by Ines Vieira
“I’m out of shape, am I?” In one quick move, I am no longer on top of him but crushed below hard abs that go on for days and before I can retort his mouth has found mine yet again. Even though I feel that my body has benefited from our training sessions, getting leaner and stronger in places I never thought could build muscle, I also think that it’s our own excuse to grope each other for hours without feeling guilty that we’re neglecting more important things. Quaid repeats constantly how he just wants to make sure I can get out of any sticky situation, be that with some perv frat boy or a psychotic uncle. So I pretend our training sessions are just as important as reading all the books my Constitutional Law professor said were mandatory to complete this semester.
Reluctantly, I pull myself away from his lips and give the boy on top of me a pinch to his sides.
“Cheater,” I tease and stand up on shaky legs that his kisses always seem to make. His satisfied smirk is a mile long as he also pulls himself up.
“You’re just a sore loser. Do you want to go for another round? Show me all those mad skills you’ve acquired?” he goads.
“As much fun as it would be to see you falling on your ass again, I need to go online for a couple of hours. I’ve got websites to update and emails to send and respond to. I really need to get some quality time alone with my laptop.” Even though the extra time I was able to get back from quitting tutoring afforded me, I still seemed not to have enough of it to finish and correctly monitor all my projects. School I was dealing with fairly well, it was my activist side gig that was suffering from all of Quaid’s and mine ‘training-slash-hookup sessions.’
“Of course Jess, don’t even stress. I actually need to go back to the frat to help out with preparations for the party tonight anyway.” I can’t help but roll my eyes at that one.
“I can’t believe you guys are throwing a Valentine’s party. It’s so transparent it’s a way for your hard up brothers’ to hook up with dreamy-eyed girls who still believe they can meet Prince Charming on the most pretentious Hallmark card holiday of the year.” Quaid smirks in agreement and places his strong hands on my shoulders.
“It may be pretentious, but it’s also a Kappa Tau tradition and seeing as I’m still on probation and all, I not only have to help with preparations, but I’ll also need to attend. I was also kind of hoping my honey brown-eyed side kick would accompany me too. Making the night a little more bearable,” he says kissing the soft center of my temple.
“Oh Quaid, is this your way of asking me to be your Valentine?” I tease, unable to keep my wide smile from overpowering my whole face. His face grows serious, but his eyes are as tender and soft as a light feather.
“I think I’ve been asking for much more than that, but apparently I’ve not been clear enough. I’ll try harder to get my point across from here on out.”
I swallow hard at the intensity of his stare and the heat behind each pronounced word. I don’t know how to answer him, or even if I should. I don’t know if I’m ready to put a label on what Quaid and I have right now. It feels as if it might jinx the perfection out of it. Telling the whole universe that the feeling we’re sharing to be real, just turns it too fragile in my mind. Right now, we have our little bubble to share these feelings where they can’t escape. They stay protected this way. Tagging them with their own hashtag might just be calling bad mojo to check for any weak links in the chain that binds us together. Quaid sees my internal struggle and takes a defeated step back, turning entirely away from me, while he gets us two bottles of water.
“Do you think you’ll be finished by three?” he asks masking his previous disappointment. I nod since I don’t want my trembling voice to give me away.
“Good. I’ll come and pick you up by then. I have a surprise for you, and I’d like it if you come along with me this afternoon so I can show it to you.” Again I just nod, because apparently, that’s as much as my communications skills will allow me at the moment. Quaid’s phone rings on one of the tables across the room, and I sheepishly follow him so I can grab one of the towels that are folded on the top shelf. As I grab the towel and clean my sweaty neck, I get a glance at a girl’s name plastered in big neon letters on Quaid’s screen. He stares at it for mere seconds and then declines the call, turning his phone off altogether. It’s so quick I almost don’t catch it, but the name was too short not to pick up. Olivia. Quaid’s back tenses as he sees I caught his reluctance to answer the phone. Either because the girl in question was unimportant to have him answer her call at the time, or too important to answer with me as an audience. The latter explanation doesn’t sit well, and the sinking feeling in my gut tells me something smells rotten in Denmark.
“Well I’ll leave you to it then. Be ready by three, okay?” Quaid says already placing a kiss on top of my head like I’m a toddler and escaping the room, preventing the interrogation my lips were prepared to make. There’s a creepy crawling feeling making its way up my spine urging me to take care. Whoever this Olivia girl is made Quaid run like the wind. One minute he was all sweet and sensitive, eyes wide pleading for some attention and the next he couldn’t get away fast enough. Intuition has never been my forte, but spotting even an untold lie is something I can smell a mile away.
The rest of the day passes by, and I’ve been inside my head for most of it. Again my projects are the ones to suffer by my absent mindedness and I castigate myself for not having it together just because a girl called Quaid up. I mean he did have a life of a fraternity brother before I entered the picture. He’s not what I would call a player or anything, but I’m sure he wasn’t a bench warmer either. With his golden boy aura around him and his toothpaste commercial smile, I should be surprised I only caught one girl calling him all this time we’ve been around each other. So why the hell am I overanalyzing this? Why can’t I just move on? Because Quaid committed the worst faux pas he could. Straight from the 101 Biggest Mistakes you can do in front of your girl manual. He didn’t pick up. Worse still he switched the phone off preventing further calls from being received in my presence. A rookie mistake since now I’m here bashing my brains out on all the Olivia’s I’ve met so far in Columbia. Trying to see if there is any connection between them and Quaid.
I’m still fuming away when Quaid arrives to pick me up. I barely say a word the whole drive back to school. Everything about today is annoying. The day itself being Valentine’s Day gives me the hives and Quaid wanting to surprise me on this day also tells me he’s the romantic type. Trying to woo his girl with some elaborate gift to show her how special she is to him. I start recounting in my head all the past Valentine’s Days back in high school and try to pick each memory apart attempting to see if I can recall any grand gesture he did in the past to another unassuming girl. Yep, everything is annoying me. My memories that don’t appear fast enough for me to recollect anything in particular about Quaid’s chivalrous behavior. The name Olivia is not ringing any bells aside from the two girls I have class with. One who is already in a committed long distance relationship and the other who tried to pick me up after class one day. Both not good candidates for the Olivia who was calling him earlier. Even his insistent driving is getting on my nerves. I mean we’re living in New York City for crying out loud! Who has a car anyway in this city? Apparently, the same guy whose grandparents own a posh penthouse apartment with their own rooftop pool, that’s who. My anger and frustration is bubbling away, and before I can even recall how we got here, I’m standing in the center of Columbia’s library.
“What are we doing here?” I ask, and I realize this may be the first couple of words I could bring myself to say without spitting up the venom my tongue tastes.
“I told you it’s a surprise,” he beams anxiously. He leads me up the stairs and places his hand on the hollow of my back moving me forward to the private rooms the library offers for lectures and group meetings. I’ve even heard rumors some kids have booked these same rooms do to play out some freakish naughty librarian fantasy, but at a hundr
ed dollars an hour just to rent the room, that is one expensive foreplay. I glare back at Quaid trying to pick up any vibe he might be giving. I just hope it won’t involve me going into a room and him asking me to wear my hair in a bun and put on some black framed glasses. If that’s his idea of a surprise, then my knee to his groin will be my surprise gift to him.
We finally come to a stop and the door to the lecture room is packed solid with students. I breathe a little easier, but I still don’t understand why we are here.
“Are we going to attend a lecture or something?” I ask looking inside the room and seeing a variety of students all talking animatedly amongst themselves. The room is filled with high energy and the kids inside seem anxious for whoever is coming to speak with them.
“Actually no,” Quaid states and I see a bit of nervousness behind his shy smile.
“Well, what are all these kids waiting for?”
“On you,” he says and there is no hiding his apprehension.
“On me? Why? I don’t get it, Quaid. You’re going to have to spell it out for me because this was the last thing I expected,” I quip. My patience has reached its limit today and playing charades or twenty-one questions to find out what the hell is going on is the last thing on my mind. Quaid quickly picks up my restlessness and starts to explain.
“Well, I got in touch with one of your teachers and showed her all the activism projects you have and the websites you’ve created for each one. I told her how you were just one girl doing the work of fifty and I wondered if she could get in touch with like-minded students in your Civics class. She had no idea that you had all of this going on and thought it was a brilliant way to start a student activist group centered on all the projects you already spent years working on, be it political, environmental, economic or social change. You've already done the groundwork, so all you need now is the manpower behind it. She called me early this week and told me to bring you here at three where you could meet all the students that are eager to join the 'Jessica Movement'," he teases.
If I wasn’t so mad, I think I might have laughed at his nickname of my side job.
“Why do you do it, huh? Why do you always try to save the day, huh?” I scowl.
Quaid takes two steps back away from the door, so onlookers won't be able to eavesdrop on our conversation, but I know my reaction is self-explanatory, so this is going to be a very short talk.
“Is it hard for you to just let things be? Do you lose sleep thinking of ways on how to fix me, fix my life? I’m not broken, Quaid! I was doing just fine on my own. I didn’t need you to meddle in things that don’t concern you. Did I ever ask for your help? Well, did I?” I almost yell, eyeballing him so he can see just how pissed his little interference made me.
“No, you didn’t,” he replies coldly crossing his large bulky arms over his broad chest.
“No, I didn’t,” I repeat, “Yet you somehow got it in your head that my silence was a plea for help. Newsflash Quaid. Silence is just that! When a person doesn’t ask for help, it’s because they DO NOT need it. Going to my Civics teacher behind my back and getting the whole campus involved in my business, when I didn’t ask for it is called meddling and undermining my capabilities in front of my peers and worse of all my educators!”
“Are you done?” his glacial tone pierces through my heated rage and his steel blue eyes are a perfect match to the chilliness of his voice.
“I apologize for going behind your back. I didn’t think it would cause you embarrassment. I never thought you couldn’t handle your business; I merely wanted you to reach higher still like I know you can with more hands to push you forward. I’m sorry you feel this was me meddling in your affairs. Foolishly, I thought it was me supporting something you're passionate about.”
I also take another step back in the opposite direction, because being this close to Quaid when he’s this unobtrusive, makes me want to run the other way. His brisk restraint breathes out of him like quickly frozen ice. Ever try to leave icicles on your flesh for too long? This is the type of cold that can nip and nip until whole body parts are burnt to the bone and all of it aimed at me with just one look.
“I hope your pride or your ego can at least take advantage of the full room behind you. No matter how they were brought together, they came with one intention. And that is to serve a greater cause, than either you or me. They want to change and mold the world around them just like you do, one step at a time, into a future we can be proud of. Whatever your feelings, I hope you’re woman enough to swallow them down and give these kids the same purpose that keeps you up at night.”
I cross my arms around myself showing what I hope is a confident stance and nod.
“Good,” he says and starts to backpedal from where we came.
“You’re not staying?” I ask involuntarily. The beating drum in my chest taking over my vocal chords.
“No, I still have a party to prepare for back at the frat house. They did ask for my help, so apparently, it’s where I should have been all along.”
And without another word, he turns his back on me and our fight and leaves me to my own created misery.
Chapter 19
Quaid
“You look like shit. You know this is a party right? You aren’t supposed to be here in the corner looking like someone pissed in your Cheerios. It dampens the whole mood,” Jason mocks. I keep my arms crossed over my chest, staring out at the kids partying in our frat’s living room, preferring this visual to the smirk on Jason’s face.
“Your girl not coming tonight?” Jason asks, and I shrug again in response.
“Ah, so it’s like that is it? Lovers’ spat maybe?” I just grind my teeth and look him dead in the eye.
“It happens,” I tell him. Jess’s reaction to my Valentine’s day surprise was unexpected and upsetting; I’m not in the mood to rehash it. I'm still boiling from this afternoon’s collision, and talking about it isn’t going to calm me down. I can’t believe she reacted the way she did. It's true she never did come out and ask for help to lessen the load she had on her shoulders, but I witnessed how many nights she left me alone in bed to work on her projects. As much as I wanted to hurl her ass back to sleep beside me before four in the morning, I knew how important it was for her to do it. So I just kept still and waited until she returned to wake me up with morning kisses that would raise the dead from their slumber. I wanted to show her that anything that was important to her, was important to me, but somehow my attempt at doing this just messed everything up. So now instead of having Jess next to me, I’m alone spending Valentine’s day at my frat thinking about how long an appearance I'll have to make to appease my brothers’ sense of fraternal duty.
“Well you’re already in a foul mood, so I guess my next question won’t make much difference. You seen our boy Dave since last time?” To this, I do smirk. Of course, I have. Like I was going to let that fucker roam the same halls as Jess without reminders he was on my shit list. Every couple of days, I made sure to be at the same place and at the same time as he was, and made it my mission to get him to understand he would always have a shadow as long as he attended this school. I also made sure to show up at different places and times. Keep the asshole guessing. He got the message loud and clear that if he made one wrong move, I’d be coming for him. The asshole squirmed and cowed anytime he saw me, as he should have. It still didn’t feel like enough torture, but if I wanted to respect Jess’s wishes, it would have to do. She had compartmentalized that whole event into a small little box and hid it deep. No way was I going to call in a search party to find it. If this was how Jess chose to deal, then I was going to support her. If she ever did change her mind, I'd be her back-up then too. In the meantime, me silently tormenting Dave would have to be enough for my own sanity.
“Thought as much. Heard through the grapevine the dude is trying to get a transfer out of state. Apparently, you and my date that night are making his sorry life difficult,” J states. I feel my eyebrow raise quest
ioning what he means and he gulps out of his beer before answering my silent question.
“Remember the girl I hooked up with that night? Apparently, she’s a journalism major and went ballistic on Dave’s ass online. I’m betting that every girl at this school and maybe in the whole state of New York knows exactly what type of douchebag dear old Dave is, with her detailed exposé on every social media outlet. I know your girl didn’t make an official complaint, but the guy’s reputation was done for anyway, hence his sudden need to leave this school asap.”
“He’s getting off light. His reputation means shit all to me and him transferring to a different school doesn’t sit well with me either. Who’s to say he’s not going to try that shit all over again at his next school? At least here I had my eye on him,” I grunt, exasperated at this turn of events.
“Unless your girl changes her mind his record stays clean,” Jason states eyeing my reaction but changing Jessica’s mind to a subject she’s set as closed is not going to happen. It’s taken her a long time to feel strong again, confident in her own self. I won’t ask her to put herself in a vulnerable place where her confidence can be shattered just so I can see the justice I believe that asshole deserves. Jess’s well-being means more to me than my need for vindication. Jason doesn’t need to hear me say the words for him to understand that Jess going after Dave’s head isn’t an option.
“Okay then. Well, that’s life, I guess. Sometimes the bad guy gets away by the skin of his teeth. Let’s just hope he learned his lesson the first time,” Jason says, patting my shoulder in an attempt to comfort my already altered state. This night just keeps getting better and better.
“I’ll leave you to brood and sulk, but if you change your mind and want actually to have fun tonight come find me. Or better yet, just call your girl and apologize for whatever you did wrong so she can show her pretty face at this party. I for one wouldn’t turn a blind eye to her popping by,” Jason teases again trying to lighten the mood but failing miserably at it. I hate it when he gawks at Jess, and he knows it.