by Mia Storm
“Yeah.”
I’m a little surprised I care enough to have a lump in the pit of my stomach on her behalf. I was pretty wary about the whole roommate situation when I got to Berkeley last fall. I’m not a big sharer, so Zoey was a perfect friend. She was generally too hung up on her own shit to dig too deeply into mine. Aimee annoyed the living hell out of me most of first semester. She’s just way the fuck too peppy. But I’ve gotten used to her and she’s turned out to be a good friend.
When she gets back from the bathroom in her jammies, she flips off the overhead light and we all pile onto my bed, because it has a better view of the TV. Nate props my pillows against the wall and wedges himself in between Aimee and me. He throws an arm around each of us, then leans his forehead into hers. “He’s a dick. You can do better.”
She smiles a little and lifts a hand to squeeze Nate’s, where it rests on her shoulder. “Not sure that’s true, but thanks.”
He turns and smiles at me, and my heart warms when I see the compassion in his eyes. He really can be a good guy when he wants to be. I should give him more credit.
He gives me a long kiss, then fast forwards through the rest of the previews.
The movie starts and we lean back against the wall and watch. We’re barely through the opening credits and I’m already struggling to keep my eyes open. Nate pulls my head to his shoulder and fingers my hair, and it’s so soothing that a few minutes into the movie, I feel myself losing the battle. It’s been a stressful week. I tuck my legs under me and settle my body heavier against Nate’s. He kisses my forehead and continues to stroke my hair.
I decide to close my eyes for just a minute, just a quick power nap. Then I’ll be good to go.
∞
I’m aware that the place I am right now—in Caiden’s bed, my legs twisted into his and his soft breath in my hair—is just a dream. It’s one of those super realistic dreams, though. Probably because, when I really was in this place, it was the happiest I’ve been in my life. But I’m hovering on that edge between wake and sleep, with just enough awareness to know that it can’t be real. Caiden’s gone.
I want to stay here, wrapped in Caiden’s warm, earthy scent forever. But the sound of someone knocking on the door pushes me off that razor’s edge from asleep to awake. I try to open my eyes and tell them to go away, but I’m still asleep enough that neither my eyes nor mouth will work.
The knocking grows louder and picks up in pace. I roll on my back and throw an elbow over my face, trying to hold onto Caiden for just a few more minutes.
The muffled sound of someone groaning cuts through my fantasy.
My eyes snap open and I sit up. All of a sudden, my heart is pounding in my throat.
The room is pitch black, but what I instantly know is the sound’s not someone knocking on the door. It’s something banging against the wall. The sound of creaking starts keeping time with the banging. There’s a moan and the rustling of sheets.
I reach for the flashlight on the shelf next to my bed and click it on, shining it in the direction of the sound.
My roommate is on her back in her bed, her flannel PJ pants dangling from one ankle and my sweaty boyfriend bouncing between her legs.
Nate stops pumping and his eyes flash in the light like a raccoon caught raiding the neighbor’s garbage can. He jumps off her, his latex sheathed hard-on glistening in the flashlight with my roommate’s cum.
“Well, at least you were safe,” I spit.
Nate yanks his boxers up his thighs and puts his dick away, condom and all.
I throw the covers off and bolt for the door, but Nate lunges for me. He gets ahold of my arm and spins me around. “It’s not what you think, babe.”
“That’s seriously what you’re going with? Because I’m pretty sure I just saw you riding my roommate like the fucking Energizer Bunny!”
“Oh, God,” I hear Aimee whimper. There’s a flurry of movement in the fringes of light as she scrambles to get dressed. “Blaire, please. It was just…we…” Her mouth keeps moving but words stop coming. She finally gets her pants up and tied and moves a step closer, into the light. Tears glisten on her cheeks. “You can’t tell Erik.”
Rage boils up inside me and it’s a damn good thing for both of them it’s a flashlight in my hand rather than something sharp. “You know what, Aimee? Fuck you.”
I turn for the door again, but Nate grabs me and pins my back against it with a hand on each shoulder.
“Babe, please,” he says. “Just hear me out.”
I yank out of his grip and huff a derisive laugh, then flip the switch next to the door for the overhead light and cross my arms over my chest. “Okay. I’m listening.”
He squints in the sudden bright light, his eyes flashing to Aimee and back. “We didn’t mean for it to go there. She was just sort of…fucked up, and we started talking during the movie and—”
“And you thought you’d fuck her better?” I cut in. “Is that your version of kissing her booboo?”
“It’s my fault,” Aimee interjects. “Erik is the only boy I’ve ever been with. I love him so much, and now he’s just…gone. I needed to…feel something I guess.”
I cut her a glare. “So you decided to feel my boyfriend.”
She drops to her bed and buries her face in her hands.
“You know what? You can have him,” I say, throwing a hand at Nate. “I’m done with him.”
With the words comes an unexpected but overwhelming sense of liberation. The rush is intense. My skin pebbles into goose bumps. My fingers, toes, and lips tingle as if they’ve been asleep for a very long time and are just coming back to life. Tears suddenly stream in a river down my face.
And the nagging ache that’s lived in my right hip for the last year flares into the searing pain I felt that night a year ago.
It takes a second for the reason for my body’s intense reaction to click in my head. Aimee just did me a huge favor. I’ve spent a year in a relationship with a boy who raped me, and it was slowly killing me. Dampening all my senses. Binding my spirit. Crushing my soul.
I go to Aimee and give her a hug. “If you want to finish fucking him, I’m going to leave for a few minutes.” I draw back and look at her. “A half hour or so? Does that sound okay?”
“Oh, God,” she sobs when she realizes I’m mocking her.
I turn to Nate and kiss him on the mouth. “And when I come back, I want you the fuck out of my life.”
I step through the door and take the stairs down to the first floor. I walk out into the cool night, find a bench along the footpath to the lecture halls. I lay on my back, staring up at the stars. They rush down on me in a shower of sparks and make me dizzy, so that even as tears stream into my ears, I’m laughing. The moon hangs low in the sky, a narrow crescent turned on its side like a smile.
I smile back as I soar with the cosmos. Because for the first time in a long time, I feel free.
Chapter 24
Caiden
Hannah is laying on the couch, her feet on the armrest and her head in my lap. She’s reading an advanced copy of a book she’s apparently not enjoying, based on the hint of a cringe that’s been brushing over her features off and on for the last half hour.
I channel surf instead of telling her not to waste her time, because it’s her job. Her mom hired her as a literary reviewer for one of the fashion magazines she edits after Hannah completed her PhD in December. She also contributes short stories under a pseudonym to several literary magazines. She gets paid peanuts for both, but she loves it. I know her parents send her money every month to cover our expenses. I also know they never come here because they hate that she’s shacking up with a child molester. But Hannah and I never talk about it.
I gave up my apartment in East Overton at the first of the year, partly because I couldn’t afford to keep it and partly because Hannah hated sleeping there. Only because Hannah begged, her mom has hooked me up with a few freelance editing gigs, but they’re sporadic and they don’t pay much.
I felt like keeping my apartment was an indulgence. It just made sense to consolidate, since we’d basically been living together since August anyway.
“How long have we known each other, Caiden?” she asks absently, her eyes still sweeping left to right across the page of her book.
“I don’t know.” I stop on The Big Bang Theory. “Maybe three years.”
“And we’ve been sleeping together periodically for most of that.”
It’s not a question, but I nod.
She swings around and sits up next to me, setting her book on the coffee table. “And for the last five months, we’ve been living together…sharing expenses, chores, our bed.”
I set down the remote on the arm of the couch and look at her. “It feels like you’re going somewhere with this.”
She holds my gaze. “Where is this ultimately headed? Where do you see our relationship in a year?”
“I don’t know, Hannah. A lot of shit can happen in a year.” My head spins with all the shit that’s happened in the last year.
“Point conceded. But if you could choose your own path for the next five years, what would it be?”
This is new. Hannah’s never asked me to define what we’re doing. Which is what’s made it so easy to do. Because when I have to think too much about it, I realize how much this isn’t what I want. After whatever was happening between Blaire and I, this feels vapid.
But I’m not a good person. Maybe vapid is all I deserve.
“I haven’t thought that much about it.”
“Marriage? Children? What do you want, Caiden?”
I feel the vein in my temple start to pulse as a searing headache forms behind my right eye. “I have no fucking clue, Hannah! My life is a disaster that I’m not sure can be saved. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
She brings her legs up Indian-style on the couch and turns to face me. She takes my hand and hooks her fingers loosely into mine. “I think you’re getting hung up because we’re talking in abstracts. I’ll give you something more concrete. Do you love me, yes or no?”
Fuck. “Hannah, I don’t know.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“Hannah—”
“If I were to ask you to marry me right now, what would your answer be, yes or no?”
“Jesus.” I rub my throbbing eye, wondering why the hell she thinks she’d want to marry me even if I said yes. “I’d have to think about it.”
She nods and unpins me from her gaze. “I guess that’s the answer, then. If you were ever going to love me, it would have happened by now.”
“You can’t tell me you love me,” I say as she gains her feet. I’ve given her absolutely no reason to.
She looks down at me a long moment. “There are parts of you I love, Caiden. You’re compassionate and caring; you have a huge heart and an old soul; and when you aren’t trying to prove to yourself that you don’t deserve love, you give it really well. I guess I’d started thinking that might be enough.” She shakes her head and goes to the fridge. “You want anything?”
“No. Thanks.” I feel like I’ve failed as a human being. Again. I’ve never done anything but disappoint the people who dare to try to love me.
She comes back with an open Heineken and takes a long swallow as she sinks into the cushions next to me. “So, here’s how I see it. If you’re not ever going to get over her, you have no choice but to go after her.”
When I realize what she’s saying, my heart starts to pound in my throat.
“Hasn’t she turned eighteen already?” she asks.
“Yesterday.”
And now I understand why we’re having this conversation today. Hannah knows why I spent most of yesterday just drunk enough to keep the memories at bay.
“If she’d extended the restraining order,” she says, “wouldn’t someone have had to notify you?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s been a year. She’s moved on—started dating someone her own age. If she’s managed to make a normal life for herself, it would be supremely selfish for me to show up expecting her to drop everything and come running back to me now that she’s legal. I’m still eight years older than her. That hasn’t changed.”
She takes a long draw off her beer and we both stare mindlessly at the TV for the next several minutes until the end of the show.
She leans across me and takes the remote from the armrest, clicking off the TV. “Do you remember my theory on obstacles?”
It was her obstacle speech that inspired me to go after Blaire in the first place…which ended with Blaire publicly humiliated and me in jail.
“Did she love you?” she asks when I don’t answer her obstacle question.
I shrug. She said she did, but teenage emotions are tricky to pin down. “It felt like it,” I answer honestly. “At the time.”
“What if she still does, and she’s sitting home thinking the same thing you are—that you’ve moved on and you’re better off without her.” She smiles a little sadly. “Which, by the way, I would have to agree with, but that’s just my opinion.”
I huff out a laugh, but the moment passes, and as my smile fades, I’m left with an aching need in the pit of my stomach. “She’s with someone her own age,” I repeat, trying to keep my head on straight.
“So are you.” She lifts a hand to my face and brushes her fingers along the beard I’ve grown since she and I started doing whatever it is we’re doing. “Maybe it’s time to stop hiding behind it.”
My heart thuds in my chest.
What if she’s right?
Chapter 25
Blaire
When I went back to my room at dawn, Nate was gone. So was Aimee. I have no idea if they finished fucking or just went their separate ways. I showered, then packed as much as would fit in my Mini and left the rest for Aimee to deal with.
Storm clouds roll in as I drive, and by the time I hit the valley, it’s pouring—probably the last spring rain before everything dries up and turns brown for the summer. My tires suck, apparently, and I have to slow way down when I start skidding in the puddles. The rain makes what’s normally a three hour drive into four.
I bypass my exit on the highway, same as I did at Christmas break, and drive straight to East Overton. But as I pull into Caiden’s parking lot, I’m suddenly terrified.
It’s been a year. What if he’s found someone society deems more appropriate to love? The blonde looked like she was in her twenties. What if he’s in a serious relationship? What if he takes one look at me and wonders what the hell he was thinking?
I take a deep breath. Then another. Finally, as the raindrops begin to slow, I step out of my overflowing car and march up the stairs to Caiden’s door.
I knock.
No answer. But I can hear a TV inside.
After a minute, I knock again.
The door flies open and an old Hispanic man with a belly so round it sags out from under his dirty T-shirt answers.
“Qué?”
I glance quickly around to be sure I have the right apartment. “Did Caiden Brenner move?”
He shakes his hands at me like windshield wipers. “No Inglés.”
I wipe my palms on my skirt and look around again. At the other end of the parking lot are a bunch of guys. Probably the same ones who wanted me to come out and play when I was stalking Caiden before Christmas.
“I’m sorry,” I tell the man in the door, then spin and skip down the stairs.
I’m not even halfway to the group when one of them sees me coming. He starts strutting toward me and his hombres follow.
“Pretty white girl be slummin’ it? Tired of missionary and come lookin’ for a real live bad boy to satisfy you, Peaches?”
I stand my ground. “Do you know what happened to the guy who used to live in that apartment?” I ask, pointing back the way I came.
“The Professor?” He grins, showing me his gold teeth. Yep, same guy. “I might got some information.” He starts unbuckling his
belt. “What the pretty girl willin’ to give me for it?”
“I need to know where he went.”
Desperation causes the words to come out a little choked, which only spurs Gold Teeth on. “You ever suck Mexican dick, Peaches?” He grins. “We’re spicy. You like it.”
He’s got his junk half out of his pants when one of his hombres comes up behind him and smacks him upside the head.
“Why you always gotta be a fuckin’ asshole, Manuel? Nobody want to see your fuckin’ junk.” He steps around Manuel and looks at me. “The Professor, he moved some shit outta here around New Years. Otis let us take the rest of the shit he left in there. Ain’t none of us seen him or his sweet blonde since then.”
“Who would know where he went? Maybe someone in the office? Otis?”
“Ain’t no office. Otis runs the place when he ain’t fuckin’ passed out. He don’t know nothin’.”
I take a deep breath to settle the acid rising up my throat. I look around the lot for Caiden’s car, knowing I’m not going to find it.
I turn back to the guy. “Was the blonde here a lot? Before he moved out?”
He gives a loose, whole body shrug. “None of them been around much since last summer.”
“But when he was here, so was her fine ass,” Gold Teeth interjects with a shit-eating grin, grabbing his junk, which he’s thankfully put away.
My stomach sinks through my shoes. They’ve been together since last summer. Probably since he got out of jail. “Thanks.”
I go back to my car and stare at my phone for about a year before working up the nerve to dial. I throw my phone into the passenger door when the message says Caiden’s number has been disconnected.
There’s only one thing I can think to do. Out of sheer desperation, I drive to Sierra State. If it means finding Caiden, I’m willing to face Professor Duncan again. I knock on his door, but it’s locked and there’s no answer.
The next door down the hall is open. The nameplate next to the door says Dr. Gerald Garret. I stick my head in and find an older guy, balding with horn-rimmed glasses, sitting behind the desk. It looks like he’s falling asleep over some papers he’s reading.