I make the better decision to leave.
***
To say I’ve had a rough couple of days would be a really bad idea because I might shoot the next person who looks at me like my dog’s recently been ran over. Sarah steers clear of me as I barrel through the door and begin changing into my workout clothes. I may have promised Bentley to not let my anger control me while working out, but it’s either go running or lock myself in the room and cry for days. The thought of my first-ever failing grade and Cole’s distance looms over me as I change and head out the door. I don’t even know where to go since Bentley’s probably training someone right now and will probably kick me out the door, judging by my mood.
In the end, I just decide to drive around for a bit; who cares if it’s Cole’s car that I’m driving and that every moment I’m assaulted with his smell and the memories we have in this car. Switching my phone off, I throw it in the back seat and select a random playlist on my iPod just to keep my thoughts busy. Practically, I know that one bad grade isn’t the end of the world, but someone should also have said that your first bad grade does seem like the end of your world.
I just failed my favorite class; do I even want to know how I’ve done in the others?
My grades were the one thing I thought I could rely on, that studying was something I totally had a handle on, and now even that security blanket’s been taken away from me—I just feel lost.
Because it’s November and we’re just starting to get our first inch of snow, it’s colder than I’d anticipated or dressed for. Cranking up the heating, I contemplate briefly about where my life’s heading at this point, but when that proves to be more depressing than anything else, I turn up the volume of the music and sing at the top of my lungs.
It helps just a little.
I go through multiple playlists as I drive in circles, to nowhere and anywhere. There’s a kind of peace associated with the freedom to lose yourself. I mean, if I’ve already hit rock bottom, I might as well enjoy it while I can. Tomorrow I go back to being good old Tessa, just going through the motions.
It’s a little after midnight by the time I get back to my residence hall. I’m damn near freezing because I had to find a parking space for this damn car; Cole left it here for me so that I could use it and wouldn’t have to walk all the way to his apartment for it. It’s little things like that that tell me not to believe the things that are being said about us.
But it’s still fudging infuriating that he won’t talk to me.
My anger has thawed a little, and my meltdown over the bad grade has gotten a little better. I’ll have to talk to Professor Flynn, beg her to give me another shot.
I’m lost in these thoughts, so when I step onto the stairs of my dorm, I miss the figure hunched down on the steps. But the sound of my footsteps alerts him, and there he is, standing right before me after straight-up ignoring me for a week.
“Thank Christ,” he breathes before nearly racing down the stairs toward me and enveloping me in his arms. I’m absolutely still, the shock is definitely the most potent of my feelings right now. Cole’s here and I’m in his arms, god, he’s here.
His voice is muffled as he’s buried his head into my shoulder. “Where were you? We’ve been trying to find you for ages. You took my car…I had no idea, Tessie…where’d you go?”
His breathing is heavy, and I can tell that he’s really upset at the thought of my getting lost, but even as I put my arms around him, I’m hit with a surge of anger and utter exhaustion.
“I’ve had a shitty day,” I mumble into his chest.
His pulls me farther into his chest and holds me like he’s never going to let go.
“I know, Shortcake, come on, let me take care of you.”
I don’t even have the energy to protest at this point. Like a ragdoll, I let him drag me back to his car, and this time, he gets into the driver’s seat.
What do I say to him?
“I can explain…” he begins, noticing how I’m more interested in staring out the window than catching up with him about his week-long disappearance.
“That’s such a clichéd beginning, don’t you think? I’d try to be more original if I were you.”
He sighs and doesn’t attempt to talk to me again. On reaching his building, we walk to his apartment in silence, not even attempting to hold hands. It’s quiet enough to tell me that his roommate’s not home. My eyes struggle to stay open as I trudge toward his room and into his closet. Here I’m comfortable, surrounded by all that’s familiar.
I change into one of his T-shirts and get into bed.
We’ve still not spoken a word.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow we should talk,” Cole says softly as he strips down to his boxers and gets into bed. He lies on his back and pulls me up so that my head rests on his chest, my arms go around his stomach, and my legs are tangled with his.
Maybe I nod, or maybe I just doze off.
Chapter Twenty-Five: His Possessiveness Is as Uncontrollable as Kanye West
I love that moment between being asleep and waking up where just for that one moment you’re stuck somewhere between a dream and reality. I mean yeah, it sucks that you’ve got to get up and deal with the general soul-sucking nature of life, but isn’t it kind of awesome how two worlds collide? If you’re lucky and the dream is a really good one, the kind that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy, then that moment right before you wake up will extend to your whole day. There’s something about having a fantastic dream that makes your outlook on the day that is to come really positive.
How I wish I’d had a good dream.
It takes me a little while to get my bearings. I must’ve been really exhausted the previous night to not remember falling asleep. I’m not the kind of person that falls asleep the second their head hits the pillow. It’ll take at least five mini meltdowns before I realize that there’s nothing much I can do about the fact that my stomach’s getting a little too round again for my liking while I’m wearing my Scooby-Doo pajamas.
Yeah, Bentley better stop kicking me out of the gym.
But, getting back to more important issues, I may be slightly disoriented, but not enough to forget whose bed I’m in or whose shirt I’m wearing. I’m surrounded by Cole’s scent and his arms that are usually wound tight around me but have loosened their hold in the night. The sun’s streaming in through the windows and it must be late morning now, around ten a.m. if I were to guess. My mental calendar tells me that it’s Saturday and that I shouldn’t panic because I’ve got nowhere to be, but there’s a sudden clawing at my chest. I feel a sudden panic grip me that makes me subtly struggle out of Cole’s arms and out from the bed. He makes a sound when I get up but goes back to sleep, I guess last night must have been exhausting for him too, I didn’t really know that he’d be back.
The thought fuels my actions and, on autopilot mode, I quickly change into my clothes from last night and grab my things; my phone’s battery is dead, but I’m sure Cole must’ve let Sarah know that her roommate didn’t wind up dead in the middle of the woods.
As noiselessly as I can manage, I sneak out of Cole’s room, only to run into his roommate, Eric, in the kitchen. He’s a nice guy, but we don’t usually see each other because of our schedules, and it’s a little embarrassing to meet him while I’m supposedly doing the walk of shame.
He’s helping himself to a cup of coffee and offers me one when I greet him.
“No, thanks, I…I’ve got to hurry.”
He raises a brow but doesn’t ask more questions; I obviously look a little frazzled. “Do you want me to tell Cole something?”
“No, uh, I’ll text him, but thanks.” I give him a small smile and feel his gaze on the back of my head as I leave.
“He was freaking out last night when he came back. Is everything okay?”
I pause at the door and think about my answer, is everything okay? Turning toward him, I give Eric a reassuring smile.
“Yeah, we just had some miscommunic
ation issues. It’s all good now.”
He doesn’t look like he believes me. “Great, well, I don’t know if he’s gotten a chance to tell you, but my girlfriend wants us to have dinner with you two. Let me know whenever you’re free so she can do the planning she loves to do so much.”
He has such an adorable look on his face as he thinks about her that I smile despite my inner turmoil.
“Sure, we should be free sometime next week, before the professors start cracking the whips.”
“It’s essay season isn’t it? Welcome to academic hell. How’re you coping?”
I shrug, keeping my eye on Cole’s door. I want to leave before he gets up and by the looks of it, Eric wants me to stay. He’s a loyal roommate, I’ll give him that.
“Speaking of, I’ve really got to run. I have a study group in an hour and I need to prep for that. I’ll let you know about the dinner soon.”
Giving him a quick wave, I rush out the door, exhaling heavily. Though it’s when I’m outside the apartment building that I realize that Cole now has the keys to his car and that I’ll have to walk back to campus in the freezing cold, and I’m not exactly dressed for it. Oh well, I trudge through the chill and grab myself a coffee from the Starbucks around the corner. The walk allows me to think clearly because I hadn’t been doing so last night. I didn’t even put up a fight before going home with Cole, should I have? He’d basically shut me out and refused to talk to me while I’d been dealing with a problem he’d created. Despite his previous record of being an exemplary boyfriend, this is definitely a strike against him. He should’ve known better than to go ahead with his stupid plan without even talking to me, heck, a last-minute warning would’ve been fine, too. I think about the looks I’ve been receiving on campus lately, and it just makes me angry because most people probably thought I was pathetic, heartbroken, a fool.
The beauty of college, though, is that you only get to be in the limelight for a millisecond, so I know the worst is over. People have bigger problems than my relationship status, and this is evident because by the time I make it back to campus, I’m a nobody again, and the biggest news is the party that one of the fraternities is hosting tonight.
Thankfully, I make it to the residence halls without being stopped. I look like I should after last night, tired and weary. My eyes are puffy and a little red, had I been crying in the halls? I take my bag of toiletries and take a hot shower in the bathrooms. Since it’s Saturday, a lot of people are sleeping off a night of maybe drinking too much. Maybe I should’ve just gotten drunk too, who knows what adventures Drunk Tessa could’ve gotten up to. Oh well, maybe next time when my boyfriend decides to put me through the wringer.
Sarah is gone when I go into our room, knowing her, she’s either at the library or running around for any one of her extracurriculars. I use the opportunity to once again stalk the ESPN website, which Cami and Sarah had tried to block. I go through the interview and the words never change, the comments, however, continue to get more and more interesting as the readers mention all the depraved things they’d like to do to my boyfriend. The only break I get is from reading a certain, “KickInYourNuts,” who more than often has posted that the only depraved thing she’d like to do to Cole is one that’d leave him incapable of having children.
Oh Beth, how I miss you.
Thoughts of Professor Flynn’s paper come to mind. There’s still a chance that I’ll be able to get a redo of some sort, so I need to start working on that. She wants me to be creative and spirited, well, now’s as good a time as any. If heartbreak can make you win multiple Grammys, then a little stab in the heart may as well produce a good paper on Austen.
Scrolling through my laptop, I push aside the fact that I left Cole in bed, alone. Before I know it, all the stress from the past few days hits me hard, and my eyes begin to droop. For someone who loves sleep more than they love a limb, I haven’t exactly been sleeping well, so it’s no surprise that minutes into getting into bed, I’m asleep again.
***
Someone’s banging on my skull, I think.
Or they could just be knocking at the door, it’s hard to tell, but I’m woken up from a dreamless sleep too suddenly, which makes my heart start pounding. Shakily I get up and unlock the door, only to find Cole on the other side. I have no idea how long I fell asleep this time, but it must not have been long enough because Cole still looks dead tired. Beautiful as he is, he could use some rest because there are bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes that give away how he feels.
We stare at each for a while; I don’t make a move to let him in, and he doesn’t try to come into the room, which is very unlike him, but also goes to show that he realizes that he’s messed up big-time.
“Who let you in this time?”
He lets out a breath of relief like he’d expected me to go all snapping turtle on him the moment he tried to reach out to me. We’re close to that, Stone, pretty close.
“One of the girls on your floor, she, uh, recognized me.”
“I’m sure your newly acquired single status must’ve been a pretty good incentive for her.”
He flinches visibly and looks around; there’s no one around yet, but pretty soon, people will start trickling down to the dining halls. I would worry, too, if I were him.
“Can we do this elsewhere?” He tries to step forward but I stop him with an outstretched hand. “Oh no, you don’t. If you’re okay with me becoming a laughingstock, then I’d like to subject you to some public humiliation, too.”
His expression is tender, which, yeah, admittedly makes me want to pull him inside and wrap myself around him, but this is a fight where I can’t let his brooding “come hither” looks break my resolve.
“Tessie, you have to know that everything I did—”
“Was for my sake? Was to protect me? Well, congratulations, Stone, because you did just that. Whatever imaginary creature it is that you’re protecting me from by basically telling the whole world that you want nothing to do with me has been defeated. But guess what? The downside is that everyone thinks I’m just a quick fuck for you, the stupid, naive girl that you’re embarrassed to be with. While you’ve been busy ‘protecting’ me and ignoring me, you actually failed to notice how your genius plan backfired.”
His expression morphs into fury and despite me putting up a fight, he somehow forces himself into the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Cole grips me by the tops of my arms and pulls me into his chest.
“Who said that to you? You know I’d fucking kill anyone who even looked at you that way,” he growls.
“You don’t get to say that to me when you’re the person who put me in that position in the first place. It hurt, Cole, it hurt when all of that came my way without any warning.”
He blinks a couple of times and then drops his hands from my arms. He curses under his breath and then kicks the foot of my bed.
“You don’t realize what the press is like, Tessie, if they found out about you or about us, you’d never have a moment of normalcy again. Some of the guys I met…they told me about what their girlfriends had to go through, and I just…I didn’t want you to have to face that.”
I must really be out of tune with the world of college football because I didn’t realize that the dating lives of the players were given such importance. I don’t understand his world, and even as his college career is skyrocketing, with more and more attention from the media and pro scouts, I have never allowed myself to come to terms with the fact that our lives are changing.
“Why do you never ask me before you go off and do these things?” I cry out, feeling frustrated enough to want to bash my head against a wall. We’ve had this conversation so many times that I don’t even see the point of having it again. “What part of being equals don’t you get? Can you even imagine how embarrassing that interview was? And then, god, you shut me out so bad.” My voice breaks and I have to sit down on my bed, just so that my knees don’t give way.
I feel Cole hover
ing close by but he doesn’t try to touch me. “I knew you’d be hurt, trust me, I heard an earful from your brother, but I knew that if I talked to you, I’d just call the interviewer up and beg them to change everything I’d said. I…I’m sorry, I know I could’ve handled it better.”
I snort. “Yeah, you could’ve.”
He gets down on his knees and cups my face, moving in to kiss me, but he sees the panic on my face, and the hurt in his eyes kills something inside me. “You don’t want me to touch you.”
“I’m confused and hurt. I don’t understand where we’re going, and every single time we take a step forward, it seems like you move us five steps back.” I take a deep breath before continuing. “I’d do anything for you, anything to be with you. You mean more to me than all this drama, and I love you for helping me overcome so much this year, but now…now you’re just making me feel like I’m a damn burden you have to carry.”
He sucks in a breath. “No! That’s so far from the truth.” He lets out a bitter laugh. “Quite the opposite, actually. I’m waiting for the day you realize that you could do so much better than me and when I’d have to fall to your feet to convince you that even though you could, you’d still never find someone as desperate to have you in his life as I am.”
Tears sting my eyes and I know this is the boy that I fell hopelessly in love with. The cocky, arrogant bad boy who’s so vulnerable on the inside that it breaks your heart.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this painful being together, was it?”
Cole drops his head into my lap and I feel him shake his head. I run my fingers through his hair, and it feels like the first moment of calmness we’ve had in a long time.
“Let’s do this your way, let’s keep this, us, away from the everyone who could possibly destroy us.”
My breath hitches as I say this, and I know even as the words leave my mouth that it’s a bad idea. But with the way things have been going since the moment we got here, I know that we need to give it our all and fight like hell to be the Cole and Tessa that fell in love slowly but oh so madly. Lots of little moments led us here, dances and dresses, fights and jokes, ice creams and chocolates, first kisses and hesitant confessions. If it took you that long to find each other, wouldn’t you do anything in your power to keep that person?
The Bad Boy’s Heart Page 29