Spring Semester

by Tyler, Q. B.

  He was the first to view it.

  I stared at my phone for a full minute after, waiting for him to respond to it, and I’ll admit my heart sank when I realized he wasn’t going to say anything.

  Because I told him I need space and I haven’t said otherwise since the night he left my house. I don’t respond to any of his texts or calls and now in the past week they’ve stopped altogether.

  We make it to the bar and flash our fakes at the bouncer who waves us in without another thought. There are people surrounding the bar, smoking and talking, and I scan the outdoor perimeter, briefly wondering if I’d see Everett. I know I asked for space but after two shots of tequila after a month of sobriety inspired by heartbreak, I realize I want anything but.

  “Pey.”

  She doesn’t look at me as she scans the bar. “Yeah, babe?”

  The tequila fueled words are flying out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I want to call Everett.”

  Her eyes snap to mine and flicker. “Fuck, I knew the second shot was a mistake. No, we talked about this,” she scolds.

  “I know. I know I said I didn’t want to call him.” I shake my head, my heart slowly starting to pound at the idea of seeing him. Shit, not drinking for a month has turned me into a lightweight. “But I still love him so much, and I—” I stop talking when I sense eyes on me. Deep blue eyes that I know better than anyone are currently undressing me from across the room.

  “Oh God dammit, Leigh, let’s go.” I feel her hand around my bicep tugging me towards the door, but I don’t move.

  “No…I…” I stutter as I feel my skin heat under his gaze. I watch as he downs his drink in one gulp and passes his friends to make his way over to me. Peyton is still pulling on my arm, trying to get me to follow her, but my feet are rooted to the spot, as if they’re nailed there. I bite my bottom lip that’s painted red and stare up at him as he approaches me.

  The love of my freaking life.

  The one who got away.

  The one I pushed away.

  “Hi, beautiful.” He smiles and my eyes widen at his comment. He still…wants me? After all those horrible things I said? After telling him I never wanted to talk to him again? “I know you said you wanted space but—”

  I don’t let him continue before I’m in his arms, squeezing him hard. I wrap my arms around his neck and push my face harder into his black t-shirt. His arms immediately go around my back to stroke the bare skin and then I feel his lips on my temple. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I just had to come over because you’re so fucking beautiful and…”

  I rub under my eyes and shake my head before pulling back. “I’ve missed you.”

  His eyebrows shoot to his hairline and a sad smile finds his face. “You have no fucking idea.” We stare at each other for a second, like we’re just seeing each other for the first time.

  I break the silence. “I went to your game last weekend…” I whisper.

  “You did?”

  “I did, you played well.” I nod. I went because I was trying to be supportive of my best friend. I know lacrosse is important to him and despite not speaking, I wanted to be there. And also, I longed to see him. I sat in the stands, wearing one of his jerseys underneath my jacket huddled with Skyler under an umbrella as a warm spring rain trickled down around us.

  “I’d let everything slip through my fingers. You, lacrosse, my friends…even Pat and Dave got sick of my moping. The only thing that hasn’t suffered are my grades, though I did bomb a biochem exam. Finally, my dad and brother flew out and told me to get my ass together if I wanted a shot at getting you back.”

  “Me?” His father and brother said that? They want him with me? Not with Alli?

  “I was walking around feeling sorry for myself, and hating the world… and I relied too much on you to make me feel better. I relied too much on you to be my salvation in this shitty situation. But…I wasn’t being yours.”

  My lip trembles and I turn my gaze to the left expecting to see Peyton, but she’s disappeared into the crowd of drunk students who are shaking their asses to Rihanna. I turn back to Everett and look him over. His biceps peek out of his black t-shirt and his jeans hug him in all the right places making the space between my legs thump with need. I miss him. I miss him there. “Want to get a drink?” He nods towards the bar. I start to follow him but then hesitate.

  “I should stay here, so Peyton doesn’t think I disappeared.” I point at the floor indicating, where I’d wait.

  “I’ll get it for you. Vodka soda?” His lips quirk up in a half smile and the dull throb between my legs turns more aggressive.

  “Yes, please.” I nod and it worries me that something so minute as knowing my drink order makes my heart flutter and I can sense my guard flying down with ease.

  It’s why I’d asked for space. Demanded it. Everett knows how to suck me back in. He knows how to make me love him. He’s been doing it since the fourth grade. I’m staring after him with an almost dreamlike expression when a nightmare takes form.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I turn my head to see two girls that look like literal clones of Alli sizing me up and down. They’re both dressed in almost identical miniskirts and matching tops and I fight the urge to call them Thing One and Thing Two. “Our friend is pregnant with his baby. He doesn’t want you.”

  I narrow my gaze. My knee jerk reaction is to snap, to argue, to yell. But I realize this is probably only to get a rise out of me. I attempt to take the high road, with a flick of my hair over my shoulder. “You don’t even believe that.”

  “Oh really? Then why are he and Alli trying to work it out?” Blonde number one says. She takes a dramatic sip of her drink and blinks her eyes at me several times.

  “Okay, and if you expect me to believe that, then you’re dumber than I thought.” I put a hand on my hip. So much for the high road. I begin to walk away, despite the fact that I wanted to wait for Peyton. But I just need away from the blonde spawns of Satan.

  “Why else would he be staying here for the summer?” Blonde number one asks as she picks at her nail beds as if she’s bored with this conversation. My heart slams into my chest and I find myself getting short of breath at her question. He’s…what?

  “He’s staying here to be there for Alli and prepare for the baby,” Blonde number two interjects. A smirk finds her face, and I’m sure they’re both thrilled to have successfully ruined my night.

  “I don’t buy that for a second.” He’s staying here? Like in DC? I know Alli is from Virginia, but what about his home? What about…me?

  “Ask him then.” Blonde number two sasses before they sashay away.

  The two tequila shots I had suddenly feel more like ten, and they’re swirling around my stomach and my brain and I feel like I need to expel them from my body. I watch as Everett makes his way towards me with a smile on his face, though I watch as it falls as he gets closer to me. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  My heart skips a beat. There’s that word, baby. I can’t tell if I’m happy to hear him call me that, or sad because it reminds me of the literal meaning of that word. A small child that he’s having with another woman.

  “I need to use the bathroom.” I’m away from him and beelining for the ladies’ room before he can respond. I push my way through the door, grateful that there’s not a line and move into the stall, closing the door behind me. I put my hands on each wall to brace myself from the vomit desperate to leave my body.

  He promised he wasn’t going to play house with her.

  He said he wanted me.

  But you told him you didn’t want him, my mind responds. My thoughts are interrupted by two high pitched giggles.

  “Did you see the look on her face?” one voice says. “Too bad Alli wasn’t here to see that, she would have been so satisfied.” Hot tears bubble inside of me as I realize that it’s the girls from earlier and they’re talking about me. I sit on the toilet and raise my feet up to give them the sense that they’r
e in the bathroom alone. Though I’m sure they’re too drunk to notice or care if they did.

  “Did you tell her that Everett’s slutty ex is here?”

  I put a hand over my mouth to muffle my cries. Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black. Actually, I’m not a pot or a kettle. I’m not a slut. I’ve slept with one guy!

  MY FUCKING GUY.

  I ignore the pesky voice in my head that told me that Alli was technically dating him while I was fucking him meaning I might be straddling that slutty line. Pun intended.

  “No, it’ll just make her upset, I’ll tell her later.”

  “Are they really trying to work it out, though? I thought he was only staying here for an internship, and even then, he’s still on the fence.”

  “Oh my God Hannah, can you get with the program? I wasn’t going to tell her that. She needs to get the picture that they’re over. Or else this would have all been for nothing.”

  My ears perk up and I lower my brows hoping that it’ll help me decipher whatever code they’re talking in. What would have all been for nothing?

  “Yeah, well I didn’t know Alli getting pregnant was part of the plan.” One of them snorts. “I thought she didn’t even fuck him.” I put my hand over my mouth to drown out the scream bubbling in my throat when I hear the door open.

  No no no no! I want to hear them! The loud shrieks of drunk girls enter the bathroom and I can’t hear their voices over the noise. My feet find the ground and I try my best to peek through the door but I can’t tell if they’re still there. My phone lights up with a text message and I immediately know who it’s from.

  Everett: You okay in there?

  Me: Yes…please don’t leave. We need to talk.

  Everett: Of course, I’m not leaving. I haven’t talked to you in a month. I miss my girl.

  Me: I’ve missed you too.

  Everett: I started eating on the South quad that you eat at to avoid me. Took everything in me not to throw you over my shoulder and take you home when guys would eat with you and Peyton.

  I don’t respond to his jealousy because it’s almost comical.

  You got a girl pregnant. Me eating lunch with friends of Peyton’s flavor of the week is hardly a reason to be jealous.

  I peek my head out of the stall, to see a significant line has formed. I wash my hands and slide past the line and through the bar when I see my man leaning against the wall near the door. He looks so deliciously sexy it makes my knees weak.

  Focus.

  “Everett.” I shake my head at him and then I push myself into his arms. I reach up behind his neck and bring his face closer to mine. I press a kiss to his lips, but I pull apart before he can deepen it. A smile is on his face when we pull apart and before he can comment on our first kiss in four weeks, I decide to drop the bomb. “Something’s…wrong.”

  “What? What is it?” His face is laced with concern and when his hands gently stroke my face, the tears spring to my eyes.

  “She…she did something. I don’t know what.” I let out a breath. “There—there’s a plan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I take a deep breath as I calm my racing heart and prepare my thoughts. “I heard her friends in the bathroom. One of them said she wasn’t even aware you and Alli had sex.” I blink the tears away. “Don’t stay here this summer, Everett. Come home to…Arizona. Come with me.”

  He rubs his jaw and his shoulders sink. “That’s what this is about? And who even told you about that?”

  “Alli’s bitchy friends basically told me you guys are back together.”

  “We certainly are not,” he growls.

  Well, that’s a relief, sort of.

  I narrow my gaze in question. “But you’re staying here with her this summer?”

  “I’m not staying here with her. I was offered an internship and my parents thought it was a good idea. They want me to step up and be responsible.”

  “There may not be anything for you to be responsible for! That baby may not be yours, Everett.”

  He bites his lip and he looks out into the crowd. “I’m going to take a paternity test when the baby’s born and—”

  “No, you can do it now since it’s been eight weeks. You need the truth. The way they sounded…it just didn’t sound right.”

  “What girls, Leigh? Who said something to you?”

  I look around the room, trying to identify them, but the room is getting more crowded by the second and I don’t see them. “I…” I shake my head. “I don’t know, but Everett I swear, I’m not lying.”

  “I don’t think you’d ever lie to me,” he says sincerely. His blue eyes are raking over me and I know he’s reading me just like he’s always been able to do. “I just think maybe you misunderstood, or maybe they were fucking lying to you to get under your skin and drive an even bigger wedge between you and me.” He shakes his head. “Her friends are bitches.”

  “Birds of a feather.” I raise an eyebrow at him and he has the decency to agree with me. “But no, I was in the bathroom stall and they were talking to each other. They didn’t even know I was there. One of them said that Alli getting pregnant was not part of the plan, and the other said she had no idea you guys even had sex. Everett, something is off about all of this, and I think…I think maybe she’s trying to trap you or maybe she’s not even pregnant. Maybe this is all a fucking game. Have you even seen a sonogram or gone to an appointment with her or…”

  He doesn’t say anything; he just looks out into the crowd and my heart sinks.

  “You have…”

  “I went to her last doctor’s appointment with her.”

  A tear slides down my cheek and he reaches up to touch it. I let him because I’m weak. I’m weak and I relish in his touch.

  “Just when I think it can’t hurt anymore…” I whisper. I pull out my phone to send a text to Peyton that I’m sorry but I’m leaving before I start moving towards the door.

  “Leighton…I’m so sorry.” He falls into step with me as we make our way outside. “But we are not together. I haven’t touched her or kissed her or slept at her house or gone out with her or anything. I’ve been thinking about you since I left your house.”

  I start walking away from the bar when I hear my name being called. I turn around to see Peyton jogging towards us despite being in four-inch heels.

  “You’re leaving…?” She looks at me and then at Everett. No one says anything, though I know the answer to her questions are written all over my face, and in the body language between me and Everett. His hand is resting on the small of my back and I can sense I’m leaning into him. “You’ll make sure she gets home safe?”

  His eyes widen and he nods, and I’ll admit that I’m shocked that she’s so accepting of me leaving with him. She pulls me into a hug and murmurs into my ear. “I know you miss him. And I just talked to Dave and Pat who said he’s been a miserable dick. This situation sucks all around, but maybe…maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe it really was just a mistake.” She pulls back and shakes her head. “I’m not convinced one way or the other but…” She looks at Everett and then at me. “You two loving each other as hard as you do should count for something.” She purses her lips and looks out into the warm summer night. “Hell, it may just count for everything.”

  The walk to Leighton’s house is quiet. The sounds of Friday night swirls around us as we walk past the strip of bars and through the neighborhood of those hosting house parties. I’m wary of sliding my hand through hers because I don’t want to push her. This is the first time we’ve spoken in a month and I’m worried the second I touch her, she’ll shut down—or I’ll attack her.

  “I think you should take the paternity test sooner rather than later. There are much less invasive procedures to do that, now.” She looks over at me nervously. “I googled.”

  I let out a breath, my mind still spinning by what Leighton said at the bar.

  Is it possible that all of this has been bullshit?

&
nbsp; I know she’s really pregnant, but what if I’m not the father?

  If this has all been some bullshit ploy, you can bet I’ll kill Alli the second she gives birth.

  And that’s counting on the fact that Leighton doesn’t beat me to it.

  “What reason would she have to fuck with me like this? Fuck with us?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. To get back at us? Or maybe she really does think it’s yours. But I do think it’s worth looking into maybe sooner rather than later. I just…I don’t want to see you get any more hurt over this situation.”

  “It’s only hurt watching this take its toll on you and us.”

  I’ve been forced to be without not only my girlfriend but also my best friend for the past month, potentially because Alli is a woman scorned?

  “You’ve missed me too?” Her words cut through my thoughts and I recall what I said earlier. I turn my gaze to her to see her staring at the ground as we walk.

  “Of course, I have. I don’t think a minute has gone by that I haven’t thought about you at least once.”

  She continues walking and I see her shiver making me wish I had a jacket to give her, though I’m sure it isn’t due to the weather. Before I do something drunk and slightly chivalrous like taking the shirt off my own back, I ask her, “You cold?” She shakes her head, her gaze still fixed at the ground when I stop her. I grab her arms and hold her in place. “Leighton, look at me.”

  Her eyes meet mine and they’re sad and defeated and it kills me that I may have broken her spirit. Broken her. I lean down, pulling her into my arms and stroke her back gently. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, or accept all of this, but I just…I hope you’ll let me try and make this right. I’ve been miserable without you the last month. I love you. I miss you.”

  She doesn’t say anything for the remainder of our walk, and as soon as we’re through her door and it closes behind us, she’s on me. Her tiny body climbs up mine and wraps around me. Her legs twine around my waist and her arms around my neck and her lips are on mine before I can blink. Her force sends me back slightly as I wasn’t expecting her to all but attack me and suddenly, I’m pinned up against the door. I cup her ass and she groans into my mouth as I walk her to the couch.