UI 101

by M. K. Claeys

  “Not so much. Mostly people were just really happy to see me, and, since my parents know they can’t keep tabs on how late I’m out at school, I didn’t have a curfew.”

  “Well that’s pretty sweet,” I agreed. “I never really had a curfew, but that was just because in Evansdale if you got caught doing something stupid, your parents, not to mention the entire town, would know about it in a matter of hours. But I did have to keep an eye on my sister while I was there. Make sure she didn’t do anything stupid and compromise the family’s honor and all that.”

  “Right on. So I was thinking that we—”

  But what exactly Brad was thinking, I never did find out because his phone rang. Since Paul had his guitar in my room, I had nothing to keep me occupied, so I ended up sitting on the futon waiting for Brad to finish his phone call, during which he seemed painfully aware of my presence. Fifteen minutes later, he finally managed to end the call.

  “I’m so sorry, Rae. One of the people that was, er, overly excited to see me seemed to think we didn’t get enough time to hang out over break and was talking about driving down here for one last visit.”

  I grinned. “I imagine you managed to convince them you had other plans?”

  “Of course I did. Now, about those other plans—”

  Text message.

  “God, Brad, you’d think they were going through withdrawal.”

  He laughed, although it seemed forced. It seemed as though the deprived person on the other end was in the need of some serious Bradley Davis guidance. Maybe it was one of the younger guys from the basketball team he’d played on in high school needing advice on a new play? Regardless, it didn’t matter because Brad turned off the phone and then focused his attention solely on me. And boy, was I in the mood for some positive attention after all the Evansdale drama.

  Our night was magnificent, although for some reason Brad didn’t seem nearly as into being naked with me as I was into being naked with him. I mean, sure, we messed around, and I had a totally fantastic orgasm and whatnot, but… Oh all right! Who was I kidding? I was totally thinking that we would end up getting it on, but he never even tried any sort of preliminary action that would have led to it. And he totally ignored my advances in that direction too, so I don’t know what sort of cactus was up his butt, only that it must have been massive. What guy would rationally turn down sex—or even foreplay—after he’d been starved for any sort of primal action for nearly four weeks?

  I mean, I knew I was craving some action, especially with the fact that I had just finished my period, my elated feeling of looking so hot, and remembering giving Dave Baxter his comeuppance at the Christmas Kegger, but apparently Brad had a lot on his mind.

  But I still had fun. A lot of fun. And he totally spooned me when we went to sleep, rubbing my back until I drifted into la-la land. When I woke up in the morning, it was to Brad passing me a hoodie up to the loft and asking me if I wanted to go down to breakfast. I told him I was definitely hungry but that I wanted to take a shower before we went anywhere.

  So I pulled on my jeans with his hoodie, grabbed the rest of my clothes, kissed him goodbye, and told him I’d be back in twenty. My shower was delicious, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the vision of Ryn and Paul sleeping sprawled out on the floor surrounded by a mass of snacks from Buck Buck’s, the little shopette on the first floor. I got dressed, threw Brad’s hoodie over my shoulder, and went back across the hall.

  I should have realized something was up the second the door wouldn’t open. It had been locked, which was an unusual occurrence for any guy on our floor, not to mention for Brad when he knew I was coming back. I knocked, and the door was opened by a little, blonde pixie of a girl wearing hip-hugger jeans, Ugg boots, and a pink cashmere sweater with a white snowflake glittering at me from the front of it.

  “Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Kim, Brad’s girlfriend. I just came up to have one last visit. I missed him so much already!” She stuck out her hand for me to shake, and I took it, numbly.

  “Kim. Right. Hi. Brad’s told us so much about you. It’s great you could come visit. I’m Rae.”

  “Hi, Rae! You must be one of Brad’s friends, right?”

  “Yeah. Brad’s friend. Right. Of course. I, um, actually, was just returning the sweatshirt he loaned me,” I said monotonously, taking the hoodie off my shoulder and handing it to her. “Tell him thanks, will you?”

  “Will do!” she said, still smiling that bright smile. “See you around, Rae, and nice meeting you!”

  I nodded and walked back into my room where I promptly started cleaning everything in sight while I grappled with my disgruntled thoughts. I made both my bed and Ryn’s.

  “The fucking jerk,” I muttered, wrestling as silently as possible with Ryn’s coverlet, “has a girlfriend. A girlfriend! And a pretty one at that!”

  I dusted the dresser, futon, and our computers.

  “And he couldn’t even think to mention her to me! How could I have been so stupid!” I growled under my breath, it taking every ounce of control I had not to slam down the can of Pledge when I finished with it.

  I even put away my laundry, still muttering incoherently. I shut the dresser drawer so hard and so fast that I didn’t realize my fingers were in the way and let out a resounding, frustrated shriek that caused Ryn and Paul to jump about a mile high out of their slumber on the floor.

  “That bastard!” I yelled. “I can’t believe him!”

  “Who bastard?” said Paul, clutching his chest.

  “Rae, what happened?” asked Ryn, getting up and immediately coming to my side.

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” I growled, pacing up and down the space on the carpet my roommate and Paul had just evacuated. “I just spent the night messing around with Brad, slept naked in his bed—sorry, Paul, I’m sure you didn’t want to hear that—”

  “No problem,” he said nonchalantly, waving away my apology. He lay down on the floor and his upper body disappeared as he scooted under the futon. He emerged victoriously a few moments later with a Red Bull that must have rolled underneath, cracked it open, took a sip, and then passed it to Ryn, who had joined him when he sat on the couch.

  “Anyway,” I continued, my voice rising, “I just went back there after my shower to go down to breakfast with him and was greeted by Kim.”

  “Who’s Kim?” Ryn and Paul asked simultaneously.

  “His. Bleeding. Girlfriend!” I shrieked. “Brad has a girlfriend! One that he completely neglected to inform me about the entire semester we were messing around together!”

  “Whoa,” said Paul, giving a low whistle. “Damn.”

  Ryn stumbled to her feet and began marching toward the door, but I blocked her.

  “Get out of my way, Rae. I’m going to kill him.”

  “No,” I said flatly. “If you go in there, then she’ll know that I was more than just a girl who was returning her”—I choked on the word—“boyfriend’s sweatshirt. She’s Brad’s problem. Let him deal with her questions. I never want to see his face again.”

  In my fit of cleaning, I had put my cell phone away somewhere I couldn’t find it. Huffing in frustration, I went to the landline phone and dialed Mitzy’s room number. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Mitzy Callaway, who’s calling please?”

  “Mitzy. Rae. It’s study break time. Bring the whiskey. My fifth of rum is not going to be enough.”

  I hung up the phone. Mitzy appeared ten eternal minutes later and, without a word to me, handed me the bottle of Jack Daniel’s her brother had left in her bag, although I did hear her whisper to Ryn and Paul something about “how can it be a study break when classes haven’t even started yet?” I poured all four of us each a shot in the glasses Ryn’s brother had gotten her for Christmas. We downed them, Ryn and Mitzy pulling faces, and then I went into the cupboard and pulled out my own bottle of rum I had brought back from Evansdale.

  “Well. I’m going to get shit-faced. Who’s with
me?”

  Paul immediately raised his hand, followed by Ryn, then Mitzy.

  “I’ll go get Jamaal and Derek if you want,” she offered.

  “Sure. The more the merrier. We could even have breakfast first if you guys want. Then let’s ring in the New Year by forgetting everything that happened last year…and last night.”

  I grumbled to myself as I walked down the front steps of the Mackenzie Center. Seriously, that lecture had been a major waste of my time, not to mention my hourly credit fee. Because that was just it: we weren’t even there for an hour, and then the professor had let us go. He had no syllabus established yet and no book selected. I didn’t think that guy in the third row was joking when he’d yelled, “Pick the cheapest one!”

  It was the beginning of January; I had just gotten back from New Mexico (aka the desert, where even at Christmas it’s seventy degrees) and it was frickin’ cold outside. I could see my breath hanging in the air in front of me, and, as amusing as it was, I would have rather been back in the desert where I didn’t have to wear wool socks—a present from Mitzy—boots, lined wool trousers, a tank top, long sleeved shirt, hoodie, winter parka, hat, gloves, and scarf just to go outside. My backpack barely fit over my shoulders any more. I usually had to have Ryn help me get it on. I knew I should have stayed in my room and putzed around on the internet or something or even gone over and played Wii with Ryn and Paul. But then I might have had to see Brad.

  And that asshole is the last person I want to see right now.

  The only reason I even went to class was because Ryn and Mitzy practically dressed me themselves and pushed me out the door. They were lucky that it was winter and wool hats with bobbles on top were acceptable to wear indoors because if they weren’t, there was no way my hair, which hadn’t been washed in something like forty-eight hours…or was that seventy-two? was setting a strand outside my dorm room. No way that was going to be happening tomorrow. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Passing through the now decrepit-looking gardens, I sighed and made my way back to the dorm, hoping Ryn might want to go down to Buck Buck’s with me and buy some hot chocolate before it closed for the night. I wondered whether hot chocolate mixed well with rum or if it was more of a whiskey or bourbon type of beverage. I was hoping with all of me that was not too frozen to hope that this six o’clock lecture wouldn’t be the bane of my existence. Looking both ways, I stepped across the street, only to be grabbed from behind by the elbow and have a car come to a screeching halt where I had just been standing less than a heartbeat before. I’d have been run over had I not been jerked backward.

  “Wow, he totally would have gotten you,” said the person attached to the arm that had grabbed my elbow. I just stared at the car, unmoving, like a deer in headlights. Seeing that I was apparently unharmed, the driver just put both hands on the wheel and drove around me, looking somewhat shaken but not shaken enough to get out of the car and ask if I was all right.

  “Whoa.” That was all I could say.

  “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Mystery Man continued, still guiding me by the elbow across the street. “He came busting around the corner and didn’t even look to see if anyone was using the crosswalk on the other side, the idiot.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, “idiot.” And then some of my brain power returned to me, and I realized how angry I was. “Seriously! What kind of person drives on a college campus and doesn’t watch out for pedestrians?”

  “Apparently that guy.” Mystery Man laughed.

  “Honestly, it’s enough to drive a girl to drink!”

  “It’s enough to drive me to drink too, and I wasn’t even the one who almost got hit.”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry!” I cried, staring at him in horror.

  “What for?”

  “I never said thanks! I mean, well, thanks, for, you know, saving my life and whatnot.”

  Mystery Man smiled sheepishly in the streetlight. “You’re welcome.” There was a brief but not uncomfortable silence before he continued. “I really don’t think he would have killed you, though. Done you grievous injury, maybe, but not manslaughter. He wasn’t going fast enough.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” I joked bitterly. “Instead of being Rae the Corpse, I would be Rae the Vegetable.”

  “That’s your name, then? Rae?” I nodded, and he stuck out his ungloved hand to shake my mittened one. “Nice to meet you, Rae. I’m Scott.”

  “Likewise, Scott. So where are you coming from?”

  “Miller. I have my bio class there. What about you?”

  “Mackenzie Center. I had a really lame psychology lecture where the professor didn’t even have a syllabus prepared. I am so glad to know that I walked all the way across campus in the dark to a building that is practically falling apart just to have barely enough time to get my coat off in the lecture hall before I was dismissed.”

  “You’re a freshman, aren’t you?”

  I stared up at him. “Um, yes. How did you know?”

  “Because no one but freshmen call it the Mackenzie Center. To everyone else it’s just the student union.”

  “Oh,” I nodded knowingly, “kind of like how no one but freshmen call I.N.C. Street Inc Street because after about three days someone yells at you and gives you a twenty-minute lecture on how it is pronounced Aye-Enn-See because it really stands for Illington National College, which is what the university used to be called when it was founded in 1933.”

  “Exactly. Wow, someone sure did lecture you on that, didn’t they?”

  “You bet they did.”

  “So are you really all right about the whole car thing?”

  I shrugged, which really was quite a feat with all my winter gear. “Sure. Thanks for asking, though, and for pulling me out of the way.”

  “No problem. This is my stop, though,” he said, gesturing toward the sidewalk that led to the main downtown drag. “I’m meeting some friends for drinks.”

  “Oh, cool. Have fun. Thanks again, Scott.”

  We waved goodbye and continued on our separate ways, but I had only gone a few steps when I heard Scott calling my name.

  “Rae! Hey, Rae!” he yelled, jogging to catch back up with me. “Do you want to come?”

  “For drinks?”

  “Yeah. I mean, why not?”

  I smiled. “Um, freshman, remember?”

  Scott grinned slyly. “No worries. My best friend’s a server there. He’ll fix you up. Or you can just hang out.” I think he took my pleasantly surprised look of shock for disgust because he quickly added, “Or if you’re not into the drinking thing, we could ditch my friends and go have a coffee.”

  So I thought about it. And really, why not? Why shouldn’t I go and have a libation with a guy who seemed genuinely kind and interested in my company? And why shouldn’t I meet new people? Especially new people that were willing to skip out on drinking with their longtime friends to go have coffee with a girl they hardly knew? More specifically, why shouldn’t I meet new boys?

  Because you know what? Girls like me don’t come around every day. And if Brad was too stupid to realize that, then that was his own problem. Self-actualized people like Scott, on the other hand, could obviously recognize when a great catch had wandered their way. So I made my decision.

  Fuck Brad.

  “I’d love to, Scott. Thanks for asking.”

  17

  Kathryn

  I fumbled with my mittens as I left the warmth of the lecture hall, pulling them on while wrestling to answer my cell phone. In the distraction of grappling with the cold and trying to abstain from getting frostbite on my hands, I didn’t bother looking at the caller ID. Had I looked at it, I wouldn’t have picked up, of course. I had more important things on my mind. Like that really hot guy who’d sat next to me during lecture.

  “Hello?”

  “Why haven’t you been answering, Ryn?”

  I groaned. I totally felt another lecture coming on, and I hadn’t even paid for this one. �
�I was in lecture, Brian. I can’t pick up while I’m in class.”

  “It’s four o’clock on a Friday. You don’t have class now.”

  “I didn’t have class at four on Friday last semester. This semester I do. I have two classes. One before lunch and one after. Well, actually this class starts at two thirty, but that’s not really important. What’s up?”

  “I thought that you didn’t pick up because you were sleeping over at someone else’s room again.”

  “No, Brian, I only sleep over in other people’s room on Saturday mornings, not Friday,” I joked sarcastically.

  “If you’re going to sleep around behind my back, you could at least tell me!” Brian fumed.

  “There’s nothing to tell! I’m not sleeping with anyone behind your back!” I yelled, startling the guy who had been walking in front of me. He turned around and stared at me. It was the hottie I had sat next to in lecture. I immediately turned crimson to match the streaks in my hair that had just been re-dyed over break.

  “I’m not sleeping with anyone,” I repeated, in a much lower voice. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of such a thing either.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to think when every time I call you, there’s always a guy talking in the background?”

  “I don’t know, Brian, maybe that you’re calling in the middle of a study group, or that I might be walking through the hallway of a floor on which members of the male sex happen to cohabitate?”

  Because all of the above reasons were true. Lots of times I had been in a study group with Paul and I had left the room to talk in the stairwell, which of course resulted in every single voice, many of which happened to be male, ascending or descending being magnified tenfold.

  “Whatever,” Brian huffed, “just keep on lying and see how long I put up with it.”

  The line went dead. My boyfriend had hung up on me.

  And you know what the funniest part is? I don’t care. Okay, well, maybe I do, but not in the sense that I’m going to go back to my room and cry about it.