Amber was lying facedown on her bed sawing logs. One arm was hanging off the bed and she’d kicked the covers down around her ankles. I quickly brushed my teeth and donned my pajamas, slipping in earplugs before I climbed into bed.
Then I tossed and turned. I stared at Amber across the room. How could anyone so small create such a loud, obnoxious noise? I contemplated crossing the room to shake her, but in the end I threw the covers off and turned on my laptop. Even though my body was tired, my mind was too busy to sleep anyway.
Things with Luke were moving fast. But too fast? That I wasn’t so sure of. Luke was a great guy. I liked him a lot. And I really cared about him. We had fun together, and with the exception of the situation with his ex-girlfriend, the relationship was drama-free.
What more could a girl want?
Nothing.
I smiled into the darkness. I was a lucky girl.
I scrolled through my email for a few minutes, but there was nothing important. A few games of solitaire later, I shut down my computer.
I grabbed a novel from my nightstand and curled up in bed with plans to read myself to sleep. It only took two pages for my eyes to start drooping, but then I realized I’d forgotten to plug in my cell phone.
I groaned and flung the covers off, grabbing the phone. A light was blinking, indicating I had a voicemail. It would drive me crazy if I didn’t check it, so I punched in my code and put the phone up to my ear.
“Cori, this is Chuck, Chuck Pullman.”
His voice was unsteady. Could he be drunk? Did he actually drunk dial me?
I covered my mouth with my hand, stifling a giggle. Was that funny or pathetic?
I hadn’t heard from him since our one dinner, so I figured he’d gotten what he wanted. Good. Everything about that situation was complicated.
“I was just sitting here thinking, you know, about cake. What kind of cake would my boy like? I like pound cake, but what does he like? Vanilla? Chocolate? Carrot? Hell if I know. Shouldn’t I know this? Shouldn’t I know what kind of cake to get my son for his birthday?” His voice caught on that last line and the message abruptly ended.
Frowning, I stared down at my phone. Then I noticed the date in the upper left-hand corner.
Oh, fuck.
I gasped, quickly covering my mouth with my hand. How could I forget?
I’d been too busy thinking about Luke to remember what day it was. Tyler’s birthday. He would have been twenty.
All the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I inhaled sharply, trying to fill my chest with air, but even still, the emptiness remained.
I couldn’t breathe. I put my head between my knees and gasped, my breaths coming in short. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rocked.
Spice cake. Tyler’s favorite cake was spice cake with cream cheese frosting. It was so odd—what person under the age of sixty liked spice cake? In some ways, he’d had the tastes of an old man. I teased him about it mercilessly, but the truth was I always thought it was kind of cute.
He’d had so many endearing traits, like calling his teachers ma’am and sir, even when they were barely older than we were. His mother had raised him right. He was chivalrous when most of his friends were trying to figure out the fastest way into a girl’s panties.
After we went our separate ways to college, though, things changed. He changed. I saw it, but I didn’t take the time to figure out why. Now it was too late.
I wondered what he’d think of Luke. I never thought about both of them at once—they were carefully kept separate in my mind. I purposefully didn’t compare them. It seemed wrong, not fair. Luke wasn’t a substitution for Tyler.
Still, I had to admit there were similarities, but so what? That just meant I had a type. Most girls did, right?
Most girls didn’t drive their boyfriends to commit suicide, a dark voice inside me countered.
I climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up to my neck. “I’m sorry, Tyler,” I whispered to the dark. “Happy birthday.”
Chapter Nineteen
I turned in my Scantron for the criminology test. As usual, I had stressed over nothing. It was easy, and Luke and I had studied all of the right material. There was only one question that I was a little iffy on, and I was pretty confident I’d guessed correctly. Either way, I aced it.
Luke had finished his test fifteen minutes before me. I was horrified that he’d turned it in without even double-checking his answers. I double-checked and triple-checked mine.
He was waiting for me outside the classroom, leaning casually against the wall with his backpack slung over one shoulder. He smiled when he saw me. “How’d you do?”
“Easy peasy.”
He snorted. “Then why did it take you so long?”
I huffed. “I was being thorough.”
He threw an arm around my shoulders and said suggestively, “I like it when you’re thorough.”
I gave him a tight smile. Normally, I would have come up with a retort for his innuendo, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was still morbidly singing “Happy Birthday” to Tyler in my mind.
He looked at me quizzically, his eyes studying my face. “Are you okay?”
As if on cue, I yawned. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“How come?”
I shrugged, not answering the question.
“You weren’t seriously stressing over this test, were you?”
I didn’t answer, which he took for a confirmation.
He shook his head. “Cori, you are the smartest person I know. I bet nobody’s GPA even came close to yours in high school.”
“One person’s did,” I said without thinking. Tyler and I had been neck and neck with our GPA’s all throughout high school. We took a lot of the same classes, which is actually how we met. The competition was fierce and good-natured at the same time. We were always heckling each other over grades. It came down to our final semester to determine I would be valedictorian and he salutatorian. I had been appropriately modest on the outside, but I was secretly thrilled.
Thrilled to beat him in what turned out to be our final competition.
I stumbled.
“Whoa,” Luke said, grabbing hold of my arm to prevent me from falling.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the tears coming. I used my hair as camouflage and trotted ahead. “I’ve got to go!” I called back to him. As soon as I got out of the building, I broke into a run and just made it onto the shuttle to Greek housing before it pulled away.
It was a short ride to our house. I ran into the building, almost knocking over one of my sisters on the way up the stairs. I called an apology over my shoulder.
I curled up on my bed, wrapping myself in my comforter. How could he have done it? How could he have ended his life at nineteen? Could I have prevented it? We’d been fighting a lot, sure, but so did a lot of couples in long-distance relationships. It was stressful. It didn’t help that we were both type-A personalities.
If only I’d known where he was heading, I might have been able to talk him down from that ledge. But like so many other things, I’d never know. I was too dense to see the signs. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, but even now, I didn’t see it. Surely there had to be signs. Or maybe I was too involved with my own life to be bothered.
Amber strolled in and dropped her backpack in the middle of the floor, true to form. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have class?”
I looked up. “Yesterday was his birthday.”
Confusion clouded her eyes at first, then realization hit her. “Oh, honey.” She crossed the room to me and wrapped her arms around me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I forgot,” I whispered. “I just forgot.”
“That’s good.”
I recoiled as if she’d hit me.
She moved to my desk chair. “Don’t take that the wrong way. It’s just that’s how it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to move on.”
“It’s my fault.” I shook my head a
gain, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I should have known.”
“How? No one knew! You can’t beat yourself up over this.”
I put my head down on my knees, smearing tears and mascara on my comforter. My phone beeped, indicating a text message.
I heard Amber pick up my phone. “It’s Luke.” She held it out to me.
“I…I can’t right now.”
“He wants to know if you’re okay. Should I text him back for you?”
“Sure.”
She pounded out a quick text and then tossed the phone back on my bed. “You know, you’re going to fuck this up if you’re not careful.”
My neck jerked up. The anger in her eyes surprised me.
“That’s right,” she snapped. “Luke is like, perfect, but you’re going to fuck it up if you don’t get your head out of your ass.”
My jaw dropped open. My disbelief turned to anger, then to hurt. I didn’t even know what to say to her. She was supposed to be my best friend. She’d always been so understanding about Tyler. Her new attitude was catching me off-guard.
Amber stomped back to her side of the room and rummaged through her backpack. “Any girl would kill to have a guy like Luke. You probably ran out on him today or something, didn’t you?”
The look on my face was the confirmation she needed.
“You’re so busy living in the past that you’re pushing away the here and now, and everyone in it.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me,” I stammered. “You obviously don’t get it.”
Amber threw up her arms in frustration. “I get it! What happened was terrible. But life doesn’t have to keep being terrible. You couldn’t control what happened then, but you’re in control of now, and I’m telling you—you’re messing it up.”
My hurt transformed to fury. What did she know about relationships? She’d never managed to develop a healthy one. With the guys she usually picked, they were DOA. She had no room to be shoveling out relationship advice.
“How can you say that to me?”
Amber yanked on the zipper on her backpack and slung the strap over her shoulder. “I say it because you need to hear it.” She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else, but the beep from my phone cut her off. She just shook her head. “That’s probably Luke. I’ll see you later.”
The slam of the door echoed in my ears long after she was gone.
…
I eyed Amber across the party room at the Beta house as she planted a kiss on Brad’s cheek. Her hot and cold thing with Brad must be in a hot period. I wouldn’t know. We’d avoided each other all week. I kept waiting for her to apologize, but it was becoming painfully obvious she wasn’t going to.
I wasn’t in the wrong here. She’d been way out of line. Right? Right.
I mean, what the hell. She was supposed to be my best friend. If our roles were reversed, I never would have lashed out at her like she lashed out at me. But that was just the problem. Our roles weren’t reversed and it was unlikely they ever would be. I hoped they never would be.
She just didn’t get it.
A ball sailed into the cup sitting in front of me, splashing beer onto my shirt. I fished out the ping pong ball and shook it off, then downed the cup. Ugh. Warm cheap beer.
Luckily, it was Luke’s turn next, and he sank the next shot, winning the game. I still didn’t get the whole beer pong obsession, but I was glad we won for his sake. I didn’t know why he insisted I play with him. My skill level had gotten worse, not better.
He wrapped an arm around my waist. “Do you want something decent to drink?”
I smiled, figuring if I faked a good mood long enough, it might actually become reality. “Sure.”
“I’ll be back.” He kissed my cheek and started toward the hall that led to the bedrooms.
I grabbed his arm. “You stay and play. I’ll go.”
“You sure?”
I nodded.
He smiled and kissed me. “You’re the best.”
I wandered down the hall and up the stairs to his room. His mini-fridge was well stocked with beer. I searched, but couldn’t find any liquor other than whiskey. I don’t think I’d ever be that desperate. Beer it was.
I grabbed two bottles and headed back to the party room. Josh had joined the group with his flavor of the month. She was a leggy young-looking blonde he introduced as Tiffani, spelled with an i, she informed me. It took all the self-control I had left not to roll my eyes to her face. I immediately looked to catch Amber’s eye, but then I remembered we still weren’t on speaking terms.
I dropped into an empty chair several feet away from the beer pong table. Close enough so as not to be anti-social, but not close enough to have to socialize.
Luke sank into the chair next to me. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah. Just a little tired.”
“Are you still not sleeping well?”
I picked at the label on my bottle. “Not really.”
“Should you see someone about that?”
I shrugged. I had prescription sleeping pills, but I never took them. I figured if I got tired enough, I would sleep.
That wasn’t the whole problem, though. Between practicing for the pageant, working out, and actual pageant rehearsals, not to mention keeping up with my normal schoolwork, there wasn’t much time left for sleeping. So when I didn’t get to bed until way after midnight most nights, taking an hour or more to fall asleep, it meant I was lucky to get three or four hours a night.
So far, I hadn’t told Luke about the pageant. He was so busy with the pledges that it’d been a non-issue—he hadn’t noticed how much time I’d been away doing pageant stuff. I couldn’t put into words why I was reluctant to tell him. Probably because I was reluctant to do the thing in the first place.
“I’ll be fine.” I put my bottle between my knees and rubbed my temples.
“Headache?”
“Yeah. Drinking this”—I held up the beer and shook it—“probably isn’t helping.”
Luke stood, taking the bottle out of my hands. “I’ll drink that, then. I’ll be right back with some water and Advil for you.”
He gave me a peck on the lips before he left, and I smiled at his retreating form. It was nice having someone who wanted to take care of me.
I tapped my fingers on my thigh, tuning out the conversations around me while I waited for Luke to return. Then something Tiffani said caught my attention.
“My roommate is such a bitch,” she complained. “The world would be a better place if she just killed herself.”
All the breath left my body. I clenched my fists and I ground my teeth. Amber quickly looked over at me to see if I’d heard, her eyes wide as the ping pong balls.
“She can’t be that bad,” Josh said, laughing. “I could tell you some stories about my freshman roommate that would put this girl to shame.”
Brad threw a ball at him and it bounced off his forehead. “Hey, asshole. That was me.”
“No, no, no,” Tiffani insisted, waving around her hands adorned with fake nails. “This girl is pathetic. She seriously should just kill herself.”
I stood up so fast my chair fell over backwards. “Don’t say that.”
Tiffani flipped her hair over her shoulder and put a hand on her hip. She looked at me scathingly. “Whatever.”
“No,” I said firmly. “Not whatever. Don’t say that.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Mind your own business.”
Brad and Josh stood watching with their mouths open, neither one making a move toward us. They didn’t seem to know what to make of the situation.
Amber grabbed my arm and gently pulled me away. “Let’s go. Just let it go.”
I gave Tiffani one last dirty look, but allowed myself to be led away. It didn’t matter, I told myself. She’s just a stupid girl.
“Maybe you should go kill yourself,” Tiffani muttered to my back.
I spared a
split-second glance at Amber before I turned and lunged at the stupid bitch. All I could see was red. Blood pounded in my ears.
“I told you. Don’t say that.”
I pushed her, hard enough to make her stumble. “Fucking bitch!”
Her eyes opened wide. Then she grabbed a cup of beer off the beer pong table and threw it on me.
I didn’t think. I just reacted.
I charged at her, and we both fell to the ground. I cracked my knee hard on the concrete floor, but I ignored the pain that shot up and down my leg.
It was like all the rage I’d ever swallowed down had been unleashed all at once.
The little twit got hold of my hair and yanked. I felt a burning in my scalp, which only fueled my anger. I balled my fingers into a fist and punched her in the nose. Surprise at the pain in my knuckles only registered for a brief moment before I was going at her again.
I felt hands pull me back. I flung my fist out one last time, clocking her on the cheek. “Fucking bitch!” Then I was hauled up and carried away.
“Let me go!” I screamed. “She deserves it!” I clawed at the person carrying me. Rage consumed me.
When we got outside, I realized it was Luke carrying me. He put me down once we were outside in the parking lot. “What the fuck?” He put a hand up to four long scratches on his neck.
Amber pushed past him to hug me. I started sobbing.
“Did you hear what she said?” I choked out. “How could anyone say that?”
Now that I was away from the situation, the rage gave way to anguish. I knew the effects of suicide firsthand. I couldn’t believe someone would wish that on another human being.
Amber made comforting sounds in my ear, the way someone might for a baby. I collapsed into her and sank down to my knees. The sobs came so thick and heavy I could barely breathe.
Luke stood back with his hands on his hips wearing his what the fuck expression, but he didn’t go back into the house.
Amber stroked my hair. “Honey, calm down.”
I struggled to breathe.
“Is she okay?” Luke asked gruffly.
“Does she look okay?” Amber snapped.
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