Just Like Me

by Dani Hall

  “Yea, I think we should.” She made a move to walk off the bridge, but I held up my hands.

  “I’m going to go grab a coffee. You two stick around here.”

  They didn’t argue as I made my descent down the bridge. I could hear them murmuring together as I started down the painted bricks toward the small coffee shop on campus. Third-wheeling felt awkward sometimes, I’m often uncomfortable with some of the situations Lisa and Ben find themselves in.

  I watched as groups started emerging around campus, smoking cigarettes and howling. Making fools of themselves. A clique of girls was hanging out right outside the doors of the coffee house, talking about Taylor Jett.

  “If I find him, I bet you he’ll marry me.”

  “Ugh! No way! I’m so totally going to find him tomorrow.”

  “Guys…what if he’s not here?”

  “No! Don’t even say that! That’s too awful to even think about!”

  Oh my God. Someone shoot me.

  “You’re right, he’s gotta be here. And if he is, I’m totally going to screw him.”

  Better yet, shoot them.

  I walked into the coffee shop, sticking my hand in my pocket trying to dig for my debit card. Fishing it out I took a gaze at the menu, trying to decide if I wanted a hot or cold coffee. It probably won’t be this warm for a while…so I probably should go for a blended cold drink. Or an iced coffee, that would be really good right now. The place was empty, coffee isn’t popular at night. Just hanging outside of the coffee house, I guess.

  I walked up to the cashier still not taking my eyes off the menu.

  I heard the door to the coffee house creak open and someone stood in line behind me. I glanced back briefly to see a guy who had his hood up and sunglasses on. What a weirdo, it’s freaking dark and he’s wearing his sunglasses. Not only that, but it’s a warm night, and this dude has a hoodie on. What an idiot.

  “Going to order any time soon?”

  I heard the guy say behind me. I paid little attention to him and took my sweet time going over every flavor on the menu, even though I already knew what I wanted. I heard him sigh impatiently.

  “I think I’ll have an iced mocha. Medium sized, please.” I go to hand her my card but the guy behind me stepped in front.

  “I’ve got it.” He offers her some cash. She looks at me, confused, and then takes the cash. It looked like he handed over a twenty.

  “Um. I can pay for my own coffee.” I said, trying to extend my card to the cashier. She looked helpless, staring at both of us.

  “I’d like to treat you.” He flicks his hands at the cashier. “Keep the change.”

  I glare at him.

  “Name?” She asks me.

  “Kale.”

  She wrote my name on the cup and handed it over to the girl making coffee. The guy behind me stepped up and ordered. He was tan, but I couldn’t tell his eye color or his hair color because of the sunglasses and hoodie. There’s something unnerving about him. I think I’ve seen him on campus before. I think maybe he’s in my geography class.

  “I want a large hot skinny vanilla coffee with an extra shot of sugar-free vanilla, no whip, skim milk.” He hands the cashier another twenty. What an arrogant bastard.

  “Name?” She asks, dazed and looking at the twenty like it’s a foreign object to her. The guy turns to me and smiles.

  “What do you want it to be?” He asked. I glared at him. He rolled his head in a slight circular motion, obviously irritated. I’m pretty sure that was a big eye roll. “C’mon, I don’t have all night.”

  “How about asshole?”

  “Don’t you have any decency in your soul? I just paid for your coffee and you call me an asshole.”

  I hesitate and blurt out the first name that comes to my mind.

  “Taylor.” I said. Then I blushed. I groaned inwardly. Now this idiot is going to think I’m one of those teens that are head over heels in love with that moron actor.

  But he grinned as he looked at the cashier.

  “You heard the lady, Taylor it is.”

  Something about the grin unnerves me. The coffee maker announced my name and I snatched up my coffee, walking fast for the door.

  “Aren’t you going to say thanks?” I heard him call after me.

  “Thanks.” I mumble, pushing my way out of the glass door. The last thing I heard him say as I exited was “Keep the change.”

  Chapter Nine

  I didn’t tell Lisa about the guy when she got back to the dorm. Maybe I was embarrassed that I had said the name Taylor. Or maybe it was the dreamy look in her eyes when she talked about her conversation with Ben.

  “We both agreed to nix the whole To Do list thing. It’s kind of childish. I mean, when’s that ever going to happen?”

  She flopped down on her bed, the glow of her laptop lighting up her face. I flipped the lights off and turned the T.V. on.

  “I mean, he could be the guy I marry, you know? And if I went looking for Taylor Jett tomorrow…he’d probably hold it over my head the rest of my life.” I hummed in agreement as she went on and on. That same family sitcom that was on last night is on the T.V. again tonight. The dumb husband, the somewhat dumb wife, and the kid that’s smarter than the whole entire family.

  “What if he asks me to marry him on our anniversary? I mean, we’re only 19, but gosh…I could spend the rest of my life with him. You know? I think I’d want to. I mean, we wouldn’t rush out and get married right away; I’d want him to wait until after college graduation…but geez. It’s all gone by so fast, you know?”

  I did know. She’d had a progression of boys in her life, losing her v-card at 14 to the first boy who told her he loved her. She didn’t tell me, back then I was a pretty judgmental person. I didn’t find out till we were 17 that she had screwed the last three guys she had dated. I didn’t ask many details, I’ve always been so uncomfortable with that stuff. Since then I’d grown more accepting of a lot of different things. It didn’t mean those things were for me, but it also didn’t mean I had the right to banish people to hell for having different viewpoints than me.

  I can’t help but look back on my life and realized that yes; life has gone by fast. And here I am, going to be 20 soon, and haven’t done anything besides kiss a boy. One boy, to be exact. All the focus was always on Lisa, boys always liked her. I got to stand aside as she went to prom with her senior year sweetheart. She thought she was going to marry all of them. It was hard to hear it again, but I knew better than to argue. She was going to be in love with whomever, and Ben was the best guy so far. She was going to pick a boyfriend over my opinion any day, so I’d learned to just agree.

  “Yea, it’s gone by really fast.”

  “Kale. I have something important to ask you.” The serious expression on her face gave way to goofy grin. “Will you be my m-o-h?”

  I shook my head, smirking at her.

  “Only if you’ll be mine.”

  We both giggled and talked about our dream proposals and weddings the rest of the night. But at the back of my mind, I wondered if any guy would ever settle for me.

  Chapter Ten

  I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to the sound of girls screaming. I groaned and rolled out of bed, stumbling over to the window to look out over the courtyard.

  They were everywhere.

  Girls were running all around in the lamp lights, building to building, trying to find Mr. Perfect himself.

  I glanced over at Lisa and thanked God softly that she was a heavy sleeper. I watched amused for a few minutes as one girl desperately threw herself into the campus fountain, convinced Taylor Jett might be scuba diving at the bottom. A seemingly flamboyant gentleman started shimmying up a tree. It was hard to contain my giggles. But finally after a while I grew tired of the charade of girls and crawled back in bed, willing dreams to find me without the cut of screaming fan girls.

  I woke up again at 7:00 a.m. Lisa’s alarm was going off. We had a class at eight this morning, ugh, kill me.<
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  I got out of bed and turned on my computer, thankful that it was Friday. Lisa immediately found the remote on her bedside table and flicked on the T.V.

  Star Gaze was on our T.V. screen, the host was in the middle of a sentence, looking embarrassed.

  “-has not been found yet this morning. The search has been going on worldwide now for an hour and a half and the allusive Taylor Jett has yet to be found.”

  “Oh, man.” Lisa said, blinking sleep out of her eyes. “People are probably going to miss class. I thought they would have found him by now.”

  I went back over to the window and saw girls still running around from building to building. I shook my head.

  “Getting to class is going to be hell today.” I said.

  There was a line of caution tape around the campus pond with a sign that I’m assuming said ‘Taylor Jett is not scuba diving with the fishes’.

  I snickered; looking back at the host on the T.V. The president of that CAPT thing was talking now.

  “I thought that Jett would be found an hour ago, but it appears we’ve hidden him well on the campus we have chosen. Here in a little while, we may start revealing college campuses that he is not currently located at, so students can get to class-”

  “Maybe it’s all a sham.” Lisa said, swinging her legs off the bed.

  “That’s the spirit.” I said as I started dressing in jeans and a t-shirt. She picked a pink dress with a black ribbon tied around it.

  Before long our makeup was done and we were walking down the dorm hallway. There were girls banging on every dorm door, shoving their ways in and looking for the celebrity. Lisa and I exchanged a look.

  “They really think he’ll be in a student dorm room?” She said with a mocking smile on her face.

  “I guess so.”

  “You locked our room, right?”

  “Yea, but I’m not convinced they won’t bust the door down.”

  As we went down the flights of stairs girls were there too, running up and down checking trash cans and every crevice the stairway could possibly contain. Girls were talking among friends and on phones.

  “They said it would be student accessible!”

  “Did you download the ‘Where’s Taylor?’ app? It’ll go off the second they find him! So we don’t have to keep running to our room to watch the T.V.!”

  “I’ve searched every corner of this campus! He can’t be here!”

  We looked at each other uncomfortably as girls continued to tear through campus. Walking the streets we eventually parted ways when it came to the science building and history building. I wished her good luck with the test and she wished me luck with my douche of a professor.

  I walked into class and found that the professor was sitting there, shaking his head. Three people were in there, looking around blankly at one another.

  I took my seat in a front row and began opening my notes to today’s date.

  Ten minutes after class was supposed to start my professor took attendance and dismissed us, muttering about his poor excuse for college level students.

  I walked out of the class, wondering what to do until twelve. I finally decided to work on my speech presentation.

  I reached into my purse and was happy to see my flash drive.

  I realized I’d never be able to concentrate with all these girls running around. I really needed to practice rehearsing the speech, but how was I supposed to do that in my dorm room?

  I thought about that for a second, finally deciding to go to the library.

  I walked past screaming girls running from building to building. Some were even crying. I walked through the doors expecting the familiar quietness, only to discover that the library was just as chaotic.

  I quickly went over to the desk and one of the librarians attempted a smile from behind the desk. She looked frazzled behind the desk, desperately trying to quiet the students.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Can I have one of the presentation rooms, please?”

  “Of course dear, did you have a particular one in mind?” Her posture changed drastically and she almost had a smile now.

  One would be my closest escape. It was on the first floor. But I’d probably be able to hear the screaming fan girls. Three, four and five were upstairs. Five was the best by far. It had the biggest screen to project a power point on, the computer hooked to it was pretty nice, and its walls were nearly sound proof. But that’s why it was always taken.

  “Is five available?”

  “Yes, it is. Would you like a key to that room?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “If you could, let me scan your I.D. and write down your information.”

  I handed over my I.D. and she quickly scanned it and jotted down my name and grade. That was odd; normally they just had to scan it. Maybe the system was crashing or something because of everyone constantly checking the web for an update on Jett. Perhaps the information she was writing down was just backup for the day.

  She beamed and held out my I.D. and a key to five. I smiled back, somewhat uncomfortably, and started up the stairs.

  Girls were upstairs too, tearing through bookshelves in search of the famous dude. Papers were flying along with girls’ hair. Footsteps thundered throughout the entire library and girls were constantly checking their phones for updates. I shook my head and followed a hallway down to room number five, away from the bookshelves and fan girls.

  I was excited. I never got room five.

  I pressed the key into the lock and turned the knob, easing my way into the room, trying to think of an opening line for my speech.

  I quickly shut the door behind me, shutting out the noise of the library. I sighed, grateful for the quiet.

  “Congratulations.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as I turned to see a man sitting in a chair near the computer. The guy looked oddly familiar.

  “Sorry!” I stammered, shaking my head. “The lady at the desk said this room was empty. I’ll just go back and ask for a key to another room.”

  “Now why would you do that? You won.” And he grinned. An arrogant grin.

  Shock rocked my body. My heart plummeted to the bottom of my stomach. I recognized that arrogant grin. Sure, he wasn’t covered in zombie makeup. But it was him. Taylor Jett.

  He lazily looked me up and down, as if evaluating a new car, to see if I passed inspection. His eyes lingered on my waist before coming up to meet my eyes.

  “No.” I started. “No. no. nonononono.” I held my hands up, trying to wrap my head around this. “You don’t understand. I’m not interested. I didn’t want to find-I mean-I wasn’t looking for you. I-“ I tried to grasp some sort of straight thought in my head. Some plan that would help me escape. “I, I’m just going to go return this key, ok? I’ll give it back and tell her I’m not interested. Whoever comes in next will get to say they found you. They win. This never happened.” I was close to delirium at this point.

  He leaned back lazily in his chair, a look of annoyance flashed across his face.

  “You gave the girl your information, right?”

  “Yea?”

  His phone buzzed. He glanced at it, looking amused now as he lifted it to look.

  “Yea. She sent that information to your Chancellor who is sitting in with my agent. My agent then proceeded to send your info to Star Gaze and every other news network. They’re now notifying the world.”

  He held up his phone for me to look at it.

  His face was lit up on the screen; winking at the camera with a speech bubble saying the competition was over.

  “My app.” He popped the p in the word. “Now everyone knows.”

  “But, there’s gotta be another way around it.” He looked doubtful, and annoyed that I wasn’t in awe over the prospect that he had an application with his face on it. “I could go yank a girl out there in the library,” I walked to the door and cracked it. Girls were getting the notifications on their phones. Some got mad, throwing
books and papers everywhere. Other girls just started crying. Then they all started racing to the T.V.s in the library’s lounge.

  I turned to see Taylor leaning in to look at the computer. He held up his index finger, without looking at me, and beckoned me with it.

  What am I? One of his servants?

  When I didn’t rush to his side, he looked up. He rolled his eyes.

  “Just come here.”

  I closed the door back behind me and trudged in his direction. I looked on the screen and Joe was on Star Gaze.

  “Yes folks! The search is over! A miss Kale Delaney won the competition, a sophomore in college. Stay tuned because as of right now we are not going to reveal the college where Mr. Jett is stationed because we would like to escort him off of the campus without a riot. But girls, you can go to class, because Mr. Jett is officially going on a steamy date with Ms. Delaney.”

  My school picture flashed up on the T.V. screen.

  “Ugh!” I yelled. “Turn it off!” My legs felt like jello.

  He didn’t flinch, pausing and minimizing the screen. He stood from his chair, grabbing a hoodie and sunglasses off the table the computer was sitting on.

  “So…I’m going to head out.” He started, pulling the hoodie on. “My agent will be in soon, he’ll discuss the date details.” He winked at me. “It’ll be soon, I’m sure. Tomorrow, maybe.”

  He walked over to the door, flicking on sunglasses.

  “You’re just going to walk out there where everyone can see you?”

  He glanced back briefly to look at me, pulling his shades down so he could look me in the eye.

  “If I went out there with a troop of body guards? Yea, everyone would know it’s me.” He said with any eye-roll, as if he was trying to explain gravity to a three-year-old. “But like this?” He flipped the hood up. “No one will recognize me. I’m just another college kid.” Something seemed vaguely familiar about the way he looked in the hood and sunglasses. But I was way too preoccupied with my despair to pay any attention. He pushed his sunglasses back up his nose.