“Hey— are Piper and Kiersten around? I need to tell them I’m leaving,” I said hurriedly.
The bartender looked surprised. “Oh. Um. Kiersten is probably in someone’s pants, or in the very least in someone’s apartment, by now, and Piper left a few minutes ago.”
“They both left?”
He nodded, giving me a pitying look. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just…I just need some sleep,” I said, shaking my head. I smiled at the bartender and backed away. They’d left me.
Some first day of college.
4
I found my way back to the dorms quickly enough, though on the way I managed to rack up a not insignificant amount of frustration that my roommates had left me to walk alone, in the dark, tipsy. My feet were sore from Kiersten’s shoes and, by the time I climbed the steps to our suite, I was fairly certain I had sizable blisters on my toes. I refused to limp from them, though, when I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
“Hello? Kiersten? Piper?” I called out, forcing my voice to sound bored, rather than upset.
“You’re back early,” someone— Piper, I realized, who was on the couch— said flatly.
“I wish I’d known you left,” I said.
Piper gave a tired shrug but ignored my comment.
“Would you like me to wash this dress?” I asked, trying to hide my disappointment at being abandoned at the party. After all, this was day one and I couldn’t very well be feuding with my roommate within the first twenty-four hours of meeting her.
“That dress has to be dry cleaned.” She looked me over. “Let me take it so it doesn’t get ruined. Also, you should probably go get some of your own stuff to wear out. This fit you okay, but I think it made you look a little hip-y,” Piper said, rising.
After a second of confusion, I realized she was asking for the dress back. Normally, I’d have hurried back to my room then handed it over, but some combination of alcohol, being left, and the strange hurt feeling I had when watching Jacob bend that girl over a garden bench made me feel reckless. I dropped my purse, then twisted to unclasp the dress. It dropped to my feet and, with a quick smile, I stepped out of the puddle, then snatched it up to hand it to Piper.
“Thanks for letting me wear it,” I said. I felt myself cooling— literally and figuratively. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe they didn’t understand how many “being safe in college” type brochures I had read. Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding. I took a breath and slowed my anger down.
Piper smiled, lips tense. “Glad you had such a successful evening.”
“It was fun,” I said. “I really did have a nice time. Why’d you leave without me, though?”
Piper shrugged. “You looked like you had things under control.”
“Yeah, but still. Can you just tell me next time? Please?” I asked, trying to let kindness shine through my words.
Piper looked annoyed, then tossed the dress into the door of her open bedroom. “I’ll try to keep that in mind. Calm down, New Lily.”
I licked my lips, then nodded and walked down to my bedroom. It was still unpacked, though I’d had time before the party to make my bed up. I knew I should wash my face, but I needed a moment alone. I hit the lights and, still in my bra and panties, curled up onto my bed in the darkness.
Calm down, New Lily. Piper said it in a way that baited me, begged me to demand I be called by my actual name. It hadn’t worked, though— one, because I could tell it was bait, and two, because I couldn’t stop thinking about the face of the one person who not only knew my name, but perhaps had even sought it out.
Jacob Everett.
I took a deep breath at the thought of him— of gray blue eyes and dark hair and the way his muscles looked against the fabric of his shirt. I was from south Georgia, so I’d seen plenty of boys who considered themselves football gods…but Jacob Everett was the only one I’d ever seen that managed to pull me into his orbit so quickly and completely. I didn’t even care about football, after all, but there was something about him…was it the way the other people at the party so clearly worshipped him? Was it the fact that he’d looked at me, asked about me when someone as confident and sexy as Piper was sitting beside him?
I smashed my face against my pillow, and reminded myself that despite all that, Jacob had been out in the yard doing god-only-knew-what with the pretty black girl. I bit my lip and wondered what it was like to be that girl, to so happily bend over and invite Jacob to take her right there, under the night sky.