In Ruins

by Danielle Pearl

  Goddamnit I can’t take another fucking sarcastic word out of her mouth. “Enough!”

  “Oh it’s enough, is it?” she hisses.

  Rationally I know it was a ridiculous thing to ask her. She may be a liar, but she’s also a good girl. I know that better than anyone. Because I know she’s only ever been with one guy. Me. Or at least I’d hoped that was still true. And fuck the damn wave of relief that surges through me at hearing it confirmed. Because I’m not supposed to care anymore, goddamnit!

  “What happened, Carl? Why did you leave the party?” I try not to ask the final question, but I can’t stop myself. “Why were you with him?”

  Carl sighs and her confidence deflates before my eyes. “Look, Tuck, I’ve barely slept. I’m exhausted, and…I just can’t do this right now.”

  She can’t do this right now? I just spent the night on a goddamn bench outside her dorm imagining God only knows what and she shows up here first thing in the morning in new clothes with our young-stud professor, and she can’t do this right now?

  Well, fuck this.

  “See you in class,” I spit, and then I turn to leave.

  “Hope you had fun with your skank,” she mutters, and it’s all I can take.

  “I did have fun with my skank,” I lie. “And I will continue to have fun with whoever the fuck I want. Have fun with our professor.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Carleigh

  Present Day

  I watch Tucker walk away, his hostility radiating off of him in waves. I just don’t have the energy for his childish bullshit right now. All I want to do is get into my bed and crash.

  I don’t understand what the hell he was even doing here. My brain is too tired to do any quality thinking, but if he’s outside Stuyvesant Hall this early, chances are he’s leaving some girl’s dorm—maybe that Red Skank for all I know—and just the thought alone makes my already disheartened mood plummet into downright depressed. It was bad enough watching him flirt and walk off with her earlier, and I don’t know why I was surprised. I knew he’d move on. I knew sleeping with me a few weeks ago didn’t mean anything to him. But seeing it unfold before my eyes…it was more than I could bear.

  And I didn’t have fun with Zayne, either. I just needed a ride and he did me a favor. But Tucker hates me, and he’s obviously moving on with other girls, so why the hell would he care even if I did go and do something crazy like hook up with Zayne?

  Like that would ever happen. He’s my professor and, as it turns out, a really nice guy on top of it. He didn’t have to come to my rescue last night. He didn’t have to offer his help. But he did.

  My heart practically stopped beating in my chest when my phone buzzed with a call from Billy. I’ve always told him if he or his friends ever did anything stupid and needed help, that he needed to call me. And to his credit, he did call.

  Hearing his slurred voice sent me into panic mode. He’s only thirteen. I didn’t have my first drink until well into high school, and the guilt of how my being away at school, even if I’m not very far, might be affecting him haunts me even now. Especially now. He has no one. My mother was in the city doing God knows what, and Billy’s friends were supposed to be staying at our house. Instead they went to a party, and they got drunk. But they couldn’t get back home. There were no cabs available, and their friends are all too young to drive, even if they hadn’t been drinking.

  But my mother wasn’t answering her phone, and the no-cabs problem applied to me, too. And there I was, standing outside the lax party, practically pulling out my hair while I waited for an Uber that said it would be an hour—the shortest quoted wait time.

  I figured I’d have to stay at home with Billy and wouldn’t make it to my morning classes, so I decided to e-mail the professors of those two classes—Zayne and Professor Farley—to let them know I had a family emergency and wouldn’t be in class the next morning. Because contrary to popular belief, attendance does count in college. So I e-mailed, and hoped they’d let it slide.

  I didn’t expect either of them to respond, certainly not that night, but Zayne did. And when his e-mail asked if everything was okay, and I replied that my little brother was in trouble and he had no one else to help him, Zayne asked if I needed anything. I wrote back joking that unless he had some sort of power over the availability of taxis on Halloween, I was on my own. But then he replied that while he had no power in the almighty world of Uber, he did have a car. And how could I turn him down? Billy was so drunk he was barely coherent and I was panicking.

  Zayne got me to Billy in less than thirty minutes, and got us to my house just in time before Billy started puking into my mother’s hydrangea.

  Zayne helped me get Billy and his friends into the house. I thought he would leave then, but instead he helped me get them cleaned up and into bed. It was embarrassing as hell, but I couldn’t exactly refuse his help when most of those kids already weighed more than I do.

  But having Zayne in my house was surreal. I was struck by how easily I forgot he was my professor, and we fell smoothly into friendly conversation. Of course, once you share the experience of cleaning vomit from a squad of barely conscious thirteen-year-olds, your relationship skips a step or two.

  I ended up making him a cup of coffee, and the more we talked, the more I had to remind myself that this man was, in fact, my professor, regardless of how friendly he seemed.

  He was finishing his coffee when my mother finally texted me back:

  Got your messages. Sorry my phone was off. I’m on my way home now, you can go back to school. 2:03 am

  I growled at my phone.

  “Everything okay?” Zayne asked, and I buried my frustration for his benefit.

  “Just my mother,” I murmured. “She’s on her way home now.”

  Zayne frowned. “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. She told me I should go back to school. Like I should just leave Billy and a bunch of drunk thirteen-year-olds alone in the house. She just…aggravates me sometimes.” I regretted giving him that insight into my dysfunctional family the moment I said it, but Zayne managed to make even that less awkward. He noted that I seemed like more of a mother to Billy than our actual mother. He’s observant, and kind, and it made me confide even more about her.

  It turns out Zayne’s mother and mine have a lot in common. “Materialism to the extreme,” he called it. But when he tentatively asked about my father, I just shook my head and changed the subject back to his family, asking if his parents were still together. A part of me knew it was inappropriate, but still, I felt strangely connected to him in that moment.

  Zayne shook his head. “My mother tends to go where the money is,” he told me, “And my father was a businessman. Self-made. When he lost his business, he didn’t have any family money to fall back on, and he lost my mother as well.”

  My heart ached for him. At least my mother stuck with her marriage, even if it isn’t much of a marriage, what with my father in prison and all. But then again, he didn’t lose all the money. I wonder if that’s why he put such stock in keeping it—to keep her. So much so that he traded nearly a decade of his own freedom. Even now the thought makes me cringe. That isn’t love. At least not a love I would ever want for myself. I would have lived with Tucker in a shack if he’d have had me.

  Zayne and I talked for a long time, and only when I had to fight to keep my eyes open did he suggest we call it a night. He offered to drive me back to my dorm, but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving before my mom got back, and when he offered to pick me up at the crack of dawn just to give me a ride, I couldn’t exactly turn him down. After all, my car was back at school, and I didn’t want to ask my mother to drive me—I wanted her to stay home and be a goddamn mother to her son.

  I must have thanked Zayne a hundred times, but he just blew it off, as if the fact that his student needed help was more than enough reason for him to offer it. Apparently he’d once had a student advisor who regularly went above
and beyond for her students, and it’s obvious that that’s the kind of teacher he wants to be. I’d say he’s doing a damn fine job.

  I think of the final words of advice he left me with last night: “Everything happens for a reason, Carleigh. It’s trite, but it’s true. I know it doesn’t feel like it on days like these, but hey, if my father hadn’t gone through his hardships, I would have inherited a disgustingly handsome trust and would probably be partying on a beach in Ibiza right now. Instead, I found a calling in teaching I never even would have known to look for.”

  From another man the words would probably have been sardonic, but from Zayne they glowed with earnestness, and I can’t help but wonder if they might be true for me as well. If, in the long run, it’s possible something good might come of all my regrets.

  * * *

  I enter my dorm room quietly and plug my phone in to charge. I already changed into sweats back at home, so I fall right into bed without waking a comatose Devin, who still appears to be wearing a smudged variation of last night’s makeup.

  Sleep doesn’t come easily, though. Tucker’s accusations ring loud in my mind, and the more I think about them, the angrier I get. I’d worried over how much I’d imposed on Zayne, but it never occurred to me that from the outside, him dropping me off early in the morning in front of my dorm might appear scandalous. Because it wasn’t scandalous. It was all thoroughly innocent, and I can’t help but feel outraged for Zayne that Tucker suggested otherwise.

  The more I think about it the more disgruntled I get. How dare Tucker? While he was screwing around with Red Skank, I was dealing with Billy with no one to help me except one nice guy who really, really didn’t have to offer. A really handsome, really sweet, really nice guy. Who I didn’t even look at. And the sad thing is—it wasn’t because he’s my professor. The reason I didn’t look twice at Zayne is the same reason I’ve been blowing off Ben Aronin since he asked me out a few weeks ago. It’s because of Tucker, and the realization makes me want to punch a wall.

  And suddenly, I’m done. I’m done apologizing and I’m done feeling sorry for myself. I’m done drowning in guilt and I’m definitely done sleeping with him. Especially now that he’s been with Red Skank. I’m. Just. Done.

  I close my eyes, fueled with a new determination, and I drift off to sleep almost instantly, ready to finally embrace my new single life when I wake. I am finally ready to get over Tucker Green.

  * * *

  Over the next couple of weeks Tucker and I seem to succeed in what I once thought was the worst possible thing—erasing us. I won’t pretend it doesn’t still hurt. But if there is anything to be gained in being Nicole Stanger’s daughter, it’s the ability to bury emotion and feign composure. My new plan of action is a simple one—trite but true—fake it ’til you make it.

  And so I go through the motions of what I would be doing if I actually felt the emotional stability I’m working so hard to portray.

  Tucker seems to have come up with an identical game plan. He flirts with girls and contributes in our group meetings for our creative digital marketing project, though he never addresses me directly, nor I him. And I’m pretty sure he’s screwing The Red Skank, whose name I’ve recently learned is Courtney, and while she may very well be a nice girl, I’m still calling her The Red Skank—at least in my head.

  I have also learned, however, that she does not in fact live in Stuyvesant Hall, which has led to an ever-growing snowball of internal speculation as to what in the hell Tucker was doing there that morning. At first I suspected he just ended up going home with another girl that night. Going home with some random girl after hooking up with someone else is certainly a slutty thing to do, but not out of the question for a single guy in college. But then I remembered the voicemail. The one he left me that night, demanding I call him back and sounding decidedly frantic. The one I decided to ignore, since I had already decided on my plan of action to move on. But it does make me wonder.

  Then I remind myself again of my new mantra, which sounds unsettlingly similar to one I used to invoke after Tucker and I first hooked up.

  I don’t care.

  I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.

  Zayne wraps up his lecture and dismisses us. As I pack up my books, he casts me a warm smile, its soft curve of familiarity the only hint of our shared experience. I return his smile, and his familiarity, adding in a personal note of gratitude.

  Zayne is a genuinely good guy, a fact I’ve come to realize more and more. In the weeks since Halloween, as the stress of the night itself—and the following morning—has faded, I’ve finally had opportunity to process just how much I’d inconvenienced him, and how selflessly he’d acted in turn.

  Even Zayne’s explanation for his kindness—his outlook on teaching—was exceptionally noble. The man has a gift, and his ability to forge connections with people—with me—isn’t something to be taken for granted.

  But Tucker, it seems, still isn’t a fan. He still watches Zayne strangely, but at least he no longer glares at him as if he suspects he’s some kind of serial killer. I realize he thinks Zayne is harboring some kind of inappropriate interest in me, but it’s like he simply no longer cares. And why would he? I suppose that even if it were true—which God knows it isn’t—it wouldn’t be Tucker’s problem anyway. I am no longer Tucker’s problem. And I have to get used to that.

  So tonight I make my first proactive effort in doing that.

  I go through the rest of my classes and then catch up on my reading assignments, and by the time evening rolls around, I’m inevitably nervous, but I’m determined not to cancel.

  Ben picks me up at Stuyvesant at precisely eight o’clock. Punctual.

  After my hundredth excuse why we couldn’t go out, Ben finally called me on my bullshit. And what could I say? He was right. So I told him, again, that I’d only just gotten out of a relationship, and I was hesitant to date. So tonight is not a date. We are two friends, going to dinner.

  But as we drive off campus in an awkward silence, the air is thick with the discomfort of a first date. Ben tries to make small talk, but I can’t seem to come up with more than one-word responses that seem to halt the conversation every time I open my mouth. By the time Ben hands off his car keys to the valet outside Bottega, I’m already regretting agreeing to this at all.

  But I don’t suppose I can back out now.

  Ben’s hand closes gently around my wrist, stopping me as I’m walking into the restaurant.

  “Carleigh, if you don’t want to be here, we can leave,” he offers, his handsome face etched with sympathy, and it only exacerbates my guilt.

  I look down at my shoes. “It’s not that I don’t want to be here. It’s just…” I trail off. What can I say? It’s just…I wish I were here with someone else?

  Ben gives my wrist a small squeeze. “Hey. Stop over-thinking so much. I’m dying to eat something other than campus food, and I’m happy to do it with a new friend. Okay?”

  I appreciate his words, and they do help me relax a little. I give him a half-earnest smile. “Okay,” I agree.

  * * *

  Ben isn’t just talk. He’s careful not to make me uncomfortable, chatting amicably throughout dinner just like an old friend would. There are no first-date, getting-to-know-you questions or anything like that, and by the time we’ve finished our appetizers, I’ve managed to drop my guard and enjoy myself. There’s absolutely no attraction or romantic chemistry, but that’s fine. I don’t have to get over Tucker in one fell swoop. Even just going out and enjoying myself with a new friend is a step forward from drowning in guilt and heartache, and I give myself a figurative pat on the back.

  We both agree to skip dessert and I insist on splitting the bill.

  “Just to be clear, I’m going along with this because we’re not on a date. But if we were, I would not be letting you pay. Just for the record,” Ben says through a brilliant, playful smirk.

  “Duly noted.” I laugh. “I will spread word t
hat you are nothing if not a gentleman.”

  Ben’s smirk widens. “You do that. Be sure to tell all your freshmen girlfriends,” he teases.

  “You got it, buddy.”

  “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  And who knows? Maybe it is.

  We get our coats and Ben hands his ticket to the valet.

  My phone buzzes with a message, and I swipe the screen on. But there’s no new text, so I check my e-mail app instead, expecting to find one from some online store I shopped on all of once, probably advertising some sale exclusive to me and its million other customers. But the sender isn’t an anonymous marketing distribution service. It’s Zayne.

  The subject reads: Checking in, and I blink at my inbox, my brows knitted together in thought. It isn’t the unexpected e-mail that takes me aback. What surprises me is the barely discernible spark of excitement that flickers in my belly, and I stare down at the screen, wondering where it came from.

  A glance to my left confirms that Ben is still busy waiting for the parking attendant to make his change, so I open the e-mail.

  Hey Carleigh,

  I keep meaning to catch you after class, but one of us always seems to get caught up with something, don’t we? Anyway, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I admit I’ve thought about you a lot in the past couple of weeks, and what you’ve been dealing with at home. I just wanted to check that you’re doing okay. And to let you know that if you ever feel stressed, or need help with anything, you can come to me, okay? Whether it’s school related or not. It’s clear to me that you’re an exceptionally capable woman, but I know how demanding a freshman workload can be, and sometimes our family or personal life can add to its weight. The last thing I want is for you to feel overwhelmed.