First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (77 page)

I glance over my shoulder again, intending to check for raised hands but instead gazing directly at Maria. Her gorgeous black hair is tied back in a ponytail, and she’s taken her coat off today. She’s wearing a gray sweatshirt from Cornell’s freshman orientation, and she couldn’t have picked a baggier, worse fitting shirt if she’d tried.

As I turn back to the whiteboard, it suddenly hits me that she
did
try. She’s trying her hardest not to draw attention. She’d make herself completely invisible if she could.

“Okay folks, that’s it for the test and for class today too,” I call out, boxing the final answer on the board before turning back around. “If you have any questions, come talk to me after class or send me an e-mail. Either way’s fine.”

I sit at the front of the room in my uncomfortable plastic chair and watch as my students pour out of the classroom. Nobody ever stays after class to ask me questions; they all just go straight to the professor. I don’t think they realize that he just forwards their questions to me anyway.

Maria gets up to follow the crowd out the door and my eyes instantly lock onto her. Baggy sweatshirts can hide a lot, but not even the ratty, faded black jeans she’s wearing can hide legs like hers.

She follows behind the rest of the crowd toward the door, and I can’t help but follow her long, slender legs as she crosses the room. I wonder if she knows that she sways her hips as she walks. It’s absolutely mesmerizing.

“Hey, Maria?”

I immediately panic as the words come out of my mouth. Why did I do that? I don’t have anything to tell her! Shit, she’s looking at me, and I...

...I’m speechless.

I have absolutely nothing to say as those beautiful green eyes of hers pull me in. Between the gorgeous black hair, pale skin, and those incredible eyes of hers, I’m absolutely speechless.

“Yes?” she asks apprehensively, and I cobble together the first sentence I can think of as I break free of her spell.

“Good job on the test. I... I just wanted to tell you.”

Her eyes are dark with distrust, and she hesitates before answering me.

“Thanks,” she finally says, and then she turns and hurries out the door.

After the last student finally leaves, I bang my head on the table and groan in embarrassment. That’s not what I wanted to tell her at all. I never meant to call out to her in the first place, but whatever it was that I wanted to say, the test had nothing to do with it.

Now that she’s gone, I can think of all sorts of things to tell her. I could tell her how damned beautiful she is and how I can’t get her out of my mind. I could ask her why she’s so scared of me.

All I’d do is scare her even more, though. It’d be horrible of me to hurt her like that.

Hell, if I’m going to hurt her, I might as well get it out of the way and tell her how I wish I’d never met her.

I wish I’d never met her because she reminds me of my sister, and no matter how much Samantha’s memories come alive—no matter how much I suffer from them—I’ll still never get to make it up to her.

Wednesday, February 20 – 4:00 PM

Maria

I usually hang around the library and study after class if I’m not meeting Tina somewhere, but today I head straight home. That short, pointless conversation with Owen rattled me badly, but it’s different this time from when I gave him my test.

I’m not scared or feeling angry at him—I’m angry at
myself.

I rush from my last class—a pointless metaphysics course I’m only taking for easy credits—to the long suspension bridge across the west gorge. My apartment complex is across the bridge and down the icy hill on the far side.

The bridge creaks in the strong wind and even though I know it’s perfectly safe, I’m still nervous. As I reach the middle, I stop and stare down into the gorge far below. A thick sheath of ice coats the bottom, and four-foot-long icicles hang precariously from the steep cliff face. The wind picks up, and an icy blast chills me even through my thick winter coat. It’s really cold today, and I need to get moving. I still don’t have winter boots and my toes are going numb.

I stare down into the gorge for just a moment longer, thinking about Owen. I’m about as clueless as someone can be—though my age of true naïveté ended when I was fifteen—and even I could tell that Owen got flustered when he tried to talk to me. He acted just as I would have; he tried to talk to me, got too nervous and fell flat on his face.

What did he want to say to me? Did he even know? Somehow, I wasn’t certain that he knew at all. He just... wanted to talk to me.

Then why am I angry at myself? I feel like I’m missing something important here, but I can’t figure out what it is. Maybe that’s what I’m so angry about—that no matter how many answers I know on tests, I can’t figure out how to be a normal girl again.

God, I’m so confused.

My teeth start to chatter and I start walking again. I cram my muddled thoughts into a box and throw them into a dark corner of my mind for now. I can’t make any sense of them while I’m feeling like this, and they’ll still be there when I get home.

I make my way carefully down the steep, icy sidewalk on the side of the hill and then down the long staircase to my apartment. Rock salt crunches loudly beneath my snow-soaked sneakers and my fingers burn as I clutch tightly to the freezing cold railing.

My apartment is at the far end of the bottom row of units, and with a quick twist of the key, I’m inside and warm again.

Tina waves to me from the couch as I kick off my shoes and unzip my coat.

“Hey Maria! Glad you’re back. I wanted...”

“Not now,” I interrupt as I march straight through the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom. “Sorry, give me a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”

“But...”

“Tina, please.”

I run straight into my room and lock the door behind me. I know I’m being rude to Tina, but I need to get my thoughts in order. The only way I know to do it—the only way I can understand what I’m feeling—is to write them down while they’re still fresh in my mind.

I pull back the comforter on my bed, reach under the pillow, and pull out my thick, leather-bound diary. My old Hobbit bookmark guides me quickly to the first empty page, and I plop down in the middle of the carpet and start to write.

I tried to watch Owen for the entire class today. Even trying as hard as I could, I still had to look away whenever he turned to me. I can’t do it. I just can’t keep my eyes on him. I’m scared around guys in general, but I’m even more scared of him. I feel horrible when he looks at me, and I don’t know why.

What’s weirder to me is that I like looking at him. Do I actually think he’s cute? Then why am I scared of him?

Every single time he turned around, I got scared and hid in my notebook, pretending to study.

Then, when I got up to leave after class, he tried to talk to me. I reacted exactly as I always do: I felt embarrassed, terrified, and ashamed that I couldn’t get myself to say anything. All my words ran away from me, and I hate it so much. I’m just happy I didn’t start crying from frustration today; that only makes it worse.

Today, though, Owen didn’t have words either! He called out to me and then completely lost his nerve. I’m totally sure that’s what it was. I’ve done it before—set myself up for embarrassment like that—and I recognize it when I see it.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk to him without freaking out, and now I think he’s cute? Tina tells me that liking someone makes it even harder to talk to him, too.

What if I really do like him? How do I even know if I like him?

I sigh and take a deep breath as I draw a line under the entry, but then I shake my head, scribble out the line and keep writing.

I’m afraid that I’ll like him and he’ll end up like Darren. Tina loves the idea of me going places with guys, but she doesn’t understand how fragile I am. I’m trying so hard, but I’m scared to death. I’m not very strong, and I’m afraid that I might break completely if it happens again.

When I draw the line this time, I know I’m done with the entry. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Man, I’m in so much trouble,” I whisper as I slowly let the breath out.

I have one more thing I need to write before I can go talk to Tina, but I need to get my other book for it. The diary returns to its safe, secret place underneath my pillow, and out comes the ragged, green spiral notebook instead.

The jagged, harsh black lettering on the cover—drawn in marker by me five years ago—reads “
The Book of Nightmares.
”

This book is where I write all the things I don’t want to remember. I started doing it thinking that maybe my brain would let me forget them, knowing that they were all sitting safely in this horrible book in case I ever wanted to bring them back to life. It hasn’t worked yet, but I’m still holding out hope.

I turn past page after page of terrible nightmares and disturbing drawings until I finally get to a blank page, and I start to write.

I’m fifteen, and I’m sitting in the reclining chair in the living room. Mom is watching the evening news, Dad’s still out at work, and I’m sitting here desperately trying to work up the strength to tell her.

I’m afraid that she’s going to hate me. Somehow, I’m certain she will. She’s going to call me terrible things, maybe even hit me, but I have to get it out.

I need to tell her that Micah’s friend Darren raped me.

He told me that he’d find me and hurt me even worse if I told anyone and that he’d hurt Micah too, but I can’t deal with the secret anymore. I’m falling apart and I’m starting to change in ways that really scare me. I never used to cry when I got frustrated or when things went wrong, but now it’s all I can do not to burst into tears over even the tiniest things. I get angry over nothing, lose my temper, and want to hurt people.

This isn’t me; I’m not like that! I need to fix myself.

“Mom?” I ask, trying to get her attention away from the news. Just saying her name takes all the strength I have.

“Maria?”

As I look up, my eyes latch onto the headline on the screen and my chest starts to hurt. A woman in the next town was raped by her boyfriend, and the man’s mug-shot now fills the TV screen. His photograph looks almost as if it was shot specifically to make him seem as ugly as possible.

“Oh will you look at her,” groans my mother, pointing at the screen. “What did she think was going to happen, hanging around with guys like him? Rape’s not right, but for God’s sake, lady. You have to take care of yourself, and instead you’re practically begging for it.”

I start to lose my nerve as she rants on and on about the poor woman. The camera cuts to the sidewalk outside a bar, and as the reporter talks about her boyfriend getting the woman drunk and taking her home, my mother snickers.

“Stupid slut deserved it,” she says, shaking her head and gulping down her coffee.

“Would you still say that if it happened to someone you knew?” I ask quietly. “What if it happened to me?”

Mom rolls her eyes at me and I feel my skin grow hot with humiliation as she laughs. She’s laughing as if it’s the dumbest question she’s ever heard.

“Seriously Maria? I mean... you? I raised you better than that. No daughter of mine would ever be dumb enough to let herself get raped.”

She turns her attention back to the television, and I get up from the recliner. My legs feel shaky, and a lump is forming in my throat.

“Oh—sorry about that. You wanted to ask me something?” she asks as I head for the stairs. I look back at her and shake my head.

“Never mind. It’s nothing.”

My voice catches in my throat, and she looks at me with sudden concern.

“You sure, honey? Are you okay?”

I nod to her and start up the stairs again.

“Okay, but if you need anything, come talk to me.”

“Okay,” I answer, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

“Really, sweetie,” she calls after me. “I’m your mother; you can talk to me about anything!”

I barely make into to my room before I start crying.

The memory is written on paper and my ritual is complete. I close the notebook, take a deep breath, and lay my head on the carpet as I wait for the terrible feeling in my chest to subside. God, it hurts so much.

My jaw aches from clenching it so tightly, and my chest throbs painfully with every breath. I'm too weak to hold the tears in, and I know that soon I'm going to break down.

“Fuck you, Darren," I whisper through gritted teeth. "I hope you’re dead.”

––––––––

I hear Tina chatting happily with our other roommates downstairs when I finally come out of my room. I feel better now that I’ve had a chance to let my emotions out, but I feel guilty that I’ve made her wait for so long. I don’t deserve her at all.

Lacey immediately goes silent as she sees my tear-streaked face. She’s a nice enough girl, but we’ve never been close enough that I’d tell her my secret. She probably just thinks I’m mentally ill.

“Hey, I’m gonna go call Mike,” she tells Tina, and before I can even say hi to her, she’s disappeared up the stairs. I look up over my shoulder as I hear her door close and lock. She really thinks I’m nuts, doesn’t she?

Dinah excuses herself shortly afterward and heads off to her sorority, leaving me alone in the kitchen with Tina. She dries a translucent, green plastic plate and tosses it into the cabinet before turning to me.

“You doing okay?” she asks softly. I’m glad she isn’t mad at me—I was worried she’d be ticked off that I kept her waiting.

“Yeah, I’m better now,” I answer and I head to the sink to help with the dishes. I wash, she dries. We’ve done it like this ever since our sophomore year when we first got an apartment together.

“Anything you want to talk about?” she asks, taking two forks and a knife from me. “I’m all ears.”

“I’m sorry, Tina,” I blurt out suddenly. “I’m so sorry I hurt you like I did, that I said that horrible stuff about your mom.”