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Actually, they had gotten to me. Deep in my core, they’d made me believe I was worthless and would never find true love or be successful or gain a friend outside Tess. I’d just refused to let those wounds show. I’d buckled down and turned sassier than ever to show them they couldn’t touch my spirit, though they’d actually shattered it.
But Tess was right. The girls on campus today would’ve normally turned me even mouthier than usual. No, this was, I don’t even know. I wasn’t sure if I could attribute the mood to the cowboy either. To be sadly honest, I think it had originated from the night I’d seen Beckett Hilliard make Melody Fairfield come like a heifer being slaughtered on an alter
to the sex gods.
He hadn’t even looked like he’d done much of anything for her, but she’d seemed to like it so much. She’d gone ugly crazy with lust. It didn’t seem right. Why had it hurt and felt so uncomfortable for me the one time I’d tried it, yet she’d had the best orgasm of her life?
I knew Tess and Paige liked sex. Their men treated them good and cherished my two friends. But I had always kind of thought the fact that they were so in love had kind of blinded them to how good it really wasn’t.
But then Melody the skanky whore Fairfield had come along and proved to me that love had nothing to do with a good orgasm. And I felt broken inside.
Maybe I just wasn’t meant to be a sexual being. I mean, I certainly didn’t have a magazine-cover-worthy provocative shape to lure a man in. I didn’t flirt well, or at all. And I, well, I don’t know but it sucked to realize I didn’t have any of that and probably never would.
It was like I’d been slapped with a hard dose of reality that I’d be alone and lonely for the rest of my life for a reason; because I was just that lacking. No sex, no companionship, no anything seemed to lurk in my future. And it scared me. I felt worthless. And alone.
Doomed to wander the earth this way for all eternity.
But I looked at Tess dead in the eye, and I couldn’t tell her that, none of it. She’d just shrug it off and say, “You’re not worthless.” Then maybe she’d get offended because she wouldn’t think our friendship was helping me feel loved enough, or something like that, when that wasn’t it at all. I just…it was something inside—something about who I was—that felt broken. And I think only I could fix it.
Except I didn’t know how.
Maybe it wasn’t even fixable. Maybe I was just destined to be sexually defunct and relationship-dead for the rest of my life.
“I think this whole rape case still has me wigging out,” I said instead. Hey, it was kind of true. I wasn’t sure what had happened to Beckett. I doubt he was at the fraternity now. Should I still try to look him up? The first time had gone wrong enough that I almost didn’t want to take the chance again. But a niggle at my conscience told me to find him. “I think I’m going to go to my room and find out where Beck is.”
Tess immediately nodded, her big blue eyes still worried though. “Want me to help?”
I smiled gratefully but shook my head. “No. Go cuddle with your man. I really do feel bad about taking you away from him today.”
“Bailey,” she groaned. “You did not take me away from him. He knows you need some extra attention lately. It’s fine. Don’t—”
“Well, I’m fine,” I reassured her. “So stop worrying so much about me. I’ll see you at supper. You’re cooking tonight, right?”
She nodded mutely, so I grinned and said, “Great.” Then I pushed open the car door and hurried up to our apartment alone.
Once in my room, I settled myself comfortably on my bed and pulled my computer onto my lap. But Beckett Hilliard wasn’t even in the Granton University student directory anymore. And when I logged onto Facebook to find his account—which hadn’t been hard since all the dirty nasty memes against him had been linked to his name—it had been deleted.
“Dammit,” I muttered, wondering where he was.
All the google searches only went to articles about the rape and his being set free. After scrolling through about twenty pages of that, I gave up with a groan and slapped my laptop closed before falling onto my back and staring up at the ceiling.
But when I did that, I only remembered what Beckett had looked like when he’d come, his mouth gasping open and his eyes wide with shock as he lay in this very position and stared at the ceiling of that fraternity room.
Then I remembered the disgust in Chance Fairfield’s eyes when he’d called me a lying bitch and spat in my face.
I shuddered and sat up. I wanted to find another human—preferably Tess or Paige—be in their company, and not feel so alone. But I was too worried it’d only make me feel more worthless about myself, so I decided to do some homework.
That lasted for a couple hours before it felt like my brain was mush from studying so long. I slapped my Electronic devices and Circuits textbook shut and crawled off my bed, realizing evening was falling and I’d missed lunch. That never happened. Like ever. I loved food too much.
And now I was worried about myself. I really was in a strange funk. I’d already been wondering while I’d been studying all afternoon which color I wanted to make my hair next.
Shaking my head, I decided I was going to make a huge, raving snack and veg out in front of another eighties movie. I’d have to pull out the big guns this time and put on Princess Bride I think. Yes, definitely, that’s what I was going to watch.
But I didn’t even make it ten steps out of my door when it happened.
I was approaching Paige and Logan’s room to pass by their door when I heard giggling from inside. The door was eighty percent shut but open enough to let the sound out clearly.
And then I heard Paige say, “Logan, shhh…” in a reprimanding voice as I passed. “What if Bailey hears?”
