The Core Four Series

by Stacy Borel

  “Not so fast guys.” I pleaded.

  Claire called out, “The rules changed. You miss, you can’t play with us anymore. You don’t, then we will let you sit with us at lunch.”

  I didn’t understand. I thought they’d wanted to play with me. Now they were being mean. They knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this speed. My mind was trying to figure out how to jump out without getting hit by the rope, or tripping. Why were they doing this? I was certain they were all laughing at me. I couldn’t look away from where the rope was swinging, but I could tell more kids were crowding around to watch what would happen. A girl shouted, “Look at the loner. She’s gonna fall on her face.”

  People giggled. My heart was racing and I had no clue what to do. Where was my teacher? Couldn’t she tell something was going on with everyone standing around?

  The rope picked up speed again, and it was no longer a matter of if I would fall, but when. I realized I wasn’t going to get out of this without getting hurt. My legs trembled and I knew they were about to buckle. I could barely catch my breath. I couldn’t look for them but I knew the teachers were nowhere to be found. I knew that none of the kids would go and get one. I was on my own. If I stopped jumping the rope would lash the side of my leg and it would hurt. But I thought that maybe if I jumped extra fast, I could somehow get out and I would be the one left laughing.

  In a brief moment of bravery, I took one quick leap as the rope slapped past my feet and flew towards my head. I tried to hop as fast as I could out of the way before it came back over again, but, apparently, I was slower than I thought. Or maybe the girls had swung it around even faster to ensure I’d fall. Which is exactly what happened. As my legs came up, the rope hit the side of my calf and pulled my legs out from under me. I hit the ground so hard, it knocked out what little air I had left.

  My ears were ringing, and I was in a pile on the ground. I didn’t have to look at my knees to know they were scraped and bleeding. My elbow was on fire and my hands had little rocks pushed into my skin. All of the kids who’d been watching were now in a tight circle standing over the top of me as they laughed—mean names echoing around the small circle. Names I wouldn’t even repeat to my mom if she asked.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying everything in my power to hold back my tears— to not let them win and know they’d hurt my feelings. It was a losing battle. My cheeks were already wet, and a sob bubbled up from my throat. I wanted nothing more than for my mom to pick me up and take me home. I never wanted to come back here. I wanted to move far away to a place where nobody knew me. Where I could start over and make friends.

  “Hadley, are you okay?”

  I peered up and blinked through wet lashes. Wrigley Brooks, the most popular fifth grader, and my neighbor from down the street was squatting next to me. He was looking at me with pity, and I hated him for it. He knew I wasn’t okay. He also knew I likely wouldn’t want his help out of all the kids standing around me. I’d even prefer Claire over Wrigley right now.

  “Your knees are cut up pretty bad. We need to get you to the nurse,” he said.

  He slid his arm around my back and under my arms, trying to lift me on shaky legs. I hissed at the ache I felt.

  “Wrigley, always helping the sad cases.” Stuart, a boy I’d hated since preschool, mocked.

  “Shut up, Stu. I’ll kick your butt in front of everyone and you know I can.” Wrigley threatened.

  “Whatever man, I was just kidding.”

  Except he wasn’t. Stuart has always been mean to me. And Wrigley was only helping me because his mom had taught him better.

  “What’s going on over here?” My teacher, Miss Sanford, asked concerned.

  Oh sure, now she shows up. I wanted to roll my eyes at the coincidence of it all. Of course, it would be my luck that something like this would happen to me, and an adult would only come after I really needed them. Might as well go away, Miss Sanford. Wrigley here is already saving the day, I thought to myself.

  “Just lean on me,” he whispered in my ear.

  “Get her to the nurse please.”

  Wrigley nodded. His Justin Bieber length hair flopped in his eyes. It was how all the boys had their hair right now. I hated it. But I had to admit that Wrigley wore it the best. Just like he did everything else. That thought momentarily distracted me from the pain. I liked Wrigley, I really did. But I also hated him. I hated that everything came easy for him. I hated that every boy in fifth grade wanted to be just like him. I hated that every girl wanted him as a boyfriend. But I hated him even more because, for my entire life that I’ve spent five houses down from him, he only played with me because our parents were friends and he had to. He had no clue I’d had a gigantic crush on him for a long time.

  Wrigley was quiet as I hobbled to the nurse’s office. For that, I was grateful. When we got there, the woman whom I’d only come to see one other time because I started to feel ill back in third grade, looked up from her Good Housekeeping magazine. She caught sight of my shredded knees and gasped.

  “Oh my, what happened here?”

  She reminded me of my mom. “I fell.”

  She kneeled in front of me to take a better look at the scrapes. “I see that. Looks like you took quite a spill, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She was outside when some girls—umph!” Wrigley’s words were cut off by my elbow in his stomach.

  “I was running and tripped over my shoe laces.” I glared at him.

  He looked so confused. The nurse did as well, who was opening up a bottle of peroxide and soaking some cotton balls. I wasn’t going to be a tattle-tale. Did I deserve to be made fun of? Nope. But if I told the nurse, a teacher, or my parents what had really happened, it would only make things harder for me. I wasn’t naïve enough to not realize that.

  “Hmmm, well, seems the shoe laces did a number on you. I’m just going to wash these off. Peroxide doesn’t sting, but my touching it may.” She dabbed at the tender areas. I held in a hiss. “You, sir, are free to go back to class. I’m assuming you won’t need a note?”

  Wrigley intently watched as she cleaned off my wounds. “No ma’am, I think they are still at recess.”

  “Go on then. I’ll take care of her.” She gave him a soft smile.

  He nodded then made eye contact with me. I kind of wished he could stay, even though I also didn’t want him to. For some reason, he actually seemed to care, and not because he had too. I should have said thank you, but the words wouldn’t come out. I had too much frustration and my emotions were all over the place. When he stood up, I watched him as he took steps to leave. Just before he turned the corner, he twisted around and said, “I hope you’ll be okay, Hadley.” Then he left. I had no idea that those words would stay with me as I got older, but I knew they meant something to me.A new wave of tears poured down my cheeks.

  “I’m going to call your momma to come pick you up. I think a bath and some ice cream will help these scrapes feel better.” She winked at me.

  While she was on the phone, the words, ‘I hope you’ll be okay, Hadley,’ rolled through my head. He’d really meant them. The hardening I felt toward him was becoming mush. Those six little words did me in. That’s when I knew I had fallen in love with Wrigley Brooks.

  Chapter One

  LSU WAS EVERYTHING I’D hoped and dreamed it would be. Well, considering I’d only seen the drive onto campus and the outside of my dorm building, it was still picture perfect. The grounds were maintained, grass was green, and students were slowly filing in to be dropped off for their first semester. Excitement was bubbling inside of me, and so were my nerves. I had no idea what to expect, but I had a feeling it was going to be nothing like I’d conjured up in my head. There wouldn’t be college professors who became your best friends because they liked you so much. And there wouldn’t be the mean girls who picked you out because they simply didn’t like you and refused to let you sit at their lunch table.

  Well… m
aybe.

  I couldn’t imagine anything in college would be similar to high school life. We were adults now, doing adult things. Like making ourselves wake up for class. Not because our parents told us to, but because it was the responsible thing to do. We got jobs to help pay for the extra things we wanted, cause mom and dad weren’t here to hand you a twenty. This was the real world. Well, sort of. It was the part where our parents were still right next to us, ready to catch us while we learned to walk by ourselves. There was no hand holding, just wobbly steps as we figured out life outside of the homes we’d always known. It was the step before we were all but shoved out the door and told ‘now live’.

  Being dumped off in a foreign place can be a scary thing. But I wasn’t afraid. I was ready to conquer and be who I was meant to become. Erm…whoever that may be. My senior year of high school wasn’t full of pep rallies, dances, and football games. I was focused on getting out of my little town as soon as I could. Which meant, keep my nose in the books, and staying away from the crowds. Both easy feats since I was never invited to anything.

  I’d strategically picked this school based on distance from home. It was far enough where I had to stand on my own feet. I couldn’t race home whenever something made me uncomfortable and I had to seek out the comfort my parents offered. But close enough where I could drive home in less than a day. I had everything lined up. I was going to be on my own. I could leave Athens far behind and become someone else. I would no longer be the girl everyone had known since preschool.

  And then my dream had been crushed.

  After I’d been accepted, rumors flew around the school that someone I was desperate to get some distance from had received a full ride scholarship. My hopes of escaping were now filled with plans of how I could avoid him. My dream school wasn’t any more and I’d wanted to find somewhere else to attend. My mother was the only one that knew how I felt about him and, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be standing here right now about to introduce myself to my new roommate. LSU was a huge campus, she’d said. The likelihood of running into him was slim. I liked small odds. So here I was.

  A short girl with long, wavy brown, soft hair waved at me when I walked into my assigned room. “Hi I’m Aurora Dillon.”

  “I’m Hadley?” It came out like a question.

  I awkwardly reached my hand out to shake Aurora’s outstretched one. My new roommate, in my new dorm room, on my new campus. We both looked at each other expectantly, but I had no clue what to say. Do I start asking the basic questions like, what’s your favorite color? Do you like pizza? Tell me about your family. Things you’d ask your new best friend you’d just met five minutes prior at your first day of Kindergarten. It was so much easier back then.

  Aurora looked down and shuffled her feet. First impression, she’s shy. Great, two shy people. This was going to be the pairing of the century.

  “So…” I paused. “What do you think of everything so far?”

  Long lashes fluttered upward and she gave me a genuine smile. “It seems nice. A little hot though.”

  “Are you not from the south?”

  “Oh no. I moved here from Montana. It doesn’t get as warm up there as it does here.”

  She was right. Louisiana was a killer ten months out of the year. Some days the humidity was over a hundred percent. It was a killer on my wavy hair, but I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Nothing beat our people, our food, and that southern hospitality. I’d lived in Georgia my whole life, but I was certain Louisiana wouldn’t be any different.

  “I’m assuming you’re from around here?”

  I shook my head. My short hair prickled my cheeks. “A few states over.”

  She nodded and then the same silence filtered in. If this was the way my semester living with her was going to go, it was going to be a blast. I don’t know what I’d imagined life with a roommate would be like, but this wasn’t it. I expected more hugging, laughing, ice cream eating, pajama parties, study groups, and stupid stories about college boys fawning all over us. Aurora didn’t seem like she was into any of that. She had light brown hair that definitely didn’t come from a box, freckles speckled across her alabaster skin, and legs that seemed to go for days for a short girl. I was already calling it. No beach days for this pasty chick.

  Avoiding eye contact with the shy girl, I looked around the small room. Two twin beds, two dressers and two small desks took up most of the space. It was clear that Aurora had already claimed a part of the room so I gestured to my half of the room and said, “Well, I think I’m going to start unpacking.”

  “Yeah, same.” She nodded.

  I twisted toward my pile of things my dad had left. A lot of parents tended to stick around with their kids during their first day of dorm life, setting up their rooms, and taking them shopping for the things they’d forgotten. While both of my parents had come with me to bid me farewell for the next couple of months, I told them I wanted to do this on my own. My mom had argued with me and had told me it was her right of passage as a parent to help unpack in my first dorm. Dad had called her dramatic and told her to remove the claws and let me grow up. I’d smiled at him and mouthed thank you as he comforted my mother. She’d been a sobbing mess when he’d escorted her out to the car. To be honest, I was sad. I didn’t want to leave home, but I also didn’t want to stay there the rest of my life. Realizing I was growing up was a tough revelation. I constantly battled with myself between wanting to continue being a little girl, and having the protection of their ‘wings’ when I needed it, versus being an adult and having a whole new sense of freedom. Which also came with a new set of responsibilities.

  As I opened a couple trunks and boxes, I looked at my stuff and sorted through each item, placing it strategically where I thought it would go best. I smiled when was finished I was glad that I went with dark oranges, greens, and reds. It seemed very grown up. I glanced over my shoulder at the other half of the room and almost cringed. Aurora was plugging in a purple lamp that had purple fur lining the edges of the shade, which matched the purple bedding on the twin sized mattress. I swallowed. While I loved my side and the sophisticated air about it, I envied the youngness of hers.

  She caught me staring at what she was doing. “What do you think?”

  I politely smiled. “I think it’s perfect.”

  Aurora straightened her back with pride. “Thank you.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Well, I certainly didn’t feel like sitting around trying to figure out what else we should talk about. Maybe if I got her out for some dinner, she would talk more. I’d had no idea that when I came here, I’d be fighting to get a person that was more shy than I was to talk.

  “I’m starving, how about you?”

  She exhaled. “Famished!”

  “Want to grab something to eat? I saw a little burger shack just off campus. It smelled amazing.”

  “Sure.”

  We both slipped on some flip flops and headed out the door. The walk wasn’t very far. Had I had my car, I would have gladly driven purely for the sake of air conditioning. But I’d chosen to leave my vehicle at home. I wanted to experience my first year without certain luxuries. There was nowhere on campus I couldn’t walk to, and if I wanted to go anywhere else, I could call an Uber or take public transportation.

  As we walked, I noticed that Aurora seemed to be a little winded. “You doing okay?”

  She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Is the air here always this thick?”

  “I’m assuming so. Georgia has humidity, but this is a tad worse.” I felt terrible for asking her to walk with me when I could have gone alone and brought her back something. “No worries, you’ll be used to it in no time.” I had a feeling my reassurance was anything but comforting.

  The Burger Shack was a bit further than I recalled, but, by the time we got there and stepped inside the cool air, neither one of us cared. I exhaled and the sweat that had accumulated on my neck felt extra cold under the fan air blowing
on me. Aurora lifted her long, brown hair up and closed her eyes.

  “This is the worst of summer, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I smiled. “August is the worst of it.”

  “Thank goodness,” she whispered.

  The smell of cooking meat, and frying French fries assaulted my nose. My stomach growled ferociously. I missed lunch because my nerves had gotten the best of me. Looking at the super small menu, everything was pretty typical, and sounded amazing—burger, burger with cheese, bacon burger, mushroom burger, French fries, onion rings, and, of course, any topping you wanted to add. I was pretty simple. Cheeseburger with extra pickles and ketchup.

  “You know what you want? I’m buying.”

  Aurora shook her head. “It’s okay.”

  “My treat.” I smiled at her.

  “Okay, thank you,” she replied.

  There was an older couple in front of us placing their order. Just before we were going to step up to the counter, I heard the door shut behind me and an obnoxious group of guys talking entirely too loud and disrupting my thoughts of food. I was annoyed by it. Well, that was until I looked at Aurora’s wide eyes gawking at the group behind us.

  I snapped my fingers, giggling at her. “Earth to Aurora. Your jaw is on the floor.”

  She snapped it shut and whispered, “They don’t grow them like that in Montana.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her. “What do they ‘grow’ them like where you’re from?” I’d briefly glanced behind me and saw several guys laughing it up, but I hadn’t bothered inspecting them closely enough to see if they were mouth dropping.

  She shrugged, a pink hue coloring her cheeks. “I don’t know? Burly, or stocky.”

  “Fat?”

  She shot a look at me. “No, not fat. Have you ever heard of the saying cornbread fed? Where I lived, we didn’t have farm lands and corn fields, but the boys all went hunting, and fished for food and sport.”