Luke cursed. “I mean physically.”
“Honey, are you hurt?”
I shook my head, my breaths starting to come in a normal rhythm.
“Is that blood on her arm?”
I numbly looked down to see a streak of blood on my arm. That bitch must have gotten her claws into me.
Luke paced around the parking lot for a few moments, then sighed. “Bring her up to my room.”
Amber looked at me with a question in her eyes. I knew she was asking what I wanted to do. I nodded to let her know it was okay.
“I’ll meet you there.” He stalked off to the party room.
Amber helped me up and guided me back toward the house and Luke’s room. He wasn’t there when we got there.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” I said, dropping onto his couch and resting my head in my hands. “I literally saw red.” I laughed bitterly. “Who knew that expression was for real?”
“Josh has seriously bad taste in women.” Amber propped a hip up on the desk.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can’t believe that just happened.”
It was almost like an out-of-body experience, like some rage-fueled monster had taken control of my body. I’d never thrown a punch before in my life.
Amber raised her eyebrows. “You can’t believe it? Have I mentioned I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier this week?”
I snorted. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to attack you in your sleep or anything.”
“That’s a relief. You’ve got a mean right hook…I think. Is that what that was? She’ll probably have a black eye.”
I laughed, a little hysteria returning. “You think so?” I wasn’t too proud to admit the thought pleased me.
“I hope so,” Amber said. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. It was tough love, you know that, right?”
I nodded just as the door opened. Luke entered holding a wet washcloth to his neck. “Josh is taking her home.”
Amber nodded, mouthing should I leave? to me. The truth was I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want to be left trying to explain to Luke why I’d acted the way I had.
It was totally not me, but strangely, I didn’t regret it.
I nodded to Amber and she slipped out, pointing to the phone in her pocket to let me know to call if I needed her.
Luke sank into the chair opposite me and dropped the washcloth on the coffee table, giving me a clear view of his neck.
Yikes. The bleeding had subsided, but it looked like he’d gotten mauled by a tiger cub. The scratches were red and angry.
“Let me see your arm,” he said in a controlled voice, not meeting my eyes. I realized then that I’d crossed some kind of line in his mind. I’d done damage that might not be reparable. I laid my arm on the table on top of the clean washcloth he’d just put down and he inspected it. Then he pulled a plastic kit out of his desk drawer. In one swift motion, he twisted the cap off a bottle of peroxide and poured it on my arm.
I hissed, and he held my arm down before I could yank it away. He blotted the skin with a paper towel, then applied antibiotic ointment and Band-Aids to the worst part of it, where it looked like her nails had dug in.
Only then did he lean back in his chair and his eyes met mine.
I stared up at him. His face was a mix of emotions—disbelief, confusion, but mostly anger. How must it look to him? “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
His eyes were hard. “What the fuck, Cori?” He stood up and paced the short length of the room.
“I can explain—”
He cut me off. “You’d better.”
I cringed a little. He was so pissed.
“I didn’t know you were the one who grabbed me. I would never try to hurt you.”
He let out a breath. “You think that’s what I’m worried about? I can handle myself. I’m more worried about the fact that you attacked a guest in my house. You do know I’m house manager, right? I’m responsible for everything that happens here.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice was small.
Luke’s normally calm demeanor was gone, replaced by anger and coldness. There was a chill in the air. Then his eyes met mine, and they softened a bit.
He sighed and sank back into the chair. “Why did you go after her?”
“She said some things,” I said meekly.
The muscle in Luke’s jaw twitched. “What things?”
“She said her roommate should kill herself. After I yelled at her for it, she said I should kill myself.”
Luke exhaled. “Okay.” He looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t, he said, “That’s a shitty thing to say, but there’s got to be more to it. Why would you do something like that? I’m trying to understand here, but you’ve got to talk to me.”
I fiddled with the loose strings surrounding the hole in the knee of my jeans. There were a few drops of dried blood there. “My… I…” I took a deep breath. “My high school boyfriend committed suicide last spring.”
The hardness slowly faded from Luke’s eyes. He leaned his forearms on his knees. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Were you still in touch with him?”
I realized he was under the impression that by “high school boyfriend,” I’d meant only high school. He didn’t understand that Tyler and I had still been together last year. Now would be the time to set the record straight. Now would be the time to fess up about Tyler.
That I might as well have killed him myself.
But I couldn’t. I knew it was wrong. Luke had told me about the darkest side of him, his time with Lindsey, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I was the reason Tyler died.
“Yes,” I said. “We were still in touch.” I spoke the truth, just not all of it. Omission wasn’t the same as lying. Or so I made myself believe. “So when that girl… I couldn’t stop myself. I’m so sorry, Luke. I couldn’t even think. I just reacted.”
“I guess you’re still pretty torn up about it—his death.”
“And now I’ve messed everything up.” Realization set in. Amber was right. She told me I was messing everything up, and here I was, sitting in a huge mess of my own making.
Luke lifted himself out of the chair and settled next to me on the couch. He put his arm around me. “I wish you had told me about this.”
“I don’t like talking about it,” I said.
He took a deep breath, but said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’m so sorry.”
He took another deep breath. This was it. He was going to send me packing. A fresh wave of tears threatened to spill over, blurring my vision. I wiped at my eyes with my fingertips.
“There’s just one thing left to do.” Oh, God. Here it comes.
He smiled half-heartedly. “You’d better tell me what your hot button issues are. You have a mean right hook.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. Then I started laughing.
He gets it.
God, I loved him.
Chapter Twenty
“Stop laughing.”
Luke lay on his back on his bed, you guessed it, laughing at me.
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you.” I poked him in the side. “I mean it. Stop laughing.”
“Poking me in the side isn’t going to make me stop laughing.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you ticklish?”
I quickly straddled him, tickling him all over. He convulsed with laughter, his face turning deep red before I took pity on him.
“How can you be so ticklish?”
“Even Superman has his Kryptonite,” Luke said defensively, catching his breath.
I rolled my eyes. “Somehow I don’t think Superman would make it very far if all the bad guys had to do was poke him in his side.” I stuck out my fingers menacingly.
Luke held his hands up in surrender. “Truce.”
I flopped onto my back next to him.
“Honestly, I think it’s great.” He chuckled. “I’ve never dated Miss
New River Valley before.”
I sighed. “Trust me, if it were up to me, you wouldn’t.”
I’d finally told him after he noticed my weight loss. I was down four pounds, but I would like to lose another four. The bikini I’d been given for the swimsuit competition was practically non-existent.
I also needed to step up my game at the gym. I didn’t want my butt and thighs jiggling in the spotlight.
“If you don’t want to do it, then why are you?” Luke asked.
“I need the scholarship money.”
“You know you could always get a student loan. I’ve got them.”
I didn’t want to explain my prejudice against student loans. “I’d prefer to get scholarships.”
He leaned up on his elbow and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “You’ll be great.” A droll expression crossed his face. “You’re not going to turn orange with all the tanning, are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. My skin doesn’t tan, anyway. I’ll have to get a spray tan the week before.”
His eyes opened wide. “Seriously? Like spray paint?” He laughed.
“Fine, laugh, Mr. Hawaiian Tropic. Some of us weren’t blessed with your golden complexion.” I bit my lip. “Will you come?”
A look of surprise crossed his face. “Of course I’ll be there.”
My face relaxed into a smile and some of the tension left my body.
“Just let me know if you need me to oil you up for the swimsuit competition.”
I poked him. “You’re impossible.”
I yawned. I was exhausted. Keeping up with my classes, attending pageant rehearsals, doing my own personal rehearsals, and working out were taking their toll on me. I was counting down the days until I could go back to a normal lifestyle.
And that was why all my preparations were so important. If I didn’t do well in the pageant and win that scholarship money, then I wouldn’t have a normal life to go back to. I’d be heading home next semester.
As far as motivation went, it didn’t get much better than that.
Luke yawned in response to my yawn. “Stop that. You’re making me tired.” He kissed me lightly on the lips. “I’d better get going. The pledge meeting starts in five minutes.”
He rose and held his hand out to help me up.
“How are they coming along? I haven’t seen them in a while.”
“And you’re not going to, either. You bringing snacks and cupcakes made them soft.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t recall you turning away any cupcakes.”
He grinned. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” He pulled me toward him.
I kissed him. “Such a gentleman.”
He grabbed my ass, pulling me closer to him. “Always.” He kissed me, his tongue teasing mine. Then he groaned. “I wish I didn’t have this meeting now, but I can’t be late. It sets a bad example.”
I bit his lower lip gently.
“Okay. Maybe I can be a little late.”
…
I looked at the paper in horror. Then I blinked. And blinked again.
No matter how many times I blinked, the grade scrawled in red Sharpie did not go away.
B-.
What the hell.
I slapped the paper facedown on my desk so I wouldn’t have to see the offending grade.
With one final glance at the paper, I slipped into my jacket. I was meeting Amber at the dining hall for dinner. I still had over half an hour, but I decided to walk instead of taking the shuttle. I needed to clear my head.
Anything less than an A in Women’s Studies was unthinkable. For starters, it was an intro level class. And second, the material wasn’t that difficult. So when I’d run short on time and had to cut corners with my schoolwork, I’d chosen to focus on other classes rather than that one, thinking it would be okay, and now I was paying the price.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and hunched my shoulders. Fall was late in coming this year, but now that it had arrived, it was here with a vengeance. I probably should have broken out my heavy parka, but I was delaying that as long as I could bear it. Once the parka came out, it would be months until warmer weather prevailed again.
That class was supposed to be an easy A, my slacker class. I quickly did calculations in my head, averaging the paper grade with the other grades I had received so far. An A- would be doable, but a solid A would take near-perfect or perfect scores on all the remaining assignments.
Like the one I should be working on tonight.
Sigh.
After dinner, I only had about an hour to do schoolwork before I had to leave for pageant rehearsal.
I stopped in my tracks and contemplated for a moment, earning the stares of a few passersby who must have thought I was one color short of the full set. Then I pulled out my phone to text Amber. She was going to be pissed, but I didn’t have time for dinner. I turned around and trudged back toward the house.
Crackers and diet Pepsi it was, the dinner of champions.
…
“No, no, no, no!” The pageant director’s nostrils flared. She spoke with a French accent and kept her hair pulled so tightly in a bun that Botox was rendered unnecessary. I couldn’t pin down her age—she could be anywhere from forty to seventy.
“Again!” Madame Yancy clapped her hands above her left shoulder.
Dante had led me astray. His friend was not the director. George was Madame’s assistant, and he was as cowed under as the rest of us girls. The first time I’d met her, I knew immediately why the contestant coordinator sounded so apologetic about my having to do extra rehearsals.
We scurried offstage to take our places as the lights dimmed. This was our seventh, no, eighth time running through the opening number, “Luck Be a Lady.”
We each glided onto the stage at our cue, arms open, smiles wide. Step, glide, glide. Step, glide, glide. Turn!
“No sloppy turns! Make them sharp! Sharp turns!”
I gritted my teeth—not an easy feat while maintaining a smile—and sharpened my turns. Any sharper and they’d be lethal.
We finished the dance and stayed frozen in our final positions. Madame slowly walked up onto the stage, one heel click at a time. She stopped at each contestant, pursing her lips and scrutinizing while she circled like a vulture going in for the kill.
She poked the girl to my left in her stomach with glasses I’d never actually seen on her face. They’d only ever been used as a cattle prod.
“Suck it in!”
I sucked in my breath and held it while she looked me over. She made a little hmph sound and moved on. I considered it a victory.
Down the row, she jabbed another girl in the butt with the glasses. “Jiggly. That’s all I see when you turn. Jiggles.”
She sauntered down the row once more, somehow managing to look down her nose at everyone, even those of us who were taller than she was.
“Dismissed,” she announced. “Talent in five minutes.”
The girls scattered, some to the wings to stretch while others slipped on headphones. I slipped out into the hallway and sat at a piano to warm up with scales.
Jiggly Butt Girl—bad, I know, but I hadn’t learned anyone’s names—slipped out the same door. She wore guilt on her face and held a Twinkie in her hand.
“Jiggly, my ass,” she muttered and stuffed a piece of Twinkie in her mouth.
Oh, the irony. I stifled a laugh.
She looked up when she saw me. “Hey, are you doing scales?” In went the rest of the Twinkie.
I nodded.
“Do you mind if I warm up with you?”
“Sure.” I scooted on the bench to make room. See, that’s the thing about pageants. Contestants are usually nice to one another. It’s not the cutthroat catfight people think it is. And directors like Madame Yancy are rare. But I wasn’t going to complain. Her dour demeanor was the reason there were so few contestants in the pageant, which allowed me to get in at the last minute.
The girl s
ank onto the bench and opened another Twinkie, taking a bite. Putting her hand up to cover her chewing, she said, “Go ahead and I’ll join in. I don’t want to hold you up.”
I started at middle C. After a few scales, she joined in.
She was good. Really good. Good enough for me to realize I had stiff competition. Still, I complimented her.
“Thanks,” she said, picking the crumbs off her shirt. “I would kill for another Twinkie. You don’t have one, do you?”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t think so. You’re so skinny.” She wasn’t skinny, but I definitely wouldn’t label her as plump. “I know I need to lay off the Twinkies, but every time that woman pokes me in the ass with those damn glasses, I can’t help myself. This pageant’s going to make me diabetic.” She sighed. “I’m Sarah, by the way.”
“Cori,” I said. “Have you done many pageants?”
“More than I’d like to admit. This will probably be my last one. I’m about to age out.”
My eyebrows shot up. If I’d had to guess, I would have pegged her at eighteen. With her full freckled cheeks and baby blue eyes, she didn’t look old enough to have a license. I couldn’t believe she was twenty-four.
“Have you done this one before?”
She nodded and held up two fingers. “Twice. That’s why Madame Yancy singles me out.”
“Has she always been this awful?”
“Believe it or not, she’s actually mellowed. There were some complaints last year, so she’s had to tone it down.”
I laughed. “That’s her toned down?”
“You should have seen her two years ago when she was going through her divorce.” She sighed. “I don’t even like these stupid pageants.”
“Then why do you do them?”
Now the irony was on me. Luke had recently asked me the same exact question.
“My mother was runner-up for Miss Georgia, and she never got over it.” She shook her head. “So here I am competing in pageants. Twenty-four years old and I still can’t tell my mother no.” She nodded to the keyboard. “Can you play a few more scales?”
I’d gotten into pageants by chance. My mom’s co-worker was involved in them and convinced my mom it would be fun to enter me in a Little Miss pageant when I was ten. I was second runner-up, so I kept doing them until I won one. I was never pressured into doing them; they were just something I did because I could. It’s stupid to quit something you’re good at, right? Some kids played fall and spring soccer; I did the fall and spring pageant circuit. And then once I started winning scholarship money, it would have been pure idiocy to quit.
Letting Go Page 19