“Have you ever heard the rumor that Dave let his friends be with his dates?” I blurted out. “Against their will?”
Chrissy stood in front of me speechless for a moment. “What? No! You think I would let you go out on your first date here with a rapist?”
“I don’t think he actually has sex with them,” I told her as I headed to my room. “I don’t know, but I think they said he watches.”
“They?” Chrissy demanded from where I had left her. “Who the fuck arethey?”
I didn’t know that either.
“Angel?” Chrissy followed me, tugging on my arm. “Hun, tell me, what happened?”
As I replayed the bizarre evening to her, I was startled when she grabbed my arm, her eyes wide with excitement. “Mayhem? You got ambushed by the Devils?”
“You sound like that is a good thing,” I scolded her. “It was scary.”
“Are you crazy? They’re all ridiculously hot. Apparently.”
“Theyalljust beat up Dave and his car.” I shook my head to clear it. “Seriously, this isnotwhat you should be focusing on.”
“Sounds like he deserves it.” Chrissy sniffed.
“Yes, but what if he doesn’t? What if they were talking shit, and . . .”
“We need to ask questions,” Chrissy said as she left my room. I knew that look. That look was trouble.
“Do we?” I hurried after her. “I mean, of course I do, but at the same time, I don’t think I want to know!”
Chrissy whirled around to face me, the anger evident in her eyes. “Iset you up with him; if he’s a scumbag, if he’s a . . . a rapist? That’s on me. I was telling you to go for it, and if I hadn’t,you wouldn’t have gone.I madeyou go on this date! What if heis? What if this happened to you? How can I not know?”
Walking forward, I saw the wildness in her eyes. Gently, I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her. “It’s not your fault. Nothing happened to me. I’m fine, well, I lost my purse and cell in Dave’s car, but other than that, I’m fine.”
“We need to know,” she said stubbornly, ignoring everything else I had said.
Nodding, I squeezed her before I let her go. “We’ll go now, but I need to brush my teeth, okay?”
“That’s completely random.” Chrissy stood back, pushing a blonde curl behind her ear.
“I threw up on the way home,” I confessed with a grimace. “I’m not too proud to admit that I was scared shitless.”
After brushing my teeth, I also changed my clothes. I was wet, but really, I just wanted out of any clothing that reminded me of tonight. In soft gray leggings and an oversized hoodie, I followed Chrissy out of our dorm room.
“You look like you just woke up,” Chrissy muttered as we walked through the campus.
Cardinal Saints College was a private college, the students mostly rich, well-to-do people who regarded people like me with indifference. I transferred here before my third year of college started. I hadn’t realized I even wanted to come here until I got told by my counselor in my former college thatthiscollege opened the doors for me at the Ivy League colleges for when I did my postgraduate degree. With this college and hopefully an Ivy League law school, both would look good together on application forms for job prospects.
Chrissy was my roommate, and we connected instantly. She had reacted to the fact that I embraced a hermit-like lifestyle with horror and made it her mission to “expose” me to more of a college experience. Her first step was setting me up on a date.Which I had eventually conceded to, because in the five weeks we’d been roommates, I felt like I had always known her, and we were both certain that we had a “ride or die” friendship.
“I’m freaked out. I don’t want to be in anything except comfy clothes,” I muttered as I trailed beside her.
Linking her arm through mine, she hugged me to her. “We will get to the bottom of this, and I will never,everinterfere again. I promise.”
“I should have told campus security,” I fretted as we approached one of the main dorms on Orchard. It was a party dorm. More people requested to be housed here than requested to be moved out of it. I wasn’t a total square, I partied, but the idea of a twenty-four-seven party house made me nauseous. How did they get any studying done?
“I know some of the girls here, decent girls even though they look like Barbies,” Chrissy assured me. “Barbies with brains.”
“You’re so bitchy,” I admonished her. “We’re supposed to stand together no matter what we look like.”
Her eyes ran over me critically. “Well, let’s hope you’re right, because right now, you’re rockingstoner slob.”
