In Ruins (36 page)

 

 

 

 

 

Please see the next page for a preview of
In Pieces
, the next book in the Something More series!

Present Day

I take my seat in the enormous lecture hall, settling in for an hour of tedium. If you thought Psych 101 would be interesting, you'd be wrong. Or, at least, the lectures aren't especially interesting, but I suppose that's more the fault of Professor Fawning than the actual subject matter.

The class itself is a mixed bag. Freshman and sophomore psych majors, like me, sit in the first few rows, intent on succeeding in a course that will be the foundation of our studies here at Rill Rock University. But there are also plenty of upperclassmen just looking to get an elective out of the way—something they'd hoped would offer easy credits. Which it probably will. It's only the third class of the semester, but so far it doesn't seem especially difficult, just, like I said, tedious.

My eyelids droop, threatening to lead me into an inconvenient nap, so I straighten my spine, abandoning the comfort of my seat-back.

I was up late. Not partying, like most of the other students half-asleep right now, but manically trying to finish the first assignment for my Shakespeare class in a manner that would earn me at least a B.

I'll need to get an espresso or something before Abnormal Psych this afternoon. That one actually requires brainpower. It's mostly for upperclassmen, and I was only able to take it as a freshman because of how many college credits I earned while still in high school. Well,
my
version of high school, which after ninth grade consisted of the best in-home private tutors money could buy, and when you don't have a social life, it isn't hard to overachieve academically.

I peek at my watch. Professor Fawning will cut off his droning any minute now, and it couldn't come soon enough. I need to get my legs moving to ward off this late-morning lethargy.

“There he is, like fucking clockwork,” my roommate, Elana, murmurs from beside me, never one to miss an opportunity for a well-placed expletive. “Your sexy-as-fuck bodyguard.”

But I already knew he was there. I've always had an inexplicable kind of sixth sense for his proximity, and I glance over to the doorway, where his six plus foot, looming form casts a towering shadow into the room.

I can't help but roll my eyes. Because David isn't here out of his own interest, or even concern. He cares about me, sure, in his own big-brotherly way, but that isn't the reason he's here. My brother's oldest friend is outside my psych class, waiting for me like he did on Tuesday and last Thursday before that, because he promised Sammy he'd look out for me, and it would appear he's taken that to mean babysitting. But I don't need a damned babysitter. Or
bodyguard
, as Lani put it.

Fawning dismisses us, and I dutifully march over to my de facto on-campus big brother, Lani keeping step beside me. I barely meet David's eyes as he hands me a coffee. They're too disarming, and they affect me ways no big-brother type should. They always have.

“You don't have to keep checking up on me,” I grumble.

I don't know if Sammy actually asked him to look after me outright—though I suspect he did—or if David just took it upon himself as his implied duty. But I've survived freshman orientation and the first week of classes intact, so I'm hoping he'll back off soon. There's nothing like having the guy you've crushed on since childhood seek you out out of obligation and not desire.

“You can check up on
me
, anytime,” Lani suggests, her lashes batting dramatically.

That's her. No poise, no guile. She thinks David is hot, and she wants him to know it. Not that he could miss it.

“No sweat, kid,” he replies, ignoring Lani's comment as he slings a friendly arm around my shoulders, and we fall into step toward the building's exit, sipping our coffees as we head in the direction of the student union.

“You know,
I
like coffee,” Lani interjects, refusing to be ignored. “I like toned and inked-up arms around me, too.”

I can't help my laugh. David does have fantastic arms. The tattoos are mostly new, having amassed over the past two or so years, an array of religious symbols, admired figures, and quotes.

“Don't you have your own friends, gnat?” David murmurs absently to Lani.

I wince inwardly. I don't like that he's given her a pet name. Even one that implies she's annoying and unwanted. Because she's not the kind of girl who goes unwanted. She's freaking beautiful. All deep red waves and chocolate eyes, curvy in all the right places. Yeah, she knows what guys see when they look at her, which is why she takes David's teasing in stride.

“
Friends
, yes. My own personal bodyguard? Not since I ditched my last mistake, but I'm in the market for my next one,” she says cheekily.

I let out another laugh. She really is something else. Fortunately for me, David ignores her.

I probably should have said something to her about him earlier, when I first noticed her interest. Or maybe I should have anticipated it. David is the kind of guy who attracts crushes—he always was. But now he's something different. Something more.

Back when we were kids he seemed content to hang in the shadows of his friends, goofing around, playing girls, living like the future was a lifetime away. And I suppose it was. But it's closer now, and he exudes his awareness of the fact with a kind of maturity most people in his life had probably never expected of him.

I saw David less frequently over the two years since he finished high school, and while he did still come around on school breaks and summer vacations, between my brother's new apartment in Manhattan and his committed relationship, his friends didn't come around our house as much. Still, over that time, just as surely as I watched him fill out from a leanly built teen, gradually amassing muscle and ruggedness and artfully decorated skin, I noticed him slowly embrace his newfound maturity as he left the stage of
in-between
. He wears it all now in an impossible mixture of confidence and aloofness, and it is pure aphrodisia to the women around him, something I'm more aware of than I care to admit, even to myself.

I did not follow David to school here, and I'm glad no one has ever noticed my crush enough to presume otherwise. RRU is a state school here on Long Island, where we all grew up, and though it isn't big, it is renowned for its School of Arts and Sciences, which includes the psychology and social work program that brought me here. After everything I've endured in my short lifetime, I know what saved me, and I want to be that—to do that—for other kids someday.

David, on the other hand, is here for the creative writing program. Words have always been his thing, though he kept his passion mostly to himself up until it was time to disclose college plans. In fact, I doubt even his closest friends—my brother included—knew all that much about his interest or talent before he won that national short story competition their senior year.

But I knew. I knew a long time ago. Because he told me, and I can't help but wonder if he even remembers. I wouldn't blame him if he didn't. It feels like a lifetime ago. Back before the world got so complicated—when the worst kind of heartache was a schoolyard crush, the angsty sting of unrequited love. Turns out, love gets far more dangerous when it's actually returned. It doesn't sting—it cuts. It makes you feel unfathomably whole, before shredding you into pieces.

I'm not even looking to date. I got started in relationships way too young, in one far too serious, and all it did was slice me right open. I know all of the psych behind it now—my seeking out an older man, my extreme reaction when he left me…
Talk about fucking
abandonment issues
. But it didn't just cut me, it gutted me and left me to bleed out on the floor, with no way to staunch the flood of life from my body. I survived by sheer luck, but only barely, and though I've come a long way in my recovery, the invisible scar is enough of a reminder to put me off dating indefinitely.

Not that David would ever want to date me.

But just because I can't date him, doesn't mean I want my friend to. I've grown tougher these past few years, but I'm still human, my heart still beats, and even after a lifetime of trying to train it away, it still echoes the first name that ever sent it racing.
Da-vid, Da-vid, Da-vid.

I try not to be so affected by his arm around me, reminding myself of my place with him—which is his best friend's kid sister at least, and a friend at best—but when you've carried a torch as long as I have, it doesn't take much to spark its flame.

Random people greet him as we pass, guys lifting their chins in the way they do when a wave would take too much effort, and girls smiling or blushing—or both.

It took about an hour of being on campus with David to see that he has come into his own here. He stopped by my dorm on the first day of classes, offering to take me to the student union for coffee, and Lani tagged along. We couldn't walk ten feet without someone stopping to talk to him.

“So, kid, no morning classes tomorrow, right?” he asks.

I narrow my eyes, wondering where he's going with this. David always has some kind of rebellious plan or motive. “Not until noon,” I confirm warily.

“Perfect.
B. E. G.
's hosting its first party of the year, and you're my guest of honor.”

“What in the actual fuck are you talking about, David?”
Looks like a week of living with Lani has started to rub off on me.

The corrupter of my language herself doesn't tamper down her eagerness at the word
party.

David startles vaguely at my colorful response, but recovers his breezy composure almost instantly, and I barely catch the amused smirk that tugs at his mouth. Before he can answer me, however, Lani's enthusiasm bubbles over.

“Uh,
yes
. Yes, yes, yes! We accept your generous invitation to be your
guests
of honor!” She emphasizes the plural, and again, I laugh. This time David also cracks a smile, and deep in my belly the vicious snake of jealousy lifts its ugly head.

I urge it back to sleep. “A frat party? Really, David?” I arch a skeptical brow. David's in Beta Epsilon Gamma, a fraternity notoriously filled with athletes—and decidedly different kinds of
players
. But he doesn't live in the house—
not his style
, he told me.

He hooks his arm further around me so he can turn me to face him, and we all stop walking. “Bea…Come.” His eyes—a green-and-honey hazel that have fascinated me since I was a little girl—grab hold of me, disarming and imploring.

“Why?” I breathe.

David sighs. “You need a fun night out, where you don't have to worry about anything, or anyone.”

“And you think a frat house is the place to do that?” My skepticism returns. I'm not naïve. I know what goes on in places like that. And David knows me well enough to know my social anxiety gives me more than the usual reasons to be leery of a frat party.

“
My
frat house, kid. With
my
brothers. And more importantly,
me
.” He looks at me meaningfully.

I look away, my eyes inadvertently landing on his defined biceps, and I notice ink I haven't seen before peeking out from beneath the hem of his short sleeve. My fingers reach out to stroke it before I can help myself. A quote in beautiful black script, matching the others.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

“Hamlet.” It's one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite plays—more words from the master to add to David's collection

“Shakespeare, really?” Lani says.

He cocks an eyebrow. “You got a problem with the Bard?” he retorts, but he's looking at me. They're the exact same words he said to me when he got his first tattoo—another quote from
the Bard
, back in high school.

My eyes automatically shoot to his T-shirt, envisioning the ink right over his left pectoral muscle, engraved into his skin back when he was legally too young to even get one. It made him seem like a real badass, even though it was a quote from Shakespeare.

But it's this new one that's got me thinking. Because there
is
more to life than I can learn in a classroom, I know that.

“Beth's taking a Shakespeare elective this semester—maybe she can study off of your body,” Lani smirks. We both ignore her.

“Look, Bea, college isn't only about academics, okay?”

Bea
. Not
kid
.

“And I'm not saying you need to make up for lost time all in one night. Just to try and keep an open mind and try to have some fun. You trust me, don't you?”

“Of course I do.” My answer is honest and immediate. And the thing is, part of me knows he's right. I missed out on a normal high school experience because I never knew how to find any balance. When I wasn't surrendering to social anxiety, or the debilitating emptiness that flared more and more, I was diving into a relationship I was ill-prepared for, experiencing too much too early on. I can't pretend I haven't wondered what it would have been like to feel young and carefree like everyone else my age. To drink a little too much, smoke an occasional joint, or engage in a hookup that had no greater meaning. I've still only ever slept with one guy, and that was over three years ago.

“Great. Show up at nine.”

And I will. Because David called me
Bea
, and even if it was just a slip of the tongue to him, it is a magic word to me, and I wonder if he even remembers when he first called me that.

Abnormal Psych is in a smaller lecture hall. Professor Bowman is a practicing social worker, and she also runs the student help-line in the mental health offices of the on-campus health center, where I stopped by during orientation to look into volunteering.