by Ines Vieira
“Lesson number one Quaid, life is hard. Nothing worth having is easy. Especially my friendship,” I say empowered with this new distance, but as I slide away from him, trying to make my way to the security that I know Izzy and Drew will provide, he grabs my wrist, making me look back at him once more.
“I think I might just skip that step then.” He then brings me to him yet again but this time I crash my back onto that fine chest I was admiring not five minutes ago, and he puts his hands on my waist to steady me and keep me still, locked against his body. My back is to him, and I try to keep my scowl settled on my face. He leans down and tucks my hair behind my ear. His breathing is controlled and smooth, and I shiver instantly when it approaches my neck. It may be my heart’s wishful thinking, but I almost feel his nose run from my neck up to my ear before he gets his next words in.
“And if we’re talking about lessons that you want to teach me, I might have in mind a few that I wouldn't mind teaching you, too.” My heart leaps into my throat involuntarily, and the shiver that runs through my body is too obvious for me to be able to look him in the eye. Even if I ignore the feelings that Quaid brings out in me, my body isn’t as forgiving. I feel his thumbs trailing hot caresses on my midsection, and my palpitating heart is all I can hear. Drumming hard and fast in my eardrums. He shows me mercy and let's go, and before he has time to say anything else, I bolt away as fast as my unsteady feet can carry me.
When I see Drew and Izzy dancing it up in the front of the room, real relief explodes inside me. Safety. This is where I need to stay. Surrounded by my friends. Friends that don't leave me hot and bothered and at a loss for words every time they are in the same vicinity as me. Friends that don't leave me aching for their touch, their closeness. Friends that will keep me sane this night and dear Lord how I need my sanity right now. I don't want to think too hard about what Quaid was insinuating, but there is a Portuguese saying that my father is very fond of and that it hits too close to the mark right now.
“Para bom entendedor meia palavra basta” To the wise, half a word is enough.
And that was the problem. When it came to Quaid, I didn't feel wise at all but feigning ignorance now at his parting remarks would be a grave mistake on my part. He wasn’t looking for my friendship, and whatever he was looking for was not something that I wanted to give him.
Liar!
“Damn girl, it sure did take you long enough! Did you get our drinks?” Izzy said as she continued to sway from side to side with Drew sealed to her backside.
Crap!
I totally forgot our drinks. With the small altercation with Quaid, it completely skipped my mind. I looked from side to side and see a couple of red solo cups with beer on a table next to us. I grab two cups and hand one over to Izzy. I gulped mine down as fast as I can hoping that the lukewarm beer will be enough to cool down my thoughts and my body. Now they decide to be in sync!
“Hey, you okay?” Drew asks taking notice of what I presume is my post-Quaid face.
“I’m fine.” I try to offer a genuine smile, but can't even muster that right. I see one of his eyebrows jot out to his forehead and before I’m bombarded with questions, I step in next to them and let the music take me away from this place. That’s what I need now. To dance out of this disconcerting state I find myself in and just let go. Let go of thoughts and titillations that have no room to exist in the first place. As the bass goes deeper and louder, I feel my inhibitions and concerns float away. Tonight, I wanted to relax and enjoy my youth. Not be confined in my room homesick and worrying that I’m struggling with my classes. Tonight I wanted to just be me, alive and free. Quaid would not ruin that for me. Even though as much as I laughed with my friends, acted silly and danced the night away, the only time I felt alive since entering this godforsaken party was when I felt Quaid’s hands on my bare skin and his eyes staring down at me. The very person that I wanted to escape from with all my might was the one that brought out all of this in me. If that isn’t ironic, I don't know what is.
Tonight, was indeed full of lessons. I just had no idea that the night had barely begun in teaching me more than what I wanted to learn.
Chapter 12
Quaid
I spend most of the night doing something that I know deep down; I shouldn’t be doing. Instead of enjoying the first party that I begrudgingly accepted to attend since coming back to school, my eyes are focused on just one person. I justify it by telling myself that I’m just making sure she doesn’t get in trouble. I justify it again by remembering my promise to her father. That I’m just looking after her. But I’m lying. All the reasons I can conjure up in my mind to justify why I can't take my eyes off Jessica Silva have nothing to do with looking out for Carlos’ daughter. It's so fucking wrong that I make myself look the other way and start talking with a group of guys about football and whatever else I can come up with, but my eyes have a mind of their own, and they seek her out over and over again.
She’s still dancing with Drew and her roommate. The music is blasting now since the party is at its peak. Usually, these ragers begin PG, but by the end of the night, I’ll be lucky if it doesn’t reach the X rating. With all the alcohol and drugs that are passing through, it’ll be hard to keep this party to its mildest since most of these prima-donnas like to push things to their very limit. I guess that’s the result of having too much money and too little supervision. Most of these guys know who my grandparents are so they think that I’ve lived the same entitled life. Why wouldn’t they? They all think that I’m heir to the Steven’s conglomerate and that I have grown up with the same decadence and privileges that they have, excess included. But if they knew Craig and Taylor Stevens, then they would know how gravely mistaken they are about me.
“Dude, all you gotta do is walk up to her and ask the honey for her number. Damn, it’s not rocket science, you know.” Jason laughs at me while putting his arm over my shoulder.
“What are you talking about?” I slap his arm off and take another sip of my coke.
“I’m talking about the babe that is rocking it up with the blond hottie and that you’ve been checking out for the past hour.”
“You're imagining things, J.”
“Oh yeah? So, you’d be cool if I went and introduced myself? Even maybe give her a tour of the house?” He smiles at me with a knowing grin. I feign apathy and shrug my shoulders.
“Alright then, let me show you how it's done. Take some pointers, Q. You look like you need a refresher course on how to get some,” he continues, but before he takes a step further, I grab his arm pulling him back in place.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he laughs out. “So, who is she?”
“Girl from back home,” I say, and again my eyes are fixed on Jess, moving to the beat of the music, carefree and laughing away. Jesus, that smile she’s wearing is killing me. Usually, when I’m around her, she’s wearing a scowl or trying her very best to look annoyed. But sometimes, even though I know she must hate it, she can’t control that blush that reaches her cheeks when she’s flustered. I love it when I get that reaction from her, but seeing her out there in her element surrounded by her friends where she is comfortable enough to just be herself and let go, well that image of Jess is fucking intoxicating. I always considered her a gorgeous girl, but when she smiles like she is now, the only word that comes even close to describe her is beautiful. Hell, even that word comes short of doing her justice. So much so, that it’s hard to pull my eyes away from her, and apparently, I haven’t been doing a good job at being inconspicuous if Jason also picked up on my leering.
“Homegirl, huh? Any history there?” J asks, but I don’t miss the fact that he’s also looking at her dance.
“No. Only one date, our senior year, but I was hung up on her best friend at the time.” J laughs again and knocks back the rest of the beer in his solo cup.
“Bet you're kicking yourself now, huh? The BFF must have been some looker for you not to have paid attention to that fine thing,
Damn the girl has curves in all the right places!” I know he’s messing with me, but I don’t like the attention that he’s paying Jess. Hell, I don’t like the attention she’s getting at all! I counted at least three guys that moved up to her to get her to dance with them. But as soon as they got close enough to her, she sent them packing, not giving any of them a second look.
“There’s more to a girl than looks you know?”
“Oh yeah? Is that why you’re there all rigid and uptight gawking at every guy that comes into five feet of her? Because you know that they are just dying to have a meaning, intellectual conversation with her?”
My scowl is evident, and I will probably wear it the whole night if Jess continues to dance like that. Even without trying she’s seducing half of the male population at this party. Maybe some girls too, the way she’s grinding on blondie. Fuck me!
“Yeah, again I didn’t think so.” J loves it when he’s right, and for once I’m too tense to argue with him.
“I need some air,” I tell him, and start making my way to the back of the house to get a much-deserved breather.
“Oh you need something alright brother and it ain’t air that’s for sure. A cold shower might do the trick though,” he yells out to me.
With my back to him, I flip him off and continue to make my way to our patio. It’s just as crowded as the inside of the house, but the cool air does me good. Winter in New York has a certain taste to it. The air is different from back home. It’s alive with some sort of promise that anything can happen. Back home, when the snow would lightly fall like it is now, it gave me a sense of peace. I guess it’s the best way that I can describe what silence looks like. I would love it when my mom would wake me early in the morning with the first snowflakes of the year and just stroll down the beach hand and in hand. How the snow would fall onto the water and silently melt itself into the vast ocean. It's one of my most valued memories growing up. One of the few I let myself recall from time to time. They ease my anxiousness. They soothe me from within when I feel that I can't control my feelings or thoughts. The sound of the waves crashing onto the sand. My warm gloved hand linked to my mother’s as she looks down at me with nothing but love in her eyes. That warm feeling that fills your whole body from the inside, when the outside is being brushed by the cold wind, and snowflake kisses. This is the image I summon to my consciousness, and my shoulders start to relax as I bring in the cold air to my lungs.
“Yo, Q!” The shout takes me off guard, as apparently, I had drifted off home, but I’m not back at my parent's house. I’m at my frat, running away from feelings that a 5 foot something girl somehow manage to bring out of me. Confusing as they might be, they shouldn’t affect me this way. Taking another breath, I stroll over to one of my frat brothers that is also in some of my classes, and for the next hour, I try my hardest to forget the brunette that has grabbed my attention since Christmas break.
I’m able to lose track of time and see that I’ve been out here on the patio for a little over an hour. My fingers are starting to feel like icicles, so I decide to go back in. Not to check up on Jess, but just to get some feeling back in my bones. Thankfully, lying to myself has always been a gift of mine. The house is more than warm; it’s blazing with all the human heat blasting of the crowd. It’s hard to make out where anyone is with the sea of kids in the hallway and main room, but my eyes still find themselves searching for wavy brown hair. I come up with nothing, but see Jess’s roommate Izzy still dancing it up but now with two guys instead of Drew and Jess. Drew is nowhere to be seen and neither is Jess. A pang of something that I’m not sure how to describe grips my lungs and my anxiety comes back to me tenfold. I maneuver myself within the crowd, ignoring anyone that calls out to me. When I finally see Drew with a couple of guys goofing off, I breathe a little bit easier, but still not enough to ease my apprehension. I don’t see Jason either and all of a sudden his threat of showing Jess around the house hits me. I try to remove that thought from my mind, recalling that even though I haven’t been friends with Jason as long as I have been with the guys back in high school, no way would he break bro code. Right? My feet suddenly have a mind of their own and are rushing up the stairs to the second floor, where our bedrooms are.
As soon as I step into the landing, and fix my eyes on the dark hallway, I feel sick to my stomach. I have to blink twice before I understand what I’m seeing and in the exact minute it registers, I’m blinded by rage.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I yell while closing the distance between me and a very inebriated Jess and one of my so-called brothers. He’s got one of his hands up her thigh and the other trying to lift up her shirt. Jess is sitting on the floor next to our bathroom pushing him off her, but too out of it to have any real force behind her jabs.
“Get your fucking hands off her or I swear I’ll break every bone in your body!”
When she hears my voice, I swear I see her face fall as she tries even harder to lift herself from the floor to no avail since the asshole that was trying to cop a feel not two seconds ago, brutally pushes her away from him, so violently that she is knocked back hitting the wall hard. I want to break this guy’s face for that alone. I grab his collar with both hands and swing him to the wall giving him a little taste of his own medicine. Let's see how he likes being thrown around like a ragdoll. His head hits the wall twice before he grabs my wrists trying to break free from my grasp. I don't recall his name, but I know he’s a freshman like me since he was one of the guys that I rushed with, but right now, I wouldn’t care if he was my flesh and blood. What this asshole was trying to do in my eyes makes him scum.
“Quaid, dude. Easy, ok? I didn’t know that she was yours.” The fucker has the nerve to say to me.
“So, what you’re saying is that it’s ok to get your rocks off at the expense of a vulnerable girl, as long as she’s not mine? Is that what you're saying, asshole?” I shake him again, constantly pounding his back to the wall, and I don't have to see it know that he’s about a couple of inches of the floor, trying badly to get his footing back on solid ground to find a way to escape this mess. I continue to have one hand on his collar, but I need that extra grip to his neck to make sure this prick isn’t going anywhere. The moment he feels my fingers curl on his neck, his eyes bug out in desperation looking to the stairs hoping that someone will come up soon to help him. I smirk at his reasoning since I bet that if I didn’t come up when I did, he would probably be hoping not to be disturbed while he thoroughly examined all the places in Jess’s body that he had no right to touch in the first place. Yeah, then he didn’t want anyone coming up those steps to disturb his little fucking party, but now that it’s my turn to play, he wants someone, anyone to come to his aid.
The bathroom door behind me opens and I hear a feminine voice and another brother laugh at something she said, probably still in the midst of euphoria brought by their make-out session in the bathroom, but soon enough the laughter dies. Guess this piece of shit is luckier than he deserves.
“What the hell, Quaid? What’s going on? Dave, dude what gives?” Jason asks already by my side trying to help “Dave” back to his feet. Yeah, that’s not happening. I lunge him higher while making sure that he sees the look on my face that screams out that I’ll only put him down after inducing the level of pain that fits his crime.
“Yeah, Dave, explain why I’m about to kick the shit out you?” I snark. Dave’s eyes are full of fear running back and forth from my face asking for mercy and to Jason’s, pleading for help. He’ll get neither if I have anything to say about it.
“Jason, he’s gone nuts man, you gotta help me! I didn’t do anything, man! I was just helping out his girl and he went ballistic on me!”
The shit!
“Helping?? Is that what you were trying to do, huh?! Or were you about to assault a drunk girl that couldn’t fight you off?! The only one I saw you helping out was yourself, by putting your filthy hands on a girl too out of it to fight you off.” J
ason looks over at his hook-up, that is now helping Jess off the floor and is getting the whole picture without me having to go into further detail.
“Is this true?” Jason’s voice is cold, and he’s staring at Dave with the same revulsion that I feel.
“J, I was just helping her I swear. I had no idea she was Quaid’s.” His words come out slurred, and I see some blood coming from his lips. The fucker must have bit his tongue, but it's too little blood for me to be satisfied.
“Stop saying that! She doesn’t belong to anyone but to herself! She’s a girl for fuck's sake, not someone’s property!” I yell at his face now just inches away from me.
“But if that’s what prevents you from manhandling any unwilling girl from this moment on, then listen closely, fucker, they all belong to someone. They are all someone’s daughter, or sister, or girlfriend, so keep your filthy hands away from them, or I swear to god, that next time, I’ll break more than your fucking nose.” His eyes register confusion and dread at my remark, and Jason also looks at me warily as if he’s trying to defuse a bomb and doesn’t know if he should choose the red wire or the blue one. Either way, he sees that this is a fucked-up situation. I’m usually the guy in this house that breaks fights up, not instigate them, so if I’m this pissed, then he knows that I must be on the right here.
“Make yourself scarce Dave, but keep your phone near. I’m calling a meeting and the brothers will deal with you as they see fit.” Dave’s face pales at Jason’s comment, and it sickens me that he’s more concerned about the fraternity’s actions against him, than to show remorse or shame about his own.
“Quaid,” Jess’s soft voice reaches me and my chest aches something fierce at the idea that I might not have found her in time. “Quaid, take me home.” I can’t look at her yet. If I do then I know I’ll lose it even more. The rage in me is still violently burning in my veins, and one look at her and I know that it’ll be the tipping point that will make me lose the small rational thread that I’m clinging onto now. It’s the only thing that is preventing me from doing real damage to ‘Dave’. Not that he’s not leaving with a little memento of our run in together though. I put him down, and the prick has the nerve to look relieved. He looks over at Jason and then to me trying to establish the right time he can make a run for it. Jason looks over at him in disgust and points to the stairs.