by Dahlia Adler
“Fine, we can listen to your crap as far as Great Bend, and then we’re switching over,” I concede as I slam the trunk shut on our stuff. “And your nails had better already be polished because you’re not doing them on my dashboard again. Five hours is way too long to tolerate that smell.”
“Four and a half,” Vic corrects me, but she wiggles her fingernails to show that they’re already perfectly purple.
It’s definitely going to be closer to five, but it is a Sunday afternoon and there hasn’t been a freak snowstorm in at least two weeks, so I cross my fingers as I get behind the wheel and pray that Vic’s right.
In fact, she is: almost exactly four and a half hours later, I pull into the parking lot at the Golden Motel, which is more of a moldy beige, really. Whatever. It’s after eleven, I’ve just driven almost five hours after a full shift at Joe’s, and somewhere around Abilene it registered with me that Dev made this exact same trip, all alone, just to see me.
We haven’t spoken since the day everything happened, except for one text from him wishing me a Merry Christmas. (If having Sheila Black nearly set half the park on fire with her Christmas lights counts as merry, then sure.) I didn’t answer it, and he didn’t try again. I thought about texting him to wish him a Happy New Year, but what’s the point? Too much has happened and none of it went right. I’m not meant to focus on anything other than figuring out how to get out of Charytan, with Vic by my side, and the night at the motel proved that.
It’s been a month since Christmas.
As we pick up our key and then carry our stuff into our room, I can’t help imagining bumping into him at the vending machine the way Vic did at Southeastern, even though he lives locally and obviously has no reason to be at a motel. The odds of him even being at KU tomorrow are slim to none, considering there are a billion Admitted Senior Jayhawk Days and he probably won’t even go to any of them since his mom teaches Bio here and he’s been to campus a zillion times.
“You know you get a look on your face when you’re thinking about Dev,” Vic informs me as she fishes her toiletry bag out of her suitcase. “I thought you said you didn’t think he’d be here.”
“I don’t. That’s what I was thinking of,” I admit. “And it’s a good thing. Like you said, we can be on the same campus next year without running into him at all. It’s not like I’m going to take any of the same classes as a pre-med.”
“I still can’t get over how you’ve gone from ‘I’d never even consider to KU’ to planning your schedule here next year,” she muses, pulling her long, thick hair into a ponytail. “You haven’t even seen the campus yet.”
“Oh, shut it. You know KU ended up being far cheaper than anything else, especially after that scholarship.”
“And?”
I grin. “And the fact that it’s about four hours further than my parents will ever drive doesn’t hurt.”
“Not exactly what I meant,” she says, laughing, “but whatever works. You mind if I jump in the shower first?”
I gesture for her to go ahead, and lie back on one of the beds with tomorrow’s itinerary in hand, in addition to the course catalog. I’d narrowed down my major to either English or History or Sociology or possibly PoliSci, and I can’t help drooling over all the possibilities for electives, including ASL, or even study abroad. The options here are pretty amazing, and I want to kick myself for ignoring them for so long.
Before Vic even gets out of the shower, I pass out completely, dreaming of the Eiffel Tower standing smack in the middle of Charytan, a mythical giant casting a massive shadow over nothing but rubble.
“I can’t get over the size of this place,” I whisper to Vic as we turn onto yet another street full of huge buildings and neat patches of grass. We’ve seen multiple gyms, streets full of fraternity and sorority houses (which of course made Vic squeal like a child, though I’m not even sure if she’s still interested or if it’s just out of habit), and tons of campus transportation. The place is so freaking big they have their own buses.
“If everyone else can learn their way around, so can we,” she whispers back, nodding toward a hulking frat guy who’s practically busting the seams of his Jayhawks sweatshirt. “If that guy can get himself to class, so can we.”
I smother a laugh behind my hand. Her words are oddly comforting, although hearing her be the voice of reason still messes with my head. I don’t know how it became such that she’s the level-headed one with an actual sense of direction while I’m barely hanging on and routinely obsessing about a boy, but it’s been like months of the Twilight Zone.
The student ambassador continues his whole thing, but it’s been forty-five minutes and I’m itching for lunch to start already. Plus we saw the library for all of two seconds and I have big plans to go back there and inhale the scent of every single book while Vic meets with someone from the Visual Arts program. A brief memory of Dev’s comment about licking books in the library flashes through my brain and I impatiently push it out, turning to Vic to change the subject. “So do you still think you’ll do the whole sorority thing?”
She shrugs. “Depends on how it fits with my program, I guess, but I like that it’s an option. Checking out a couple of the houses is on my schedule after my meeting with the Visual Arts guy.”
Of course it is. Of course Vic has a hundred things planned for today, and I’m not doing a damn thing but sniffing books and thinking about a guy who pretty much hates me, and also happens to be about ten minutes away. The temptation to take my Vic-less time and use it to show up at his door and both beg for forgiveness and demand an apology is strong, but fortunately, there’s still a little self-respect floating around somewhere near my spleen.
That doesn’t stop me from imagining scenarios for the next fifteen minutes, even though none of them go well. Finally, it’s time for the pre-lunch presentation, and I practically mow down my fellow future Jayhawks in my mad dash toward the last barrier between me and sustenance.
After the presentation, we gather to get food and take seats, and Vic and I quickly learn that everyone around us is from Chicago. “Why would you come to school in Kansas?” I can’t help asking.
The girl across from me, whose peeling name sticker identifies her as Simone, pokes at the salad on her plate. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than school near me,” she says, finally forking a cucumber.
“Same.” The guy next to her takes a huge bite of his sandwich. His name tag is completely covered up by the huge hooded zip-up hanging only slightly open over his flannel button-down. “Also, fuckin’ Jayhawks, man,” he adds, spitting crumbs. “Rock Chalk.”
“You guys are from Western Kansas? Don’t you all go to K-State or something?” asks another guy, Charlie, whose got both the build and appetite of an athlete. “Isn’t that, like, a rule?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” I say conspiratorially. “We’re mavericks.”
“You’re from Dallas?” Charlie asks, furrowing his thick brows.
“What? No—”
“What are you guys studying?” Simone asks, obviously impatient with Charlie.
“Rae’s prelaw,” Vic declares, with not a little amount of pride, even though it’s not an actual major, “and I’m doing Visual Art.”
“I am too!” Simone says excitedly, hinting at having a personality for the first time all morning. “I’m doing painting. I just submitted my portfolio last week. What about you?”
While Vic and Simone fall into their own conversation that doesn’t really allow for any of us to keep up, I halfheartedly listen to Charlie and No-Name go on about the Jayhawks while trying to figure out exactly how I want to spend the rest of the afternoon. The library seems a little too fraught with memories right now. I know I could go to a KU museum, but I’m just not in the mood. I’d wander, but even without snow it definitely feels like January outside.
“Right, Rae?”
I snap my head up, realizing Vic’s just called my name and apparently I was supposed to be listening to th
at conversation after all. “Sorry, what?”
“I was just saying that you sat in on classes when we visited other schools.”
“Oh, yeah, It was fun,” I say half-heartedly, because of course all I can think of now is the admiration I pretended not to have for Dev when he aced that question in the genetics class at Barnaby State.
“I couldn’t believe it when she went to that class all by herself at Southeastern,” Vic continues to Simone. “Like, who even does that? I would’ve been terrified about being called on. Wouldn’t you?”
“Definitely,” Simone affirms. She’s probably just saying it to agree with Vic, but it sounds genuine enough and it makes me sit up a little straighter. “Did you get called on?”
“Nope, thankfully,” I admit, “but it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been, I don’t think. It was pretty interesting stuff. Not hard to understand or anything.”
“Yeah, for you, maybe.” Vic rolls her eyes at Simone. “Rae’s, like, top three in our class. It’s ridiculous.”
“Are you really?” Simone looks mystified.
“It’s not a big deal,” I mumble. Vic’s always been like this, prouder of my academic achievements than my own mom. It gets embarrassing.
But, I realize as I stare at the food I’ve barely touched on my plate despite having been ravenous less than an hour earlier, it’s also true. I am top three in our class, and I worked my ass off for it. I also held down a job, paid for my own car, paid for some of my family’s bills, and got a solid scholarship to KU. I do have a lot to be proud of, and I’m sitting here all miserable, my first time at what’s probably going to be my home for the next four years, because of a fucking boy?
“I gotta go.” I jump up, startling both Vic and Simone, and wrap my sandwich in a napkin. “Do you mind if I skip the res hall thing?” I ask Vic. “I trust your judgment. Take pictures on your phone.”
“Are you sure? Is everything okay?”
“Great,” I assure her, gathering up my stuff. “I’ll see you after your meetings, ’kay?”
“Okay,” she says slowly, obviously concerned, but then Simone pulls her back into conversation and I go back out into the wintry day, to take in the library and its thousands of books, to memorize every inch of Wescoe Hall—home of the English department—possible, to remember what it was like to be that girl who lived for nothing but going to college.
Which, of course, is exactly when I bump smack into that fucking boy.
We both freeze. What else can you do? Keep walking like the other one doesn’t exist? Pretend we’ve never spent hours talking and laughing and texting? Act like we’ve never seen each other completely naked, like he’s never suspended himself over me with lean, ropy arms, our eyes locking for one brief instant as if trying to confirm this was real before he lowered himself to press his mouth to mine so intensely it was like he was trying to leave the imprint of my body in the mattress?
He blinks. Opens and closes his mouth a few times before he finally speaks. “How is that you?”
“How isn’t it?” I say automatically. I yank my Rogue curl as evidence and then let go, leaving my hand suspended in mid-air for a moment as it springs back up. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? Dropping something off for my mom. What are you doing here?”
I gesture up at the colorful banner overhead. “Admitted Senior Jayhawk Day. I’m an admitted senior Jayhawk.”
“You.”
“Me.”
“You said—”
“I know.” I readjust the strap of my bag on my shoulder and slip my hands into my pockets, gripping the lining with cold fingertips. “I changed my mind.” I thrust one fist weakly into the air. “Rock Chalk Jayhawk.”
“So you’re coming here?”
“It’s not about you,” I say quickly, afraid he’s gotten the wrong idea. “I mean, it’s a big school. You’re pre-med. We probably won’t even see each other.” I don’t like the words any better than when Vic first said them, but they seem like the right ones here.
He scratches behind his ear. “I wouldn’t want that. I mean, I don’t think I’d like…not seeing you. I know I wouldn’t,” he amends, dropping his hand to his side.
“That’s not really how it sounded the last time we talked.” Looking at him standing in front of me now, his brown cheeks just a little rosy from the cold, a black knit cap pulled down to his thick brows, his eyes curious and friendly, it’s hard to believe he’s the same guy who made me feel like a life-ruining slut three months earlier. But the words are burned into my brain; I couldn’t forget them if I tried. Which I had.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” he rasps, his gloved hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I didn’t know…” His words drift on the wind, lonely and waiting.
“Didn’t know that coming to see me would be such a mistake?” I say coolly when moments pass without him filling in the blank.
He mumbles something under his breath, his eyes on the ground.
“Sorry,” I say snidely, “I didn’t catch that.”
He looks up at me and locks his eyes on mine. “I said I didn’t know it could be like that.” He swallows so hard it’s audible, even with the wind whipping around us. “I didn’t know you could feel lucky for getting to hold a girl’s hair back while she pukes into the bushes. I didn’t know you could look at a girl and think, ‘Jesus, I could fall so hard for you if you’d let me.’”
He might as well have hit me with a mallet. “But you—”
“I was a fucking idiot, Reagan. Everything I said—”
“That you turn into the world’s shittiest person around me?” I’ve been carrying that one in my brain, my heart, for months. There’s nothing worse than hearing that you make someone’s life worse. Nothing. “That you don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you?”
He scrubs a hand over his face, and when his eyes meet mine again they’re soft, sad. “The thing is, I do know what the fuck is wrong with me, and why I lied to everyone and hooked up with you when I shouldn’t have: because I couldn’t not. I couldn’t not know what it was like to kiss you. For a while I could resist it, because it felt so…inevitable. I could be patient, because in my head it was just a matter of time. But then suddenly it wasn’t, and you were really driving away, and not coming to KU…” He exhales sharply before continuing.
“I am a selfish asshole, but there you have it. I was—am—crazy about you. And it made me do some really stupid things. And you know what makes me even more terrible?” He smiles grimly. “For as awful as I feel for everything that happened, I still think it was all worth it.
“I’ve been friends with Sara for three years,” he continues. “All my other friends like her, my parents love her…she should be the perfect girl for me. But I’ve spent three years waiting to feel for her what I felt after three seconds of meeting you. And I stupidly thought, ‘The perfect time will come when we’re meant to be more, and we’ll know it, and I’ll kiss her, and it’ll be magic.’ I thought it would be homecoming, or New Year’s, or prom, but month after month, it never was. And then I opened the door to my room and saw you standing there in the parking lot, in the rain, and I just thought, ‘This. This is what the perfect time feels like. It’s not about the milestone; it’s about the person.’ And—”
I throw my arms around his neck and pull him down toward me, pressing his mouth to mine. Even as we’re talking about perfect timing and this is decidedly not it, it also sort of is. Because it can’t not be. Because it’s Dev, and me. Because he’s supposed to be at school, and I’m supposed to be at lunch, or not here at all. Because, because, because.
I don’t know how long it is before he pulls away to catch his breath, but he doesn’t go far. His hands are on my cheeks, his forehead pressed to mine, his breath gentle puffs of air on my lips. My mind is a swirling mass of gray matter, but after a few moments I finally gather my thoughts, because I know that as simple and easy as this feels, life just i
sn’t that kind.
“What if I don’t go here?” I ask, because I have to. “I haven’t accepted. I’m just visiting. What if—”
“I don’t care, Rogue.” He takes the white curl and twirls it gently between his fingertips. “I mean, I care—obviously I’d love to see you every day, and I think this is the right place for you whether I’m here or not—but I don’t care. I drove five hours to see you once and I’ll do it again and again and again if I have to. Just…I want to be with you. Wherever you decide to go, I’ll come find you.”
At those words, I burrow into his chest and squeeze him so tightly, I nearly choke the life out of him. He actually has to disentangle himself from my grip, though he laughs lightly as he does it. “Is that a yes?”
I open my mouth to say yes when I realize that once again, I’m jumping the gun. “Can it be? What about Sara and your other friends? Do I have to be some dirty little secret until September?”
Dev looks so confused that for a second I wonder if he’s forgotten that I know all about her. Then he narrows his eyes. “I realize I was a jerk, but you don’t think I continued to keep you a secret after we slept together, do you?”
I blush and look away, because yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. Not because I think he’s evil, but because it’s admittedly what I probably would’ve done in his shoes.
“Well, I didn’t. I told her.”
“You told her? About me?” I squeak.
“I didn’t tell her your name or anything, but yeah, of course I told her. Shouldn’t I have?”
“I guess.” I purse my lips. “I’m kind of impressed. I don’t know that I could’ve done that.”
“Well, if it helps, she laughed at first.”
“She laughed?”
“She didn’t believe me,” he admits sheepishly. “Apparently the idea of my meeting a hot girl and getting laid is absolutely hilarious.”
I throw back my head and crack up; I can’t help it.
“You think that’s funny?”
“That obvious?”
“I did dream it all, didn’t I?” he mutters, and it’s just so cute I have to kiss him again.