For A Reason

by T. N. Cole

  I groaned. “Can you just help me up then, please?” I held out a hand so she could pull me up. I was not looking forward to making my way home. I had no idea how far I had run.

  She rolled her eyes, but nevertheless, grabbed my hand with both of hers to yank me to my feet. Except it failed. My legs weren’t working after the abuse of last night. I staggered and fell back against the wall—where I started to slide sideways. “Whoa,” Katelyn exclaimed and pulled my arm over her shoulder. I was now leaning mostly on her as she supported the brunt of my weight.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I mumbled as I tried to get my legs to wake up and work.

  She wrapped one arm around my waist in response, grabbed her bag off the floor, and started to shuffle us forward. “Yeah, sure. Let me just leave you here in misery. Not. Come on, elevator’s around the corner. I’m taking you to my apartment. You need…well, everything. You look like shit, dude.”

  I rolled my eyes, but she couldn’t see me. “Well, thanks,” I remarked sarcastically. I winced as she dug her nails into my sides from the comment. “Okay, okay, sorry,” I bit out as she reached out and pressed the up button for the elevator.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice you avoiding my question,” she murmured as she got us into the elevator. While she hit the button for her floor, I tried to move to lean against the wall to give her some reprieve for at least a few seconds. Her arm tightened around me. “I’m on the third floor, so don’t bother. We’re already here.”

  Sure enough, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. A few minutes and two turns later, we were standing in front of her apartment. Number 316. “Okay, the tricky part. Need to get my keys.” She huffed from the effort of having to support most of my weight. She leaned me against the wall next to her door and made sure I wouldn’t fall over before reaching into her bag to pull out a set of keys. “My roommate already went to class, so we’re alone,” she informed me as she once more dragged me. “Ugh, you’re still a little wet, so you’re not lying on my bed. Here.” She dumped me unceremoniously on the leather couch in the living room.

  “Thanks,” I commented dryly as I righted myself on the couch. She disappeared into what I assumed to be her bedroom, and I surveyed my surroundings. Well, she definitely wasn’t a broke college student. The place was bathed in sunlight. The decorations and furnishings were modern but feminine. I couldn’t turn to see the kitchen behind me, but I assumed it was as nice as the rest of the place was. I could see at least two bedrooms, maybe three.

  Katelyn emerged from her room, gently closing the door behind her. She had thrown her hair up in a ponytail and changed into a different gray shirt. I looked at her questioningly and gestured to her shirt. “What? You’re wet. You got my clothes wet. And I was a little sticky from sweat—it was hard work lugging your fat ass up here.” I raised my eyebrows in disbelief, as she conceded, “Okay fine, your ass isn’t fat; you have a nice ass. But I did needed to change shirts.”

  “I know I have a nice ass, thanks. Yours isn’t half bad either,” I smirked.

  She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath.

  “What was that?” I asked innocently.

  A fake smile. “Nothing.” Then she held up a bundle in her hands. “I have some clothes you can change into.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Hell no.”

  “What? They’re clean. I’m a girl. We wash our clothes,” she said with exaggerated patience, as if she was talking to a five-year-old.

  “I’m not wearing your ex-boyfriend’s clothes.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’d rather stay in my wet clothes, Katelyn.”

  “First of all, that’s just stupid that you would rather stay in your gross, wet clothes from who knows what rather than wearing these. Second, these didn’t belong to my ex-boyfriend. These are mine. Sometimes, I sleep in guy’s clothes because it’s more comfortable. Girls don’t sleep in sexy lingerie you know,” she added that last part mockingly.

  I clutched my chest, pretending to be wounded. “They don’t? What kind of person are you? Killing my fantasies. For shame, woman. For shame.”

  She threw the ball of clothes at my head in retaliation. “Just take the clothes and change, dammit.” She walked to the kitchen and starting slamming cabinets and drawers and banging pots and pans. I chuckled as I heard her muttering under her breath; she probably regretted helping me.

  I unfolded the clothes she had given me to check the sizes. Basketball shorts and a cotton shirt. I held the shirt up in front of me to see what it said. I almost dropped it in shock.

  No way. Mel laughed but I wasn’t laughing. It was identical to a shirt I used to have that Mel would steal from me. A vintage DC Comics shirt we had picked up at a thrift shop when we were fourteen. It was really soft and big, so we both loved to wear it.

  “Hey, Katelyn?” I called.

  “What,” she snapped. “I’m cooking you breakfast and you’re going to eat it. All of it. And you’re going to say it’s the best meal you’ve ever had in your life, dammit.”

  “Where’d you get this shirt?” I ignored what she said. Of course, I would eat what she cooked. I was starving.

  I heard sizzling as she started frying our breakfast. “Umm, that’s the DC one right? I stole it from my best friend a long time ago. You know, the one who taught me all those soccer moves. I love that shirt. It’s so soft. You better return it later,” she threatened.

  It’s no big deal, Tristan. So what if she has the same shirt we did? You’re just extra freaked out from the picture you got last night, Mel admonished.

  “Hey, how do you like your eggs? And I mean cooked—for eating. I know you’re going to try to twist my words around, you weirdo.”

  I laughed, her question relieving some of my edginess. “Scrambled is good, ma’am.”

  “Ugh, don’t call me ma’am.”

  I raised my legs in front of me, testing to see if they were fully functional yet. The burn was slowly starting to dull. I grabbed the armrest with my left arm and used it to slowly pull myself up to a standing position. I took the hem of my shirt and tugged it up, wincing as my arms lifted and flexed. My whole body was sore from the run. I sighed. Not my best idea.

  Katelyn walked out of the kitchen. “Hey, do you need help walking to the bathroom…” she trailed off as she saw me standing shirtless in her living room. “Or not.” Her eyes were a little bigger than usual.

  I resisted the urge to flex my muscles under her stare because why would I? “I mean, if you keep looking me any longer, then I might have to charge you,” I taunted.

  She looked back up at me, and her face broke into a wide grin. “Hold it right there.” She dashed to her bag and pulled out her phone. “A picture lasts longer anyway.” She giggled as she raised her phone and snapped a picture before I could even protest. She looked down to check and see how it turned out. “Oh good, you have that annoying smirk on. Send.” Her thumbs flew across the screen.

  “Who the fuck are you sending that to?” I asked as I pulled the shirt she had given me over my head. Not that it mattered—I didn’t care who saw.

  “You know, everyone. Logan, Alex…oh, and that one bitch from last night. What’s her name? Jessy?” She pretended to think, tapping her finger against her chin.

  I froze for a second, then laughed. “Jenny? You don’t even have her phone number, you liar.”

  “Yeah, I’m not one for drama either, and she oozes it. It mixes well with her Eau de whore perfume.”

  I chuckled and then bent down to untie my shoes so I could change my shorts. But my equilibrium was still off, so I started to topple forward. Katelyn squealed and next thing I knew, she rushed at me and knocked me onto the couch to prevent me from falling flat on my face. My arm shot out and tried to grab something to keep myself steady, and it grabbed Katelyn. Suddenly, she was sprawled on top of me.

  Our faces were inches apart. I was frozen, my arm still curled around her waist. Her dark
brown eyes searched my face, and I didn’t know what she was seeing. My mind had gone blank. I could feel her breath on my face, and her chest against mine, rising and falling with each inhale and exhale. One of her hands was pressed against my heart—I was sure she could feel how fast it was beating—and the other was braced on the couch.

  “I should—I should go make sure I’m not burning the food,” she murmured. Her eyes fell to my mouth, and she subconsciously bit her lower lip.

  “And I need to change my shorts,” I said wryly. I was trying not to look at her with her loose shirt and too-short shorts to avoid making the situation more awkward than it was already becoming.

  Instead of scrambling up, she slowly moved back—not breaking eye contact—and let our bodies slide together until she was sitting back on her heels between my legs. I stared back at her, willing my body not to respond. The last thing I needed right now was a hard-on, especially with these basketball shorts. It would be the same as me waving a flag and saying, Hey, I’m beginning to become ridiculously attracted to you!

  She wasn’t like any other girl. She wasn’t fazed by me. She blatantly took my picture, and then just slid down my body like no big deal. I never knew what to expect from her. It scared me, but at the same time, I knew my attraction to her was growing. Not good.

  “—help changing your shorts,” she was saying as she stood up.

  “Sorry, what?” I cleared my throat.

  “I said, ‘Do you need help changing your shorts?’” She smiled teasingly at me.

  “Actually, I would rather you not burn our food. I might be able to handle changing my shorts without injuring myself. Or giving you a strip show,” I shot back.

  “Shit, the food!” She ran back to the kitchen.

  Well, now my whole body was awake and humming after that little encounter with Katelyn. Fucking great. I swung my legs over the edge of the couch and decided to go to the bathroom to change and clean up a bit. I wandered down the hall until I found the door that I had seen Katelyn disappear into earlier, which I assumed was her bedroom. Across the hall, I found a bathroom. I ducked in there with the shorts Katelyn lent me in hand. I toed off my shoes and peeled off my socks. Then switched the running shorts I was wearing with the basketball shorts. As I washed my hands, I looked up in the mirror. Damn, I looked like shit. No wonder Katelyn insisted on taking care of me. I almost looked like a homeless dude.

  I splashed some water on my face and grabbed the towel off the rack and dabbed myself dry. Once again, I found myself bracing my hands on the edges of the sink and trying to see if I recognized the guy staring back at me in the mirror. My eyes were still a haunted dark blue, with bruise-like circles under them.

  “I wish I had your eyes,” eight-year-old Mel commented petulantly as we stood side by side looking at our reflections in her bathroom mirror.

  I scoffed. “Why? They’re just eyes. And they’re blue and boring.” I didn’t understand why girls obsessed over things like this.

  “They’re a pretty blue. Like the sky. And the sky reminds me of flying. I would love to fly.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to admit it, but I thought that Mel had nice eyes, too. They were big and chocolate brown. But Mel would punch me if I said that to her. So instead, I said, “Let’s go play outside!”

  I ducked my head and doused my face again. Why were the flashbacks getting more frequent? They hadn’t been this bad since the first year after the accident. I rubbed my hands over my face and let out a little growl in frustration.

  “Tristan? The food is ready! Where’d you go?” Katelyn called.

  I swept my shorts, shoes, and socks off the floor and left the bathroom. “Here. Just had to use the bathroom.”

  “Your legs are working now, huh?” Katelyn gave me a knowing smirk.

  I shook my head in slight amusement as I dropped my clothes on the couch where I had discarded my shirt earlier. This girl had no shame.

  She turned and motioned with her head for me to follow her. “Come on, we’re eating over here.”

  I padded after her until we reached a little round kitchen table overflowing with food. “Whoa, what the hell, Katelyn? Did you invite a whole class to eat with us, too? What’s with all the food?” I motioned to it in disbelief.

  Katelyn pursed her lips, then plopped down in the chair. “My roommate likes to cook and clean, so I just built on what I already had in the fridge.”

  “What kind of college roommate does this?” I speculated as I grabbed a piece of bacon and took a bite before dropping the rest on the plate and helping myself to more food.

  She shrugged. “Besides, I didn’t know what you liked, so I thought I would give you lots of choices.” She chuckled while watching me load food onto my plate.

  “Are you one of those girls who doesn’t eat anything but fucking rabbit food?” I asked her between bites.

  She scowled at me before grabbing a few dishes and putting small portions on her plate. I winked at her. What the hell? Did I just wink? “Good, I don’t want you to just watch me eat.”

  “Can what you’re doing even be called eating? You’re shoveling food down your throat like you haven’t eaten for days. Jesus,” Katelyn retorted.

  I swallowed the toast I had just crammed in my mouth. “I’m a growing boy,” I deadpanned. She threw a grape at me, which I instinctively caught in my mouth—making her narrow her eyes at me. I gave her a fake bright smile and then nonchalantly added, “Besides I ran here last night from my place. So, yeah, I’m pretty hungry.”

  I stopped eating when her staring finally got to be too much for me. “You ran here from your place? Why?”

  I lifted one shoulder then dropped it. “I needed to clear my head.” It was mostly the truth, at least.

  “But it stormed last night,” she said in disbelief.

  I snorted. “Yeah, I noticed. Hence the reason my clothes were drenched, remember?”

  I expected some smartass remark from her—I only got silence. I looked up to see that she was mindlessly picking at her food while gazing out the window. I laughed to myself. Clearly, my people skills were shit if I couldn’t even keep her engaged in a conversation for more than a few minutes.

  After a few minutes, Katelyn shook her head and cleared her throat. “Sorry, I was just thinking and trying to figure out what on earth would cause a person to do that…”

  “Any luck?” I asked dryly. “Because once you figure it out, you should let me know.”

  Katelyn insisted on driving me back to my apartment, even when I said I would be fine to walk. She said I owed it to her, since I had caused her to miss her class. She laughed when my eyes lowered in guilt, and she told me to loosen the fuck up and that it was college and you were supposed to skip class. I directed her back to my apartment and she measured the mileage.

  “Seven point six miles!” she declared when we pulled into the complex.

  “That’s only if I ran straight toward your building after leaving here. Which I definitely don’t think I did,” I added. I wasn’t really sure actually. I had no idea where I had run last night. I just knew that it was more than I usually ran.

  She looked at me apprehensively. “You know that’s not normal, dude.”

  I rolled my eyes and opened the car door to climb out. “There’s a lot about me that’s not normal.”

  Before I shut the car door, she said, “I think I know what makes a person run that much in the middle of the night while there’s a storm.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “Demons…a shitload of demons wreaking havoc in someone’s mind. That would do it,” she simply stated.

  My hand tightened on the car door. “Thanks for breakfast and the ride. I’ll wash the clothes and give them back.” I exhaled a little too forcefully and shut the door. As I walked away, I could feel her stare boring into my back; it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I resisted the urge to look back at her—I didn’t need to encourage whatever she was thinking about me.
I needed to try harder to make sure she stayed the hell away from me and all my shit.

  I WALKED INTO THE library and up to the fourth floor to the tutoring rooms. I frowned when I turned into the hallway and saw the door was open and light was streaming out on the floor. No one had the time slot before I was there, and I didn’t have a session scheduled as I had when I found Katelyn in here. Today it was walk-in help. No one should have been in there until I unlocked the door for my hour.

  The room was empty when I stepped inside. But something was written on the whiteboard.

  What the fuck? I shut the door and fell back against it, breathing heavily. So the person doing this had to go to this school in order for this to have been done. And they would have to know that I tutor at this time. Actually, I couldn’t even think about it. I put my head between my legs again. I couldn’t fucking breathe. Who knew about what happened? Shit. Why was this happening? Why now? Who knew I was a murderer?

  A knock sounded on the door, making me jump. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans. Fuck, I never usually got any students here. And of course, the one day I really needed to not have anyone here—someone wanted help. I stood shakily and strode over to the dry erase board to wipe off what was written. I would have to deal with it later. Maybe the people downstairs could figure out who had opened the room.

  I flung open the door and found Jenny standing on the other side wearing a pathetic excuse for an outfit. A tight tank top and a denim miniskirt that barely covered her ass with these red cowboy boots she had once worn when I fucked her on the hood of her sports car.

  “What do you want?” I growled. I seriously didn’t have time for her bullshit today. And with the way she was dressed, I knew for sure that she was looking for the same thing she’d wanted at the soccer game.

  She smiled coyly. “Growling? That’s pretty sexy. I need your help, baby.” She reached out to lay a hand on my chest, but I took a step back before she could even make contact.

  “Lemme guess. You’ve been a naughty girl?” I scoffed. “We are not playing student and teacher, Jenny. Not now, not ever again. What’s the matter with you? You know we’ve been long over.”