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Rowan
Jamie and I leave the bar not long after Carly and her new man-candy walk out the door. I’m flustered still, stomach aching from such a close encounter, fingers trembling as Jamie and I walk arm-in-arm across campus, back to our house. Jamie is still talking, probably about her classes and school, but I can’t seem to focus on what she’s saying. All I can think about now is the three men in the bar; my worst enemies–the very people I’ve avoided since the moment I met them in high school.
“Hey,” Jamie says, taking a hold of my arm as we kick off our shoes inside the front door. I turn in her direction, light-headed, and try to focus on her face. “Are you okay? That must have been hard for you.”
“Um, yeah.” I clear my throat and drop my hands to my side. My arms are tingling and numb. I wish I’d drank more at the bar. I’m far too sober to be thinking about those three. “I’m fine, actually. I knew I would see them around, wouldn’t I? They took away high school, I won’t let them take away this.”
The words sound like bullshit even to me, but Jamie, thank God for my best friend, doesn’t push the issue.
“Sorry about Carly.” She shrugs off her jacket and hangs it up, helping me take off mine. “I’ve always known she’s a bitch, but she went super hard tonight. She’s a total horndog. But look at it this way … that’s one less guy out of the way, right? Maybe she’ll give him a run for his money. Or end up eating him, like a female black widow. I guess that would work, too.”
“Oh, James.” I wrap my arms around my friend with a sincere giggle. “How I love your creative mind.”
Jamie grins and hugs me back. “Do you want some wine?”
“That’s probably a bad idea at this point,” I say with a forced smile. Really, all I want to do is curl up in my bed and sleep the memories away. “I think I’m going to go to bed. Class tomorrow.”
“Sure, babe,” Jamie says. “Let me know if you need anything, yeah?”
Once my bedroom door is shut securely behind me, I change into a pair of fuzzy pajamas and pull my laptop out of my bag, firing it up to begin working on some homework. Facebook chimes at me, alerting me of a new notification, and I click on it. It’s a friend request, and for a moment I don’t recognize the photo. But when I look closer, I recognize the smile. It’s Jason from class. The cute blond with glasses.
Smiling, I click Accept and then scroll briefly through his page, enjoying his posts. He’s academically inclined, this guy, and I really like that. There are no stupid memes to pretend to laugh at, and instead there are articles on different subjects, some travel photos, and pictures with friends. My kind of guy.
I close out of Facebook and pull up Moodle to check my assignments. We have a short essay due for Professor Hansen–Paul, I mean–but that will be a piece of cake. While nobody in their right mind can actively say they adore classes like microbiology and physiology, I’ve always been different. I have loved them, because the human body fascinates me.
But it doesn’t matter, not tonight. As I stare at the cursor blinking on the empty page in front of me, nothing comes. Zilch. Nada. Not even a single sliver of inspiration. I can’t seem to focus, which is rare. I love school, and I rarely have issues with homework.
But I can’t focus, and I know why. I can’t focus because my three mortal enemies are in my school, probably taking my very classes, and one of them is even fucking one of my roommates. Every time I try to clear my mind, Matt Nelson’s face pops into my mind. I want so desperately to go back in time and avoid the bar—avoid school altogether, actually—because even the oldest of scars never fully healed.
Sighing, I rub my hands over my face and take a deep breath, checking the time. It’s only ten, so I pull out my cell phone and dial my home phone number. Dad might be asleep already, but Mom is probably awake, watching Final Jeopardy reruns on our old TV.
“Row?” Mom says into the phone, and my heart expands.
“Hi, mama.”
“Hi, baby. It’s so good to hear from you.”
“I know. It’s been, what, like three days?”
Mom laughs. I love that laugh. “Something like that.”
“I miss you.” In the background, I can hear Alex Trebek speaking, and I smile.
“You can always come home, you know, and commute to campus,” Mom teases. “Your room will always be ready for you, sweetheart.”
“I know, and I appreciate it.” I flop down on my queen bed and close my eyes, wishing I was home right now, next to my mom on the couch. When I’m around my mother, I feel like nothing can ever get me down. She can always talk me through it.
“How was your day?” Mom asks. “And your classes? What about your professors? And how was work? Did you get to work on anything exciting?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Everything was fine. My ER rotation was fun today, I learned a lot from the lead physician.” I swallow, knowing I can’t tell her about the accident today. People getting hurt saddens her, and my line of work stresses her out. It’s the one thing I do that she really doesn’t understand. “Classes are good, professors are fine. You know how it goes.”
“Just fine, huh?”
I swallow, sensing that she knows something is wrong. She knows everything, my mom, she knows it all. At that moment, I want nothing more in the word than to spill everything to her, to tell her about Matt and Dereck and Bryce, all three of the men who had made my life a living hell. Mom knows all-too-well about these three guys, and so does dad.
But I can’t. I can’t say anything, because I can’t do that to my parents.
After all, those three men are partially responsible for my downward spiral when I was younger, and it was a mess my mom and dad had to clean up themselves.
