Metamorphosis (10 page)

When I got to the end of the book,
I was completely overwhelmed, mentally and emotionally, and I broke down. I
cried and I cried and I cried some more.

I cried in sadness, and I cried
with joy. I cried for unwanted goodbyes, and I cried for unexpected hellos. I
cried for all the things that could’ve been, and I cried for the beauty of what
actually was. I cried for Harper and Brandon and Chase, and I cried for me.

At some point in my melt down,
Evie
had joined me on my small bed and held me while I
sobbed. This cry was not about Ash and Dylan; the events of the previous night
were just the proverbial straw, and break me it did. This cry was eighteen
years in the making, a release long overdue. I cried until exhaustion took over
and I fell asleep.

When I woke up a couple of hours
later, I felt much better. My body had desperately needed the rest. I found
Evie
lounging on the couch watching Magic Mike again.

“This movie really makes
everything better,” she said as I sat down next to her. “At least for a couple
of hours.”

“Thank you for everything,
Evie
.” I whispered. I curled up against her and she put her
arm around my shoulders. “I couldn’t do this without you; I would’ve given up
long ago if it wasn’t for you.”

“I know, sweet Sam girl,” she
said. “But you are worth fighting for, I’ll never let you give up. I love you
too much.”

“I love you too,
Evie
.”

The next morning was the first day
of classes and I woke up with my stomach knotted with nerves. Thankfully,
Evie
would also be in two of my three classes that day, so
we could figure most everything out together. After dressing in a black cotton
maxi dress and matching
flip flops
, I looked at my
phone to check the time. I had two text messages waiting for me.

Ash (2:32 AM): Can’t stop thinking of you butterfly.

Dylan (8:27 AM): Have a great first day of classes! Hope to see you
again soon beautiful

Well, shit. That wasn’t what I
expected to start the day. First, it was strike one against Dylan with the use
of “beautiful.” I needed to let him know that I wasn’t a fan of the pet name
thing, but it was very thoughtful of him to text this morning. I honestly
wasn’t sure if I would hear from him again, but when I read the message I
realized the sense of relief and delight that I felt that he wanted to see me
again.

Reading Ash’s
text,
sent a completely different set of emotions through me - confusion, anxiety,
hope, and pure lust. How did his number get in my phone? Why did he text me
when he clearly told me that we could not have a relationship of any kind -
neither friendly nor romantically? Why did a person that I knew practically
nothing about make me lose control of my brain and body at the mere thought of
him?

I only responded to Dylan’s text.

Me (9:35 AM): Thanks, you too. Sounds good

Then I grabbed my backpack and
went to meet
Evie
for breakfast.

Evie
was ready and waiting for me in
the kitchen. She had set us out some fresh pineapple and yogurt. As we ate, I
told her about both text messages and she told me not to think too much about
either of them. She was right. I needed to spend much less time thinking about
boys and more time on my studies. My scholarships had strict GPA requirements,
so I could not allow anything or anyone to interfere with my grades.

“I was thinking about our book
whore competition last night and I agree to acknowledge your win from
Saturday,”
Evie
said as we walked to our first class.

“You agree to acknowledge my win?”
I asked.

“Yeah, like I said, I didn’t allow
myself to really meet anyone this time so that I could stay close to you, so it
wasn’t really fair. But next time, you may need to find your own way home,” she
teased waggling her eyebrows.

“I didn’t ask you to do that. I
don’t need a babysitter,” I tried to be serious with her but couldn’t help the
laughter that escaped at her ridiculous faces.

“Okay, whatever, it’s over and you
won,” she conceded. “But anyways, I was thinking about it and I thought about
our teacher/ professor group… There’s no better place to find a professor than
in the classroom, so for these BB’s we need to be on the lookout at all times.
They don’t have specific nights dedicated to them. Sound good?”

My brain had been so full of Ash
and Dylan that I hadn’t even thought about trying to meet anyone else and I
couldn’t imagine throwing another guy in the mix. However, I also knew that the
point of the contest was for us to meet new people from diverse backgrounds and
lifestyles. It was hard for me to say what I liked and or didn’t like unless I
tried it out. So I nodded at
Evie’s
suggestion in
agreement. I highly doubted I’d have a professor that would be seduction-worthy
anyways.

Before I knew it, it was early
afternoon and
Evie
and I were walking back to our
dorm having completed our first day of college. We were both giddy with a
feeling of accomplishment, which was ridiculous, but our good moods were
evident nonetheless. Since neither of us were procrastinators when it came to
school work, we finished our homework right when we got back. We spent the rest
of the evening gossiping about people we had met during the day and discussing
the next day’s schedule. After our early dinner of grilled ham and cheese
sandwiches, we each went into our rooms to have some alone time. This was yet
another thing that made
Evie
and I so compatible, she
and I both understood the importance of personal time and space.

I could hear
Evie
in her room
skyping
with someone, it sounded like her
friend Corinne but I wasn’t sure. She stayed in touch with several of her
friends from high school through the multiple social networking sites. I knew
so much about all of them through
Evie’s
stories
throughout the years that I felt like I knew them personally, but I had only
met a few of them a handful of times at her house. They were an important part
of her life and I knew she was worried about losing contact with them when they
all went their separate ways to college. I, on the other hand, had no contact
with anyone I went to school with. I was friendly enough with several girls I
met during my time at St. Helen’s, but since I wasn’t able to do anything
outside of school, it was hard for me to develop the strong friendships that
others did.

Instead, I emailed my brother and
sister-in-law to let them know that I was settled in and had made it through
the first day. I knew that they were worried about how I was going to adapt
after moving out of my parent’s house. I think they were secretly scared I was
going to go lose my mind partying and either screw up my scholarships or end up
pregnant or both. I had hoped that I had more self-control than that, but
judging by the way I had reacted during my first weekend, I wasn’t so sure
anymore.

I then spent some time tuning my
guitar and looking up new music on iTunes. It never ceased to amaze me how
quickly time flew by when I was searching and sampling music. The buzzing of my
cell phone broke my spell. I quickly snatched it off of my
desk,
nervous to see who the message was from.

Dylan (7:55 PM): How was your day? Good I
hope
(
.)

I breathed a sigh of relief. As
much as my heart yearned for it to be Ash, I knew it was best if he didn’t
contact me again. I didn’t respond to his text this morning hoping it would
discourage him from any future messages or calls. I didn’t understand why he
sent the message in the first
place,
it seemed quite
contradictory to what he had said he wanted.

Me (8:01 PM): It was good-nothing too crazy. A day of syllabi and
introductions… and a lot of walking! How about you?

Dylan (8:08 PM): Pretty much the same. I had to work this afternoon,
just getting home.

Me (8:12 PM): Work?

Dylan(
8:12PM): Yeah, you
know that thing that most people have to do to make money to pay their bills?

Me (8:13 PM): Ha, ha funny guy. I’m familiar with the concept. Where
do you work?

Dylan (8:15 PM): I work at a publishing outfit a few afternoons a week,
trying to get my foot in the door for after graduation.

Me (8:16 PM): So with school and work when are you going to have time
to spend with me?

I wondered if the text was too
bold but before I had time to regret it, my phone vibrated again.

Dylan (8:17 PM): I will always make sure there’s time for you.

Me (8:18 PM): Good answer

Dylan (8:20 PM): It’s the truth. You
gonna
be at J&N’s this Saturday?”

Me (8:21 PM)
: ?
not
sure?

Dylan (8:23 PM): They have
ppl
over almost
every Sat, would love to see you there again

Me (8:26 PM): I’ll let you know, will talk to
Evie
.
Going to shower now and do some reading before bed, have a good night

Dylan (8:30 PM): Cool, you too. No more texts about you showering
though, sweet dreams

Unable to withhold my excitement
over
mine and Dylan’s back and forth texts,
I squealed
as I ran across the living area to
Evie’s
bedroom. “
Evie
,” I yelled. “Guess who I just talked to, or texted
with, or whatever you call it.”

“Who?” she
asked, looking up from her e-reader.
She had already showered, as was evident by her wet black
hair pulled into a tight bun, and she was propped up in her bed by the extra
twenty pillows she had brought from home. Okay, maybe it wasn’t twenty, but it
was at least like eight or nine king-sized pillows. When we were younger, I had
always thought she looked like a porcelain Asian doll sitting in a cloud when
she would surround herself with the white downy-soft pillows on her bed, but
now she looked more like the angel that she truly was.
Evie
had always been my guardian angel. I couldn’t help but smile brightly when I
saw her.

I let her read the conversation on
the phone and then she handed it back to me with a silly grin on her face. In
her sing-song, little girl’s voice she started, “Scarlett and Dylan sitting in
a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love…” She was unable to finish the song
because I began to pummel her across the head with one of her pillows.

“Okay, I surrender, I surrender!
No more songs, I promise.”
Evie
could hardly contain
her laughter enough to get the words out.

“So do you want to go back there
this Saturday?” I asked trying to figure out when I was going to see Dylan
again.

“Sure, and this time I plan to
have much more fun, especially now that I know you’ll be there with Dylan to
watch over you. I’ll text Jess tomorrow to make sure it’s cool if we stay at
her place again.”

For a brief moment, I allowed
myself to think about staying at Jess’ house last Saturday and the memory of
sleeping in Ash’s bed ~ of how his hands felt on my skin and how his lips
melted against mine, but I quickly replaced it with the anticipation of seeing
Dylan again. As difficult as it was, I could not torture myself with false
hopes and mixed signals; I needed to focus my energy on actual possibilities.
And Dylan Stephens had definitely become an actual possibility.

Evie
and I hugged each other goodnight
and I took a quick shower before hopping into bed. I opted for a hot, smutty
book with as little angst as possible to join
me and B.O.B.
for a much-needed therapy session before going to sleep.
Dylan
had been right
,
my dreams were sweet indeed
.

Evie
and my daily schedules kept the
same blueprint as the first day for the rest of the school week. We attended
class in the morning and did our homework and studied in the early afternoons.
After a light dinner of either a salad or a sandwich (we were desperately
trying not to gain the freshman fifteen everyone had warned us about), we spent
the evenings either reading or playing around online. I loved that we had quickly
established a routine;
Evie
knew I was a little OCD
about schedules, calendars, and
time tables
and I was
much less stressed as long as I knew what to expect each day. My obsession with
scheduling and planning was a direct result of
my
parents scheduling every waking hour of my life. Living a life that was
basically pre-planned was all I had ever known and it was going to take a
little while before I felt comfortable enough to deviate from that.

Our classes were pretty much what
we expected - the professors were demanding and the material was challenging.
We had quite a bit of required reading and outside class assignments, which
unfortunately put a damper on our personal reading. I had read so much during
the summer with the combination of the explosion of chick lit indie authors and
my lack of a social life, and I was rather sad to replace my happily-ever-
afters
with quadratic formula equations and stories of the
Spanish Inquisition.
Evie
and I had Biology and
Algebra together. Both classes were your run-of-the-mill freshman college
class. The professors were dull and the material was even worse. I hated math
and
science which
is why I specifically chose to take
these with her, I hoped her tutoring could get me through with at least a B. My
other academic classes, History and English, I enjoyed quite a bit and really
didn’t mind the excessive reading and writing. All of my professors were women;
however,
Evie
had two male teachers, one of which she
had deemed a BB possibility. She was working on finding out more information
about his personal life because all she knew thus far was that he didn’t wear a
wedding ring. I have to admit, I was a tad bit jealous, but at the moment I
would just have to live out that fantasy vicariously through her.