Chapter 19 (1/2)

I shake it off, this weird feeling. She’s still staring. I changed my mind; I thought I liked how she stared at me before, trying to decipher me, but now I can feel her judgment crawling over my skin. Now she’s looking at my inked arms the way my gran does. I don’t need her questioning me and my fucking choices.

“Stop staring at me!” I demand, and walk away. I turn the corner and feel breathless. It reminds me of those nights when I’d smoke just way too many cigarettes. I don’t smoke anymore, I don’t do that anymore, I have to remind myself, and lean against the brick wall and catch my breath.

She’s odd, that blond girl with too much attitude.

THE ENTIRE WEEK was shit. Party after party, noise after noise. All the sounds of misery.

At most I’ve slept a total of twenty hours in the past week, and I’m exhausted today. I can barely see straight through my throbbing headache, and I can’t find my keys this morning. I’m irritated as fuck and in a fighting mood.

While I’m turning my room upside down, there’s a knock at the door. I consider ignoring it, but the knock comes again, this time louder.

When I answer, a girl in a WCU jersey is standing in my doorway, her eyes red and her cheeks flushed.

“Can I come in?” she asks, her hands shaking.

“No. Sorry.” I close the door in her face. Seconds later another knock. Damn it. I don’t know who the chick is, but she needs to find another door to knock on. She continues tapping away at my door, and I yank it open.

Neil, one of the biggest of the douchebags in the fraternity, is standing there. His blond hair is ruffled, messy, and he smells like beer and pussy.

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask him, and walk back into the room, tossing a pair of jeans at him.

“Have you s-seen Cady?” His tone is off, his words slurred.

“Who?”

“The girl I was with last night? Have you seen her?”

I think back to the red eyes of the girl in the jersey, the way she was wandering the halls, and I shake my head. I thought she was high at first, and maybe she was, but it never does well to assume.

“She left and she’s not coming back. Leave her alone.” I grab a book from my shelf and throw it at him.

Groaning, he calls me a dick and leaves.

I’m still pissed as I drive back to campus, and I continue my newly found pattern of annoying Steph’s roommate.

“I’m excited for this class. I’ve heard really good things about it,” Landon tells her as I walk up behind them. They must be closer friends than I thought. Her voice is quiet when she responds to him, and he smiles at her. Her smile is warm, so warm that I look away for a moment.

Do they like each other? She has a mannequin boyfriend. He has a girlfriend, as far as I know. They must have broken up, by the way he’s looking at Tessa.

Halfway through class, Landon leaves and Tessa literally moves her chair farther away from me.

“Monday we begin our weeklong discussion of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,” Professor Something-or-other announces to the class. I glance over at Tessa, and she’s smiling. Not just smiling—she’s grinning from ear to ear.