Mistakes : A College Bully Romance

by Candace Wondrak

  My heart raced in my chest, and I felt anxious, immediately uneasy. That dream was more like a nightmare. Honestly, the only thing worse than Ash seeing us together would’ve been Levi seeing it. The little racing box in my chest clenched, and I knew I’d hurt him. I’d hurt him, which was something I never wanted to do.

  It wasn’t like I was a bitch on purpose. Okay, sometimes, yes, I pushed people away purposefully by being bitchy, but…I didn’t want to actually hurt him. I wasn’t like him, not like Dean. They might’ve played with Mel’s heart last year, but I wasn’t like that. Kelsey Yates was always up for fun, that was my motto. SCC showed me that sometimes fun wasn’t the answer.

  Life was more complicated than I thought.

  With a groggy mind, I knew I couldn’t stay here. I had to get up, do something. I had to see him. Had to try to…I didn’t know. Do something? At this point, there wasn’t much left to do, but I could not just lay in bed and lose myself in my thoughts.

  I ended up grabbing a hoodie and sliding my shoes on, and with my phone and my key in my hoodie’s pocket, I was out the door as quietly as I could. I had one destination on my mind. It was probably a bad idea, but when the hell did I ever have good ideas?

  Never, the answer would be never.

  The closer my feet dragged me towards the Greek houses at the other end of campus, the more I felt conflicted. I once thought Levi was hot and cold, but you know what? So was I. I was just as hot and cold as he was, as fickle, maybe even more so. Maybe I was worse simply because I was me.

  The only lights that were on were the light poles erected beside the sidewalks on campus. I heard no sounds, not even a rustling breeze. The night sky was clear, allowing me to gaze up at the moon and the stars sparkling around it. Its craters were grayer than the rest of it, its partial-circle almost ominous, but still beautiful.

  I made it to the Greek houses, and I walked along until I found Sigma Chi’s. I stood in front of it for a few moments, noting that all of the lights were off. No parties tonight; it was a Thursday night…or was it technically Friday morning? Either way, the world was almost too quiet.

  Me? My thoughts raced loudly enough, I didn’t need to hear anything else.

  I didn’t go up to the front door, didn’t knock. I didn’t even text him or call him. What the hell would I say if I did? What if I found him with another girl up there? I couldn’t even imagine…couldn’t picture how that would make me feel. Even worse, probably, and I thought feeling worse was impossible.

  The mental picture of Levi holding another girl in his arms, even if it was just for the night, just a meaningless hookup, made my stomach churn in revulsion and jealousy. I could imagine how Levi felt when I told him about what I did, and I hated that I made him feel that way. For the first time in my life, I hated the fact that I pushed him away.

  If you pushed hard enough, you could eventually break even a brick wall. Levi probably thought himself a brick wall, but me? I was stubborn beyond all belief, and I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need anybody, that I was fine with who I was.

  What a lie.

  I was the biggest liar out of us all.

  No, I couldn’t go inside that house. Plus, what if I ran into Dean, the fuckboy of all fuckboys? No, no. I couldn’t…but neither could I simply turn around and walk back to my dorm, either.

  I ended up circling the house, gazing up through the darkness at its third level, where I knew Levi’s room was. Hugging the outer walls of the house, I planted myself in the weed-covered flowerbed. Still a bit wet from the recent rain, but I didn’t care about a wet ass. It was uncomfortable, yeah, but I deserved that and more.

  “Levi,” I whispered his name as I slowly reclined my back on the house, “I’m sorry.”

  But, like dream Levi said, sometimes sorry wasn’t enough.

  Chapter Six – Levi

  I was up for hours before I actually got up, shuffling my way across the hall and getting in the shower. Then I stood in the shower for…well, a very long time, trying to forget everything. It would be easier that way, but minds didn’t work like that. You couldn’t just snap your fingers and forget what you wanted to forget.

  If only it was that simple.

  After my shower, I threw on whatever clothes I got my hands on first in my room, then headed down the stairs. My intent was to grab some cereal, even though I wasn’t really hungry, but there was a pair of guys in my way. They stood near the fridge, near the cabinet where the cereal was kept, talking to each other. Tom and Grady. Tom, I saw, held onto something.

  I didn’t want to look at fucking Grady, because now I knew that Kelsey had been serious that night. She would’ve hooked up with Grady in his car if I wasn’t there to stop her. She was…ugh, she drove me crazy, and I wished she didn’t hold such power over me.

  Still.

  She still held power over me.

  When she told me she’d hooked up with a rich boy, I…I got angry. Of course I did. How could I not get enraged when I pictured Kelsey with some other guy? Knowing other hands had touched her…I almost wanted to cut them off, but that would’ve been crossing the line, I guessed.

  Still, it was better to see Grady than to see Dean. The fucker had kept a low profile after our little tiff the other day. I heard from some of the other guys that his face was bruised and that his nose had to be reset. Kind of funny, but I knew he was biding his time. That was fine, because I was, too. I had a plan for him, a plan to take him down for good, but I’d only get one shot at it, so I had to be careful.

  That meant no more fights, unfortunately.

  Tom was a shorter guy, almost half a foot shorter than me. A lot lankier, too, which made the baggy shirts he wore almost silly. “I don’t know, man. I just heard it ringing outside. Over and over again, woke me up, so I had to go out and see what the hell was going on.”

  I was about to push past them to reach for the cereal cabinet, but Tom’s words stopped me. My eyes focused on what he held in his hands, and I immediately recognized the plain, worn case and smartphone that was a few years old.

  That was Kelsey’s phone.

  “I found it outside, sitting in the flowerbed,” Tom was busy saying, while Grady was nodding, practically sleeping with his eyes open. “I—” Before Tom could say anything else, I snatched the phone out of his hands, causing him to say, “Hey, man! What the hell?”

  Grady, however, knew better than to say anything to me. I was pretty sure he’d been scared of me ever since that night. And he should be. That fucking mouth had been on Kelsey.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I muttered, not saying anything else as I left the kitchen. Neither Tom nor Grady tried to go after me, which was good. It was too early to explain to them why I wasn’t going to let anyone else touch this phone.

  Didn’t want anyone touching the phone, didn’t want anyone else touching Kelsey. That wasn’t wrong of me, was it? I knew I didn’t own her, but…still. I couldn’t help the possessiveness that came over me when it came to that girl.

  Once I was in my room with the door firmly shut, I moved to sit on my bed. With my back hunched over, I stared down at the phone in my hands, flipping it over to study the case. Yep. It was hers. Had to be. It was an older model, and a simple case, buffed and scratched in places, worn down over years of use.

  My hand gripped its case, my thumb finding the lone button on its one side. When I hit it, I saw that you only had to swipe up to open it; no password necessary. I really shouldn’t go through it; I should find her, wherever she was, and return it, be done with her altogether.

  A pipe dream. A fucking pipe dream, because even after knowing what she did, my body, my heart still yearned for her. A fucking stupid thing, but I couldn’t help it.

  Before I knew what the hell I was doing, I ran a finger along the screen, swiping up, and opened the phone.

  This was a bad idea, probably…but I had to know.

  What exactly did I have to know? No clue.

  I just had to se
e if…I didn’t know. If she was texting the rich boy, if she had a lineup of other guys. If I really lost her, or if I ever really had her to begin with.

  Kelsey really didn’t text many people. Her parents, although it looked like she hadn’t texted anyone in a little while. Me, but that was even before that. The most recent messages—and calls, lots of them, apparently—were to someone named Ash, and this morning’s calls were from Mel. I took that to mean Kelsey knew her phone was missing and Mel tried to call it, both of them hoping it had maybe slipped and tucked itself away in a nook or cranny in their room.

  But back to all of her messages and calls to Ash.

  Ash was her friend who went to another school. Kelsey had told me about her in passing, mostly when she was complaining about Ash not being here because she got some scholarship to Hillcrest, a rich, hoity-toity fucking university that was stuck in the old ways. As in, male-only.

  My gut churned when I glanced over the messages. It was a mostly one-sided conversation, with Kelsey being the one sending the messages. A lot of apologies, of groveling and…saying she didn’t know.

  I had to lock the phone and look away as I wondered if something more happened that weekend she was gone. Did she get into more trouble she didn’t want to tell me? Did she and her friend get into a fight? Was it…was it over the guy Kelsey said she hooked up with? I didn’t read all of the texts, but…what else could they mean?

  It was Friday, so I had some time before my first class. I should return this to her. When your phone was missing, it was like a piece of your soul was gone, too. Funny, because I felt like that now, knowing Kelsey had been with someone else. I wasn’t mad at her, because we weren’t together, but…

  How could I not feel envious? How could I not be upset? I had every right to be, didn’t I?

  Hmm. Would it be wrong of me to hold onto her phone for a bit? Probably. A good man would promptly return it and not make a big deal out of it, but I thought we all knew by now that I wasn’t a good man. I made mistakes too, I fucked up, just like Kelsey did.

  I did wonder just what the hell she’d been doing out there. In the flowerbed, at night? Did she come here for me, to talk to me, to apologize for how bitchy she was and then change her mind? Who would say what was on that girl’s mind—I knew I couldn’t. I was no mind reader, but when it came to Kelsey, I really couldn’t predict where she was or why she did the things she did.

  Even after all this time, I couldn’t tell where Kelsey’s mind was.

  At least now I was smart enough to know that wasn’t a blessing. It was a curse.

  The day passed in a blur, and Kelsey was on my mind more often than she wasn’t. I itched to see that girl again. Not only to give her phone back, but to talk to her. She could try to push me away, but I’d known it the first moment I saw her in lab after that weekend—something was wrong. Something had happened over the weekend, besides her hooking up. She could put up a prickly front all she wanted, but I’d get the truth out of her.

  I would get the truth from her, and then make her see that we weren’t up for debate. Yes, I fucked up, but so did she. Yes, we’d probably make more mistakes down the line, but this? Going through the days without her? I just couldn’t take it anymore.

  Late that night, with the battery in Kelsey’s phone at less than five percent—practically a death sentence in this day and age—I used her phone to text Mel. I didn’t say it was from me, but I said that I found this phone, to let its owner know I’d be in the student union tomorrow morning at ten waiting with the phone in my hand.

  When Mel texted back asking who this was, I didn’t respond. I did wonder if Kelsey thought it was me, or possibly Dean. Either way, she would show. She wanted her phone back. She didn’t have the kind of money to replace it. Money was tight in her family, which she didn’t like to talk about. She definitely had some kind of complex when money was involved; accepting any gifts from anyone was viewed as a handout, and handouts to Kelsey were the worst thing ever invented.

  Luckily, the house didn’t throw a party that night. There was one a few houses down, and that’s where most of my fraternity brothers went. Dean, however, stayed. He’d been staying in a lot lately, probably because his nose was still swollen and bruised. I steered clear of him any time I saw him out of his room.

  No more fights. Besides, I had someone else on the brain. Something other than revenge on Dean.

  Kelsey.

  I was going to see her tomorrow, and I was going to look good. If she was going to keep insisting that I meant nothing to her, I wanted her to regret it. I wanted her to look at me and instantly drop her clothes.

  And then, once that happened, I wanted to throw her over my shoulder, take her somewhere private, and make her forget the touch of that rich boy. Make her forget how any other guy had felt. Fill every crevice of her mind with me…and every part of her body.

  Oh, yeah. If Kelsey thought I was going to give up, she was wrong. If she couldn’t make up her mind, I’d make it up for her.

  Chapter Seven – Kelsey

  I knew I must’ve dropped my phone at the Sigma Chi house. It must’ve slipped from my pocket without me knowing, and I was too focused on hurrying back to the dorm to hop in bed before Mel woke up for her early classes to realize it. And by the time I did, it was too late. Mel had called and called it, even risking being late to her class, but it was no use, because it wasn’t in the dorm room. My mulch-covered hoodie was shoved under my bed, minus my phone.

  Shit.

  In between my classes that day, I swung by the house. Didn’t go inside it, of course, but I snooped around the side of it, examining the area where I’d fallen asleep. My phone wasn’t there. Someone must’ve found it, picked it up.

  Damn it.

  I repeated those words to myself all day—damn it, damn it, damn it—and only stopped later that night when Mel got a text…from my phone, no less. Someone had found my phone, and they wanted to meet in the student union in the morning to give it back. Ten o’clock.

  “Ask who it is,” I said, my nerves on fire. Could be Dean. Could be some other guy in Sigma Chi…even Levi. Shit. If Levi found my phone, how the hell was I going to explain why it was there, just outside his window?

  Mel texted the number back a minute later, and we both waited with bated breath, staring down at her phone screen as if it held all of the answers. She never got a text back, and it worried me.

  “Maybe your phone died,” Mel suggested. “When exactly did you lose it? Batteries don’t last that long.”

  My mind danced around what I could tell her. Did she see me with my phone last night? If I told her I lost it sometime yesterday, she might come at me saying she saw me in bed with it or something. I definitely didn’t want to admit that I took a midnight stroll to Sigma Chi—the fraternity she warned me from day one to stay away from.

  Yeah. Didn’t listen to her, and look where it got me.

  “I don’t remember,” I said, lying through my teeth. Thankfully, Mel didn’t seem to notice.

  “Do you want me to go with you? Who knows who has it—”

  Fuck. What if it was Dean? What if he found my phone, and hoped that Mel would come with me? No. Whoever it was, I could face them alone. The last thing I wanted was Mel being around Dean.

  Well, the second to last thing. The absolute last thing was to see Levi.

  “No,” I said, standing straight and crossing my arms. “I’ll just swing by the union and then head to the library. Besides, it’s supposed to downpour tomorrow, and you only have one raincoat.”

  Mel’s amber eyes studied me, and it was a long while until she said, “Okay. If you’re sure.”

  I let out a chuckle, but the sound fell flat. “You’re acting like it’s some sketchy meeting in a dark alley. It’s the union. There will be other students around. It isn’t like I’ll be alone. And besides, you know I can handle myself.”

  At that, she cracked a smile. A small one, but a smile nonetheless, so I’d take
it as a win. “You’re right about that.”

  “I am stealing your raincoat,” I told her, not for the first time. “You haven’t changed your mind about going anywhere, have you?” The raincoat was hers. If I had to get drenched walking to the library, I would. Wouldn’t be too happy about it, but I’d do what I had to. With it being November, the end of the semester was about a month and a half away. Had to get cracking on those papers.

  Papers that were worth a good chunk of my grade. Did not want to think about that, considering how awful I was at writing papers. Hmm. Maybe I’d ask Mel to go over them; she seemed like an overachiever when it came to classes and homework and shit. She’d probably be able to see some stuff I should fix or change.

  “Do I ever go anywhere?” Mel asked, trying to joke. Kind of like my earlier chuckle, her joke didn’t stick the landing. Mel just seemed awkward when she was trying to joke. She was a serious kind of person, but she put up with me, and sometimes I made her laugh, so at least it wasn’t a complete drag being roommates with her.

  Eventually I said, “True. Don’t even know why I asked.” I shot her a grin, which she met with a smile.

  The more you faked something, the easier it was to pretend. If I lived the lie that I was happy with the state of my life, maybe I’d start to believe it myself.

  But I wasn’t happy, hence the issue. I was miserable, and I hated how confusing it all was, how guilty I felt for sleeping with Sawyer—not only because of Ash, but because of Levi as well. I was a shitty person, and I could never forget that.

  Hours passed. Mel had a textbook open on her desk, her laptop on some homework site, a pen in her hands. I chose to turn on the small TV of hers, keeping the volume low. I sat on her bed, since the TV was angled towards it, my fingers fiddling with the remote. A world of darkness sat outside; it was late for Mel to still be up, which I found odd.

  “So, Mel, you’re majoring in business,” I rattled off. “What do you want to be?” A way to fill the silence of the room. The TV’s volume was so low, I could hardly hear it. But that was the point. Talking just to fill the void. I frankly didn’t know what business majors were good for, what jobs required them.