Bully

by Sky Corgan

  I blinked. What was this? Was he actually being nice?

  “Thanks,” I replied hesitantly, though it sounded more like a question than appreciation.

  “It looks like you don't have many friends here yet.” He huffed.

  I glanced back up at the bedroom I had come from. “Where's my shirt?” The thought of him seeing me topless made my stomach turn.

  “You puked on it. It's in the laundry.” He nodded in, what I assumed was, the direction of the laundry room. “Don't worry, I didn't look at you.” He regarded my body as if it were the most disgusting thing in the world. Worse than my puke. “I had some of my female friends come upstairs and change you.”

  “Oh. Thanks for that.” How considerate. I didn't think he was capable.

  There was an awkward silence between us. The way he was looking at me was strange, but I got the feeling that he was just waiting for me to leave.

  “Well, I'll grab my shirt and be out of your hair, then.” I pointed in the same direction that he had nodded in earlier.

  “Let me drive you back to your dorm.”

  “No. I've got this.” I shook my head. Pain surged through me, and I had to place my palm on the wall to brace myself.

  Dustin didn't move. “You obviously don't got this. Your dorm is a few blocks away. Don't be stubborn. I'll get your shirt. And my keys. You can give that shirt back to me later.” He didn't even look at me before turning and walking away.

  Crawling up into Dustin's truck took more effort than it was worth. I never understood why he had the damn thing lifted so high. Probably to compensate for his small dick. That had to be it. No guy drove a truck this big unless they were compensating for something.

  I remembered all the times I had looked at the truck with loathing as it pulled into the parking lot of our high school. Never in a million years did I think I'd be riding in it. This was surreal as shit.

  The ride back to my dorm was short but awkward. All the while, I felt like I should say something, maybe apologize for throwing up on him last night. He didn't deserve it, though. He had shown me kindness, but that was only once in the entire time that I had known him. The least I could do was ruin a pair of his sneakers. Besides, his parents had enough money to buy him new ones. Everyone knew he came from a wealthy family.

  I wasn't going to be a complete bitch, though. I muttered a quiet “thanks” as I slid off of the passenger's seat when he dropped me off.

  He regarded me coolly, a soft warning in his tone. “Don't drink so much next time.”

  “Got it.” I pointed at him and clicked my teeth, then immediately felt like an idiot for it.

  He rolled his eyes before shifting his truck into reverse and backing out of the parking space. I held the plastic bag with my laundered shirt against my chest, feeling like I had just stepped out of an episode of the Twilight Zone.

  There was no point in dwelling on the strangeness of what had just happened. I was just happy that I hadn't had to endure a barrage of insults as the price for having lingered in Dustin's presence for too long. I could mull over things later when I was hangover-free. Or not. There were more important things to think about...like what had happened to Bobby.

  Bobby and Dustin knew each other. Surely, when they crossed paths at the party, Bobby would have asked Dustin about me. There was no quarrel between them. While Bobby hadn't been popular, he had gotten along with everyone in high school. He didn't fear Dustin like I did.

  That meant that either Dustin had lied to him about me being up in his room, or Bobby never came looking for me in the first place. I didn't believe that either scenario would have happened. All I did know was that something wasn't right.

  It wasn't until I reached my room that I thought to check my phone. If Bobby had been looking for me, he would have texted me. Duh!

  Sure enough, there was a text message from him asking me where I was. Then a second one telling me that he was leaving the party with Theresa. Tension settled behind my eyes from that one, and my chest burned with indigestion. Who was I kidding? That wasn't indigestion. I was hurt. Badly. The second text message came only ten minutes after the first.

  Bobby must have done a round around the party and then decided I had left without him. That was the only plausible explanation. Maybe he didn't even ask Dustin where I was. I could find out later.

  For now, all that mattered was getting some much-needed sleep.

  Blessedly, my roommate was nowhere to be seen, so I changed into my pajamas, settled into bed, pulled the covers up to my chest, and drifted into a sleep that lasted most of the day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Radio silence.

  That's what I got from Bobby for the next few weeks. Well, maybe not radio silence exactly, but pretty damn close to it.

  When I would text him, he texted me back almost immediately, but it was never more than a word or two. There were no text conversations, and I always had to text him first. Not only that, but he completely dropped me as a dining and study buddy.

  Only once did I even see him in the cafeteria, and when I did he was sitting with another group. He said “hi” but that was it. We were like ships passing in the night, regarding each other but not colliding. I wasn't sure what in the hell was going on—what I'd done to deserve to be pushed away—but it sucked, and I was too prideful to ask. If anyone should be pushing anyone away, it should be me pushing him away after the shit that he pulled.

  Oh well. It was what it was, and there was nothing that I could do about it except wait for him to come around.

  Loneliness settled over me like a shroud, stifling me with depression. I had never realized how bad I was at making friends until I got to college.

  If there was one person I should have been getting close to, it was my roommate, but she was rarely ever in our room, and I was pretty sure that she was drugged out when she was. Natalie was the classic stoic goth girl. Her foundation was several shades too pale for her skin. Her eye makeup way too dark. She kept to herself most of the time, making it very obvious from the beginning that she didn't want to get chummy.

  She probably thought I was some preppy bitch. I wanted to tell her that not long ago we weren't that different. I had gone through my goth phase the first two years of high school. We all had. I can still remember how Bobby looked with eyeliner rimming his hauntingly green eyes. Just thinking about it caused stirrings inside of me.

  I took things a bit to the extreme. Dyed black hair. Spiked collars. Fishnets and makeup that made me look like a raccoon. Natalie's style was tame by comparison.

  To be honest, I had only done it to fit in. To be closer to Bobby. My personal style was a lot more casual.

  I was happy when I saw things begin to shift. My makeup got lighter. I let my natural hair color grow back out. By senior year, the phase was over. Now, I looked just like any other girl, which was kind of depressing when I thought about how little I stood out.

  About a month into the semester, I walked into my room to find Natalie's side empty. Everything was completely cleaned out. She hadn't even had the decency to tell me that she was leaving or say goodbye. That's how tight we'd gotten over the past few weeks.

  For a while, I had hoped that I'd get to live out the rest of the semester without a roommate, but a week later, someone else moved in.

  A girl peeked into the room holding a box. She smiled at me, showing two rows of perfectly white teeth. To be honest, it was one of the most genuine smiles I'd seen since coming to Clear Lake University.

  “Hi. My name's Leonor. I'm going to be your new roommate,” she announced before stepping inside.

  The warmth was there right away. Something that had been severely lacking between Natalie and me.

  We chatted while Leonor unpacked her things. She told me that she had requested a room transfer since she wasn't getting along with her last roommate.

  “I swear, that girl never showered,” she told me. “And she wore so much hair gel that it looked like she had a slug o
n her head.

  “She was also a bitch,” Leonor lowered her voice as if she was worried someone else might hear her. “She'd use my shit without asking. Now, I'm all about sharing, but you have to ask first. We're not all married up in here. What's mine is not yours. It doesn't work that way. No, no.” She waggled her finger at me.

  I was getting more intimidated by her by the second. While she seemed outwardly nice, I got the feeling that she could be a bit of a bitch too. I just hoped I wouldn't have to mind my p’s and q's around her.

  “So...” she began once she was settled in and we'd finished with the casual get-to-know-you banter, “I heard about you and Dustin Nikoli.”

  “Me and Dustin Nikoli?” I quirked my head back, drawing my legs up onto my bed. “We went to high school together.”

  “Did you really?” She seemed surprised.

  “Yeah. He's a bully.” I scowled, memories of the past returning. Now that a few weeks had passed, it seemed like what had happened at the frat house wasn't even real. That was just a dream—the kind that doesn't make any sense.

  “A bully?” Her eyebrows pulled together.

  “Yeah. He tormented me in high school.” I rested my palm on the bed, shifting my weight to get more comfortable.

  “Girl, that boy torments everyone.” She flipped her wrist at me.

  “He does?”

  “He torments my dreams every night.” Her lips quirked into a wolfish grin and she sighed dreamily.

  I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

  Of course, he does. He had most of the girls in high school eating out of his palm. Everyone wanted to be with him. Everyone but me. It seemed like only I was able to see what a piece of shit he really was.

  “But you've got to tell me.” She wrapped her arms around her knees, gazing at me intently. “How was it sleeping with him?”

  “Wait. What?” My mouth fell agape.

  “You two...you know.” She made a slow circle in the air with her finger.

  “Is that what he's telling everyone?” Rage burned inside of me. If that was the case, I was going to march my butt straight to that frat house and give him a piece of my mind.

  “No. Oh, no.” She waved her hands. “He didn't say anything like that. We just assumed. Anytime a girl goes up to his room, that's usually what it means. We heard that you spent the night.”

  “We? Who's we?” The muscles in my eye twitched from stress.

  “The girls in my sorority. I'm Alpha Beta Pi,” she said proudly.

  Now I was confused for another reason. “If you're Alpha Beta Pi, then why aren't you staying at the sorority?”

  She frowned. “Space is limited. If there's not enough room, freshman have to stay in the dorms.”

  “Oh.” I felt kind of sorry for her. Half of the fun of being in a sorority was staying in the chapter house.

  “Enough about me, though.” She shook the sadness out of her expression. “Tell me more about you and Dustin. What's he like? He's so dreamy.”

  “There is no me and Dustin,” I told her firmly, folding my arms over my chest.

  “I know there's no you and Dustin.” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I just meant the big bang. You know, the thing that happens at frat parties.” She redirected her gestures into something crude.

  “Nothing like that happened.” I let out an exasperated sigh. Did she not know English? Why couldn't she understand what I was trying to tell her?

  Leonor hopped over from her bed to mine. Apparently, staying on your own side of the room only applied to me. She sat next to me, brushing shoulders and giving me a sly look. “Oh, come on. You can tell me. We're going to be good friends while we're living together.”

  Just while we're living together?

  “There's nothing to tell.” I leaned away from her slightly. She was quickly making me feel claustrophobic. “I drank too much at the party. Dustin let me stay in his room. There was nothing sexual between us.”

  Her body seemed to sag. “Well, that's disappointing.” She transferred back to her own bed.

  “Not hardly,” I grumbled under my breath.

  “Supposedly, he's an ace in the sack.”

  “Assholes usually are.”

  “But anyway, do you have a boyfriend?” She perked up again.

  Discomfort snaked its way from my stomach to my chest. An image of Bobby bucking between Theresa's thighs flashed through my mind, and I closed my eyes to push it back. I wanted him. I wanted him to be my boyfriend. That's the only reason why I was here in the first place. That possibility felt like it was quickly slipping away, though. Maybe it had never been in my grasp to begin with. Perhaps I had been too naive, trying to force something that was never there.

  I thought back to when we first met. Those eyes. He looked at me with fascination...like a guy who was interested in a girl. It hadn't lasted long, though. Once he got with Christine, the excited glow in his eyes for me dulled. I hadn't seen it return since.

  “Earth to Brenna.” Leonor bent to catch my gaze, her long curly brown hair swaying into my field of vision.

  “Oh, sorry.” I shook my head. “No. No boyfriend.”

  “Me neither. Being single is far more fun. Especially when you're in college.” She waggled her eyebrows at me, and despite my morose mood, I couldn't help but grin.

  “Let me guess,” I snorted, “you'd change your tune if it was Dustin Nikoli.”

  “Who knows?” She shrugged, looking thoughtful for a moment before snapping back to. “But let me guess, there's someone you like.”

  “Everyone likes someone.” I rolled my eyes. “It's human nature to have a crush.”

  “Someone you want to be with. Does he go to this college?”

  I gnawed on my answer. The question was easy enough to respond to. Yes, Bobby went to the same college. That wasn't what I was asking myself, though. After everything that had gone on—after watching him have sex with another woman and now the dismissive behavior—was Bobby really someone I wanted to be with?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Being in a sorority never seemed like fun until Leonor invited some of her sisters over to hang out in our room one night. They were an interesting group of girls. The type that would have been popular in high school. The kind of girls I would have watched from afar and secretly loathed. Yet in this new environment known as college, they were different. Friendlier, somehow. More inviting and less threatening.

  I had expected to be alienated when I first walked into our room and saw them sitting there, but Leonor had introduced me immediately, and they had welcomed me into the fold with open arms.

  Boys were the topic of discussion. Most of the ones they talked about, I'd never heard of. Dustin Nikoli's name came up, and when it did I cringed internally.

  “Brenna went to high school with him.” Leonor flicked her wrist at me, her expression pinching slightly in jealousy.

  “You did?” Holly snapped her head around to face me. The other two looked at me with interest, but it was a lot more tempered.

  “Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my neck.

  “What was he like? I know he was captain of everything.”

  Captain of the assholes, I thought but dare not say it. I had a feeling that these girls would like me a lot less if I put down their lust object.

  It was better to keep my responses brief and hope that they'd lose interest and move onto another topic. This one wasn't interesting to me. “Yeah, he was.”

  “Were you two close?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Holly sagged. “Well, that's disappointing.”

  “Isn't that a good thing, Holly?” Georgina lightly slapped her friend on top of her leg with the back of her hand.

  “Why would that be a good thing?” Confusion was plain on Holly's heart-shaped face. She looked almost like a doll, the way that her tight blonde curls framed her freckled cheeks.

  “Because that's one less rival for you.” Georgina smirked.

&
nbsp; “But that doesn't cut out you three.” Her eyes dashed from one friend to the other, and they all grinned.

  “Luckily for you, I'm out of the rival pool.” I threw my hands up as if I could back away from them despite my seated position on my bed.

  “Why is that?” Georgina's head bobbed at me. Her straight dark hair stayed perfectly in place. The most tomboyish of the group, she was also the most intimidating. Her eyes were a deep mocha color. Her lips thin lines. Her voice sounded two octaves lower than it should have. She was the girl you went to if other girls were causing you trouble. She was the girl you didn't want to piss off.

  “He's just not my type.” I squirmed slightly under her gaze. While the other girls had been warm to me from the beginning, she seemed a bit wary.

  “Of course he is.” Melody rolled her eyes. “He's everyone's type.”

  “Maybe he's not.” Georgina cast a sideways glance at Melody before returning her attention to me. “What is your type, exactly?”

  I wrung my hands together, feeling the pressure of having all of their eyes upon me. “Well,” I hesitated. An image of Bobby burned into my mind. Not Bobby with Theresa, but the Bobby I had fallen in love with. His wide, warm grin. The way he looked when he stood on my front door stoop every time he'd ever come over to my house. “I like guys that...aren't on sports teams,” was all that I could manage to squeak out.

  “So you like scrawny guys.” Georgina frowned as if that was the wrong answer.

  “Hey, there are some sexy nerds out there.” Leonor pointed at her. “Like Paul Locke.” Another name I didn't know.

  “Paul Locke isn't scrawny, though.”

  I sighed inwardly as their attention drifted away from me. Talking about both Dustin and Bobby made me uncomfortable. At that point, I wasn't even sure which one made me more uncomfortable.

  Once the talk of boys died down, they began discussing the upcoming fundraiser, a pie-throwing event to benefit children's literacy. They complained about how the sorority was making the freshman volunteer to be at the receiving end of said pies.