Romance: The College Bad Boy: A Young Adult Romance

by Veronica Cross

  “No! I still need my student card; I haven’t gotten it yet…” I did need my card but I also lied. I was in fact going to see Troy. I needed to learn more about that night. What was wrong with him, what was he talking about? I wanted answers and I wanted them now.

  “Alright, see you later” Jacob said and headed toward the exit.

  After I made sure that he could not see that I was also leaving, I grabbed my backpack and headed toward the lab.

  Before opening the door, I actually had a few thoughts about maybe not going in at all. Maybe it was none of my business and maybe I should not have been meddling. But I really wanted to meddle… I felt something weird in my stomach, I needed to figure out what was happening. I mean what is the worst thing that could happen? I felt bad for having this sentence in my head. In horror movies that is what people think right before they are about to die. It is that one sentence that you should never think, because the worst thing can actually always happen.

  I opened the door and the only person inside the room was Troy. Standing on a table at the end of the room, writing something in a notebook and checking his computer every two seconds, he seemed quite busy. The room smelled like pizza because of all those empty boxes filling the recycle bin. It seemed like all he has been eating for days or even weeks was pizza. The room looked like it had not been cleaned for weeks - it was borderline dirty; I was super close to giving him the card of my cousin who had a cleaning company – he needed it.

  He looked at me from all the way across the room with a question mark written all over his face.

  “Can I help you? I’ve reserved the room for the whole month” he probably thought I was planning on staying and studying in here or something.

  “It’s me, Lana…?” I wanted to check if he remembered anything at all. He just shook his hand and raised his shoulders. Nothing. Even though I knew he was quite unconscious, I took the fact that he didn’t remember me personally. I mean, I should have been remembered.

  I walked up to him and looked straight into his eyes. Come on... Remember me!

  “What are you doing?” he asked and I could feel he was getting irritated by my noisiness.

  “I’m the one who called the ambulance” I explained and took off my backpack because it was way too heavy.

  “Oh, that was you?” He took off his gloves and gave me a handshake. “Thank you! Nice to meet you, I am Troy”

  “Lana..”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that the other day.” he apologized as if it was his own fault that he had passed out.

  “Are you okay now?” I was genuinely worried for him. He looked at me like he was surprised that I had asked him that. Was that such a weird question to ask somebody who was just in the hospital?

  “I’m fine, yeah. Thanks. Do you want some money or?” That right there was the weirdest question I had ever gotten from anybody.

  “What the hell? Why would I want your money?”

  I asked and he could definitely feel the angry tone in my voice.

  “Well, you wasted your time with me at the hospital, thought you may want some money for that. “Was he actually serious? I wasn’t his babysitter; I was a person who was worried about him.

  “That is bullshit! I saw a person lying on the floor, I called an ambulance, anyone would have done the same thing, I don’t want your stupid money.” I was actually getting angry and then I realized... “So you do remember me! I never told you I was at the hospital with you.” Guess he thought he could pretend that he didn’t remember me and he could easily avoid my questions.

  “Look, I don’t want to talk about it” he put his gloves back on.

  “You told me some pretty crazy things, I need to know more.” I wasn’t going to give up now.

  “Can you please leave? There is a reason I have reserved this room and that reason is definitely not so that pretty girls can come in and question me like I’m at the police station.” Did he just call me pretty??

  “So, you think I’m pretty, huh?” This may have been a serious conversation but there was nothing wrong with joking around a bit.

  “That is really not the point. The point is that I need you to leave right now.” even though he was being arrogant he was still super cute. In fact, he was lucky he was so cute because I seriously doubt I would have been okay with anybody else speaking to me like that.

  “Fine” I said, grabbed my backpack and stormed out.

  This really wasn’t what I expected, but he did think I’m pretty so I guess it wasn’t all bad. I definitely had a crush on the cute mysterious guy that I found lying on the floor and I was going to figure out everything about what he told me.

  When I got to the cafeteria Jonas and Amelia were already there waiting for me. I could see them laughing while also eating from each other’s meals, they were so darn cute together, they kept holding their hands and I thought that was very romantic. I was slightly jealous of what they had but also happy because I loved them both. I would never do anything to ruin their relationship, in fact I would go out of my way to save it if it was ever in danger. I never felt like a third wheel with them, I felt just in place and comfortable with my two best friends who loved me very much.

  I was starving so sitting down at that table was probably the highlight of my day. I always had space for a delicious tuna sandwich and a nice salad.

  “Lana, get this!” Jonas said just as I took out the lunch from my bag.

  “What?”

  Amelia took a sip of her coke and took over the conversation.

  “Jonas told me about your new friend - he is in my biochemistry course.” what a small world.

  “No way!” I was about to know more about him, could definitely feel my excitement flowing all over.

  “Yes way, he is a total Brainiac. He is the smartest in the class but he barely talks to anyone anymore…” her tone changed and I could feel that she wasn’t saying something. Whenever she tried to hide something, you could always hear it in her voice.

  “Why, what happened?” I inquired.

  “His mother has cancer. We threw a fundraiser last year to collect some money for her treatment. We actually got a large amount but money's not everything. I’ve heard that she is on a bed all day now.” I really hated hearing that. Nobody deserves anything like that, it is the biggest and most terrible challenge that anyone would ever have to face.

  “That’s terrible…” I said and felt slightly bad for being so demanding with him earlier. I know that people who go through things like this never want for others to look at them like victims and I had no intention of doing that. I did, however, have the attention to at least try to be a bit more understanding about his behavior.

  “That’s exactly what I said when she told me” Jonas added and continued eating his hot dog.

  “Do you know why he has rented a whole room to use as a lab?” It did seem slightly strange. People often rented rooms in university but it was to form study groups and things like that, it was never for personal use.

  “Nobody knows… rumors are that he just likes experimenting. But, such a smart guy, who knows. He might be inventing a time machine, wouldn’t be surprised to be honest” Amelie joked and all of us giggled.

  “Yeah…” maybe he was and I could go back and pick up my card on time.

  I felt as if I needed to know more. My curiosity was growing and I found it hard to stop thinking about him. His pretty face, shaking his hand. It was so soft yet his handshake was firm and welcoming. I wanted to know more and I was determined to get to know him. There was something about Troy, something special and different.

  Considering how this went I decided to just get my student card and head home. After a lot of roaming around the building, I finally had the room for real this time. A few people along the way had confirmed where it was and I was actually using the campus map properly this time.

  Inside were two women and a guy all looking at one monitor. They kept arguing about something and I could
see them browsing through books and being anxious.

  “The cameras are supposed to work…” the guy said. He was middle aged and was wearing a suit, I could tell that he definitely wasn’t a student. He seemed very ordered and proper, his suit was dark blue and the black tie he had made his look complete.

  “Look, I don’t know what to tell you, there is no data for Monday from 8am to 5pm, it’s blank. It’s like someone deleted everything or it was never filming in the first place.” He continued trying to defend himself, he seemed so nervous. It took me a few seconds but I realized that, that was the date when I found Troy laying on the floor. Could this have had anything to do with it? I had no way of knowing really and chances were that it didn’t but I was just a kind of a paranoid person who always thought there was more going on than there was in reality.

  “No data for the cameras in the whole university or just some rooms?” one of the women asked.

  “All, the whole building.” he replies and put his hand on his forehead while taking a deep breath. “I am in so much trouble.” he added.

  “It’s not your fault.” one of the women tried to calm him down and patted his back.

  After that, they noticed I had been standing there the whole time and all of them looked at me.

  “Can I help you?” one of the women, the younger one, who had really long, beautiful blonde hair that I was absolutely jealous of asked while the other people went away.

  “Um, yes. I need my student card.” I said and gave her a warm smile.

  “So, you’re Lana Wood, the only one whose card is still here, we were actually wondering if you’re alive.” she said and opened some drawer. The other two people in the room continued browsing while she was dealing with me. They seemed very nervous about not having any data from the cameras in school, I had no idea it was actually that important. I was under the impression that most of the time the cameras were just there and nobody ever really looked at them unless something was stolen.

  There it was my student card, finally. All blue and in perfect condition, I was excited to be able to open doors. The sky was the limit now. If I could open the doors in the university, I could do anything.

  “Thank you.” I grabbed it and put it in my wallet. I seriously needed a new wallet, mine was so big it took up half of my backpack.

  “You’re welcome, sweetie” she said. I liked how even though I knew she was having a really bad day she still managed to be nice to me. People around here were actually quite welcoming. They seemed to enjoy the fact that it was filled with people from all over the world.

  I finally had my card and was ready to call it a day.

  Chapter 4

  I tried to go on with my life like a normal person. However, getting him out of my head was an impossible task. I couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty he was, how he called me pretty, how mysterious and interesting he seemed and how all I wanted right now and then was to know what he did.

  I was having German class that particular morning. My lecturer was in fact a native German speaker but not the kind that you may be imagining right now. She had a special ringing in her voice and made German sound like the softest, sweetest language in the world. She was always dressed in bright colors and had a big smile on her face. Now, I knew nothing about her life but I could just imagine how amazingly happy she must have been to be glowing so much every day. I loved German class because of how fun she always made it. I wasn’t that great at it but speaking German was super fun for me. It always made me feel special knowing how to speak a foreign language, people say that you never really understand a culture until you speak its language and I was beginning to see how true that was.

  “And here comes the fun part, they’re projecting a German movie at the cinema this Saturday so I’d like for you all to buy a ticket. I’ll write the code on the board that you will all need to tell them to get a 20% discount. It’s worth it guys, easiest way to learn a language is by doing fun stuff like this.”

  I was actually excited for that. Foreign films can be so fun - especially when you have no idea what is happening. I was trying so hard, but my German just didn’t seem to ever improve. It was that one language that I just couldn’t grasp and feel natural about despite loving it and really wanting to learn it.

  “By the silence, I’m guessing you’ll all buy a ticket.” She started packing her things so I could tell the class was about to be over. I enjoyed her classes so much that I actually felt bad for being bad at German, she deserved better students than that. “Oh and also, don’t forget to work on your project guys, get that ten credits, okay? “the whole class gave out a sigh and just as we were about to leave our attention was drawn to the ambulance sound coming from outside. Naturally, a couple students ran up to the window to see what was going on but I was pretty sure that you couldn’t see anything through all the trees blocking the view. Surprisingly, you could see from here that the ambulance had stopped right in front of the front door and doctors hurried into the building carrying a gurney.

  “What’s going on?” exclaimed one of the girls and hurried into the hallway. She was followed by the rest of the group and I didn’t want to miss out so I joined them as well even though I always hated behavior like this, it was so noisy. Only our teacher kept her cool and continued packing her big bag, I honestly had no idea how she carried that around since she was so damn tiny.

  “They’re going into the room at the end of the hall” said one of the guys. “Troy probably did something stupid again” he continued and laughed along with two other guys. Those guys were the typical high school jerks that still lived on in university. Everything was a joke to them, they couldn’t seem to be able to grow up no matter what. Was it so difficult? I couldn’t have known, I felt grown up the moment my dad died and I had to be mom’s emotional support.

  When I was twelve years old my dad went on one of his boat rides with my uncle Simon, his brother. They loved going out fishing on a boat, it was kind of their tradition and they did it twice a year. I always begged them to take me with them but the answer was always no, they didn’t seem to trust that I was old enough to take care of myself on a boat, especially if the sea was a bit wilder that day. The boat they went on was owned by my uncle - it was a pretty, white boat. I know nothing about boats as you may be able to tell. All I know is that its name was Cecilie, named after my grandmother who was Danish. It had nice blue roses on the side and I thought it looked gorgeous. Even though they never actually let me go fishing with them, I did play on the boat on a few occasions and I loved it.

  That particular day, my dad and uncle went on their annual spring trip and never came back. It was an especially cloudy and cold day, the sea was angry and going out on a small private boat was a bad idea. At first we had no idea what had happened when they never came back but after a week their boat was found completely ruined, but their bodies never were.

  I still remember my mother’s face when she got that phone call and I think I will always remember it. Since that day I was more organized than any twelve-year-old that I knew, I forced myself to be better and not put any more stress on my mom. I never felt like I lost my childhood, I just felt like I did the right thing.

  After a few seconds, the doctors went out of the room and you could see Troy lying on the gurney unconscious. He looked more worn out than the last time that I saw him, he was so pale I could have sworn that for a second I thought he could be dead. He looked as if all life had left his body.

  Maybe it was none of my business but I felt like I was involved in what was going on with him. I felt like he may find comfort in me visiting him at the hospital. I was there the last time, maybe being there again could have been nice? Who was I kidding? I just wanted to see him and make sure that he was okay. Not after long, I went in.

  I waited for about fifteen minutes on those uncomfortable chairs that make you wish you were the one in a hospital bed and I finally got the courage to walk up to the pretty nurse and ask if I could go
in.

  On my way there I questioned my actions. A few times I almost decided not to do it but something kept pushing me, right… it was my curiosity and the fact that I had a big crush on him by now.

  If I had known what I was going to find, chances are that I would not be going inside that room, or maybe I would be going inside it even faster…

  I am not the kind of person to believe in anything supernatural. I don’t even believe in God, I’ve had many lectures from my grandma on this topic and for some reason I could never grasp my head around the whole god, heaven, hell concept. I’ve never believed in ghosts or any kind of supernatural creature - it just seemed absurd, I didn’t even believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy as a child. I believed in science but I guess I didn’t know what that meant, I never really imagined how far science could go.

  I do not know where my manners went but I didn’t knock. It didn’t even cross my mind to knock but in a way I am quite glad that I didn’t. When I went in I saw Troy sitting at the edge of the bed wearing his own clothes, I guess he was about to leave. His shirt looked so great on him that I almost got distracted and did not see the most important part. The part where a cup was floating in the air. Yep… a cup was floating in the air and he was looking at it. Maybe it was a magic trick? I don’t think a guy who was just in a hospital bed would take the time to perform a random magic trick for his own amusement. The cup was from one of those hospital see through disposable little cups, filled with clear water and it was floating in the air with water still inside it. It wasn’t spilling, it wasn’t moving, it was just there in the air.

  Troy looked at me and in that moment the cup fell and spilled all over the floor. I am pretty sure that I startled him and I am pretty sure that I was not supposed to see that at all. When he dropped the cup I could see the blood starting to stream from his ears without a warning and I remembered how the first time that I found him he had some on the same spots. I got scared that maybe he was about to fall sick again so I started shouting for a nurse when something even crazier happened.