Rikki

by Abigail Strom

I jerked my head around to see Jason sitting across from Tamsin and me.

  The truth was, I’d forgotten all about him. But now, seeing how pissed off he looked, I felt a wave of guilt. Maybe I should have found him and apologized for last night.

  He was holding his phone in his hand like a loaded gun. “Judging from your postcoital glow, I guess the boning between you and Payne has finally commenced. Not that I’m slut-shaming you, of course. This is a sex-positive dorm.”

  Tamsin was frowning at him. “What’s got your panties in a twist? I know you think you’re a rock star now, but that doesn’t mean you have to act like an asshole.”

  Jason ignored Tamsin and kept his eyes on me. “I just wonder if you know the kind of guy Sam is. What he likes, what he doesn’t like. Because if you need information, I just got some pics from someone who was at the club last night. Apparently she had a front row seat to your boy and—well, here.” He held out his phone. “Why don’t you look for yourself?”

  I knew it was something I didn’t want to see. That was obviously Jason’s intention—to show me something I didn’t want to see.

  But I didn’t think it would be too bad. How could it be? Because I did know the kind of guy Sam was, and nothing Jason showed me would—

  He shoved the phone into my hand.

  The picture took up the whole screen. Sam was in the alleyway behind the club, his pants down around his thighs. There was a girl between him and the building behind her.

  I couldn’t see her face—or his. But I could see what they were doing.

  It felt like I stared at that image for a long, long time. It was long enough for Tamsin, sitting beside me, to look over my shoulder and gasp.

  But it was probably only a few moments before Sam came back with two brownies on a plate and sat down next to me.

  “Hey,” he said, glancing at Jason’s phone. “What are you looking at?”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t hand him the phone. But I felt him go very, very still beside me, and I knew he’d seen the picture.

  “Rikki,” he said, his voice low and intense. “Rikki, you have to let me explain.”

  Jason took his phone back and slid it into his pocket. “This should be good. Did your dick accidentally—”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  The sound of Sam’s voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I’d never in my life heard anyone sound like that—like they were going to beat someone until they bled.

  Jason’s expression went from antagonistic to apprehensive, but he held his ground for a little longer. “Are you really going to blame this on me? Maybe you should focus on convincing Rikki that your identical twin fucked some girl last night. You know, right before you fucked her.”

  Sam shoved his chair back and surged to his feet. Jason got up, too, so fast that he tripped and sprawled on the floor. He scrambled to his feet and took off, stumbling, but moving so fast he knocked into a couple of people on the way.

  I thought for a minute that Sam might go after him. I could feel his anger coming off him in waves, and I almost wished he would. I didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want either of us to exist in this moment in time.

  But he took a deep breath and stayed where he was.

  “Rikki, listen to me. What you saw in that picture—it happened hours before you came over. I was drunk and half out of my mind. I saw you kissing Jason on the dance floor and I thought… I thought you were with him.”

  “I was with him.” My voice sounded so calm I thought someone else was speaking for a minute. “And I was kissing him. But then I stopped kissing him, because it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That’s when he told me the only reason he was with me in the first place was that you told him to ask me out.”

  “You know why I did that,” Sam said, grabbing my hand. “You know what I—”

  “Let go of me.”

  My voice was still calm, still quiet, but something in my tone must have convinced Sam I meant business. He dropped my hand immediately.

  “Rikki. Rikki. Please let me—”

  “Stop talking.”

  He did. And for a moment I just sat there, staring down at my tray with Sam on one side of me and Tamsin on the other, both of them still and silent, waiting for me to do or say something.

  So far, we were the only ones who knew anything was wrong. Jason’s pratfall hadn’t drawn much attention. All around us, people were talking and laughing just as usual, not realizing I was sitting here falling apart.

  I could still keep everyone from knowing it—everyone but Sam and Tamsin.

  I’d managed to get through high school without making an idiot of myself over love. I’d watched so many of my friends make scenes in public, break up in public, cry and scream and beg in public… and I knew I’d rather die than expose myself like that. Than make a fool of myself like that.

  And I would never let a guy make a fool of me.

  I felt strong when I thought that way. A part of me wondered what it was like to love someone so much you’d sacrifice your pride, but I was sure my self-respect would always win out in the end.

  Now I knew that I hadn’t really been strong. I’d only been safe.

  But it wasn’t too late to preserve my self-respect, even now. I could get up and leave without a word, and no one would know what I was feeling.

  Not even Sam and Tamsin. They might guess, but I could at least keep the full reality of the pain inside of myself.

  Maybe that would keep them from feeling sorry for me.

  But then, as the memory of that picture came flooding back, I stopped thinking about what other people thought about me. All I could think about was how much I hurt.

  “I’m such an idiot,” I said, looking at Sam for the first time since Jason handed me his phone. “I believed your feelings for me were special. That what we were doing was special.”

  “Rikki—”

  “Shut up.” My voice was trembling, and I didn’t even try to hide it. “Who was she? Was it someone I know?”

  Sam looked at me like I was sticking a knife between his ribs, but I didn’t care.

  “I don’t know,” he said, and I could see how much he hated admitting that. “I don’t remember her name. She was with the band from last night. They’re on their way to Hartford now, and I’ll never see her again.”

  “Oh, God. Did you use a condom?”

  “Yes. But Rikki—”

  I pressed my hands against my temples. “I said I was glad we waited. That we’d be each other’s first time. I actually said that, and you didn’t tell me you’d screwed some girl three hours before. You let me believe that romantic bullshit.”

  “I would have told you, Rikki. I swear.”

  “When?”

  “Before we… before anything happened. But I couldn’t tell you last night. I couldn’t fuck up what we—”

  “Last night was a lie.”

  “No. It wasn’t.” Sam grabbed my shoulders. “Last night was the most real thing I’ve ever experienced. Compared with that, what happened in that alley was nothing.”

  I pulled away. “It wasn’t nothing.”

  The pain was almost more than I could stand. But even so, a part of me recognized that Sam hadn’t betrayed me with that girl. He hadn’t cheated on me, because we hadn’t been a couple… and as far as he knew we never would be.

  He was drunk when he went into that alley. He was drunk, he was a free agent, and he’d just seen me with Jason.

  But what I was feeling now had nothing to do with rationality. It wasn’t logical. I just knew that I could never again look at Sam without seeing that picture.

  I’d believed that Sam was different. That he wasn’t the kind of guy who would screw some nameless, faceless girl in an alleyway.

  Maybe I wasn’t being fair. If it had been anyone else—Will or Andre or Jason—I wouldn’t feel like this. I’d still think it was a sh
itty thing to do, but I wouldn’t feel like my very faith in humanity had been shaken.

  I wouldn’t feel like my guts were being ripped out.

  But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Sam, and only now, when it was way too late, did I realize the truth.

  I was in love with him.

  I started to shake, and Sam grabbed for my hand. “Please, Rikki. You have to let me—”

  I jerked my hand away from his. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  There was one other time my emotions had seemed bigger than I was—the night Charlotte had admitted she’d had an affair.

  “People are shit.”

  I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Sam said, “Don’t say that. I know I did a stupid thing but I—”

  The hurt inside me was growing every second, burning away everything else until I felt insane.

  And I was glad.

  An insane person doesn’t have to make rational decisions. An insane person doesn’t have to be fair or reasonable or take things into consideration. An insane person doesn’t have to find a way to move past things, to forgive, to have perspective.

  Sam was still talking, still asking for a chance to explain. I tuned him out as I got to my feet, picked up my tray, and upended it into his lap.

  That pretty much ended the possibility that no one else would know something was wrong. As Sam jumped to his feet, covered in soup and lasagna, people all around us could see something was wrong.

  A collective gasp rose from the tables near us as people craned their necks to see what was going on.

  I had just made a spectacle of myself, and I didn’t even care.

  But it didn’t ease the pain. Nothing would.

  As I pushed my way through the crowd of people that had started to form, I could hear Tamsin shouting after me.

  “Rikki! Wait!”

  But I didn’t wait. I just ran. I ran out into the lobby and through the front doors.

  It was freezing cold outside but I didn’t care. I was glad of the cold, because it made me feel something other than the pain inside me.

  I felt like I was leaving things behind as I ran, away from Bracton and through the main quad, across the dead grass and past the trees.

  But then something tripped me up. A rock, a twig, or just my own clumsiness. I tripped and I fell, but instead of getting up again I just lay there on the hard, frozen ground, feeling cold and miserable and angry and heartbroken.

  “Rikki! Oh my God, are you okay?”

  It was Tamsin, panting and gasping for breath. I rolled onto my back and looked up at her.

  “You followed me?”

  “Of course. You’re upset.” She took a moment to catch her breath. “Now will you please come back with me?”

  I shook my head. “I’m going to stay out here for a while.”

  Tamsin put her hands on her hips. She was still breathing hard, and she looked colder than I did in her short-sleeved shirt and miniskirt.

  “You can’t stay out here. You’ll freeze to death.”

  “Good,” I said, closing my eyes. “I hope I do.”

  I heard Tamsin sigh heavily, and then she sat down next to me and bumped my hip with hers. “You don’t mean that.”

  I opened my eyes again and looked up at her. She was shivering, and she wrapped her thin arms around her knees for warmth.

  “I do mean it,” I said, and even though I knew I was wallowing in self-pity I couldn’t seem to stop myself. I didn’t even want to stop myself. “This hurts so much. How can you stand it?”

  “How can I stand what?”

  “Love.”

  In the light of the lamppost a few feet away, I saw Tamsin’s eyes widen.

  “You’re in love with Sam?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry. I thought you guys just hooked up. I mean, I could tell you were really into him, but—” She paused. “This is the first time you’ve ever been in love, isn’t it?”

  “I thought I was too smart to do this to myself. I didn’t mean to fall in love with him. Oh, God, how could I let this happen? I’m such a fucking idiot. I’ve been fooling myself all these weeks, all these months, telling myself Sam was just a friend.”

  “You managed to fool me,” Tamsin said gently.

  I closed my eyes. “All I can think of is that picture. I’ll never be able to look at him without seeing it. The things he said last night, when we were…” I couldn’t finish that sentence. “And just a couple hours before I was with him, he was with her.” I drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m so stupid. I thought he was different. The kind of guy who would never… do that.”

  Tamsin put a hand on my shoulder. “You guys weren’t together when he did that. He didn’t cheat on you.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t.” I opened my eyes again. “But at least I’ve learned something. I’m not cut out for this, Tamsin. I don’t want to feel this way ever again. I was so happy last night, and now—” I swallowed. “This is it for me. No more guys. I obviously can’t handle it. All the messiness and misery and… God, I want to die. Maybe I will die. Is it possible to die from feeling this way?”

  Tamsin shook her head. “You’re not going to die. You’re going to come back to our room and listen to Adele and the Cure and Joni Mitchell and cry. Tomorrow morning, you’re going to listen to Rihanna and Annie Lennox and Sinead O’Connor and feel pissed off.”

  “And you think that will make me feel better?”

  “It’ll be a start. You’ve just never done this before, Rikki. You’ve never fallen in love and you’ve never had your heart broken. You should have gotten it over with in high school. You stayed away from this stuff a long time and now you’re in the middle of it. But I swear to God you’ll get through it. And the next time it happens—”

  “Don’t say it gets easier.”

  “I wasn’t going to. But the next time it happens you’ll know you can survive it, because you’ll already have survived it once.”

  “There won’t be a next time. Seriously. I stuck my toe in the water and it’s way too cold for me.”

  Tamsin started to answer, but she was interrupted by the ringing of my phone. She yanked it out of my pocket before I could and looked at the screen.

  “It’s Sam. Do you mind if I get this for you?”

  “I really wish you would.”

  She hit accept, and before Sam could get a word out she spoke. “Rikki doesn’t want to talk to you right now. Okay? There’s nothing you can say that’s going to improve the situation, so—” She paused, and I could hear the sound of Sam’s voice but not what he was saying. “I have no idea,” she said. “Here’s a suggestion, though. Why don’t you wait for her to call you? That seems like a surefire way to know she’s ready to talk.”

  She ended the call and handed me the phone. “There,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “That should give you a day or two at least. He seems like the persistent type, but unless he’s a total asshole he’ll give you some space for a while.” She held out her hand, and when I took it she pulled me to my feet. “Now let’s get the hell out of the Arctic zone and back to our room.”

  I tried to remember the bands she’d prescribed as we trudged back toward Bracton. “I don’t have any of the music you talked about.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tamsin said. “I’ve got it all. My breakup playlist is very extensive.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Tamsin was right about the music: it did make me feel better.

  But she was wrong about something else.

  It turned out that Sam wasn’t the persistent type. He didn’t call, he didn’t stop by our room, and he didn’t make eye contact with me in class.

  He was doing what he thought I wanted. And as the days stretched into weeks, it was obvious that he would keep on doing it.

  Something else happened as the days went by. Something I’d always craved in the past but which, this time, I
fought with every breath in my body.

  I got perspective.

  I still wished I hadn’t seen that picture. I still wished Sam hadn’t had anonymous sex in an alley. But the fact that Sam had done one shitty, out-of-character thing when he was drunk didn’t negate all the amazing, wonderful things about him.

  I could feel the forgiveness happening inside me and I struggled against it. I didn’t want to forgive Sam. I didn’t want my anger to soften. Because the truth was, as horrible as it was to feel all that anger, it was a thousand times simpler than the other thing.

  Love was the real enemy. Love makes fools out of otherwise smart, sensible people.

  Just look at my own parents. There was no one in the world smarter or more sensible—not to mention kinder or sweeter—than Beth. But that hadn’t stopped Charlotte from falling in love with someone else and making a fool of her.

  The only way to make sure you don’t get a pie in your face is to stay out of the game.

  I was committed, now, to a new life plan. I would become an academic nun. I would wall myself up in a metaphorical ivory tower, devoting myself to the study of history and foregoing the pleasures of the flesh.

  When I was alone in my room or studying in the library, it seemed like a really good plan. I loved the moments when I was reading a textbook and got lost in another age. I told myself that intellectual excitement could totally take the place of other kinds of excitement, and I felt strong and independent and comfortable with myself.

  Right up until the moment I saw Sam in English class.

  I never saw him in the dorm, which was pretty extraordinary—until I realized that Sam was taking extraordinary measures to make sure we didn’t run into each other. I found that out when Andre told me—looking a little confused—that Sam wouldn’t be eating in the Bracton dining hall for the foreseeable future.

  But we still had English comp together three times a week.

  I dreaded that first class so much I almost didn’t go. I was sure Sam would try to talk to me, and at that point my anger and hurt were still so strong I knew I couldn’t deal with that.

  But he didn’t try to talk to me. He effaced himself completely in the classroom, keeping his head down the whole time and never, not once, making eye contact with me.