Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1)

by Hughey, J.

  She tucked her phone into the pocket of her long fitted shorts and grabbed her thermal cup. We strolled across the quad like we had all the time in the world. At 10:29, Mia grabbed an egg sandwich and filled her cup to the brim with coffee, black. Mia not only didn’t do cream and sugar, she abhorred the lattes and macchiatos our entire generation craved. I’d already eaten so I picked up a banana for a snack.

  Down in the Case Study, the world’s most stupidly named student lounge ever, the huge TV showed a satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico, where a white swirl the size of a pizza pan dominated the home theater screen.

  “I hope that S.O.B. doesn’t hit land.” Mia stared at the screen, her foil-wrapped sandwich in one hand and her ‘Good Morning Beautiful’ cup in the other. “I saw what Hurricane Sandy did to Jersey, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Hold this a sec.” She shoved her cup of unadulterated bitter reality at me so she could unwrap her food.

  She ate without losing a smudge of red lipstick to the soggy English muffin. I chewed my banana, more interested in the clusters of people in the room than the weather. Twyla, with her gaggy preppy friends, dominated the area between the TV and the bathrooms, the most travelled path of the room, not by coincidence, I’m sure. The five junior girls wore matching sorority shirts. Each head sprouted sleek hair straightened to glossy perfection in dyed, highlighted colors ranging from sunny blonde to auburn. They strived to suck in unsuspecting freshman girls. Come join our cult. We won’t kill you, we’ll just make you into copies of us.

  TG I met Mia before pledge week last year ’cuz I’d been close to joining the lunacy. Not Twyla’s, of course. Nope, not rich or pretty enough for that fruit punch. There’d been another sorority for more athletic girls, which meant everyone thought they were all sister-lesbians, which they weren’t. At least not all of them.

  Anyway, I knew now I wouldn’t have fit there, either. Some gut instinct pulled me back from the edge to remind me I mostly wanted to be allowed to be me, without my mom or some ditz like Twyla sticking her nose in my business.

  “I gotta go to Lit,” Mia said. “Ta!” She air-kissed both sides of my face. “Hey, Tyson, spot me,” she yelled toward a corner. A guy standing a head taller than anyone else in the room glanced over in time to catch her ball of foil in his plate-sized palm. He jammed it in the trashcan beside him.

  “Yo sexy,” he called.

  “Yo yourself,” she said. “Wanna walk over to Dr. Debra Damasco’s third circle of hell with me?”

  “I might be going that way.” He smiled at her with a flash of stunningly whitened teeth.

  I burst out laughing as Mia waggled dark purple fingernails over her shoulder at me.

  Most girls didn’t know quite what to think of Mia, but boys loved her. She attracted men like ComicCon attracted gamers, even though she avoided involvement. She didn’t date or fool around, and they all knew it.

  My image of her life at home consisted of vague scenes from crime-drama shows.

  At a youthful thirteen, her virginity had succumbed to a twenty-year-old. She’d made a point of telling me it was consensual, that she hadn’t been raped or anything. I believed her. I also knew she hadn’t had sex with anyone since she’d come to college and probably for a year or two before.

  Her path from her turbulent childhood to Western Case began with a teacher friend of her Gram’s giving Gram the word in church one Sunday. “Mia is growing up wild,” she’d warned. Gram had quickly removed both grandchildren from her daughter’s home, where crack rated higher than offspring. The takeover suited everyone but young Tony. He thrived on the streets and now probably worked for the dealer who kept his mother supplied. I figured Mia took after her absentee father, a young professional on a business trip who’d tinkered with Mia’s mom long enough to impregnate her before departing out of Philly International.

  Years later, Mia still looked tough, in a way, but she wasn’t a brawler by nature. School and mainstream socializing suited her better than survival on the rough side of Camden. She’d devoured her honors classes in high school, helped on the yearbook, and adjusted to attending church every Wednesday and Sunday. And the celibacy part? I wasn’t sure, but I thought she hoped to revert back to virginity somehow.

  Those few details and the pixelated pictures she showed me of her teen-gangsta brother and stern Gram were all she’d ever shared. I’d tried to invite myself to Easter break at her house last spring, partly out of curiosity and partly to avoid going home. The suggestion earned disapproval on a scale worthy of a slow runner dumb enough to ask to take a field trip to the zombie apocalypse.

  “Nyet,” she’d said. “I think Gram has some cousins coming. Or something.”

  Her summer had sucked, too, but when I’d vowed, on our first night back at Head Case U., to never live at home again, she vowed she would get her little brother off the streets.

  I didn’t use creative nicknames for people in my phone contacts ever since my mom saw I’d named her Voldemort and took my cell away for a month in the middle of my high school senior year. Sometimes I still felt bad, ’cuz I know I hurt her feelings majorly that time, and I think about Mia’s mom who doesn’t care her own children call her Crackhead to her face.

  Anyway, I don’t use nicknames in my phone.

  It took me longer to write that text than to compose my college application essay. I’d thought about at least using WTW for “what time when” but figured WTW probably meant something else, like “when turkeys write” or “wouldn’t touch whack” or “I’d rather have hot needles stuck in my eyes than go to a pre-game party with you, Boone Ramer.” Rather than make a mistake, I’d typed it all out, purposely removing some punctuation so I didn’t highlight my geekness.

  Text from Boone:

  His quick reply made me bounce on the bed. But…he’d stop by? Guys only stopped by for formals. And he knew my dorm? I chewed my lip, undecided between awesome or creepy. I remembered his amused glance over his shoulder this morning and landed on awesome. In fact, I landed so hard on awesome I said the word out loud in a sing-sing voice while bouncing on the bed. “Awesome!”

  Text to Boone:

  Mia and I dug through my wardrobe on Saturday, a day of perfect football weather. Chilly temps on the walk to cafeteria “brunch” morphed to blindingly sunny and warm by noon. Mia and I had totally different taste in everything, which meant I couldn’t pull off her ruffled mini skirt and black leather jacket look. She understood me, though, and we settled on a pair of skinny jeans, a yellow sleeveless top with black trim (school colors!), and my sporty flip-flops with floral straps. I slathered sunscreen on my shoulders and arms while Mia searched her collection of hair clips.

  My brown hair rested a tad below my shoulders. I finger combed a sloppy part down the middle most day and usually had at least one side tucked behind my ear. I tried not to pull it up all the time ’cuz the bulk made the top of my head look too wide. Mom said my face was heart-shaped which I interpreted to mean my chin was too narrow for my forehead.

  Mia twisted the front pieces of my hair back and secured it with a bobby pin so it didn’t blow into my lip-gloss if a breeze kicked up at the stadium. (I’d rejected a rhinestone clip and a daisy barrette.) “You sure you won’t wear some eyeliner?” she asked for the third time. “I could make your eyes look big as pool balls if you’d let me.”

  “Just the look I’m going for,” I said, picturing one of those big-eyed puppies that adorned every greeting card a few years ago. “This is a football game, not the prom.” I already felt overdone with one coat of black/brown mascara.

  “If one wants to be treated like an aristocrat, one must dress like an aristocrat,” she said in a voice like the Queen of England’s.

  “I’m a Copperhead, not Princess Kate.”

  “Whatever.” She sulked. “Ooh, ten ’til one. I’m outta here.”

  “You don’t have to leave.” The panic I’d been fighting since daybreak changed my breathing to hitching gasps. Boone Ramer.
Here. To get me. Soon. I thought I might puke up my ham and cheese omelet.

  The best roomie ever grabbed my shoulders to show me my reflection in the mirror screwed into our dorm room wall. “You got this thing, sister. His Hotness obviously likes you, and you’ve been ready to have his babies for a year. Be you. Except lose the expression of terror.”

  I nodded and smiled and practiced not looking like a deer in the headlights.

  Mia grabbed her jingly neck lanyard and skipped through the open door.

  What if I blow this, I thought as I tucked away all evidence I’d spent even one minute perfecting my casualness. I scouted the room to make sure nothing appalling like a box of tampons lurked. Safe. My worst sin was Gloria, with her oval plastic eyes and tiny pink ears.

  What if my first date with my twelve-month obsession crashes and burns like a space shuttle with a faulty tile? I sat cross-legged in the round chair, pretending to be engrossed by something on my cell while my stomach turned flips and my heart thumped.

  I glanced around the room again, in the midst of a minor panic attack and, seeing my bike, remembered the first time I’d ever talked to Boone, for real. Last September, on a gorgeous Saturday evening, I’d taken my old bike—a heavy blue Neanderthal compared to my Giant—for a quick spin to escape the freshman roommate from hell who’d gotten high, or drunk, or both—in the middle of the afternoon, no less—and drained her cell phone battery with sobs to her hometown boyfriend. When I tried to be sympathetic, her wordless snarl told me she didn’t want my support, though I’d tattled to our RA on my way down the hall. I really didn’t want to return from biking to find my cray cray roomie dead from an overdose.

  After my responsible escape, I’d ridden four or five miles out of town then looped back on the country roads. At the first stoplight, a biker came toward me on the perpendicular street. He nodded at me and looked away then looked back at about the same time I recognized him. Boone freakin’ Ramer. The unexpectedness both jazzed and horrified me. Hotness, all to myself, yes, but he was seeing me in a helmet, sports sunglasses and a water bladder backpack.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He wore sunglasses, too. The reflective orange lenses hid his eyes, but not his frown. “Aren’t you a freshman at Western Case?” he asked. His voice was nice, not crazy deep but definitely masculine, and he spoke with a slow cadence, in no hurry at all.

  “Yeah,” I said. Scintillating. Brilliant.

  “What’d you think of the game?”

  “What game?” I scooted my bike farther onto the shoulder of the road as a car cruised past.

  “The football game. Today. At home.”

  “I don’t follow sports much. Was it good?” Those maddening mirrored glasses hid everything. His extended silence couldn’t be a positive sign.

  “Are you lost?” he finally asked.

  I glanced around. “I don’t think so. Do I look lost?”

  His self-deprecating smile thinned his lips but showed no teeth. “No, sorry, most students only ride far enough to find beer.” He moved his head in a way that suggested he was checking out my gear. “I should’ve noticed you weren’t dressed for a grocery run.”

  “I only did about ten miles,” I said with a shrug.

  “Twice what I can do on these hills.” He grimaced.

  I slid my sunglasses off my sweaty nose. I didn’t like not seeing his eyes and hoped he’d show me his if I showed him mine. I used the maneuver as an excuse to check out the rest of him. His biking shorts were loose, like gym shorts, accentuating awesome, tight calves. The top half of him didn’t disappoint, either, with the thin fabric of his shirt plastered over his pecs. He was respectably muscled, not over-juiced like Bodacious.

  Hot. Ness.

  “New to biking?” I asked.

  “Rehabbing my knee.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yep.” He finally removed his sunglasses to wipe his forearm over his ruddy face.

  “What happened?” I indicated his leg with the tip of my chin.

  His quick glance registered surprise before he gave the same odd little smile. “Oh. I was a quarterback for the football team. Took a low hit at the end of last season.”

  I squinted at his leg. “Wow, those scars are tiny.”

  He prodded at a shiny pink dot on his hairy skin. “The doctors in Pittsburgh are some of the best.” He sounded tired, or sort of downcast.

  In an unusual moment of insight, I said, “Was today the first game since?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t play?”

  He looked down the street, away from me, then at the road cinders at our feet. “This is the first fall I haven’t played ball since I was six.”

  “Wow. I can’t think of anything other than, you know, the basics like breathing I’ve been doing for that long.”

  He smirked.

  “Docs wouldn’t clear you?”

  “They did. I didn’t.” He picked up the front of his bike by the handlebars then set it back down. “When the mom who drove you forty miles round trip for midget practices and the dad who wrecked his shoulder passing the ball back to you both say it’s time to quit….”

  “Sounds like your parents are good at mind-jobs, like mine.”

  He smiled a little more cheerfully and I smiled back, glad because he’d been cruising toward miserable. Just the image I wanted to create—here’s the sports ignoramus who can totally bum you out in thirty seconds flat.

  “They let it up to me in the end. I made the right decision. It’s not like I have a chance to go pro. I’ll be able to walk when I’m forty, maybe throw the ball with my own kid.” A shrug bunched the muscles at his shoulders. Another shadow of doubt passed over his face.

  “The bike’ll be good for you.” Again with the brilliance, as if some millionaire orthopedist hadn’t already told him about biking. Duh.

  “I can go farther in Nebraska. Fewer hills,” he said. He reached for the water bottle attached to the down tube of his bike, and I could almost see him shaking off the blues. “Where are you from?” His green eyes bored into me with unanticipated curiosity.

  “Indiana. We have hills but not like this.”

  “Why do you ride?” he asked after he’d finished taking a deep drink from the Copperheads Football bottle.

  “Um, mostly ’cuz it feels good. I mean, it helps me to clear my head.” It feels good? Really, did I say that out loud?

  “Endorphins,” he said. “Though I could do without the bugs smacking me in the face.” He tucked the bottle in the cage and pushed his sunglasses back on. “Wanna head back?”

  “Sure.” I slid my own glasses on and clipped one foot into a pedal.

  We stood on the corner, ready to launch, each waiting for the other to lead.

  “You go ahead,” he finally said with a chuckle.

  “Is this a test to make sure I’m not lost?”

  “No.” He grinned. “My mama taught me ladies go first.”

  I rolled my eyes, checked traffic and pushed off, thanking God my other biking shoe clicked neatly into its bracket.

  “Clips,” he said from over my left shoulder. “You’re brave.”

  “Power on the upstroke and downstroke,” I said.

  “Or instant death the first time I tried to stop.”

  I laughed. “I practiced in my front yard for awhile. If I can do it, anyone can.” I shifted into a lower gear for the gentle climb. The real bitch of a hill would come at the end.

  “Don’t baby me, now,” he said.

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Have it your way.”

  He panted in even, deliberate puffs by the time we reached the edge of campus, but he hadn’t given up. He’d stayed on my back wheel. I did a cool down loop on the local streets before guiding us to the dorm.

  I stepped off my bike and reluctantly removed my helmet. My stubby ponytail was mostly intact, though much of the front section of my hair slipped from the skinny hairband. I did my b
est to tuck the errant strands behind my ears.

  He arranged his own gear then looked at me with the green stare again, more intense than before. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

  “I’m sure we freshman all look alike.” I extended my hand. “Violet Perch.”

  “Boone Ramer.” He took my hand and, though our palms were hot and sweaty, he continued to hold it, lighting a fuse of attraction that sparked up my wrist and past my elbow. “Violet. Unusual name. I’ll remember it now.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a curse,” I said as the heat passed my shoulder to go straight to my skort.

  “I didn’t mean unusual bad. It’s nice. Feminine.” He released my hand while his eyes touched me, sliding down my pink jersey and along legs I knew weren’t particularly long but had hints of muscle definition.

  I knew what I was. In our world of breast enhancements and thigh gaps, I didn’t have the right dimensions to attract a guy in Boone’s league, especially with my sports bra smashing my itty bitty titties down to nothing. Helmet hair, sweat stained armpits, padded bottoms, and black sturdy shoes completed the non-seductive, flat-chested ensemble. I was all in.

  His face sharpened in a way that suggested he might like what he saw. My nostrils flared in immediate, misguided response. God, he was magnetic.

  “You’re in good shape,” he said appreciatively. “I bonked on the last hill but you pulled me up.” He waggled his brows at me. “Couldn’t let you make me look bad.”

  My face flushed beyond exercise-induced red. “You did good.” We wheeled our bikes toward the door and I’d almost worked up the courage to ask if he’d like to ride together again when a trilling voice called his name.

  Twyla Blakelock, who’d ignored me at a rush party last week, bounced up to press her glossy lips against his mouth. Her nose wrinkled. “Ewww, you’re all sweaty,” she said.

  What kind of moron touches him and says Ewww, I thought. You’re ewww, Twyla.

  “Hey, I’ll see you later,” I said out loud, eternally grateful for the guy who came out the door at the right time to hold it for me.