Crashing Into You (23 page)

My tears were gone. I was
back in the present. I leaned down, and whispered, into his ear, “Fuck. Yeah.”

He slapped his hands against
my legs. “Well, all right then.”

Evan entered me with an
impressive thrust. He pushed himself up, kissed me hard and fierce on the lips.
I wrapped my arms over his shoulders, as I started riding him.

“Sydney…”

“Oh Evan…”

I didn’t have to fake it. And
I wasn’t distracted this time, not at all.

The summer might have been
coming to a close, and I might have been scared about what lay ahead.

But as I stared into Evan's
eyes, I realized the simple truth.

There was nothing to be
afraid of.

Only good things were headed
my way.

Chapter 26

As I stepped out of my car
and started wading through the crowded parking lot, I let out a long sigh. And
not the good kind.

“What?” Lukas said. He
slammed the passenger door and pulled his large black backpack over his
shoulders.

“Nothing. I just wish summer
could have lasted another few weeks. It went by so damn
fast
.”

“I know, right? But at least we
have three-day weekends to look forward to. How cool is that going to be?”

Some joy returned to my face.
“Damn right,” I said. I had almost forgotten. The first two years at LMU I
always got stuck with at least one Monday-Wednesday-Friday class. For junior
year, though, I vowed to do everything possible to go to school four days a
week instead of five, especially since I now lived off campus. It took some
effort, but I made it work. Barely.

We headed up the hill and
walked by three of the freshman dorms. The new students were all so adorably
terrified, like they were walking not into English 101, but some kind of military
camp.
 

“Oh my God, it kills me,”
Lukas said, with a wanting smile.

“What?”

“The freshman boys. They’re
all so freakin' cute.” He pointed to a gaggle of five guys walking toward the
Lair. “Look, Sydney, it's One Direction.”

I slapped him in the chest,
hard.

“Oww!” Lukas said, taking a
step back. “What was that for?”

“You’re not allowed to do
that. You have a boyfriend. Or did you forget?”

He snickered. “Oh, come on. I
can still
look
.”

“Yeah? Would Robert approve?”

“He’s probably doing the same
thing. As long as he's not sticking his dick anywhere he's not supposed to,
we're good.”

“As long as
you
are not sticking your dick anywhere.”

He opened his mouth so wide
it was almost comical. “What? Don't you trust me?”

“Of course I do. I just want
to make sure you don't ruin this great thing you have, that's all.” I popped a
piece of cinnamon gum in my mouth. The pack had been sitting in my car all
summer, so it was dry and tasteless. “I can’t believe we have a class in
U-Hall.”

Lukas shrugged. “It’s the only
Monday-Wednesday theology class that was left.”

“I know, but it’s just…”

“A long walk?”

“No.” I pointed past the
library, at the sophomore dorms.

“Oh. Right.” He scratched his
chin, and briefly looked away from me.

“It’s like a goddamned crime
scene,” I said. “Can you believe the room’s being occupied again this year?
Some boy or girl’s waking up this morning in the exact same spot Melanie died
in not even four months ago.”

Lukas shook his shoulders in
disgust, like the mere mention of Melanie still made his skin crawl. “They
scrubbed the room, though, didn’t they? And I'm sure whoever's in there didn't
wake up in the exact same bed.”

“No, I know. But still. She
rotted in that room. For three days. It just seems wrong.”

He pulled against his straps.
“So you’re not gonna go up there and introduce yourself to the new residents?”

 
I shook my head a resounding no. “You
couldn’t pay me a million dollars to look in that room again. I can still
smell
her, Lukas.”

He took a step in front of
me. “Eww. That's so gross!”

“Tell me about it.”

We approached the sophomore
dorms, Rains Hall on the left and McCarthy Hall on the right. The sensation
that came over me was expected but still troubling; I got sick to my stomach
almost instantly.

I kept my eyes on Lukas, and immediately
changed the subject. “So you and Robert sure had fun on Saturday.”

“What do you mean,
we
had fun? Saturday was your birthday.”

“I mean, later that night.
Like after midnight.” I winked at him, and he noticeably blushed.

“Uhh, were you spying on us,
Sydney?”

“Of course not. I might have...
you know... walked by your door, and my ear
might
have brushed up against—”

He shoved his arm against my
shoulder and dropped his jaw again. “You little pervert!”

“Oh,
I’m
a pervert? You were fucking that boy like there was no
tomorrow!”

He gripped my shirt and
pulled me close. He darted his eyes every which way. “Shh. Jesus. Tell the
entire school, why don't you.”

“What, you don't want the
school knowing you got laid this weekend? Maybe it’ll turn on the freshman boys
you love and adore. The cute, virginal ones who want someone a little older to
rock their world.”

Lukas bit down on his tongue,
and smiled. “You know what? You may be right.” He turned around, started
walking backward. Smiled at all the students walking toward us. “I had
sex
on Saturday!” he screamed. “With a
boy
, thank you very much!”

I grabbed his hand and pulled
him toward me; now I was the one blushing. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Yes, it was a lot of fun!”
Lukas continued. “And I’m not afraid to admit it!”

“Shh! Lukas! What are you,
crazy?”

“Maybe a little,” he said,
and turned around.

I burst out laughing. Partly
because what he did was so insane, but also because I was so happy for him. The
Lukas from six months ago never would have dreamed of doing something like that.
Robert had changed him. For the better.

I locked my arm with his, and
we continued toward U-Hall—but I stopped when we reached the bridge.

“Oh, wow,” I said.

“What?”

“I did it. I got past
McCarthy. I didn't throw up or anything.”

Lukas pulled me out of the
way of oncoming students. “Yeah, I didn't think you would. You're strong,
Sydney. You can overcome anything.”

Evan had called me strong,
and now Lukas was saying the same thing. But I didn't buy it. I was a survivor,
but I wasn't strong, nowhere near it.

“You obviously don’t know me
as well as you think you do,” I said. I stepped out in front of him and walked
across the bridge. “Come on, class starts in five minutes.”

We walked inside the
mall-like structure, raced down the two escalators and found room 1556 to the
right of the food court. The teacher looked our age. She flashed me a sweet
smile and said, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” I said. I sat next
to Lukas at the back of the room.

I took my notebook out of my
bag and set it on the rickety desk. Wrote down today’s date, then tapped my pen
against my cheek. It was time to focus. School was officially in session.

After our Age of Reformation
class, Lukas and I grabbed a quick lunch, then I hurried to the center of campus,
to the Film building. I had tried all sophomore year to get into Art of the
Cinema, which was noted on campus for being one of the easiest, and most fun,
classes at LMU, but it was always full when I went to enroll. In May I finally
nabbed it at the last second.

With only a minute to spare,
I entered the screening room and sat next to Robert in the second row.

“Hey you,” I said. “Thanks
for saving me a seat.”

“Hi Sydney! Of course, no
problem.” The redhead tapped his fingers against his notebook and stared at me
for a second. “So. From one boyfriend to the other, huh?”

I put my bag down and shot
him a confused look. “What?”

“Weren't you just with
Lukas?”

“Oh! Right, exactly. I get to
gossip about you with Lukas for a bit, then I get to hear all the details about
him from you. It's like a double scoop of ice cream.”

“Mmm. You know who reminds me
of ice cream right now?” He brought his mouth to my ear, and whispered, “Our
new professor.”

I glanced to my left. The Art
of the Cinema teacher was tall, latino—and irrefutably handsome. But I
just snickered. “What is up with you and Lukas checking out other guys? You’re
not in an open relationship, right?”

“Of course not, no. Why? Did
he say something?”

I shook my head. “No, no.
Forget it.” I sat back, and looked up at the giant movie theater screen. All we
were missing was the popcorn. This wasn’t the kind of film class that was held
in some dinky classroom with a little pull down screen; Art of the Cinema was
the real deal.

I looked over my shoulder.
The room was packed. I surveyed the rows of students—there were at least eighty
young faces in the room—but I didn’t see anyone familiar.

“All right, everyone settle
down,” the teacher said, and approached the front of the room. “My name is Mr.
Mahaffey. Jen and Andrea, my two trusty TAs, are handing out the syllabus.
We’re going to go over it in detail in a moment, but for now I wanted to run
down the list of films we'll be watching.”

The TA on the right handed me
the syllabus. It was six pages long, with a whole section on the last page
dedicated to the midterm and final.

“We have
tests
?” I asked, louder than I expected.

“Yes, there are tests,” the
teacher said, and clapped his eyes on me. “For those of you who are looking for
an easy A, I suggest you grab your things, and go. For those of you who actually
want to learn about cinema, and look at the very best films our finest
directors have ever constructed, this is where you want to be. Now…”

When he looked away, I
sneered at him. He was cute, all right, but I could already tell he was a pompous
prick.

“The school requires that I
show you
Citizen Kane
at our first
session, but after that, I have free reign. And this semester, I’ve decided to
focus on… wait for it…
thrillers
.”

Robert clapped his hands
together, and said, “Excellent.”

“We’re going to start in the Golden
Era of the 1950s, and examine the work of Alfred Hitchcock.”

“Oh, I
love
Alfred Hitchcock,” Robert said, as he starred a few titles at
the bottom of the first page.

“Who’s Alfred Hitchcock?” I
whispered.

Robert shook his head, and pointed
forward.

“Is he a director?” I added.

“You’re going to find out soon
enough,” the teacher said, and he leaned over the leather chair in the front
row to face me. “Excuse me. What’s your name?”

I hesitated. “Who, me?”

He nodded.

“Uhh, Sydney. Sydney Baker.”

“Nice to meet you, Sydney,”
he said, and smiled. But then: “The next time you talk when I’m talking, I’m gonna
kick you right out of my classroom. Is that understood?”

I sunk down in my seat. Why
did Robert have to pick the second row?

The teacher turned around and
grabbed his remote control. “All right. So.
Citizen
Kane
.”

A PowerPoint presentation
flashed on the giant screen. The teacher started talking about Orson Welles and
William Randolph Hearst, and something called an L-cut—and my mind began
to wander. Robert was taking notes word for word, but I hadn’t even taken out
my notebook yet. I crossed my arms, and looked at all the eager faces behind
me. I glanced at the right side of the room, then the left. I narrowed my eyes
a little. Someone was waving at the teacher.

I turned back around, grabbed
my notebook from my bag. I opened it to page one.
 

I looked over my shoulder
again. The girl was still waving. But she wasn’t waving at Mr. Mahaffey.

She was waving at me.

“Oh God,” I said.

It was Michelle.

Chapter 27

Robert and I walked out of
the theater at a quarter past five—and Michelle followed right behind us,
talking just as much with Robert as she did me. The campus was less crowded
than earlier today, when it seemed like every student enrolled at Loyola
Marymount was headed to his or her class at the same time, but it was still
pretty packed. I hoped that Robert would stick around for a bit and act as a
buffer between me and the already clingy Michelle, but he started walking away
almost immediately.