by Claire Adams
I nearly ran across campus, slowing down only when I started to get a stitch in my side, avoiding looking at anyone that might be around as the tears started falling from my eyes before I got to the safety of my room. I couldn’t believe that I had actually thought Zack thought I was special, that I had let myself get suckered into falling for another guy who was just going to take whatever piece of tail came his way without any concern at all for my feelings. My hands shook as I tried to swipe my card to get into the building; it took me three tries before I was finally able to get the reader to scan my card properly.
I stepped onto the elevator and hit the door close button over and over again; the last thing I wanted was to have to deal with someone riding with me, watching me as I tried to hold myself together. I sagged against the wall of the elevator, against the railing, shuddering and still angry, still hurt. I tried stalling the tears that were already starting to spill out of my eyes. When the elevator finally managed to make it up to my floor, I hurried off, towards my room, not even bothering to tell Jess what I’d done or that I was back—she’d hear the door. I threw myself onto my bed and gave into the sobs that were pushing up through my chest, burying my face in my pillow. Hot tears flowed into the fabric and I shook with anger and depression, not quite wanting to scream in my frustration.
I lost all track of time, lying there and sobbing my eyes out, punching the mattress and grabbing at the pillow I’d buried my face in. After a while it finally started to dawn on me that before I had seen the newspaper article featuring Zack, I had been waking up, getting ready to go to class. I had class to get to.
I pulled myself up and looked at the clock; I had been crying for almost an hour, and now I only had ten minutes to get to class, all the way across campus. I had no time to get dressed. I sighed, grabbing up my backpack and shoving my journalism textbooks into it. At least, I thought, half the student body went to class in their pajamas, especially the morning classes; no one was likely to notice that I wasn’t fully dressed.
I hurried across campus, trying to focus my thoughts down on the class I was going to; I had missed my window for grabbing breakfast, so I would have to hope I had a little bit of time to get something to eat from one of the vending machines between morning classes or by the time lunch rolled around I would be totally useless. I hoped against hope that my face wasn’t too red, that my eyes weren’t too obviously bloodshot. My little spectacle in the weight room would already be making the rounds among the campus gossipmongers—the last thing I needed was for everyone to see me cried out, panicking that I wasn’t getting to class on time, and thinking that the whole reason for my upset was Zack.
I took my usual seat in class, feeling oddly conspicuous in spite of the fact that half the people in the room with me were also in their pajamas. Professor Grant came in a few minutes late, apologizing and looking around with a faint grin curving his lips.
“I can see that everyone’s starting to get a little less formal now that we’re past midterms,” he said, looking at the other people in the room, but not—fortunately—at me.
During the lecture, I tried to take notes but my mind kept going back to Zack. Why had I thought that he was any different from any of the guys I had ever dated? Because he’d been my first? I was an idiot. I should have known that Zack didn’t belong to the Phi Alpha Kappa group for no reason—he had loved to party even when we’d been in high school together, and clearly he’d just gone on doing that, getting more and more outrageous as he went. Hooking up with an ex-girlfriend wasn’t going to change that about him. I remembered Jess’ advice that I should figure out what kind of person Zack really was and decide if I was okay with it. I thought to myself that I had been acting like an idiot the whole time leading up to seeing that picture. I had believed that sure, Zack was rowdy and liked to get drunk and hang out with a bunch of guys who viewed women as conquests—but why would he hang out with people like that if he didn’t agree?
Zack had never really seen me as anything other than another girl to get with. The thought of it made me sick. I had let myself start to think of Zack as really special—as someone who wanted me because of who I am, who knew me and who wanted me. In reality he was just the same as any guy; he just wanted a girl he could convince to sleep with him on the regular, who he could toss aside when it was inconvenient. How much longer would I have kept going with him if I hadn’t seen that article and that picture?
I thought about everything that Zack and I had been through in the previous weeks, and I couldn’t make sense of it. If he really didn’t care about me, why had he performed so poorly when I had ignored him? He could have easily just moved on to someone else. But what if it was just a coincidence? If he had performed poorly because he’d had some other girl distracting him—and not because of me at all. Part of my brain argued that he had tried really hard to get in touch with me even when I was ignoring him, working hard to avoid even seeing him on campus. But had he really? He’d sent me some texts and made some phone calls, and had left a note on my door. I’d been avoiding him, but I had still kept to my usual routine; if he had wanted to find me, he could have gone to the Library, or the dining hall, any number of times and tracked me down.
I didn’t know how to feel about the weird mixed signals in my mind. I was glad I’d remembered my recorder; I kept it on my desk, knowing that I wouldn’t remember a damned thing about Grant’s lecture with the situation with Zack at the top of my mind, consuming my thoughts. I was barely even able to keep up with the notes on the board—I wondered at one point what I was even doing in class when I wasn’t getting anything out of it at all. But I was present.
I managed to grab a bag of chips from the vending machine on my way from Introduction to Journalism to English Literature; my stomach was twisting and grumbling inside of me, uncaring about the fact that I was trying to cope with the confrontation between Zack and me. I didn’t even taste the chips as I brought them to my mouth, pretending to pay attention to the discussion about Jane Austen, but still dwelling on the details of everything that had happened. I thought about how good the sex had been, my insecure jealousy at the thought that Zack had to have been with other women to have improved so much since we’d been together. That should have been my first red flag—the fact that Zack had gotten so much better at sex itself.
It seemed like I had been getting cues, hints, indications all the time about what Zack really was, and totally ignoring them in the face of what I wanted them to be. I had to face facts: Zack didn’t have any special attachment to me and he didn’t particularly care about keeping me as a girlfriend. I didn’t even know if he actually saw me as a girlfriend. I had been fooling myself all along and I should have stayed away when his team mate suggested it—even if his teammate had the interests of the team in mind instead of my own.
I decided after class that I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. I went to the dining hall and scanned my card and took to-go containers, making a minimum of eye contact as I got into the line. I got a bowl of soup and a sandwich and then found myself loading brownies, cookies, anything remotely sweet and fattening into my box to take with me. I would have to make it to my afternoon classes, but I was going to stay in my room until the last possible moment and no one was going to stop me. I kept my head down all the way to the dorms, cradling my food close to me and not responding to anyone who seemed like they were trying to get my attention. I could only imagine what the team had said about my appearance in the weight room. I could only imagine what everyone on campus was saying about me—how stupid I’d been, what a crazy fool I was to think that Zack was anything other than a partying frat boy. I decided that I was going to stick with eating in my room, going to the library and my classes and otherwise just avoiding anyone. And if Jess tried to convince me to go to any more parties, I was going to tell her to go to hell.
CHAPTER TWO
After a few days, I managed to calm down. I was steadily miserable, but at least I was able to focus on
my classes and my life once more. I was actually almost grateful for what had happened; it would have been really easy for me to totally and completely be distracted by Zack in my life if I hadn’t found out the kind of person that he was. I would’ve mooned along, totally wrapped up in him; having great sex, for sure, but probably missing deadlines and losing the quality of my work.
Jess had been keeping a wide berth around me—or maybe, I thought with grim humor, she was just too busy to be in the dorms very much. In the bottom half of the semester, everyone was focusing down more on their studies, trying to pull their grades up or finish strong. I had competition to book a private study room in the library every morning, but I hated the thought of being out in the middle of the room where Zack could see me and try and talk to me—if he dared. I didn’t want to have to listen to the murmurs around me either; so I kept my headphones on and just went straight to the room I booked for studying and stayed in there as long as I was allotted and came out with my headphones on. It would boil over in time, and someone else would do something humiliating to take the attention off of me. It was just a matter of getting through it.
I had somehow managed to get through all of my classwork—I even got ahead a few chapters on the American History syllabus and read ahead in the assignments for literature and Intro to Journalism. With nothing to do, I decided an afternoon of watching TV, eating snacks, and just letting my mind drift was the best possible use of my time. I popped cheese-flavored crackers into my mouth mindlessly, staring at the TV and relaxing, not thinking about anything in particular.
My vegetation was interrupted by the sound of the dorm door opening. Jess came into the room quickly, grinning as she threw herself into a chair. “Gotten over Zack yet?” she asked me.
I scowled.
“Come on, Jess, don’t be a bitch.”
Jess sighed and rolled her eyes, reaching over and snatching the box from the coffee table and dumping out a handful. She popped a few into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before she spoke again.
“Well, I mean, it’s been a few days since you kicked him to the curb. So I figured you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor.”
I raised an eyebrow and snatched the box of crackers away from her, pouring some into my hand and putting the box back onto the table.
“Oh, so not concern for my well-being, but my ability to help you out.”
Jess grinned broadly. “Well, see, it’s not just helpful to me, but it could be helpful to you, too!” I was suspicious of the chirpy tone of her voice.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Tell me what this is about.”
“Well you know how I’m having a bit of trouble in Economics?” I had heard Jess moaning from her room over how difficult her Economics class was—and how little hope she had of finishing with a decent grade.
“Yeah,” I said cautiously. What did her problems with Econ have to do with my single status?
“So there’s this guy in my class, Derick.” I pressed my lips together. Of course. “Trust me, Evie, if I could have convinced him to help me by giving him a date with me, I’d have done it. But he’s not into me. He’s into you.”
“So you volunteered me for a date with some guy I don’t know so he’d help you pass Economics?”
Jess shrugged, still smiling. “Look, everyone benefits; I get help for Economics, Derick gets a date with a girl he’s into, and you get a chance to get back out there—and a free meal.”
I wanted to be angry at her but I had to laugh.
“You didn’t—I mean he’s not expecting anything other than the date, right?”
Jess nodded quickly. “Yeah, no, there’s no guarantee of anything other than you going with him to dinner. He’s on his own if he wants to get you to make out or sleep with him—I made that completely clear.”
I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself. On the one hand, it was kind of soothing to my battered ego that someone wanted to take me on a date. On the other hand, it was a bit irritating that Jess had volunteered me for a date with a stranger. One of the last things I wanted was to get involved with a member of the opposite sex; I was only just recovering from the aftermath of my feelings towards Zack.
“And you specified only one date, right?” I asked her, wanting to rebel but not quite feeling up to it. If Jess had guaranteed the guy that I’d go out with him for as long as he wanted, I’d say no flat out.
“One date. Dinner and a movie. That’s it. No sleeping with him, no guarantees for a second date, nothing like that.”
I sighed. “Well, what’s he like?”
Jess shrugged. “He dresses in polo shirts and khakis most of the time, kind of shy, not a bad guy but not all that interesting. But he’s got the highest grade in the Econ class and he’s smart.” I popped a few more cheese crackers in my mouth and chewed them meditatively.
“Fine,” I said, shaking my head again. A date was the last thing I wanted—but Jess was my friend, and it wouldn’t kill me to get out for once. “For you, I’ll do it. But next time you decide to barter me for favors, do me a favor and ask me first.”
Jess grinned. “You’d have just said no.”
“If you do this again I will say no and there will be nothing for you to do about it but find someone else.”
Jess’ face fell into more serious lines and she nodded.
“Fair enough. But we have a deal on this one, right? You won’t decide at the last minute not to go?”
“If he turns out to be horrible, I will leave him in the middle of the date if I have to, but I will at least give him a fair shot.”
“That’s all I’m asking. My GPA thanks you.”
CHAPTER THREE
In the few days leading up to the date, I tried to prepare myself; apart from the date with Zack, I hadn’t really gone out with a guy since junior year of high school. In my senior year, I’d been so focused on getting scholarships, and so wrapped up in my mom’s decline and death that I hadn’t been able to even consider the possibility of going on a date with anyone. It just hadn’t even been on my radar. Derick had gotten my number from Jess and sent me a couple of text messages, confirming that my friend’s offer was legitimate and that I was willing to go out with him. I said what I was supposed to—that I was looking forward to it, that I was happy to get to know him, all of the polite things. But my heart wasn’t really in it. I was still—in spite of the anger I had felt—more than a little bit turned around and flipped over in my mind about Zack, still questioning what had happened and whether it was for the best.
The night of the date, Jess pulled me into my room and went to work at making sure that I was appropriate for the evening.
“Jess, it’s just dinner and a movie,” I insisted with a groan. “It’s not even someone I particularly want to impress. I can go as I am.”
Jess shook her head, going through my wardrobe quickly. “He’s taking you to a really expensive restaurant; you need to look right for that. And anyway, you don’t know—maybe he’s just your speed.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes, but I knew that when Jess was in her educational mood, it was useless to argue with her. She pulled out one of the few really nice skirts I owned, a button-down silk shirt, and a blazer that I’d last worn to my college interviews. I raised an eyebrow, but at least, I thought, I couldn’t be accused of leading anyone on in an outfit like that. Jess went into her own room while I changed and came back with a pair of heels that went perfectly with the outfit—taller than I normally wore, but I could manage them. She pushed me down into my desk chair and quickly did my hair and makeup; in the end I looked like a sleek, put-together woman—kind of like my mom. The comparison made me almost want to cry; but I held back my tears, knowing that I’d just ruin the makeup and start my date off on completely the wrong foot.
I sat in the common area of the dorm to wait for the guy to show up. He apparently had quite a nice car, according to Jess; I’d never seen it myself, and I wondered if he was like the kinds of guys I’d known in
high school who’d had the nicer cars—braggarts who didn’t care about anything other than their material possessions. One thing I’d always liked about Zack: he didn’t put that much importance on his possessions. I shied away from the comparison. I wasn’t going to think about Zack at all. I wasn’t going to compare him—especially favorably—to the guy that I was with. I would put him completely out of my mind.
Just when I was starting to become really impatient, there was a knock at the door. I stood quickly and heard Jess’ door slam open. She was right there at my side. “Remember,” she said quietly. I rolled my eyes but nodded, and opened the door to let Derick in. He was taller than Zack by maybe an inch or two, but not as muscular; where Zack had medium-brown hair and dark eyes, Derick had sandy blond hair, pale blue eyes, and slightly freckled pale skin that had an almost-translucent look to it. He smiled at me as he stepped over the threshold, dressed in a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt that was just slightly too big for him, though the deep maroon color of it complemented his skin and hair.
“It’s good to meet you, Evelyn,” Derick said, extending his hand. I shook it quickly, feeling awkward and uncertain. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy and Jess had said more than once that he was, but there was something stilted, something just a little bit off-putting about his excitement. “You look lovely.”
He pulled me closer by the hand, giving me a quick hug. I could smell his green, reedy-smelling cologne, with the sweat-smell underneath that told me he was nervous.
“Have a great night, you two,” Jess said, beaming at us both. Derick turned to lead me out through the door and she shot me one last cautioning look, mouthing “be nice,” as I let myself be pulled out of the comfort of my dorm.
Derick’s car was nice—it was a relatively recent model BMW, which was the first real topic of conversation that I could actually feel comfortable discussing; the ride down on the elevator had been awkwardly silent, and the walk to the parking lot wasn’t much better. “Nice Beemer,” I said, smiling politely.