. Not-an-Art-Student’s ballpoint shiv certainly wasn’t going to save them.

  She should have screamed for help when she first had the chance. Then at least campus security could have dealt with the problem, instead of Beatrice sticking her neck out for a stranger on a misguided impulse to play high-stakes Good Samaritan.

  It had worked out okay in the end, Beatrice reminded herself, taking another slow breath. She wasn’t hurt. Not-an-Art-Student wasn’t hurt—at least not that she knew of. The bad guy had gone away.

  She’d probably never see Not-an-Art-Student again.

  All . . . good things.

  Shaking her head, Beatrice pushed those thoughts away and clicked back to her presentation.

  Five

  You look terrible,” Kinsey observed, falling into step beside Beatrice on their way into Statistics. Kinsey was seven-eighths Chinese, and one-eighth who-even-knows, according to her. There was some dispute within the family over whether a particular great-grandfather was French or Bulgarian. She was petite, though not quite as short as Beatrice, and delicate-looking, with a flair for vintage-inspired fashion. The combination of all these things often fooled strangers into thinking she was demure and soft-spoken.

  They were usually disillusioned of that misconception within a few seconds of Kinsey opening her mouth.

  “What was it?” Kinsey went on. “Rat tried to take up residence in your hair on the train?”

  “It’s not that bad,” Beatrice complained. She wasn’t going to win any beauty awards today. Her hair was tied up in a messy knot to disguise the appalling bed head she’d woken up with, and she felt gross and sweaty from missing her chance to shower. But she thought she deserved some credit for getting out the door fully dressed and with the correct homework in her bag within five minutes of waking up.

  “It’s not great,” Sasha said around a mouthful of granola, trailing after them. “How’d you get ink behind your ear?”

  “Must have been the rat,” Beatrice said, scrubbing the offending spot as they funneled into the classroom.

  “What did it do, steal your pen?” Kinsey asked.

  “Maybe it was trying to give her its number,” Sasha suggested, waggling her pale eyebrows at Beatrice. She had several inches on both Kinsey and Beatrice, being on the taller side of average. Her hair was wheat-colored and straight, always up in a braid or ponytail. She was a striker on the college’s women’s soccer team, but she was surprisingly laid back for how competitive she got on the field.

  “Can we do the joke factory thing after class?” Beatrice begged, sliding into her usual desk. She took out her notebook to finish the last two problems in the few minutes remaining before the professor arrived. “I’m behind on everything today.”

  “Just drop your English class already,” Kinsey said. “Who cares if you graduate a semester late?”

  “I do,” Beatrice said, more sharply than she intended. She felt off-kilter and half a step behind already, and the nagging caffeine headache she’d been fighting all morning wasn’t helping. “I’m already behind everyone else, and I know I can catch up if I just stay focused. And I wish you’d stop trying to tell me that I can’t.”

  “We don’t think you can’t,” Sasha said, leaning against the desk right behind Kinsey’s. She popped the last bit of granola bar into her mouth. “We’re just worried you might be overworking yourself. And I, for one, don’t have any wish to witness first-hand what someone looks like when they literally work themselves to death.”

  “I’m not working myself to death,” Beatrice snapped, bending over her notebook. She didn’t like the use of ‘we,’ implying Sasha and Kinsey had discussed this already.

  Sasha put up her hands in mock surrender. “No, you’re right. You seem completely relaxed. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Where’s your coffee?” Kinsey asked, unperturbed by Beatrice’s increasing frustration.

  Beatrice didn’t look up from her homework. “I left it on the counter at home.”

  “Uh-oh,” Kinsey said. Out of the corner of her eye, Beatrice saw her throw Sasha an alarmed look.

  “This isn’t helping,” Beatrice complained in distress. “I only have a few minutes to finish these problems—”

  Sasha rocked off her desk. “Do you want coffee or an energy drink?”

  Beatrice shook her head. “Sasha, you don’t have to—”

  “Coffee or Red Bull? Five seconds to decide.”

  “I’d prefer coffee, but you don’t—”

  “I’ll be right back,” Sasha said. She grabbed her wallet, leaving the backpack on her desk. “Don’t let anyone take my stuff,” she told Kinsey, pointing at her in a mock threat.

  Kinsey did a two-finger salute in acknowledgment of this directive, and Sasha took off, breaking into a jog as she left the classroom.

  “She doesn’t have to do that,” Beatrice said, turning to Kinsey. “She shouldn’t do that. I was just really mean to her.”

  Kinsey plucked a loose thread from the shoulder of her citrus-print blouse and rolled it between her fingers before flicking it away. “Honey, being slightly irritable with your talkative friends pre-coffee doesn’t exactly qualify as being ‘really mean.’”

  “But—”

  Kinsey reached across the aisle and patted Beatrice’s head. “Just finish your homework, dear.”

  Beatrice meant to glare at Kinsey for the condescending behavior. She really did. But to her utter dismay, she found herself tearing up instead. She pressed her hand to her mouth, trying to push the tears back down. If she had to cry, she should at least try to keep it together until after class.

  “Oh no,” Kinsey said, her face softening. She got out of her desk and came to wrap her arms around Beatrice’s shoulders. “It’s okay, sweetie. You’re doing fine.”

  “I have to finish these problems,” Beatrice blubbered into Kinsey’s elbow. There was no stopping the tears now. They were going to run their course, no matter how many of her classmates were giving her funny looks. Fortunately, Kinsey was shielding her from most of them, creating a circle of reprieve. “I got all behind on things yesterday, and then I fell asleep trying to write a paper, and I overslept because I hadn’t set my alarm—”

  “Don’t worry about the homework, Bee. You’ve only got a couple problems left, and it’s just small beans homework. It won’t hurt your grade hardly at all. Just take a breath. You’re doing fine.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. I promise. You’re doing great.” Kinsey turned and dug in her bag, producing a small pack of tissues. She handed them to Beatrice. “Deep breath, honey. It’s Friday. You just have to get through the rest of the day. Then you don’t have to come back to the city until Monday.”

  Beatrice wiped her eyes and tried to follow Kinsey’s advice to breathe. By the time Sasha came back, skidding in just seconds before the professor, Beatrice had mostly pulled herself together.

  “Caffeine,” Sasha announced, setting a tall cup of coffee on Beatrice’s desk.

  “Thanks, Sasha,” Beatrice sniffed, reaching for her wallet.

  “Oh my God, don’t pay me back,” Sasha said. “It was like three dollars.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. Listen, at some point in the future, you will be nice and buy me something cheap, and we’ll be even.” She paused, frowning thoughtfully. “We might already be even, actually. I don’t think I ever paid you back for your vending machine run last week.”

  “Thanks,” Beatrice said. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”


  Sasha waved it off as the professor started calling roll. Beatrice handed in her mostly-completed homework with only the smallest twinge of guilt. By the end of class—between the coffee and Kinsey being aggressively supportive—she felt a little better. Tender, still, but less likely to burst into tears over tiny things. Maybe small-to-moderate things, but that was a step up. And Kinsey was right. It was Friday. She just had to get through the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Beatrice kept digging through her bag as she walked the last half mile from the train station to her home. She was certain that in her cranky, exhausted state, she had forgotten something vital on the train, or back at school. She repeated her Monday/Wednesday/Friday checklist to herself as she felt around for the umpteenth time:

  * keys

  * wallet

  * laptop

  * two textbooks

  * one novel

  * essay folder

  * pencils

  * phone

  Check, check, check . . . Crap.

  She stopped, moving closer to the stone facade of the bank so she’d be out of the way of any foot traffic, and rummaged in the bottom of her bag for her phone. She was sure she’d had her hands on it two seconds ago.

  “Oh come on,” she grumbled, flipping the top flap closed and shoving her hands in the outer pockets. “I know you’re in there.”

  Her fingers met the cool plastic case of her phone—

  “Lost your pet gremlin?” a male voice asked from behind her.

  Beatrice jumped back with a squawk, scraping her shoulder against the rough wall. She clutched her school bag to her chest like a shield.

  The tattooed intruder from the library stood on the sidewalk next to her, a canvas grocery bag in one hand. He cocked his head to one side, raising both eyebrows at her reaction. “Hey.”

  Beatrice let out a puff of air, her face heating. She hitched her bag up on her shoulder, trying to regain some of her lost composure. “So you’re stalking me now? That’s great. Just great.”