“Shit.” I hiss it out low. “Is Bradshaw all right?” What the hell am I saying? Obviously, Bradshaw is not all right.
“Professor Bradshaw is in remission.” He pulls back his lips, and his double chin quivers with anger. “Cruise, this news involves you, and, unfortunately, not you alone.”
He slides an enlarged photo across the table and my blood runs cold with just one look.
It’s Kenny and me that day back in my classroom. Her sweater dips past her bottom, her legs curve around my back, perfectly pale. My face is buried in her neck, and I can still feel the pleasure coursing through my veins as if I were reliving it.
He slides another shot my way. The tower stares back at me with its long, erect neck, the bony structure of the globe. Then a zoomed shot. You can’t see Kenny, just my coat as I help her into the center of the steel-caged world.
“And this.” He slips me another picture of the tower, this time a close up of my face lost in ecstasy—Kenny’s long mane whipping over my neck. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”
I stare down at them—Kenny and I in these compromising positions—her beautiful hair, her feathered skin, those lips I’d die to cover with mine just one last time.
What I’d really like to say is, can I have these? I’d like to spread them over my bed—lay over them naked, frame them, replicate them, and wallpaper my new crappy room with a dizzying pattern of who we once were—all of our adventures surrounding me like an erotic kaleidoscope.
“Now that I’ve rendered you speechless”—he rasps his knuckles over his desk—“I’ve one other thing to show you.”
This time it’s a simple sheet of paper he slides over—the revised syllabus I made just for her.
Fuck.
“How did you get this?”
“A young lady dropped them by, early this afternoon.”
Kenny? But how would she take the pictures? Most likely Blair and I wouldn’t put it past her to riffle through Kenny’s things and steal what she needed. I hold up the syllabus as exhibit A.
“Cruise, I’m sorry to have to do this, but your brief teaching career has come to a rather ignoble demise. Not only that, but I’ve had to report my findings to the board. We’ve unanimously agreed—your fellowship has been revoked. You’ve been expelled from Garrison.”
His words come to me in snatches. The room warps in and out, and I’m ready to bang my head over the table in the most literal fucking sense because all of my bad luck has managed to come crashing around me at once. The funny thing is, none of this bullshit matters.
“I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, Dr. Barney.” I rise to my feet and take a breath.
“You don’t seem too broken up about it.”
“I’m not.” I press it out in a fit of honesty. “I lost the most important thing in my life last week—this is just a superficial wound in comparison.” The brevity of truth gives me pause. “I’m sorry if I’ve insulted you.”
“She asked me to give you this.” He hands me a small folded note.
I unravel it to find the words, Consider yourself played.
Friday afternoon, I manage to crawl out from under my mother’s watchful eye and head to the gym with the intention of tormenting every muscle in my body. I let her know I’m taking back the bed and breakfast. I’m ratcheting up the marketing to a whole new level and even suggested she air out those rooms because she can damn well expect more than a few guests. I plan on getting the financial cogs moving again. Maybe if I had more monetary stability in my life. Maybe then…
I wish I could I say I was over Kenny—nose to the wind, I’ll catch another bus and all that good to go bullshit, but she branded herself over my heart, my mind. She haunts my dreams, my waking hours. Kenny is the ghost, the one that got away. I have a feeling I’ll be wanting her, yearning for her long into my golden years until I take that eternal nap, and even then, I won’t be put out of my misery.
I get a text from Pen as I stroll into the gym.
It’s on like Donkey Kong. Alpha Sigma Phi tonight. See U there.
My stomach does a revolution.
Alpha Sigma Phi. That’s where it all started for Kenny and me.
Cal spots me as I walk into the weight room and heads over with a spring in his step. I bet he’s got a blowjob story I’m not going to believe.
“Long time no see,” he chirps.
“It’s on my calendar to beat the shit out of you,” I say, taking a seat on the Frankensteined workout equipment. I’m not really in the mood to confront him about what I saw that night at Delta.
“What the hell for?” He pops a foot up on the wheel and begins tying his shoe—his fucking shoe like it’s no big deal. It makes me feel like shoving mine right up his ass. “So, I got some news—Lauren says I passed the test.” He hikes his brows like this should mean something.
“What test?” I down my water bottle to keep from socking him in the nuts.
He ticks his head as though this were big news. “The ambush hookup, the lover’s limbo—how low can you go?” He holds his hands out like he’s about to fly away, and I wish he would. “You know, relationship test.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Not that I care. It’s not like I’m passing any relationship test anytime soon.
“Lauren. She sicced that hot girlfriend of yours on me, then watched me sweat it out. I turned her down flat, and Lauren jumped out of the fucking closet like a psychotic P.I. But it was cute. It means she loves me.”
My insides pinch to life. My face fills with heat as a surge of excitement races through my veins.
“Kenny said Lauren asked her to do her a favor,” I say it mostly to myself. “You think that was it?” My entire body feels light as a feather, and my heart detonates in me like a rapid-fire assault weapon.
“Probably.” He bobs his head like this were just another conversation—as if my entire existence didn’t just point right back to Kendall Jordan, the great love of my life. “So, it looks like I’ll be joining you on that unfortunate walk down the aisle, buddy.” He slaps me over the back, solid and secure, without any notion there was something amiss with our relationship this past week. “I nearly fell off the mattress when she asked, but who the hell am I to let a good thing go to waste?”
I look up at him startled.
“Congratulations.” I smile for the first time since Kenny left, and my heart soars from the effort. I bet she didn’t write that note either. “I gotta run.” I spike to my feet. “Do me a favor—ask Lauren to bring Kenny to Sigma Phi tonight. And whatever you do, don’t tell Kenny I’ll be there.” My feet fly to the door. I’m walking on air.
“Where you going?” Cal shouts with a wild look on his face.
“I’ve got to call someone about getting some windows fixed.”
20
Kendall
Forever
The night sky washes an unnatural shade of lavender in what I’ll always remember as the color of this spectacular heartbreak. The stars spray out their glory in number as if all the starry hosts were marshaled right over Alpha Sigma Phi. The evergreens shimmer a luminescent sage as if vying for my attention. It seems all of nature is peacocking—showing off its prowess, its inherent beauty that surrounds us like a song set to the tune of eternity. How anything could go so disastrously wrong in a world so beautiful astounds me. But it had. And now, I’m experiencing the horrific impact from the death plunge I unknowingly took. Cruise pushed our love off the sheer cliff of ecstasy, and left me crashing through the flames, cracking my skull open on the rocky shore each time I thought of him.
I don’t know why I expected anything different. I slid my heart across the table like it were a loaded gun, and Cruise blew a hole right through me with my own weapon. I’ve only my sheer stupidity to blame. I was so naïve to think it could have ever worked—that we conquered something so spectacular—that it existed at all.
I run my fingers over my neck. It’s still sore from picking at t
“There’s a beer inside with your name on it.” Ally links an arm with mine as we enter the frat party that essentially started it all. I suppose it’s fitting it’ll be my last here at Garrison. I missed classes all week and hung out at Ally’s dorm in Russell Hall. Not a soul there was a “loser.” According to Mom, Aunt Jackie is the loser for cheating on her poor husband. It turns out they’ve been in splitsville for almost a year.
Mom wanted to know why Cruise was at the bed and breakfast and I was at Ally’s. I guess he told her, his windows were in desperate need of repair, and that I was staying with friends, but she knew. Mom is an expert when it comes to crash landing a relationship. And when she boards that plane for California, I plan on being right there with her. This entire semester was a waste. I got an education I never bargained for—never wanted.
Bodies cram into the boxy fraternity, overwrought with blaring music and bimbos. Alpha Sigma Phi holds the slight scent of used socks and beer much like Pennington himself, and speak of the devil…
His hair glints in the light, shorn a little too close to his head, but he’s still safely tucked in his polo with the collar upturned, a white sweater lies tied over his shoulders, ensuring no one mistakes him for a gangbanger anytime soon.
“I hear my dad has this thing for your mom.” He nods as if it were everyday people left, cheated—staggered into new relationships like drunken toddlers.
“I wouldn’t know. How’s your mom?”
“Busy”—he looks as though he could puke on demand—“with the pool boy.”
“Ouch. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I’m sure it’ll be the box boy next week. She likes ’em young. Divorce is final in less than a month. So I guess there’ll be a celebration. You down for that?”
“Celebrating the end of a relationship? Sounds horrible.”
“You’re right.” Pen bows his head for a moment, and I reach over and hug him. I hold Pen a lot longer than anticipated until his chest heave beneath me. “I better take off. I see a skirt with my name on it,” he whispers, drifting into the crowd.
It’s only then I notice Ally’s gone, too.
I glance up, and a familiar-looking Adonis lights up the room from across the way.
He’s here. He’s coming in this direction, and everything in me wants to run but my body solidifies. The room warps, the music drags, and I feel-lightheaded as if I might pass out, right on the spot.
I spin around and look for someone to talk to, anybody…and there she is—Blair. I’d like to “talk” to her all right, with the working end of a sawed off shotgun. On second thought, she wasn’t too far off the mark. In fact, she was dead-on the bull’s-eye—Cruise was never that into me.
I take off into the crowd.
A swarm of girls coo as he fast approaches, and an entire demonic chant breaks out offering homage to Professor Elton.
“He’s got a rash on his balls the size of Wyoming,” I say, moving swiftly past their circle.
“Kenny,” he shouts over the music, but I pretend not to hear. Stupidly, I land myself in a corner near the refreshment table laden with an emphasis on booze and hard liquor. Something tells me I’ll need all the liquor I can get my hands on to wash this entire night—semester out of my memory, at least temporarily.
Ally was wrong. This stupid party is the last place I “need” to be.
I spin toward the door and bump into a brick wall of a chest.
He’s wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, my all-time favorite combo. He’s got a baseball cap pulled low over his head, and his dimples invert into twin black pools.
“Coke or Pepsi?” Cruise gives a playful smile, but there’s sorrow layered just beneath.
“I believe what you really want to ask is, in or out.” I peg him with a hard look because he’s never getting “in” again. “We both know damn well your only goal in life is getting laid. I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding an entire herd of girls willing to give it up for you.” And most of those at the same time.
Cruise softens. A marked sadness takes over his features as his chest pumps with an increased volume.
“I don’t want a herd of girls.” He swallows hard. “I only want you, Kenny.”
“Bullshit.” I race to get past him, but he catches me by the wrist. “Let go.”
“Not until we talk.” His eyes glow in this dim light and afford him an animalistic quality, too divinely exotic to ever be human. Just bearing witness to his flawless brand of beauty hurts me even deeper. I was just a joke to him, nothing but a notch on his bedpost.
“I’m not above biting, so kindly let the fuck go.” I belt the words out so loud, ten different heads turn in our direction.
Cruise holds his hands in the air like it’s a stickup.
“I’m done talking and listening.” I meant to scream it, but in truth, I’m losing steam. I see how handsome he is, that sweetness buried beneath the surface percolating, and I can’t believe we were nothing but a lie.
From over his shoulder I catch Blair gleam a wicked smile. She wraps herself in my misery like a fur-lined coat, a lush experience at my expense, supple to the touch.
“Kenny, we can work through this.” He says it so calm and solid it almost makes me believe him.
“There’s nothing to work through because I happen to know for a fact you think I’m repulsive and have ‘daddy issues.’ Oh wait—and that you wish you never asked me to marry you.”
Cruise dips in. “What are you talking about?”
“I heard you!” It roars from the deepest part of me. Cruise opened the Pandora’s box of grief I sealed off all my pain in, and now I’ve unleashed it like a missile right at the person I thought I loved—that I thought loved me.
“I would never say those things, let alone think them.” His features blink back with surprise, and his mouth rounds out as if he were reliving a memory. I caught him red-handed, and he knew it. “Are you talking about a conversation I had with my dad?” His head ticks back a notch.
“Yes. I was going to surprise you. I was coming to collect my morning kiss.” My voice breaks. “I heard you say—you said, you never loved me.” And there it is, the wound reopened, the acid poured in because the admission came from my own lips this time.
“Kenny…” His face contorts in pain. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about my ex-girlfriend, Blair.” His dimples blink like sirens trying to alert me to the severity of the situation. “Her mom called and wanted me to give it another try. I was just venting to my dad about it.”
I glance past him and pick up on the hurt on her face—the incredible heartbreak we were passing like a baton. But she relished in my misery. She wanted Cruise back and tried to drive herself between us. She pitted me against him, and I was too quick to jump to conclusions.
“Blair and I were together for years.” He steps into me, and I want to surrender to him. The sweet scent of his cologne begs for me to do it. “We dated. She never wanted to touch me. She said she wanted to save herself for marriage, and I respected that. I held out,” he says it low almost reluctant to admit it. “She cheated on me, apparently with a number of guys, and last summer I found out about it. Kenny—when I asked Blair to marry me, she never said yes. And I only asked because I thought that was the next logical step in our relationship. After that, I ended up hitting on everything that moved. It wasn’t until I met you that I realized two things.” He steps into me and picks up my hands. “One—that breaking it off with Blair was a very good thing. I never really loved her. And two, I wish could have held out a little longer and saved it all for you. I love you, Kendall. I’ll love you forever.”
My heart thumps wild in my chest at the prospect of Cruise wishing he had waited for me—loving me forever.
“I have a confession. There is one thing I was keeping from you.” I take a step in until we���re a breath away. “When my stepfather told me those lies about myself all those years ago, I wasn’t necessarily shutting out guys because I was afraid of turning into some prophesied slut.” I glance down at the floor then sweep over him slowly until our eyes lock. “Deep inside I knew there would be someone special out there, and I only wanted him to have me. When I met you, Cruise—I knew you were that person. I knew it that first night. Remember when you asked if I believed in love at first sight? Deep down, I loved you right then. So, I guess I do believe in love at first sight after all.”
“That makes two of us.” He warms me with a smile that widens without end. “As soon as I laid eyes on you, my thesis went out the window.”
“What exactly is your thesis?”
“The fallacy of love at first sight. Turns out, the only fallacy was my thesis itself. But I won’t be needing it anymore.” Cruise wraps his arms around my waist and pierces me with those eyes that shower me with affection in so many special ways. “Kendall Jordan, will you marry me?”
I can feel the words vibrate through his chest, the deep register of his voice sirens through me like a tuning fork.
“It’s Kenny to you.” I give the curve of a smile. “And yes, I would be honored to spend my life by your side.” I jump up on his hips, and he catches me beneath my knees as our lips crash into one another. Cruise lays his kisses over me with a soulful intensity. This is holy and right and something destined to happen right from the beginning. His tongue sweeps over mine, soft and aching. Cruise cleanses me with the fire from his mouth. This kiss begs forgiveness and thanks me for the start of something new, all at the same time. I can feel his desire growing for me, impeding my right thigh through his jeans, and a moan escapes my throat.
Cruise pulls back and cinches a forlorn smile. “I have something else to tell you.” A sigh depresses from him. It brushes over my neck with a hint of heartache. “I was expelled from Garrison.”
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