by Tabatha Kiss
“Okay,” he whispers.
I flex every muscle in my body as he turns around and picks up his duffel bag. I stand up straight. I locked my knees. I do everything it takes to stop myself from collapsing on the floor.
He glances at me one last time before opening the door and walking out. His pace quickens as he reaches the hallway. I walk to my window and watch as he enters his car and drives right on out of my life. For real this time.
Happy Birthday to me, I guess.
Chapter 47
Drew
“Welcome to Delta Xi,” I mutter as I hand the ID back to her.
The girl smiles as she passes by into the party. I wave the next person forward.
ID, please. Welcome to Delta Xi.
ID, please. Twenty-one next week? Sorry, no can do. You need a stamp. It’s the law.
Welcome to Delta Xi.
I tell myself I won’t, but between each fresh face in a sea of party-goers, I glance across the porch at Seth. We’ve made eye contact a few times in the last twenty minutes and it’s always met with his subtle, angry forehead twitch. Guess he’s not getting over this soon.
I asked Brick for a new time slot tonight, but no amount of begging would convince him to let me switch. I even asked a few of the guys if they’d mind trading. No takers. Obviously, the greater population of Alpha Delta Xi is completely over this conflict between us, and they want us to work it the fuck out.
Seth glares at me from across the porch. His forehead twitches.
Nope. Not anytime soon.
I hand the ID back. “Welcome to Delta Xi,” I tell the girl.
She snorts. “Hello?”
I blink twice as I focus on her face. “Oh,” I say, recognizing her. “Hey, Tammy.”
“Ah!” She bites her painted cherry lips. “I was beginning to think you forgot who I was.”
“No, I remember,” I say, gesturing her in. “Have a good time at the party.”
“Will I be seeing you inside?” she hints, her big, brown eyes wild with fire.
I shake my head. “No, but it was nice to see you.”
Her smile dips. “Oh,” she says. “I guess I’ll see you around, then…”
She awkwardly shuffles through the door.
I motion the next person forward, a guy I recognize from my history class freshman year. As I check his ID, I hear Seth laughing. I discreetly peek at him. Bethany stands very close to him with her fingers loosely wrapped around the collar of his jacket. He whispers in her ear and she giggles before planting a kiss on his cheek and slinking around him.
She side-eyes me as she passes. Not surprising, given the circumstances.
After he checks out her ass, his eyes flick in my direction. “What?” he spits.
I shrug, motioning the guy forward and handing him back his ID. “You two made up, huh?” I say.
“Yeah, see, when I found out that you two weren’t actually hooking up on the sly, I went to her and apologized for wrongly accusing her,” he says. “It’s called being a good person. You should try it sometime.”
I snort under my breath. “Rich coming from you.”
Seth tilts his ear at me. “What was that?”
“Oh, I was just saying that was rich coming from you considering you paid some kid to ask your sister to a dance only to purposefully stand her up. That doesn’t sound like the work of a good person to me.”
“Did she tell you that?” he asks. “Did she whisper all those horrible things in your ear before or after you fucked her behind my back!”
“All right!” I throw up my hands. “We get it! I fucked your little sister, Seth! Frontwards. Backwards. Up and down. Every which way, I hit it and I hit it good.”
“Hey, don’t talk about my sister like that!”
“A sister who wouldn’t have even spoken to you this year if it weren’t for me.”
“And you think that gives you the right to touch her even though you pledged not to?” he says. “How would you feel if I went uptown right now and seduced Melanie? Would you like that?”
“First, good luck,” I say with a laugh. “And second, I didn’t do this to hurt you! I didn’t know she was your sister when I met her.”
“But she was, and you should have shut it down.”
“I tried! But she...” I pause, my heart aching in my chest. “Heidi…”
He points a stiff finger at me. “Don’t say her name.”
“I loved her,” I say. “I fell in love with Heidi and I couldn’t just shut it down.”
Seth shakes his head as he steps back and returns to his post. “Whatever,” he mutters.
“Yeah, whatever,” I say as I snatch the next girl’s ID from her fingers. “Doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.”
I wave her forward as Seth turns toward me again.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“ID, please,” I say to the next girl in line.
“Drew,” Seth says, forcing my attention. “What do you mean?”
I hand the ID back without checking it. Whatever. I know her from econ.
“I mean, we broke up,” I say. “So, it doesn’t matter. We broke up and now I’m living on my dad’s boat at the marina. You happy? That’s what you wanted, right?”
He pauses, his brow wide and stiff. “She broke up with you or you broke up with her?” he asks.
I don’t answer. I wave to move the line, but Seth shifts forward to block it.
“Hey!” He approaches me with sharp, protective eyes. “You dumped my sister?”
I look up, surprised by his aggressive stance. “Come on, Seth. Pick a lane!”
“You’re telling me that my baby sister is sitting at home with a broken heart on her birthday while you’re here living it up at Delta Xi?! Not cool, man.”
“I’m only here because I have to be. The second this shift is over, I’m gone.”
“Well, would you look at that?” He feigns surprise. “Drew Rose really can follow the rules.”
I grit my teeth. “Screw you, Seth.”
“No, thanks. Wouldn’t want you to be two-for-two.”
I lurch forward within an inch of him, and the lines of people instinctively shift backward to stay out of our way. “Do you want me and her to be together or not?” I ask.
“Not!” he answers.
“Do you want us to be alone and miserable?”
His eyes twitch. “No.”
“Make up your fucking mind, Seth!”
“No. Fuck you, Drew!”
“Fuck me?!”
“Yeah, fuck you!” He puffs out his chest. “You know, I think I’ve done a decent job of not kicking your ass over this so far, but I think it’s about time I do that.”
“Go ahead and try it, asshole!”
Seth lunges at me, striking me in the chest with a powerful shoulder. Screams echo from the lawn as I stumble backward into the porch banister. It breaks apart beneath our weight and I latch onto Seth to take him down with me onto the lawn. The impact knocks the wind out of me, but I quickly roll to get as far away from Seth as possibly as he rises to his knees.
I push off the grass in time to catch him as he tackles me again. He throws me onto my back and tries to punch me with his full strength. I block the blows, shielding my face as I position my knees to kick him in the gut.
One good hit, and he wobbles, giving me the opportunity to roll us over. I pin his arms, tapping into a little high school wrestling training as his legs flail beneath us.
He headbutts me. Hard.
We both recoil backward, hissing in pain and cradling our faces as we roll away from each other.
“Hey!” Brick’s bellow echoes throughout the entire neighborhood from the porch. “The fuck is this?!”
We ignore him. We charge at each other with closed fists. He connects with my jaw. I get in a good jab under his eye.
Then we find out how Brick earned his nickname.
THWOMP!
One hard slam of his palm to my ches
t lays me out flat on the grass. Seth goes down, too.
Before we can get back up again, three guys are on both of us to hold us back.
Brick stands between us like a damn wall, looking more pissed off than I’ve ever seen him before.
“Ping-pong table!” he shouts. “Now!”
Chapter 48
Drew
The crowd around the table is whisper-quiet but buzzing with excitement.
Six red cups sit in a pyramid at either side of the table. I stand at one end, my clothes torn and coated with dirt. Seth stands at the other, looking about the same but with an epic bruise forming over his left cheek. He pokes at it with a wince while he glares at me.
Bitch had it coming.
Brick clears his massive throat. “Now...” he says, his eyes volleying between me and Seth, “we’re going to pong this out. Like men.” He tosses each of us a ping-pong ball. “Now, throw. “
I hold the ball loosely in my fingers as I force my eyes at Seth across the table. He glares right back at me, piercing and cold as he prepares his shot, too. We toss at the same time, neither of us looking away until the last second.
My shot plops into his front cup. His bounces off the table to the floor.
I fist pump. A minor victory, but big enough to feel like I kicked him in the shin, at least.
“Rose goes first,” Brick says as he bounces a ball at me.
I catch it. Seth stands back from the table, stoic and annoyed, but I catch a smirk on the edge of his mouth. It’s...
Unsettling.
I hold up the ball, focusing on the pyramid of cups in front of him as I hold my breath and throw.
Again, it sinks right into the front cup.
Brick raises his own cup. “Delta Xi!” he shouts, triggering the crowd to throw up theirs, too.
“Delta Xi!” they repeat.
Seth and I don’t budge. He picks up the ball and shifts his feet, getting into position to take his turn.
He throws it. It sinks into a cup in my second row.
Seth smirks even deeper.
“Delta Xi!” Brick shouts again.
Everyone raises their cups and chants it all again.
Seth and I snatch our cups off the table, keeping harsh eye contact as we angrily chug the contents. I refuse to blink, feeling a childish pettiness as we inadvertently turn this into a dumb staring contest.
Brick leans forward into our eyelines. “Delta Xi?” he says, the inflection meant to force a response.
“Delta Xi,” Seth and I mutter together.
I understand what Brick’s intentions are here. This is Alpha Delta Xi. There are no losers in this house. Everybody wins. We’re all equals. We’re all helpless alone but powerful together. We’re all friends here. No matter what.
“Go on,” Seth says, waving at the table. “Your turn.”
I pick up the ball. I stare at it in my fingers, rolling it repeatedly around the pad of my thumb.
I flick it out, barely aiming, and it misses the cups by several inches.
Seth scoffs as he holds up his ball, aims, and easily fires it right into one of my cups.
Brick signals the house again with another round of “Delta Xi!”
“Come on, man,” Seth scolds me. “You’re not even trying.”
I pick up my cup. “Why bother? Nobody loses, right? You win. I win. Everybody wins, but...” I shake my head. “Do you feel like a winner, Seth? I sure as shit don’t. Heidi probably doesn’t, either.”
Seth bristles at the mention of her name, but he doesn’t say a word. He looks away, abandoning the impromptu staring contest to pout instead.
Brick raises his cup in one last effort to bring us back. “Delta. Xi.”
The room repeats it, but the enthusiasm just isn’t there.
“Yeah,” I say as I raise my cup. “Delta Xi.” I chug it down, crush it in my hand, and drop it on the table. “I’m out of here.”
I walk away from the table.
“That’s right, go!” Seth shouts after me. “Quit! That’s what you do, right? You quitter!”
I ignore the jabs as I leave the house. I’ve been beaten up enough for one night.
I take a walk through campus, making random, wild turns to end up wherever the hell I end up.
It doesn’t surprise me when I find myself standing on the sidewalk in front of Heidi and Jenna’s house on Shanty Row. This was where I’d always planned to end up before all the shit hit the fan. I’d work my ID shift at the Delta Xi party, then I’d come and knock on her door. She’d open it with a smile and kiss me hello. I’d throw her over my shoulder, and she’d laugh as I carried her to her bedroom and there we’d stay until sunrise.
I reach into my jacket pocket, letting my thumb caress the velvet box deep inside. An orange topaz necklace to celebrate our first of her birthdays together seemed like a good idea at the time. Like an idiot, I thought this would be a new tradition for us. Next year, I’d get her earrings. The next, a bracelet. Someday, a ring. Eventually, she’d shine in all her orange golden glory like she deserves.
The front door opens suddenly.
Jenna steps outside, discreetly closing the door behind her. “You look like shit,” she says.
“Well, I feel like a million bucks, so...” I shrug at the unfunny joke.
She arches a brow and crosses her arms, standing like a knight guarding a fortress. As she should. She’s protecting the most precious thing in the world to me.
“You should move it along, big guy,” she says. “No boys allowed tonight.”
I glance at the house. “Is she okay?” I ask.
“No, she’s not okay,” Jenna spits. “No one’s okay. Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Good. I hope you die.”
I bow my head. That’s fair.
“But she will be okay. Eventually,” she says, offering some comfort. “So, get the fuck off my lawn and let me do my job.”
“I will, just...” I take the velvet box out of my pocket. “Would you give this to her for me? Please?”
Jenna eyes the box with suspicion. “I doubt she wants anything from you, Drew.”
“Tell her it’s from you, then. It’s hers. I want her to have it.”
After a moment, Jenna extends her arm. I step forward and drop the box in her palm.
She opens the box to peek inside and gives it a sincere nod of approval before snapping it closed. “I’ll think about it,” she says.
“Thank you.”
“Now, shoo,” she says, brushing me away. “Before she finds out you’re here.”
I step back, giving the house one last glance before I turn away. “See you around, Jenna,” I say.
She smiles. “You, too, Drew.”
Chapter 49
Heidi
I sob. I sob hard.
I really thought my days of crying in the shower were long behind me. You can take the girl out of high school, as they say. Fortunately, this extended time beneath the showerhead has given me a chance to think long and hard about what my new vision board will be.
Five Goals for a Perfect Freshman Year, Part 2.
1. No dating. Spend absolutely no time with men. Check locally for a nice convent to join.
2. Find a recipe for homemade chocolate fudge. Eat a lot of it. Daily.
3. Read more books. The horrible, violent kind. Lots of blood. No romance.
4. Join a gym. (Jenna will insist on this once the fudge addiction kicks in.)
5. Floss more?
And there you have it. A perfect freshman year with more chocolate, fewer boys, and I might even get to wear one of those cute habit thingies by the end.
I hop out of the shower, wrap my hair in a towel, and throw on my robe.
“Good morning! Well, afternoon, actually...” Jenna sits at the kitchen table as I stride in. She’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as always with her feet propped up on the table’s edge. “There’s coffee,” she says as she sips from her own mug.
“Thanks,” I say, absolutely needing it after last night.
“And doughnuts,” she adds.
I glance at the open white box on the countertop. Not homemade chocolate fudge, but it’ll do for now.
I fix myself a mug and grab a glazed before plopping down in the empty chair across from her.
“It’s about time you got up,” Jenna says. “I was about to come kick the door in and yank you out of there myself.”
I chuckle at the imagery. “Well, I would still be there, but I then I remembered I have that birthday lunch with my parents... and Seth.”
She frowns. “Surely he’s not still coming to that, right?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” I munch on my doughnut. “I’m just going to go, throw on a smile, and fake my way through it until it’s over.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Then, I’ll come right back here and... I don’t know. Maybe cry some more.” I pout. “Hey, do you have to be super religious to be a nun?” I ask.
“My god,” Jenna says, gawking at me beneath her strawberry blonde bangs. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“I should buy a bible.”
“May I make a better suggestion?”
“If it involves getting dressed up and going to a party of some sort, no,” I say. “Anything other than that will be taken under consideration.”
“I think we should get dressed up and go to a party.”
I sigh. “You don’t listen when I talk, do you?”
“You know me. I tune out bullshit. And you are very much full of it if you think lying around here in a bathrobe and eating doughnuts will get you through this. You need to get out of this house and mingle. You need to, dare I say it, check off that number five.”
“I already did that,” I say.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Drew was my number five.”
She scoffs. “That doesn’t count.”
“Number five. Fall in love with a stranger. You used to call him Resting Prick Face because we didn’t know his name. It counts.”