by Tia Lewis
“Yes, Ma’am.” I pulled my notes out and started typing them up. Only I kept looking at her over the screen. I couldn’t believe I was thinking it … but she was kind of cute. She made me wonder how the girls I usually slept with looked without makeup on, too. If that’s what a decent hairstyle and makeup could do for a woman.
“How are things going? Don’t you have that Sociology exam next week?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I can’t believe it’s so early. Like we even have the time to cover the material in three weeks.”
“You’re supposed to be covering the material on your own.”
“I am, I am.” I showed her how far along I was in my text. “I’m keeping up with it.”
“Good.”
“Don’t forget to tell Coach about that.”
“I won’t.” She faced her book, but I could see her smile.
After a few minutes, I had to defend myself. “And I cut out of the party early, too.”
“Oh, you did? What was her name?”
“Wow, really?”
She looked up. “Sorry. I just assumed. Did you not get her name?” She grinned, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about this sassy new girl. A wardrobe and a haircut and she thought she was hot shit.
“I was alone,” I told her.
“Oh. Then I guess it wasn’t such a great party, huh?” She made a note on her paper and then flipped to the next page. “Get back to work,” she murmured.
Once again I couldn’t fucking win. Either Claire was sensitive, or a total smartass. I pounded the keys a little harder than I needed to as I typed, and when I looked over at her, I could see the smile she tried to hide.
We worked in silence for three hours. The only sounds I heard were my fingers hitting the keys and the flipping of pages.
10
Claire
“So, how’s it going with ‘Jennings the Jock’?” Thomas chuckled to himself.
“You’re so corny.” I rolled my eyes and wondered why I had agreed to go to the comic book store with Marcie to watch Thomas and his Dungeons & Dragons buddies play. It was about as entertaining as watching paint dry. Still, after studying with Jake for four hours, it was nice to hang out with my best friend.
As long as Thomas kept his mouth shut. Everybody heard him, too. All eyes turned toward me.
I laughed self-consciously. “Wow. Way to quiet the room, Thomas.”
“Come on. You’ve got to have a bunch of stories already. You’ve been tutoring him for, what, almost two weeks now.”
“You’re tutoring a jock?” One of the other players raised a red plastic cup to me. “Good luck with that.”
“He’s not as stupid as I first thought,” I said.
“No. He just needs a tutor because we all know jocks have a brain the size of a mouse.” Thomas laughed.
I wished he could get off the topic and quit it with the obsession he had.
“Sometimes, people need tutoring. It doesn’t mean they’re idiots.”
“No, being a jock means he’s dumb and puts sports before his studies. Like what’s the point of going to college then if you’re just going to flunk out?”
Most of the room laughed. Marcie didn’t. She understood how I was conflicted.
“So, because he’s not a physicist or a biologist, he’s a fucking idiot? You’re one of my best friends, Thomas, but you’re really fucking annoying with this shit.” My blood pressure rose the more I spoke.
Marcie placed a hand on my arm. “It’s not worth it. He doesn’t get it.” Her soft voice reassured me, calmed me.
“I don’t understand why he has to be such a piece of shit sometimes,” I muttered.
“It’s all he has. It’s his thing, you know? He’s a troll without a personality. Just ignore him.”
I giggled. “So, it’s not just me who thinks that.”
“Not at all,” she chuckled.
“How did he get to be part of the group, anyway?”
“Remember? He and Adam started out as roommates. It was Adam we wanted to be friends with.”
“Oh, right.”
Marcie, Adam, and I had met in a computer class during freshman year. It was mandatory, which was a laugh, seeing as how our computer lab didn’t even have up-to-date technology. We’d bonded pretty early on. Thomas had nothing better to do, so he always tagged along when we went to the campus cafeteria for dinner. A few others had floated in and out of our group over the years, but we were the core members.
Marcie nudged me. “Speaking of Adam, have you two spent any more time together?”
It was a touchy subject for me, one only Marcie could approach and get an answer. “He’s been weird ever since he found out about all the time I spend with Jake.”
“He knows you’re only tutoring him, right?”
“Yeah, I know he knows. It’s not like I would ever date a football player, either. You should have seen the look on his face one night when he walked past the library and saw Jake walking me to my dorm. He wasn’t happy at all.”
“He needs to lock you down, girl, or he has no right to look unhappy when he sees you talking to another man.”
“I know.” I pretended to watch the players, but my mind was on that night. I hadn’t spoken to him since then, except for the occasional “what’s up” online. I worked around Jake’s schedule for the most part, and that meant missing dinner with my friends. I realized it was the only time I ever saw Adam on a regular basis when we went to eat.
“So, how is Adam?” I asked Marcie.
“Oh, the usual. Exhausted, stressed out. He could use a little relaxation.” She winked.
I smacked her leg. “I can’t get him to talk to me so, how am I going to get him to do anything else?”
“From what I’ve heard, it’s not difficult to get a man’s attention when you try hard enough.” She nudged my shoulder.
“I wouldn’t know much about it.” I couldn’t help sighing when I thought about my limited experience.
“Now that Jess got you looking all hot, it wouldn’t be tough to seduce him.” Marcie giggled when she saw how I blushed. “How do you feel about your new look?”
“Honestly? I like it.” I shrugged.
“Come on. Be honest. How do you really feel?”
I grinned. “It’s pretty awesome. But it is a lot of work. That was the whole reason I didn’t get all dressed up and made up all the time.”
“You like how you look and feel, though, right?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Change is good.”
“So it’s worthwhile. You’ll get faster at it as you go along. Before you know it, it’ll be second nature.” She looked me up and down. “You look sexy.”
“Stop, Marcie!” I blushed.
I refused to believe it. Cute, maybe. Sexy? I shook my head.
She smirked. “Have you not noticed the way every man in here is staring at you?”
“Because that’s such an honor. I’m pretty sure they would stare at anything that had tits and ass. They’re not used to having girls in here. Besides,” I told my petite, red-haired friend, “they’re staring at both of us.”
“If you say so.” She grinned. “But I disagree.”
Thomas finished his turn, or whatever it was. “So you’re not going to tell any stories, huh? Is it some kind of code of ethics you have?”
I bristled, my blood pressure rising again. “Fuck off, Thomas.”
“Excuse me?” He put his hands on his hips.
“You heard me. You know I don’t want to talk about it, but you won’t stop bringing it up. It’s this massive hang up you have against jocks. Listen, I don’t like them anymore than you do. But I’m not obsessed with them, either. Get over it!”
“They made my life a living hell,” he said, his voice flat. He pushed his black glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah? Well, me, too, Thomas. But this one, in particular, didn’t. He’s not such a bad person.” I stood, gathering my things.
“Hang on. I’ll come with you. We’ll stop at the diner.” Marcie shot Thomas a dirty look, and we left together.
“I can’t stand him sometimes,” I grumbled as we climbed into Marcie’s car.
“Don’t let him get to you,” she said. “Yeah, he’s annoying, but it’s not worth being upset over. You know how he is.”
The worst part was, I didn’t know why I was so upset. It wasn’t only Thomas being a jerk. He was that way when I met him. I just didn’t like him making assumptions about Jake.
It wasn’t until we sat down at the diner that Marcie asked the question I was expecting from her. “What is it with you and this Jake guy? Do you like him?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I didn’t think so.”
“You wanted to rip Thomas’s head off for talking about him,” she pointed out.
“I would rip anybody’s head off for talking about you,” I replied. “So that doesn’t mean anything. I’m not in love with you.”
“Aww, shucks.”
“I know. Sometimes I think life would be easier.”
“So what, then?”
“He’s a nice person. I mean, would Thomas like it if somebody pegged him as an irredeemable loser because he plays Dungeons & Dragons?”
“He is one, though.”
“I know, but would he like it if other people knew and called him on it?”
“I guess they used to, and that’s what bothers him. That kind of bullying leaves scars. I think we all know that.”
Her words stopped me in my tracks. Scars. “I know about scars. If I can get past mine, Thomas can get past his.”
We sat in silence as Marcie stirred her coffee, carefully avoiding my eyes. “What does that mean, anyway? You mention it sometimes, but you never really told me what happened with that football player, back in high school.”
I thought hard about whether I could go into it. I hadn’t ever told the whole story to anyone.
Chad was the quarterback for the football team. He was like a god in our school. Everybody knew him, and all the girls wanted to be with him. He was extremely attractive, talented, and just incredible on the field. And I was head-over-heels in love with him.
“I didn’t have a lot of friends, so I spent most of my time studying. I was first in the class by the time senior year came around. So, when the principal saw that Chad’s grades had slipped the year before, he wanted his star to have a tutor so he could keep playing. The school was going for All-State, you see. It was a big deal.
“He asked me to do it.” I sipped my caramel coffee, remembering the thrill of that moment. “I couldn’t believe my luck, you know? The chance to spend time, one-on-one, with the boy I’d been in love with since freshman year.
“I started going to his house three nights a week to help him study. It was a dream come true. His mom would make cookies and fix tea or hot chocolate for me, and we would sit at this little table in his kitchen. I loved seeing where he lived and what he did while he was at home. But one night, his parents were having a dinner party, so they asked us to work in his room instead. Can you imagine how excited I was? Like, near-fainting excited.”
“I can imagine,” she said with a wry smile.
“Seeing his room was like being admitted to the Holy Land. It was where he slept, where he got dressed. I sat at his desk, and he lay on his bed. I was fighting to stay focused on the homework we were supposed to be covering. I was so happy to be with him, you know? I couldn’t concentrate. And he was flirty, too, which he started doing around a week or two after the tutoring started.”
“Flirty how?”
“Oh, he would make little comments and smile. You know. The way boys tease, but they’re not really teasing? He had that way about him.”
“So what finally happened?” There was dread in Marcie’s voice.
“Chad asked me to come over to where he was, and he pointed out a passage in the textbook he was reading. He wanted me to help him understand it—I don’t know, it was irrelevant. He did it to get me to lean close to him, and when I did, he kissed me.”
I closed my eyes and could still remember that kiss. I felt the slight pressure of his lips against mine, the gentleness of it. The way he hesitated. At the time, I had thought it was sweet. I had thought it was more than sweet, really. My heart almost burst from the thrill. My dreams were coming true.
“It went further and further. He kept pushing, and I was so excited, I didn’t think to say no. I didn’t want to say no. I figured I loved him. So we had sex, while his parents’ dinner party went on downstairs.”
“Whoa. Holy Shit!”
“Yeah. I know. At the time, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever experienced. Just … happy. I felt happy. It lasted until about five minutes after he finished.
“He looked down at me, where I was still lying on the bed, and he told me he didn’t get the hang of what we were studying. Especially calculus. He hated it. He didn’t have the time to do all the work and still play football, too. He wanted me to help him cheat. Copy off my tests. I’d write his papers. That sort of thing.”
“Oh, no.”
“It took me a minute to understand what happened. I went from being on top of the world to being completely crushed in about five seconds. He was still sweet and flirty. He sat on the bed, stroking my hair. Like I meant something to him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him to fuck himself next time.”
Marcie shrieked from behind her hands. “You didn’t!”
“I did. I was furious and heartbroken. He had used me. He took my virginity. I thought he liked me. I was so fucking stupid.”
“Wow, I’m so sorry.”
“It got worse. Chad told everybody in school that he’d been with me and that it was the worse experience he ever had. He told them I was horrible in bed, and he regretted ever sleeping with me. I didn’t know what to do. He even made fun of the sounds I made.”
“Jesus.” Marcie took my hand and squeezed it. “What a fucking pig!”
“Yes, he was. I was the butt of everybody’s jokes for the rest of the year. I wanted to drop out of high school. I actually wanted to kill myself. Anything to get away from it all. I didn’t give a valedictorian speech at graduation. I was too afraid I’d get booed and get called a slut.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh my God, Claire. That’s horrible! I wish I had known you then. I would have stuck up for you and kicked his ass.”
I smiled at my friend, who at four-feet-eleven-inches tall packed more energy than anybody I knew. I had a feeling Marcie could have taken on a few nasty people for me.
“So, yeah that’s my story. The full truth. How I was basically tricked into losing my virginity and have hated football players ever since. They just want to use you at the end of the day.”
It felt pretty good, getting it off my chest like that. I knew Marcie would understand. She would take it to the grave if I asked her to.
I had to keep remembering Chad. I had to think about how he hurt me whenever I looked at Jake and felt that funny, fluttery feeling in my chest.
11
Jake
“What the hell is going on?” I looked at the sign on the library door with a scowl.
“Closed for the day,” Claire read. “Problems with plumbing. Great.”
A couple walked behind us. “I was in there earlier—all the toilets backed up at once. It smelled like shit!” The guy laughed.
“Gross!” Claire scrunched her nose.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s … shitty.”
“Impressive.” She rolled her green eyes. “Now what do we do? Should we call it off for the night?”
I looked around, like that would give me any clues. We had fallen into a sort of rhythm over the last few weeks. We weren’t even fighting nearly half as much anymore. When we did, it didn’t last long. For the most part, I went my way, she went hers. She had her weekly phone calls or emails or whatever with Coach, and
everybody was happy.
Until this. And I had a Shakespeare exam to study for, too.
“Great. I don’t know. Is there anywhere else we can go?”
“Your house?” she asked. I still didn’t like the idea—nobody knew about her, and I wanted to keep it that way. If they didn’t know she was my tutor, they would think I was fucking her, and I didn’t want that, either.
“Nah, it’s still too noisy. We’ll never get any work done.”
She frowned. I remembered the way she acted when I first told her the frat house was out the question. I didn’t want her freaking out on me again.
“I guess.”
“Believe me, you don’t want to try to study around those guys. They’re insane.”
“You know,” she said, biting her lip, “my roommate has tech rehearsals for her play all this week. She usually doesn’t get in until way after midnight. I live in the quiet dorm, so it’s always pretty peaceful. Maybe we could do it there?”
I wasn’t sure about that, either. Walking into a girl’s dorm room? What if somebody saw me there? It was the only choice, though—every minute I spent arguing with myself was a minute lost.
“Okay. We could do that.”
We turned in that direction. I wished I could get my hands on whoever screwed up the plumbing in the library. I couldn’t figure out why it bothered me so much to go to her room. Any other girl, and it would have been an obvious attempt to get me into bed with her. But this one? She didn’t have an agenda. She was all about the work. I had nothing to worry about.
“How are things going?” she asked. “You had that Sociology exam last week, right? Did you get it back yet?”
“No. I don’t have big hopes for it. I felt like I was bullshitting half of it.”
“You’re a pretty good bullshitter, though,” she joked.
I smirked at her. “Thanks. Otherwise, it’s going well. The exam tomorrow is what I’m worried about.”
“You’ve kept up with the reading, right?”