Mistakes : A College Bully Romance

by Candace Wondrak

  She stood so close now, so close I was able to see the golden flecks in her brown eyes, the bit of color in their otherwise dark depths. Those eyes were not the eyes of someone who wanted a fight. Those eyes were the eyes of someone who just wanted to give up, not in. I knew it then: this was Kelsey trying to push me away, Kelsey saying these hurtful things to get me to stop. Whether or not they were true remained to be seen, but…

  Fuck. This girl couldn’t help by making things easy, could she?

  I shouldn’t have expected more from her. She always made things difficult. Difficult, I was pretty fucking sure, was her middle name. Mine? Stubborn. Stubborn and rash.

  I had quick, fleeting thoughts about grabbing her and kissing her, wordlessly showing her that I meant everything I said, that she was never a lie to me, but those thoughts disappeared rapidly when I imagined her with someone else. Another guy. A rich guy with, in her words, a fat wallet and a bigger dick.

  It was supremely difficult, but I held myself back from her. I held myself back, muttering, “I’ve made up my mind. It’s time for you to make up yours.” I said nothing else, spinning to walk away. For once, I was the one walking away from her. For once, she was the one watching me leave.

  For once, I hoped Kelsey regretted the words she’d spoken.

  “My mind is made up,” she called after me, annoyed, though I steadily ignored her. I ignored her, focusing on dragging one foot in front of the other, my back straight even though I’d just heard the worst news of my life.

  Kelsey, with someone else. Kelsey, with another guy. It was like that night she’d gone with Grady to his car, only different because I wasn’t there to intercede, to stop her, to make her realize that she couldn’t go giving herself to some other guy when she was already mine.

  Mine. She was mine. Why the fuck couldn’t that girl realize it?

  Chapter Five – Kelsey

  By the time I told Levi that my mind was already made up, he was gone, a figure in the distance. Probably a good thing, because what I said next would’ve only hurt him more. “I love you.” These three words I didn’t shout, because I didn’t want anyone else to know, especially Levi.

  God, the look on his face when I told him about being with someone else…

  I was a bitch. The world’s biggest, right about now. I’d said all that to hurt him—but hey, at least I told him the truth. I was with another dude, he just didn’t need to know that I hated myself for being with that dude. Nope. As far as Levi was concerned, I had fun over the weekend. I got my rocks off and my socks off by some rich boy whose dick shot money-laced cum.

  The nitty-gritty details of the truth were so much less satisfying, but like I said, Levi didn’t need to know. He most certainly did not need to know I’d slept with one of my best friend’s crushes.

  No. I’d made a mistake, and for the first time in my life, I regretted it. My life had been full of partying and mistakes, but this? There was no coming back from this. I’d said those things to hurt him, to push him away, hoping that he would finally just give up. Like, okay, he was persistent, I’d give him that, but that was about the only thing I could give him.

  Levi and I couldn’t be together. There was too much baggage all around, and I…

  Clearly, I only fucked up when it came to relationships. Why bother trying to have one if I was only going to mess it up past the point of no return anyways?

  I did love Levi. Whatever weird part of me that still had feelings for him, even after sleeping with Sawyer, broke when I watched him walk away. In all of our encounters, in all of our arguments and bickering, I didn’t think he ever was the first one to walk.

  I pushed him to walk first. This was what I got. This was what I wanted, even though it wasn’t. What I really wanted, of course, was Levi, but that was a pipe dream for a perfect world. The world we lived in was too messy, too burdened with past infractions. The real world sucked ass.

  The sky let loose a single drop of water, and I felt the first raindrop on the tip of my nose. The cold water droplet startled me, and I slowly glanced up at the grey sky; soon enough this sky would be a permanent fixture. Sunny days were few and far between in wintertime, and since it was November now…

  Yep. Winter was definitely coming.

  Here winter meant the occasional heavy snowfall, but also freezing rain, sleet, ice, and hail. Yeah, fun stuff when the weather couldn’t make up its damned mind.

  When another drop fell onto my cheek, I lowered my face and spun to hurry towards the sliding doors of the dorm building. Not even two seconds after I was safely under the roof of the glass vestibule, the sky let out, a downpour in a matter of moments. I knew Levi was still out there, somewhere, getting drenched.

  The saddest part was that I still cared.

  I wanted to warm his bones, tell him that I was sorry, that I didn’t mean it—even though I did sleep with someone else—and promise him that I’d never do it again.

  That…that would require me to be a better person than I was. I wasn’t a good person; I thought we all knew that by now. The only thing I was good at was pushing people away and pretending my problems didn’t exist. Not skills that would take me far in life, but whatever.

  My feet were sluggish as they drew me to the elevators, and I got on whichever one opened first. I hit the button near the number three, and I leaned my side on the railing as the doors slid closed. I had some papers to work on and do research for; this weekend I’d probably spend in the library.

  Was it sad that I was already planning out my weekend? Probably not as sad as it was that I was planning for it to be slow and miserable and full of work. Not a Kelsey weekend at all.

  I needed to step away from those Kelsey weekends. No more losing myself in the arms of someone else. That was self-destructive behavior I needed to stop. It wouldn’t help me go far in life, and if there was one thing I wanted to do, it was be better than my parents. Prove them wrong. Show them…show them that I wasn’t going to be like them.

  I was deathly afraid of that, you know.

  To be married for more than twenty years, only to call it quits. Just…why? No, I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to be happy, and in order to be happy, I had to focus on something other than Levi, something other than the mistakes I made while at Hillcrest. I had to buckle down and prove everyone wrong—even myself.

  Did I think I was capable of actually doing it? I didn’t know. Only time would tell.

  One thing was for certain. I had to get through this, one day at a time.

  When the elevator doors opened, I headed down the hall to my room. Mel wasn’t there yet, which I thought a little odd, but I supposed normally after lab I swung by the union to pick up some food. The funny thing about all of this shit? I wasn’t hungry. The stress was making me lose my appetite and probably a couple of pounds.

  Oh, well. I’d get my appetite back eventually. It wasn’t like I’d ever be as thin as Mel, anyways.

  I threw my bag on my bed, collapsing on my desk chair. I laid my arms over each other and leaned my head down, my forehead on my arm. My eyes closed, and I felt my body trembling slightly.

  Fuck. What the hell did I do? Would things ever get better? I knew people made mistakes all the time, but this…there was no coming back from this, and honestly, I wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with anyone else on this campus. It’d make for a boring few years, but hey, if I picked myself up from this and guarded myself well, that was my prerogative.

  Mel arrived an hour or so later, her raincoat wet. Unlike some people, she prepared for the weather outside. Not like me; I just slapped on a hoodie, some sneakers, and called it a day. In the wintertime, I froze my ass off usually—but I hated big coats. Hated them with a burning passion that could only be matched by my current state of self-loathing. The big, ugly, puffy things. They seriously looked hideous, and I hated every single time one of my parents forced me to dress in one growing up.

  Now that I was an adult, almost out on m
y own, I was giving a huge metaphorical fuck you to those big, puffy coats.

  She hung her wet coat on the hanger on the inside of the door, slipping off her boots—yes, the girl wore rainboots over her leggings. Mel really did prepare for the weather. I felt like a helpless noob beside her.

  “It’s raining cats and dogs out there,” I mused, suddenly wondering where the hell that weird saying came from. If it really rained cats and dogs, I doubted everyone would be in such a rush to get inside…unless those cats and dogs were vicious or something.

  “Yeah,” Mel said, shooting a glance at me. “You must’ve missed it.”

  “By literally seconds.”

  She chuckled, a soft sound, a sound that, if the wind blew past, would carry it away. Such a light sound, it was ridiculous. How could a girl like her and a girl like me ever be friends? We were opposites; where she was soft and feathery, I was loud and boisterous. Where she was kind and gentle, I was a brute, never knowing when to stop. Opposites on the spectrum of personalities. She was no Ash, that’s for sure.

  But…maybe that was a good thing.

  “You’re lucky then,” Mel said. “It’s supposed to be bad all weekend, I think.”

  Well, shit. The library was on the opposite side of campus; there was no way I was going to walk all that way in the pouring rain just to work on some papers. I could use Mel’s computer, but I knew she spent most of her free time on it, so I hated bugging her.

  “That sucks,” I muttered.

  Mel dropped her bag near her desk, tossing me a look. Her blonde pixie cut was less and less a pixie cut with each passing day. If she was trying to grow it out, she needed to get it cut to re-frame her face or something. Right now she was looking a little ratty. Not that I could talk, because my hair was a mess ninety-nine percent of the time.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I planned on spending most of it at the library, catching up on stuff.”

  “You know you can always use my laptop—”

  I nodded. “I know, but I’m sure you have stuff you need to work on too, and I don’t want to make you late on anything you have to do.” If someone was going to get shitty grades because they’d procrastinated, it’d be me.

  “Kelsey, you know I always have my stuff done weeks ahead of time,” Mel said, telling me nothing but the truth. “I practically start my term papers the moment they’re assigned. If you need to use my laptop, go ahead. I really don’t mind.” This was the pushiest she’d gotten about it, and I wondered why.

  Still, I didn’t want to overstep. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll just borrow your raincoat instead.” And look like a total dweeb, but that was better than sitting in the library soaking wet while earning the side-eye from everyone else there because I looked like a drowned rat.

  Mel managed a smile, though I didn’t believe it for a second. “If that’s what you want.”

  I nodded, not saying anything else as I got out my phone. Mel went to turn the TV on, keeping the volume low. I scrolled through all the social media sites I was on; no updates on Ash, not that I was expecting much. I’d told her that I’d made it back here safely, and that was probably all I would get until winter break.

  God, that felt like so far away.

  The night passed, the minutes feeling like hours and the hours feeling like eternities. Time itself seemed to not care how miserable I was, dragging it out as long as it possibly could. By the time Mel and I were both ready for bed, I’d already ruminated so fucking much about the earlier encounter with Levi that I hated myself about ten times more than I did yesterday.

  Whispering to his back that I loved him. What a stupid move. Those words…those words should never see the light of day again.

  My head hit my pillow, my eyes slowly closing out the dark room around me. Mel had some weird superpower that she could fall asleep instantly—though she complained she was still tired all the time, which I totally did not understand—but me? I lay there, wide awake, locked in my head for what felt like hours, and then when I went to glance at my phone’s clock, I usually found it had only been some ridiculously short time, like thirty minutes or something.

  Some days I really hated being me, if you couldn’t notice.

  Sometime during the night, I turned on my side, about to internally whine—though I promptly forgot what exactly I was going to whine about—when I realized that I wasn’t where I thought I was. Not anymore, at least.

  Where did I think I was? My dorm room, with Mel’s bed a few feet away.

  You want to know where the hell I was? My freaking bed. As in, my bed at home. What the…

  I abruptly sat up, looking all around me. I couldn’t remember exactly what I was doing before this moment, but I knew I shouldn’t be here. I should be at SCC or something, right? Yeah, yeah. I shouldn’t be here at all. Silly me. What was I thinking?

  Flipping the covers off me, my bare feet hit the carpet below, and I tiptoed out of the dark bedroom I’d spent so many years growing up in. My hand reached for the knob, and the moment I pulled the door open, the world around me changed. I stepped from my childhood bedroom to the halls of a frat party.

  It wasn’t even a frat house I wanted to be at. It was a vaguely familiar house, with people whose faces were all smeared and blurry. I didn’t recognize them, but I knew enough to go up the steps. My feet took two at a time, and I found only one door open upstairs; the rest were shut, the lights off. The light from the open door flooded the space, and I stepped around it to view an empty bathroom.

  My stomach immediately dropped, and I wanted to be sick. I didn’t want to go in there, didn’t want to step a single foot into that bathroom, and yet a slurred voice behind me spoke, “I’m ready whenever you are.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as I turned around, spotting a tall, muscled guy in a black and red vampire cape. His hair was black, his eyes a vivid green. His face was the kind of face you’d die for, but it did nothing for me, because he wasn’t Levi.

  “Excuse me?” I could barely hiss out the words.

  The man grabbed me by the wrist and started dragging me to the bathroom, pushing my stomach against the vanity as I felt him fumble with my clothes. My fingers gripped the edges of the counter, and I wanted to stop this. I needed…I needed something I could never have.

  I needed Levi.

  “I don’t want this,” I whispered, but it was too late. The man already had his pants down; I could feel his hardness pressing against my backside. He was now trying to help me out of my own pants, and I was paralyzed, mortified, frozen in disgust of myself, of what I was going to do.

  This…this was a nightmare. A nightmare of epic proportions.

  It was the moment when his hands managed to pull my pants down that I pushed myself off the vanity, having enough. I grabbed the waistline of my pants, hiking them back up as I whirled on the guy. I opened my mouth to tell him off, to tell him something along the lines of fuck you and maybe a knee to the groin, but someone stood in the hallway, watching us.

  My first thought, strangely, was Ash…but it wasn’t Ash. It was the one person who I never wanted to see me with another guy.

  Fucking Levi. The man just had a habit of popping up wherever he shouldn’t be, didn’t he? It was like magic.

  Levi’s strong body wore a dark blue t-shirt, splattered with some design, and dark jeans that hugged his impressive figure like a second skin. He looked drop-dead gorgeous, so very lick-able—only his eyes, normally a crisp, clear blue that made me feel warm all over, were so very cold. As cold as the arctic, as cool as ice. They made me shiver and quickly step away from the guy behind me.

  “Levi,” I started, reaching for him, but it was no use. He was angry. Too angry. He wouldn’t listen to reason.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” Levi asked, cocking his brown-haired head, giving me the worst look I’d ever imagine on his face. “Who the fuck do you think you are, bouncing from guy to guy like that?” Suddenly we weren’t at t
he frat house; we were on a basketball court in the middle of the day, the sunlight harsh overhead. “You made me care about you, and it was all a lie.”

  I couldn’t argue with him, because some people you could never win an argument against. Some people, even when faced with facts, refused to acknowledge their wrongness. It’s why most people were so annoying to be around these days. The internet and the general state of society fostered stupidity, and I…I’d been ridiculously stupid.

  “I never lied to you,” I said, hardly sounding like myself. That was the thing about Levi; he made me feel all different kinds of conflicted. He made me want things I never wanted before. A boyfriend. Love. A steady happiness that came with knowing another soul inside and out.

  Levi’s name was written in the stars with mine, but you had to know what they said about star-crossed lovers…their stories were tragedies.

  I didn’t want our story to end like that, but I didn’t know how to fight for a better ending, not with my mistakes. Not with what I did. And judging the look on Levi’s face, he was utterly done with me.

  “I knew better than to trust you,” Levi spoke, his hands on his sides, a basketball suddenly in his grip. “I never should’ve looked at you twice, Kelsey. You were nothing but a mistake from the beginning.”

  Just when I thought my heart could not break any more, it went and proved me wrong, cracking in new places. Those were words I’d told him, words that somehow rang true, but still I hated hearing them.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Sometimes sorry isn’t enough.” Levi said nothing else, turning towards the hoop that stood fifteen feet back, bending his knees to make a shot.

  I opened my mouth to say more, not like anything I could’ve said would fix this terrible situation, but it was that moment that the dream faded around me and I woke up, sweating in my bed.