Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) (2 page)

“We can’t get in there,” I said
. “They card.”

“I know
, but there will be people outside on the sidewalk.”

“Which means the cops will come.”

She stuck her tongue out at me as she flung her new-to-her used books on her bed.

“Before I go anywhere, I’m unpacking my crap,” I said
. With my books in a neat stack on the desk, I pulled Gloria, the hippo from
Madagascar
, out of her undignified crumple in my suitcase. I’d inexplicably jammed the stuffed animal, a gift from Sara when she’d been barely more than a baby and
Madagascar
her favorite movie, in my bag during my last survey of my bedroom at home, both last year and this year.

“You go girl
, but that bike isn’t going to fit. And at nine o’clock, I’m going to the wrestling party Bodacious told us about, with or without you.”

I couldn’t stop looking out the w
indow as I unpacked. Hard as I’d tried to talk myself out of the crazy this summer, there was only one person besides Mia I wanted to see.
 

 

August 26

Text to Mia:

My shaking fingers barely managed to
switch my phone to silent as Dr. Potter hoisted his computer bag onto the table at the front of the classroom. Geology 101 at 9AM on MWF. First class of the first semester of my sophomore year, and one of the larger courses at Western Case for a couple of reasons. Number one, it was considered the least painful choice to fulfill a science requirement, and number two, since last spring Dr. Potter’s Teaching Assistant had been Boone Ramer, giving a whole new meaning to the class’s nickname “Rocks for Jocks.”

There were a lot of girls who would do anything for a closer look at Boone Ramer, including get up for a nine o’clock class.

Boone had been the first student I’d met last year. He worked as an RA—a Residential Advisor—meaning he lived in a dorm and helped the guys on his floor with whatever. I’d wrongly viewed his assignment to a men’s floor in my freshman dorm as a blessing. Over the course of the year I’d realized it was a total, total curse.

Anyway, on that first day of my
college career, he’d greeted me and Sara and our parents right at the door of North Hall. Mom tried to play it cool, but she’d nudged my arm, thinking exactly what I was.
Hotness!
Only she probably thought in old-person lingo, like
Oh, isn’t he a sight for sore eyes.

“Hi, I’m Boone Ramer,” he’d said
. He shook hands with all four of us as Dad introduced us.

I wasn’t real big on makeup or fashion
, but I’d at least glossed my lips and slid the clasp of my medallion necklace to the back of my neck before I’d gotten out of the car. Of course, Hotness treated me like every other noob passing through his assigned door.

G
reet.

Directions to room.

Deliver printed schedule.

Move on to the next.

All the girls watched him during freshman orientation. I tried to figure out why as I stalked him myself. Despite my mom’s nudge, movie star handsomeness didn’t quite capture his aura. He had greenish eyes, a solid six-foot body, and dark blond hair in an athlete’s clipper cut with the front spiked. At the hamburger and hotdog cookout on the quad the first night—with a vegan alternative meal for those who wanted it—he wore a short-sleeved collared plaid shirt that would have been totally uncool on anybody but him. He stood to one side talking to his RA comrades while us kiddies got our food and sat in folding chairs, eight to a table. The other guys wore T-shirts and polos blaring high-end mall store logos while Boone Ramer slammed it out of the park in blue and yellow plaid his mother had probably bought him at…well, I didn’t even know where you’d go to buy a shirt like that.

Now, a year later, I saw him holding Hoag Hall’s front door open for some girls who
’d dressed for success the first day of class. My armpits got really sweaty, like they did every time I’d thought about him this summer, which had been pretty often.

P
athetic, since I’d intended to forget him after realizing his words in February had been kindness, not truth.

Six months of rejection d
idn’t stop me from smoothing my hands down the legs of my shorts when Boone, irresistible as always in a dark green T-shirt with a little V at the neck and faded plaid shorts, walked in the classroom carrying a stack of stapled papers. My first syllabus of the year, no doubt. Why geology, why, why, why, with him as TA and Mom’s college degree in it? And why did I sit in the second row like a geek? No one sat in the front row so I was a total, total geek.

With his p
apers delivered to the lecturer’s table up front, he walked directly to me, as if he’d known I was there. Like, maybe, he’d been watching for me like I’d been for him. My face felt hot as I sat up in my seat.

“Hi Violet,” he said with th
e awesome smile that showed off his blunt jaw.

“Hey,” I managed.

“How was your summer?”

“It sucked,” I blurted.

He laughed, and I thought I heard some chick behind me sigh at the throaty sound.

“Whoa,” he said. “There must be a story there.”

“Not much of one. My mom. Remind me to never spend another summer at home,” I said, quickly rediscovering the easy banter that always made me want to spend more time with him.

“Maybe I’ll do that.” His eyes flicked down the front of my sleeveless floral
blouse, feminine and flowy over the form-fitting tank top beneath it. His glance wasn’t sex-predator freaky, but appreciative, like a guy checking out a girl he wants to know better.

Dr. Potter cleared his throat. “Duty calls,” Boone said, turning away.

“Doesn’t it always?”

He stopped mid-stride to look
over his shoulder at me, mouth lifted in a half smile. I’d struck the mark with my little barb, and I lifted my eyebrows to acknowledge the hit.

When
Boone handed out the syllabuses or syllabi—or whatever the plural form was—he made a point to give me the bottom one.

A
Western Case Copperheads football sticky note fluttered on it. Blocky handwriting, from a pen about to run out of ink said, “Pregame party on Saturday? Text me.” And his cell number.

I tried to act like senior guys I’d been crushing on asked me out every day
, while inside, July 4
th
fireworks zinged through me until my fingers went numb. With my best “whatever” expression, I fumbled to move the sticky from the first page to the fourth page of the syllabus (four pages!).

I hardly heard a word the prof said.

 

Mia lounged back on her bed
. She applied black eyeliner with one hand while she held a cracked magnifying mirror with the other. Her first class started at eleven, probably for the better. I didn’t mind getting up in the morning. She couldn’t handle it. At all.

“So, you saw Hotness?” she said as she perfected the swooping line coming off the outside of her right eye.

“Oh, man.” I flopped into the round red chair we’d found on a curb last spring when the seniors were getting rid of everything not matching their new lives.

“Did you talk to him?” she asked.

“Better. So much better.” I showed her the note.

“La!”
She grinned. “Smitten. Simply smitten.” She flapped the yellow paper in my face. “You oughta knock the bottom out of that,” she said, reverting to the profane and hilarious Mia I loved.

“Mia
, we’ve never even held hands. I can’t jump him in the stadium.”

“Who said anything about making it to the stadium?”
She rolled her eyes at me then planted a kiss on her mirror, leaving a bright red smooch. “Hey, is breakfast still open?”

By breakfast, she meant the cafeteria in the Snokes Student Center.

“Only ’til 10:30,” I said.

She tucked her phone into the pocket of her long fitted shorts and grabbed her thermal cup. We strolled across the quad like we had all the time in the world.
At 10:29, Mia grabbed an egg sandwich and filled her cup to the brim with coffee, black. Mia not only didn’t do cream and sugar, she abhorred the lattes and macchiatos our entire generation craved. I’d already eaten so I picked up a banana for a snack.

Down in
the Case Study, the world’s most stupidly named student lounge ever, the huge TV showed a satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico, where a white swirl the size of a pizza pan dominated the home theater screen.

“I hope that S.O.B. doesn’t hit land.” Mia stared at the screen, her foil-wrapped sandwich in one hand and her ‘Good Morning Beautiful’ cup in the other. “I saw what Hurricane Sandy did to Jersey
, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Hold this a sec.” She shoved her cup of unadulterated bitter reality at me so she could unwrap her food.

S
he ate without losing a smudge of red lipstick to the soggy English muffin. I chewed my banana, more interested in the clusters of people in the room than the weather. Twyla, with her gaggy preppy friends, dominated the area between the TV and the bathrooms, the most travelled path of the room, not by coincidence, I’m sure. The five junior girls wore matching sorority shirts. Each head sprouted sleek hair straightened to glossy perfection in dyed, highlighted colors ranging from sunny blonde to auburn. They strived to suck in unsuspecting freshman girls.
Come join our cult. We won’t kill you, we’ll just make you into copies of us.

TG I met Mia before pledge
week last year ’cuz I’d been close to joining the lunacy. Not Twyla’s, of course. Nope, not rich or pretty enough for that fruit punch. There’d been another sorority for more athletic girls, which meant everyone thought they were all sister-lesbians, which they weren’t. At least not all of them.

Anyway, I
knew now I wouldn’t have fit there, either. Some gut instinct pulled me back from the edge to remind me I mostly wanted to be allowed to be me, without my mom or some ditz like Twyla sticking her nose in my business.

“I gotta go to Lit,” Mia said. “Ta!” She air-kissed both sides of my face. “Hey, Tyson, spot me,” she yelled toward a corner. A guy
standing a head taller than anyone else in the room glanced over in time to catch her ball of foil in his plate-sized palm. He jammed it in the trashcan beside him.