by Hazel Kelly
“Actually, I'm getting a breakfast sandwich,” he said, staring up at the menu. “An ex of mine turned me on to the chorizo, egg and cheese croissant. You should try one sometime. They're delicious.”
I sank back on my heels. “I bet.”
Carter leaned towards the counter to place his order with one of the staff, making a point to mention that it was to go.
Meanwhile, I tried to figure out how I'd stumbled into this parallel universe where a random stranger was flirting with me more than the guy I'd been hooking up with all semester.
“You want to do something this weekend?” I asked after I ordered my scone.
“Can't.”
I thought back to how much his tongue flapped for me last week and wondered how he could be so suddenly bankrupt of words. “Oh.” I stared down at my feet, trying to figure out if I'd said something wrong, done something wrong. “You ticked at me or something?”
“No,” he said. “Just tired.”
Tired of not calling me?!
“Don't take it personally.”
There was only one person in front of him before the cashier, and I was desperate to get a smile out of him before we parted ways. I leaned towards his ear and dropped my voice to a whisper. “I can't stop thinking about Valentine's Day,” I said, deciding against another joke about his meaty balls.
He pulled his wallet out. “How'd your quiz go, by the way?”
Since when did he give a fuck about my quiz? “Fine.”
“Good.” He handed over the money to pay for his sandwich, not even offering to buy my scone. Not that I needed or expected him to, but it seemed unusual.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He grabbed his to-go bag off the counter and turned towards me for the first time. “Why wouldn't I be?”
“I don't know,” I said. “You're just kind of acting like you don't even know me, and it's weirding me out.”
“I don't know you, Nina.”
What?! “Don't know me or don't want to know me?”
“I gotta run,” he said, stepping aside to make room for me at the register. “I'll see you around.”
I handed five bucks to the cashier without taking my eyes off him. “See me around?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a step backwards. “Oh, and Nina?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Just so you know, scones aren't a fucking food group.”
Yeah, well, just so you know, you're being a huge asshole right now.
That's what I should've said, anyway. But he was gone before I found the words.
Talk about a badbye.
T H I R T Y F O U R
- Carter -
Seeing Nina with that greaseball ruined my whole fucking day, which meant it was obviously time to call it quits.
After all, she clearly had no intention of changing her behavior, and I would come across as a jealous asshole if I even suggested it. Plus, I saw her around way too much with Logan dating Zoey to let things go sour.
Better to end on a high, take the nice memories, and move on than to stand by while she toyed with me until I didn't recognize myself anymore.
If anything, this had gone on too long already.
How was she ever going to learn that the other guys she was seeing were douches if I kept swooping in to save Valentine's Day and meet her sexual needs? She needed to learn how disappointing dating on a college campus could be through experience, and I didn’t want her associating that experience with me.
I cared about her too much.
Way too much.
Come to think of it, I should’ve just ended things at the coffee shop instead of treating her like shit.
She deserved better than that.
She also deserved to not have me break the bad news in public, though. Then again, maybe that would've been perfect since Romeo would've been there to cheer her up with his bad tattoos and his greasy hair. Fuckwad.
I grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge and sat down at my desk, determined to finish the paper I'd been working on all day, but as soon as I put my headphones on, I heard a knock at the door. “That better not be you again, Austin,” I said, pulling them off again and turning towards the sound. “I swear to God if you-” I went silent when Nina opened the door.
“Do you have a second?” she asked, her expression somber.
I pretended to check my watch. “I've got at least ten.”
She stepped in the room and closed the door, her green gloves squeezed in one hand.
Do not check her out. Do not check her out. “What's up?”
She stayed by the door, looking smaller than usual.
“If this can wait, I really need to finish this paper-”
“What the fuck was that this morning?” she asked, her eyes sharp.
“What?”
She swallowed. “I said, what the fuck was that this morning?”
I pushed my bottom lip out like I had no idea what she was talking about.
“You were a complete asshole to me.”
“Pretty sure I've always been an asshole, Nina. If you're only noticing that now, you have only yourself to blame.”
“Carter.”
I clenched my jaw.
“You're not an asshole. You're sweet and funny and-”
“Maybe when I'm trying to get in a girl's pants.”
She furrowed her brow. “What?”
I leaned back in my chair, stuck my legs out, and crossed my ankles. “You heard me.”
“So that was the real you this morning, was it? Because I was hoping the real you was the guy who showed up at my place on Valentine's Day.”
“Believe whatever you want to believe, babe.”
Her eyes turned down at the edges. “I don't get it. I thought we-”
“What? Had a connection?”
She squeezed her lips together.
“You knew what this was about from day one,” I said. “You made the rules yourself.”
“And you broke them.”
“I know.” I scratched the back of my head. “And I regret that.”
Her face grew pale.
“I should've respected you more.”
Her lips fell apart.
“I will from now on, though. Don't worry.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I'm saying this arrangement isn't working for me anymore,” I said, twisting my drink open. “I think we should see other people…exclusively.”
“What?”
“Do I really have to spell it out?” I asked, clinging to my poker face.
She shifted her weight. “Are you…breaking up with me right now?”
“Of course not. We were never going out to begin with.”
“Right.” She cast her eyes down at her hands before lifting them again. “So you want to go back to being just friends.”
I nodded. “I think that's best.”
“With no benefits,” she added, unable to mask the hurt in her voice.
“I'm not going to say we'll never hook up again,” I said. “I just think our little experiment has run its course and that we should end it before anyone gets hurt.”
“I see.”
“Before feelings get involved, ya know?”
She rolled her eyes up and blinked at the ceiling. “Good idea.”
“So we're cool?” Please say no. Please say you'll do anything to be with me. Say I've got this all wrong. Say this isn't what you want to hear.
“Yeah,” she said, the word like a knife to my gut. “Totally.”
“Awesome,” I lied.
“I just thought-”
My brows lifted with my hope.
“Never mind,” she said, turning towards the doorknob before facing me again. “So I didn't do anything to upset you?”
“I don't know, did you?”
“I don't think so.”
“That was a joke,” I said. “Of course you didn't do anything wrong.”
“So this has
nothing to do with Felix?”
My neck pulled back. “Felix?”
“The guy I was with at the coffee shop this morning.”
“Of course not.”
“Because there’s nothing going on there. It's not like that. He's practically a stranger.”
“That's surprising.”
She cocked her head. “Why?”
“I thought you guys made a pretty cute couple.”
Her shoulders sank with a sharp exhale. “So that's it then?”
I turned an ear in her direction.
“You're just going to dismiss me like all the other girls?”
“You're not being dismissed.”
“You sure?” she asked. “Because you're being awfully dismissive.”
“It's for your own good.”
“My own good?!” she said, raising her voice.
“Don't make a scene, Nina. You're better than that.”
“I'm not making a scene. I just want to understand.”
“Maybe you will when you're older.”
Her mouth fell open and the blood rushed back to her cheeks.
“All you need to know is that I'm trying to protect you from getting hurt down the road.”
“By hurting me now?”
I straightened in my chair. “This isn't about hurting you. It's about me being a selfish prick and you being better off without me.”
“I guess I do understand then,” she said, opening the door.
A stabbing pain seized my chest.
“See you around, asshole.”
I flinched when the door slammed shut and then stared at it, suffocating at the realization that she might never walk through it again.
The thought made me sick, made me think I should run after her.
I could tell her I didn't mean any of it, tell her I wanted her all to myself. I could hug her to me and beg her to forgive the horrible things I said, beg her to give me another chance until her sweet lips finally said what I wanted to hear…
That she wanted me and only me. That I was enough.
But by the time I opened my bedroom door, it was too late. The hallway was empty, and I didn't know which way she'd gone.
I sighed, my feet like lead.
Maybe it was for the best. It would be wrong to grant her freedom and then ask her to give it up two seconds later.
I had to give her a chance to figure out what she wanted, who she wanted.
And if that was me, great.
There was nothing I wanted more.
And if wasn't, I guess I'd have to find a way to live without her.
If you could call that living.
T H I R T Y F I V E
- Nina -
I held my tears until I reached the back stairs, but as soon as I stepped on the other side of the door, I burst at the seams, my eyes blurring as I pressed a hand over my mouth to stifle the hiccupping cries coming from my throat.
I cried over the shock, over how foolish I felt, and for the stabbing pain in my heart, which had never felt like such a burden.
Of course, after about thirty seconds, I realized I had to pull myself together- at least for long enough to get out of there and away from that boy, that room. That house.
My first few steps were slow, my shaking hand grasping for the rail all the way to the next landing. But when I reached it, I took a deep breath and marched the rest of the way with stoic resolve, fighting to regain my composure before I walked out the door to the parking lot and…
Straight into Logan.
“Nina-hey.” He knew something was off right away. I could see it in the way his face fell and hear it in his tone of voice, which went from enthusiastic to gentle in a split second. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, hanging my head as he put his hands on my shoulders.
“Nina.”
I looked up at him, and the kindness in his eyes made my bottom lip start to shake.
He pulled me into a hug, and I squeezed him so tight he probably thought I was a crazy person.
“You want to come up for a hot chocolate?”
I stepped back and dragged my fingers under my eyes. “Definitely not.”
“At least tell me whose ass I have to kick.”
A short laugh escaped my throat, reminding me of how distorted my face must've looked when he first saw me. “That won't be necessary.”
“You missed a bit,” he said, pointing to his eyelid.
“Thanks,” I said, wiping the mascara away.
“You sure you won't come up for a drink?” he asked. “I can make you something stronger than hot chocolate.”
I nodded and took another step back. “I'm sure.”
“You need a lift somewhere?”
“Not unless you have a time machine.”
His eyes turned down at the corners. “It's in the shop, I’m afraid.”
“Just my luck.” I spun around and started towards the sidewalk, the cold wind burning my eyes.
“Hey, Nina.”
I looked back over my shoulder.
“For what it's worth, I'm sure he's sorry.”
I scoffed. “Not as sorry as I am.”
I turned towards the dorms and picked up my pace, my heart pounding at what an unbelievable prick Carter was. I mean, I knew he had an unbelievable prick, but I didn't think he was one. Ugh.
Was it the blowjob thing? Would this have happened if I'd sucked him off on Valentine's Day? Did he feel like he was wasting his time with me?
He never made me feel that way when I was with him. Quite the contrary.
Then again, the gentleman I'd fallen for was a totally different person from the cruel jerk that just blew me off.
And I thought I was bipolar.
I don't care what he said either. It was a breakup. We were something, and now we weren’t.
He broke us.
And the most heinous part of all was that my heart had never felt so sore, so… hollow.
Sure, when my exes betrayed me, they hurt my pride and my feelings.
But I never loved any of them…not the way I thought I could love Carter someday.
What a fool I'd been!
As if a guy who could have his pick of any girl on campus was really ever going to be interested in giving up his bachelorhood for some naïve freshman who didn't even have the guts to give him a blow job after the most romantic Valentine's Day surprise ever?!
What a joke!
Maybe he was right. Maybe I didn't deserve to be his fuck buddy anymore.
Sure, I thought what we had amounted to more than that. I thought the way he looked at me when I was naked was special and different from the way he looked at other girls.
But it was all in my head.
I'd seen what I wanted to see. Like the pathetic teenager who gets so excited that the popular guy knows her name that she fails to notice he's only learned it so he can ask to copy her homework.
Hideous.
And to think I once believed that he didn’t deserve to have all those drinks thrown over his head.
Zoey was reading a textbook on her bed when I got home, so I grabbed my stuff and headed straight for the shower since I could feel another breakdown coming on.
Unfortunately, crying in the shower wasn't as healing as I thought it would be. For one thing, the acoustics in the bathroom made my panicky sobs sound even more overwhelming.
Worse still, washing my naked body only made the pain I was feeling more acute, as if each swipe of my pink loofah marked a curve Carter’s hands would never linger over again.
No strings, my ass. I’d practically made my own noose.
I turned the shower knob to the coldest setting and stood under the pitiful water pressure as long as I could, desperate to feel something besides hurt and anger and embarrassment.
I stayed there until my sobs were replaced by shivers, until my lips felt purple and my teeth began to chatter. Then I turned the water off and reached for my towel, burying my face in
it as I stood dripping in the dark stall, wishing I could see something besides his face on the back of my eyelids.
But it was no use.
He was still all I could see, all I could think about.
And he didn't want me anymore.
T H I R T Y S I X
- Carter -
I'd never detested myself more.
Not only had I ended things with a woman I wanted so bad it made me sick, but I'd hurt her terribly in the process.
Now, all I could do was stare at my broken ceiling fan and think about the look on her face when I told her to sleep with other people.
What an unbelievable prick. No wonder girls were always dumping drinks over my head.
Except those girls were different.
Those girls fell for me, and it wasn't mutual. They were in denial about what we had, and they couldn't handle the truth when it finally came out.
Nina, on the other hand, wasn't delusional.
We did have a special connection, a chemistry that was more than just physical. So I could scarcely guess what was going through her head right now…apart from thoughts about what an irredeemable asshole I was.
I could tell by the firm knock that it was Logan at the door, but he let himself in before I even opened my mouth.
“Hey,” he said, his shoulders relaxing once he saw me on the bed.
I sat up and leaned back against my pillows.
“Bleeker said you're staying in tonight.”
“Yup.”
“You sure?” he asked. “It's dollar Jägerbombs at Pete's.”
“I'm sure.”
He crossed his arms and kicked the door shut with his heel. “You sick or something?”
“No,” I said, wishing I had a textbook within reach that I could stick my nose in. “Just not in the mood to go out.”
“Yeah, breaking your dream girl's heart will do that to a guy.”
My eyes flicked up at him.
“I saw Nina leaving the house earlier.”
I clenched my jaw.
“In tears.”
“What makes you think I had anything to do with that?” Did she say something?
“Give up the act, Carter. You're not as smooth as you think you are.”