Love Me for Me (2 page)

I had to have it hot, hot enough to burn my tongue, and with precisely one shot of skim milk. Anything else ruined it for me.

“You worry too much.” Kaylee scrunched up the paper cup in her hands, and the gesture reminded me of the way
he
had done the same thing. “And you need to get out more. You’re starting to look like a vampire, girlfriend. A drink, grinding with a hottie—that’ll put some color back in those cheeks.”

Her words did just that, making me blush.

“Kaylee!” My voice was a hiss. “Keep your voice down!” I glared at Bazinga, whose attention had been captured by the word
grinding
.

“Seriously, Serena.” Kaylee closed the lid to her laptop and, bracing her elbows on it, leaned over and looked me in the eye. I wanted to shake my hair in front of my face, but knew from experience that she would only hand me a hair elastic.

Rather than look at her probing golden eyes, I looked at the two sets of hands that were planted on the wooden table. Hers were long, slim and adorned with burgundy nail polish. Mine were short, pale, and the nails were bitten down to the quick.

“Kaylee, I just don’t like attention. You know that.” What she didn’t know was why, because I’d never told a soul.

My fingers curled inward with tension, relaxing only slightly when she patted me lightly on the wrist.

“I know that, Serena. But... don’t get mad, okay?” I looked up then, my eyes narrowing. If she had to say that, then I was probably going to be annoyed.

“What?” My voice was flat.

“You freak me out sometimes, the way you shun everyone. I get worried that you’re going to shut me out someday.” Her face, so pretty, was so forlorn at that moment that she looked like a sad puppy. I felt a pang through my chest.

I might not have told Kaylee my secret, but it wasn’t because I didn’t trust her. On the really bad days, her friendship was the only thing that kept me going.

“Not going to happen.” I sounded a lot brighter than I felt. I couldn’t make any promises, because I’d learned long ago that what I wanted didn’t always have any bearing on reality.

“Good.” Kaylee settled back into her chair and grinned. Picking up her phone, she pulled up an image and held it out to me. “There’s a party at the Deke house tomorrow night. We’re going. I’m going to be blowing off steam after this Art History exam.”

I groaned as I studied the phone. It was a photo of a colorful flyer, advertising yet another bash held by the wildest fraternity on campus.

Their parties were loud, saturated with alcohol and lecherous undergrads. Not my scene at all.

“Uh, Kaylee...” My response shouldn’t be news to her, since the Serena King that she knew did not go to parties.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have fun. I just didn’t know if could handle all of the people—all of the men. I didn’t know what memories the press of bodies on a dance floor, the scent of beer on breath would pull out of me.

It was self preservation, really. Nothing more.

“Don’t worry about it.” Despite how silly she seemed sometimes, Kaylee was still fairly astute. Something flickered in her eyes as she closed the image on the phone screen and opened her laptop again. “I’ll find someone. Maddy, maybe.” Her face blank, she reached for her art history text, a massive tome, and flipped to a page in the middle.

“Now, tell me what a Doric column is, and why I should care about it.” I watched as her eyes scanned the book—she was apparently absorbed in her task, my refusal forgotten.

My fingers found their way into the lock of hair that hung loose from my ponytail. I worried the strands as I studied Kaylee through the flaxen curtain.

I knew that she truly wasn’t mad at me for not wanting to go to some party with her. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that I’d disappointed her somehow.

Hell, I’d disappointed myself. I wished that I could go, that I could wade into the thick of tipsy bodies, let go and just have fun.

I couldn’t. There was no use ruminating on that fact. Swallowing hard, I tugged at her textbook and danced my fingers over the illustration that she was looking at. I’d studied it the semester before.

“Okay. Let’s get to work.”

***

It was after ten when Kaylee and I made our way back to our shoe box of a dorm room. We’d studied until the library closed, or rather, Kaylee had freaked out over her impending exam, and I had helped her cram.

“I’m going to grab a shower.” Quickly stripping, she tied her robe at the waist, slid her feet into her rubber flip flops, and grabbed her towel and shower caddy.

I nodded as she left, envying her confidence. I didn’t have a bad figure, now that I’d started to take care of myself again, but I’d never be confident enough to strut down the hall of the dorm in nothing but my robe. I didn’t even like getting dressed in front of Kaylee.

Huffing out a breath, I stretched out on the plain navy spread of my bed and opened The Portrait of a Lady, highlighter in hand. Now that Kaylee felt she was set for her exam, maybe I could get some of my own work done.

At my elbow, my phone vibrated. I reached for it absently, my eyebrows raising when I saw that not only was a call incoming, but I’d missed one somewhere in the last half hour.

My heart sank when I saw who it was. I considered ignoring it, but I knew that she’d just call back.

“Hi, Felicity.” Rolling onto my back, I tugged the elastic out of my hair and spread the entire length of it up and over my face. I could see nothing but pale gold, the thick strands blocking out the world.

“Serena Jane, why haven’t you been answering your phone?” I stifled a sigh. For my mom, there was no excuse to not answer her call. If I told her the truth—that I simply hadn’t noticed it ring—she wouldn’t believe me and I’d be on the receiving end of a lecture about lying. “And when are you going to get over this phase of calling me by my first name? It’s not respectful.”

“Sorry.” I didn’t have anything to be sorry for, but it was best to simply say the words so that things could go on.

As for calling her by her first name, I knew that it would never change. I’d started years earlier, when I’d tried to tell her something, something important, and she hadn’t wanted to hear it.

In my mind, she’d lost the right to the title.

Felicity took the apology as her due and began to tell me about all of the things that she felt I should know and that I didn’t care about. The neighbours had planted a crabapple tree. One of my high school teachers had moved to another school. Bob, her husband, had volunteered to coach the mixed teen softball league, and wasn’t that great?

I sat up at the latter, my fingers snarling painfully in my hair as I brushed it away from my skin.

“Why is he doing that? He plays in his own league. Isn’t that enough?” My heart gave one large, painful thump before settling in a staccato rhythm.

On the other end of the line Felicity sniffed, and I knew that she didn’t appreciate being interrupted.

“The former coach quit without notice. There was an article in the paper, about how the team wouldn’t be able to participate in the league if someone didn’t step in. Bob’s so busy, but he has a good heart, and he couldn’t resist.”

Helping out wasn’t what he couldn’t resist, and I knew it. Grinding my teeth together, I felt my free hand clench into a tense fist, my nails scoring my skin.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” My voice sounded surprisingly calm, but it was a calm that I didn’t feel. Inside I was raging, screaming silently though no one could hear.

The silence was short but thick with tension.

“Serena, I don’t want to hear this.” Felicity’s voice was sharp, and the conviction in it was like a knife slicing through my skin. “You’ve always had a problem with Bob, but he’s never been anything but kind to you. He forgave you when you made up that horrific story about him in high school, and I can’t tell you how hurt he was over that.”

I didn’t reply. We’d gone over this more times that I could recount. I no longer tried to convince her of my side of it, but neither would I retract what I knew to be true.

“It’s time to let it go.” I could hear the anger, coloring her words crimson.

I felt like I should cry, but all of my tears had been shed long ago. When my lip trembled I bit into it, hard enough that I could taste the salty copper of blood.

“I’m hanging up now.” Felicity exhaled with exasperation as I hung up. Tossing the phone onto my pillows, I swung my legs over the side of the bed, planted my feet on the floor, and stared silently at the wall above Kaylee’s bed.

None of this was anything new, but that didn’t mean it affected me any less.

I stayed like that for a long moment, trying to lock down my emotions. I’d had years of practice, and so when I finally stood and exchanged my jeans, my flannel shirt and tank for the shorts and oversized T-shirt that I slept in, I felt as though I was made of stone.

Heavy. Cold.

Shivering, I slid beneath the covers of my bed, plugging my phone into the charger on my tiny bedside table. The clock readout before it went to sleep told me that it wasn’t yet eleven, but battling with my mother always drained me.

The room was dim when Kaylee came back from her shower. I could smell the strawberry and champagne body wash that she used, and could see tendrils of steam rising from her skin as she slipped into her own pajamas.

I lay silent, pretending to be asleep until she climbed into her own bed. I waited until her breathing told me that she was close to falling asleep, timing my words so that she wouldn’t make a big deal out of them, wouldn’t demand an explanation.

“Are you still going to that frat party tomorrow night?” My whisper was loud in the silent room. She murmured a sleepy affirmative.

I felt my pulse skitter. Once I said it, she’d never let me renege. But the feelings that my unnamed American Lit study partner had aroused in me, and Felicity’s own words, had startled a need for change into me.

My mother was right. It was time to let go, but not in the way she meant.

“I’ll go with you.” I wasn’t sure that Kaylee even heard me, but that didn’t really matter.

I knew that I’d said it. And I wanted to follow through.

Chapter Two

I taught yoga in the Student Union building, one hour sessions, three times a week. It didn’t pay much, but it added enough to my scholarship funds that I could buy lunch occasionally and not stress about it.

Some days the class was packed, and those were the days I liked the least. I was getting paid to do something I loved, true, but having all of those expectant eyes on me, looking to me to lead the way, intimidated me to no end.

I was barely capable of running my own life. I wasn’t someone to be followed.

Friday afternoons tended to be smaller, and I was glad of that as I ran from my last class to the room that the yoga session was held. Kaylee was ecstatic about my decision to attend what she called “my first real college party”, but I was tied in knots.

A roomful of people staring at me would send me over the edge, and so I was relieved to find just one student waiting outside the locked door.

“Hi, Maddy.” I smiled, a real one, as I pulled the key out of my jeans pocket. The student waiting for me was a friend of Kaylee’s who showed up at least once a week. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a braid, which let me see the tattoos peeking out the neckline of her shirt.

Her ink reminded me of his, so seemingly uncharacteristic.

And, if I had to admit it, on him it was sexy as hell. Not that it mattered, because he hadn’t even told me his name.

Maddy was already dressed for class, so I used the jury rigged change room—a curtain stretched across a corner— to slip from my jeans into yoga pants and a loose, longsleeved grey T-shirt. When I emerged Maddy was still the only one there.

“Looks like it’s just us.” This suited me just fine, but when I smiled at the other woman she simply nodded, her movement jerky.

“Right. Well. Let’s do this shit.” I froze, slightly taken aback at her abruptness as she dropped down to the neon green mat she’d already laid out in the centre of the room. When she looked back up at me I pretended I hadn’t been staring, and slowly knelt onto my own mat, which was a utilitarian blue and looked dull next to Maddy’s vivid neon flowers.

“All right. The theme of today’s class is core strength. This refers to both the physical and emotional parts of our being.” Sitting back on my heels, I widened my knees and bent until my forehead touched the mat, stretching my arms out above my head. I inhaled, then slowly let the air out, trying to let the stress and nerves out with it.

“When you’re ready, we’ll take it into child’s pose.”

The nerves wouldn’t go.

I needed them to.

“Since it’s just the two of us, and I know you can handle it, I’m going to push things today. Okay?” I lifted my head just long enough to look at Maddy and catch her terse nod. We moved in synchronization into downward facing dog, warming our muscles, and I caught another look that seemed off from her.

I shook it off. I was probably imagining it. Heaven knew I was in a weird head space. I’d spent the last week obsessing about some stranger whose name I didn’t even know, and that night I was going to try to be a normal college student, something I wasn’t sure I believed was possible.

I took Maddy through a few more basic yoga postures, ones that I knew she could handle and that were second nature to me. My problems were starting to recede, but I needed more. I need my body to ache, my muscles to quiver, my entire being to be focused on what I was doing and nothing else.

“Let’s try the crow pose.” I heard Maddy suck in a breath, but deliberately didn’t look at her. The crow pose was a difficult arm balance, one I was pretty sure she’d never tried before, but I thought she could handle it.

“Whenever you’re ready.” Dropping to a squat, I leaned forward slowly, pressing my palms flat to the floor. Inhaling deeply, I moved my weight to rest on my hands, slowly lifting my legs off the ground while keeping the squatting position.

My body trembled, but I held, and I felt a surge of triumph as I did. It had taken me a long time to become strong enough to hold postures like this, a long time to overcome the extra weight and lack of wellbeing with which I had deliberately surrounded myself in my teens.