Mayhem

by Jamie Shaw

  “So what about this hot guy you were with?” She’s staring at her sugar packet as she tears it open and pours it into her coffee. Thank God, because that means she doesn’t see the panic that flashes across my face. Adam comes back to me in a rush, making me feel . . . needy. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. Is it possible to miss someone you just met? And miss doesn’t even feel like the right word . . . yearn? Is it possible to yearn for someone you just met?

  I try to keep my voice even. “Um . . . what about him?”

  “Did you get his number?”

  I shake my head. I need to lie like I’ve never lied before to the only bloodhound who can smell my bullshit. “We were just talking. And then I saw Brady.”

  “You saw Brady while you were with him?”

  “Yeah . . .” I’m trying to force my eyes to look trustworthy as Dee stares at me suspiciously, but then she lets it go.

  “Well, that’s a shame.”

  I shrug. “It is what it is. Maybe next time.” I pull my phone from my purse and turn it back on. Six missed calls, four missed voicemails, three missed texts. “You ready?” I ask, and she nods. We’re in a corner booth and the restaurant is dead since we came between the lunch and dinner rushes, so I lay the phone in the middle of the table and play Brady’s voicemail on speakerphone. His smooth voice breaks my heart all over again, but I need to hear what he has to say for himself.

  “Rowan, I just got home and . . . all your stuff is gone. Baby, what’s going on? I tried calling you three times now and I’m not getting any answer. You need to call me back as soon as you get this. I’m really worried . . . I love you. Please call me.”

  I look at Dee, and she rolls her eyes. I move on to the next one.

  “Baby, seriously, I’m really getting worried here. Your car’s still out there, but all your clothes are gone. Everything is gone. I have no idea what’s going on. Please call me. I’m worried about you. I love you . . . I love you, so just . . . just call me back, okay?”

  Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. I play the third one.

  “Look, if this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny, Rowan. Did I do something wrong? Please just talk to me. I have no idea where you are. I called Dee and I even called your Mom. Dee’s phone went straight to voicemail and your mom hasn’t heard anything either. You need to call me. I’m lost here, baby. I don’t know what to do. Please come home. Or at least call me back . . . I love you.”

  “Shit!” I immediately snatch my phone off the table and call my mom.

  “Rowan?!” She’s panicked, and I feel so stupid for not predicting this would happen.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Are you okay?!”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. There’s just some stuff going on between Brady and me right now, so I moved my things out of the apartment and I’m staying with Dee for now.”

  “Oh, no, Ro . . .” She sounds so sad for me, and it’s precisely what I don’t need to hear right now because I do not want to cry again. “Are you alright, honey?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” And even if I’m not, I will be. I’m determined to make sure of that.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Maybe later, but not right now.”

  Dee yells loudly enough for my mom to hear, “I’m taking good care of her, Tracy!”

  My mom breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh, good, Dee’s with you? Tell her I say hi.”

  “My mom says hi, Dee.” Dee smiles, and I tell my mom she says hi back.

  “Rowan, honey, is there anything you need? Is there anything you need me to do?”

  “Actually, yeah . . . Can you please not tell Brady that I called you? If he tries to get ahold of you again, just don’t answer the phone. Tell Dad to do the same.”

  “Honey . . . I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but he is really worried about you. Are you sure you don’t want to—­”

  Cutting her off, I say, “Trust me, Mom. If you knew what he did . . .” I sigh. “Just trust me on this. Me making him worry is nothing compared to what he deserves.” Dee nods emphatically and gives me a thumbs-­up as she chews a massive mouthful of pancakes.

  “Okay, sweetie. Whatever you want. I’ll make sure Dad knows. And remember, if you need anything . . . money, whatever, you just call, okay?”

  “Okay. I love you, Mom.”

  “Love you too, honey. And Dee too. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I hang up the phone and slouch in my seat. “Jesus.”

  Dee chuckles. “I hope Brady gives himself a brain aneurysm or something.”

  “Dee!”

  “What?!”

  “We don’t hope he dies!”

  She smirks at me, clearly amused with herself. “Don’t we?”

  I ignore her and check my texts. More of the same. “I need to tell him something or I’m afraid he’s going to call the police and file a Missing Persons or something.”

  Dee pulls her phone from her purse and scoffs at the missed calls and texts Brady left her. She starts typing, and I nervously ask what she’s doing.

  “Responding to his text. Like he asked me to. Because I’m nice.”

  I waste no time diving into her bench seat, looking to see what she’s typing.

  You know what you did. We know what you did. Fess up and maybe she’ll consider talking to you again.

  Okay, that’s not so bad. I feel relieved, but then I watch as she hits RETURN a few times and quickly adds:

  lol, that last part was a lie. EAT DICK, DOUCHEBAG.

  She presses send before I can stop her, and I bang my forehead against the table. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

  “Are you gonna eat your bacon?”

  I groan and slide back into my seat, gnawing on a piece of bacon. If I don’t eat it soon, she’ll steal it from my plate and we both know it. “Did he say anything back yet?” I stuff another piece into my mouth.

  She checks her phone. “Nothing.”

  But when I check mine, there’s a brand new text.

  Baby, come home. Let’s talk about this.

  I show Dee and then turn my phone all the way off again. “Well, at least we know he won’t be calling the cops.”

  “What’d I tell ya?” she says, grinning as she points a fork full of pancakes at me. “I’m nice.”

  Chapter Five

  ON MONDAY, DEE and I wake up early to drive to my old apartment building. She turns into the lot out front, but then I’m immediately grabbing at the wheel, frantically yelling at her to turn around.

  She crinkles her nose at Brady’s silver Cobalt. “What the hell is his car still doing here?”

  “Turn around!” My hands scramble over hers as the car swerves into a sharp U-­turn, and then we’re kicking up gravel as we skid back onto the road.

  I melt into my seat, my nerves completely fried, while Dee looks at me like I’ve completely lost my mind. “He must have taken off work.” I sigh. “He probably knows I’ll come to pick up my car.”

  He left me more messages than I could count yesterday, and I read every single one of them. Not one mentioned that he was a cheating pig, so I didn’t bother responding. I know he’s trying to figure out exactly how much I know, which tells me he’s not ready to come clean. And even if he is, he can kiss my ass.

  Dee rolls her window down and props her elbow on it. “I say we go pick it up one night while he’s sleeping. Then we can slash his tires and key his car as a parting gift.”

  “Fine,” I say, still wondering how many secrets Brady has kept from me over the years. When Dee’s surprised expression snaps in my direction, I rush to add, “To the picking it up at night, Dee! I told you, we’re not slashing his anything.”

  She grumbles. “I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

/>   “Story of my life.”

  She giggles at me, and I lay my head back against the headrest.

  “Are you nervous about your first class?” I ask after I get tired of watching the high-­rises pass us by.

  Dee shakes her head. “Nope, I’m excited! I bet it’ll be filled with hot college guys.” In Dee’s world, I wonder if not-­hot college guys even exist. “What about you? Nervous?”

  “Extremely.”

  “You should’ve signed up for the same classes as me!”

  My expression says, really? “Your first class is biology.” I say the word like it’s poison.

  “Yours is French.”

  “French 201,” I correct. “And anyway, I’ll see you for speech and American history.”

  “We have speech at twelve thirty, right?” I laugh and tell her we do. “And history right after?”

  “No, history is tomorrow. Jesus, Dee, what are you going to do without me?”

  “Get lost somewhere on campus. Cry a little. Have some hot college guy try to comfort me. Then he’ll agree to show me to my next class, but somehow we’ll end up back at his fraternity house and—­”

  “You’re going to miss our turn,” I say flatly, cutting her off.

  “Shit!” Dee squeals the car into the college entrance, and I grip the door handle and dashboard for dear life. When she parks the car, I sit there waiting for the past eighteen years to stop flashing before my eyes.

  “We’re here!” she chirps way too peppily, like she didn’t almost just kill us both. “But we’re super early.”

  I check my phone, growling when I have to ignore another three texts from Brady. “We’re not that early. Only half an hour. We should head to our classes so we can get good seats.”

  Dee reluctantly agrees, and I can tell that she’s a little nervous even though she’d never admit it. I smile when we part ways, knowing she’ll be fine. She always is.

  With my backpack hanging off one shoulder and a map in my hand, I find my way to Jackson Hall and navigate through a dense cluster of sorority girls to get to room 107. It’s an auditorium way larger than I expected, and I have no idea how the professor is planning to successfully teach a language to a class this large. I automatically find a seat in the back corner farthest from the door, realizing too late that Dee isn’t with me so I don’t need to sit this far back. Since I think it would be awkward at this point to get up and switch seats, I stay put, pulling the fold-­over desk over my lap and getting out my textbook and notepad. There weren’t more than a few students scattered throughout the room when I entered, but now the seats are filling up.

  Even though I’m a freshman, this isn’t my first college class. I excelled so much in my high school AP classes that I was allowed to take a few courses at our local community college. One of them was French 101, which is why I’m already at the next level. I’m still not completely sure what I want to do with my future, but I’ve been thinking about pursuing a career as a translator, a job that would’ve been flexible enough to allow me to follow Brady wherever he needed to go for work. Now, I guess none of that really matters.

  “Hey,” one of my classmates says as he plunks down in the seat next to me.

  I gaze over at him, taking in his faded Mr. Bubble T-­shirt, his acid-­washed jeans, and his hot-­pink Chuck Taylors. “Hey.” He’s tall, nearly as tall as Adam but with a little more meat on his bones.

  He reaches out a hand. “Leti.”

  “Rowan.”

  “I’m digging the polka-­dot scarf, Rowan.”

  I blush, thinking of Adam as I fiddle with the petite scarf wrapped around my neck. When I looked in the mirror this morning, there was still the faintest little trace of a love mark. I barely managed to sneak it under Dee’s radar yesterday, and today it was barely visible, but I knew she’d still lock on it like a heat-­seeking missile. The scarf was a must-­have, and I’ve paired it with black leggings, a loose white top, and bright red flats. My blonde hair is pulled up in a tight ponytail. If I looked any Frencher, I’d have to stop shaving my armpits. “Thanks.”

  “I hear this guy is tough,” Leti says, referring to our professor, who hasn’t made an appearance yet. “Did you have him last year?”

  “No, this is actually my first class.”

  “You’re a transfer?”

  “A freshman.” I give him a half smile.

  “A freshman . . . ? Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

  I laugh when he looks at me like he feels sorry that I’m lost on my first day. “Yeah, I’m sure. I took French 101 while I was still in high school.”

  “Wow,” he replies, his golden-­brown eyes looking genuinely impressed. Oversized shades are sitting on top of his wavy ombré hair—­deep bronze with sunrise-­blond highlighting, it’s buzzed short on the sides but left long on the top. “I’m glad I sat next to you then! I need all the help I can get.”

  I smile at him, realizing I’ve made my first new friend in record time. I pull my water bottle from my backpack and am taking a big sip when Leti suddenly grabs my forearm and points his chin toward the door. “Look who it is.”

  My eyes wash over the seats in front of me to land on—­

  Adam. Freaking. Everest.

  I choke. Literally choke. Water forces itself into my sinuses as I try to not spit it all over the students sitting in front of me, and Leti claps me on the back, laughing. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I cough. “I’m . . .” I’m too busy watching Adam to think straight. I can’t even be bothered to finish my sentence. He’s in another pair of torn-­up jeans that are barely clinging to his hips, along with a gray T-­shirt advertising some band I’ve never heard of. His braceleted wrist is reaching up to brush the hair away from his face. That face . . . I’d almost convinced myself that I remembered him being hotter than he really was.

  Nope, didn’t imagine it.

  Most of the seats in the auditorium are taken, but a group of girls up front are calling his name, and Adam goes to sit with them. The girl who came in with him sits down on his lap and wraps her arms around his neck, giggling like she’s oblivious to the stares of everyone else in the room. What the hell is he doing here?

  With my eyes still on the back of Adam’s head, I ask Leti, “Adam Everest goes to school here?”

  “Hence the welcome party in the hall,” Leti answers, and then his chin comes to rest on the heel of his palm. He stares dreamily at the boy who just had his hands all over me less than forty-­eight hours ago and sighs. “I had French 101 with him last year.”

  “Why?” I ask. When he shoots me a confused glance, I clarify, “I mean, why is he taking classes?”

  Leti shrugs. “I have no idea, but I’m definitely not complaining.”

  When our professor walks in, the chick on Adam’s lap is forced to find a seat in the row behind him because the girls he sat with didn’t save her a seat. Is she his girlfriend? Does he have a girlfriend?

  “I’m Dr. Pullman,” says our professor, a tall, bald man who I can’t imagine smiling even if his life depended on it. “This class isn’t going to be easy. You’re going to have homework. A lot of it.” A girl next to Adam giggles at something Adam said, and the professor shoots her a nasty look. She immediately bites her tongue, and he continues. “I have a strict attendance policy. I expect you to turn your cell phones off at the door. If you treat me with respect, I’ll treat you with respect. Now, how many of you bothered to go online and print out our syllabus?”

  Only a handful of ­people raise their hands. Adam isn’t one of them, and neither am I. Even though I did go online and print it out, I don’t want to draw attention to myself.

  Dr. Pullman sighs. “Well, it’s there if you want to take a look. Make sure to review it before you come to me whining with complaints about my class. If you don’t want to be here, you h
ave until next week to drop and still get a refund. As you can see,” he waves his hand across the room, “I’ll have a very full workload with or without you.” He goes to the side of the room and opens up a laptop, starting the projector. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

  But there is no way in hell I’m going to be able to pay attention with the girl sitting next to Adam periodically lifting her fingers to comb them through the soft brown hair at the nape of his neck. I know how soft that hair is. My fingertips remember, and I’m having serious trouble not breaking my pencil in half and throwing the lethal pieces at her.

  When class ends, Adam is the first one out of his seat and through the door. Leti nudges me with his elbow.

  “Jealous much?”

  “Huh?” I try and fail to act nonchalant as we pack our bags.

  “If looks could kill, I swear there’d be three dead groupie tramps laying up there,” he says with a teasing smile.

  “I’m not jealous.”

  I’m so jealous. I’m jealous of the very thing I turned down less than two days ago, even though I know I made the right choice. I had just gotten out of a relationship, for God’s sake. Like less than five minutes before I met Adam. And he’s obviously a playboy—­which may have been what I needed at that moment, but it’s not what I need long term. Whatever this is that I’m feeling, I need to get over it.

  Leti smirks at me. “If you say so, Ro-­Yo.”

  As we make our way out of Jackson Hall, he’s complaining about what a hard-­ass Dr. Pullman is and what hell the class is going to be. I’m half paying attention to him and half flinging nervous glances down every hallway we pass to make sure I don’t cross paths with Adam.

  “Are you always this twitchy?”

  I look up at him, frowning. “Am I seriously twitchy?”

  “You’re like a cute little chipmunk . . . on crack.”

  I laugh and adjust my scarf, making sure it’s still covering the mark Adam left on me. “I guess I’m just still nervous about starting classes. Plus I had way too much caffeine this morning.”