Sophomoric (8 page)

“Oh.” Needless to say, Nantucket was not exactly my parents’ scene. “Well, when they get back.”

Shrug again. Sure, whatever.

“So who else is going?” my dad repeated.

“Cleo.” Duh. “Probably Nicky and Amie. You guys didn’t meet them. Nicky’s boyfriend Scott.”

“There are going to be boys there?” My mother looked concerned. Erin looked like she was trying hard not to laugh. She could afford to. Her parents didn’t care what she did or whether she spent long weekends with boys. They at least vaguely resembled the “hip and cool” image that those over fifty affect to the amusement of anyone under thirty.

“Yeah.” Keeping it short and sweet was the only way to get through this. Saying, for example, that this was not the freaking Middle Ages and I was not in a convent probably would not make my case for me. “I mean, I know Alec has nowhere to go either. His dad’s going on a business trip.”

“Bizza, I’m not sure if this is a good idea.” Instead of concern, my mother was exuding only condescension. As always, she was trying to protect me like it said to in all the $19.99 parent handbooks that she bought any time I did anything. “You know I trust you. I’m just worried about everyone else. You don’t know what they’re going to be doing, and I don’t want you to be in a situation where you feel pressured into doing something you don’t want to do.”

God forbid I be pressured into doing something like drink alcohol. We wouldn’t want that.

“Mom, you know me.” Like hell she did. “I won’t do anything I don’t want to do.” That much was absolutely true. It wasn’t my fault what I wanted to do and what she thought I wanted to do were two very different things.

“We’ll have to think about it.” She gave my father a Significant Parental Look. It didn’t seem like he noticed; he was busy spreading ketchup on his steak.

“It sounds like so much fun.” At least I had Erin’s support. “Aunt Carrie, you should totally let her go. I’m so jealous.”

It was moments like this when I hated that there were times when I hated my cousin.

My mother sighed and changed the subject. My gaze wandered around the restaurant for the rest of the night, settling on wall corners and school memorabilia posted behind the maître d’s stand, complete with pictures of turning leaves, laughing students and knee-length kilts. Pleading weekend homework, which I think they knew was crap, I convinced my parents that I really needed to be back in my dorm by nine. Campus was quiet; most people were in town or at hotels with their parents and some, like Dev, would spend the night. The few people who were around were walking in clumps with their parents or pairs with a friend, slower and quieter than they ever were on normal weekends. At least Josie was gone. Probably wanted to go be with people who actually liked her and her Jesus music. They probably all had separate changing cubicles too.

Signing onto instant messenger and checking my email the minute I entered a room was becoming an ingrained habit after only a month at Icarian. I guess there were worse things. Fifteen minutes after my parents dropped me off, I was on my way to Nicky and Amie’s room to watch illegally pirated movies online, complete with Chinese subtitles and horrible quality.

* * *

I was half asleep on Cleo’s floor when Dev called at one.

“Hey babe.” That boy had the best phone voice I have ever heard.

“Mmm, hey.” My voice on the other hand was thick with sleep and stumbling over every word.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” I stretched, trying not to wake Cleo up. “Why are you calling so early?”

“Bored.”

Yeah right. “’M, sorry. Anything I can do?”

“Depends.”

I hated when he did that, flip it all back on me. Stupid boy could make his own freaking decisions. “On what?”

“On how tired you are.” I could almost hear him smiling. “Wanna tell me what you’re wearing?” I looked at Cleo, sprawled across her twin bed. It took less than a split second of indecision before curiosity won out and I was on my feet. Thank God Josie was out. Hopefully, I wouldn’t embarrass myself too badly.

My parents and Erin didn’t stay much longer. Erin had a volleyball tournament on Sunday and my mom had work. We also didn’t have anything to say to each other. When I closed the door to my parents’ car just after lunch on Saturday, I felt only a little guilt. Mostly, watching the beige four-door drive away just made me feel relieved.

Freedom, sweet freedom. No parents until Thanksgiving.

Things fell back into a routine of minimal work, less sleep and more fun than I had had in a long time. Caffeine became my new best friend. The Wednesday we took the PSATs, Josie’s test prep kept me up until two the morning before, and I downed a can of Mountain Dew and a low-carb energy drink before sitting for the test. As if nerves didn’t have me jittery enough. Even with all of that caffeine, I was usually exhausted by the time I got to first period. Fun was not enough to break through the stress imposed by classes and the ubiquitous college drone. Not like I even knew what I thought about it. Every time the word “midterms” was mentioned, everyone in hearing distance convulsed.

My intentions were always good, but thanks to lots of friends with severe senioritis (namely Cleo and Dev), my priority list found itself swiftly rearranged, only to be remembered five minutes before a test. I didn’t really worry whether I’d regret it. I had never had friends like this before. Besides, I’d do fine and I knew it.

I was practically living in Cleo’s room, in which Amie and Nic were semipermanent fixtures and a definite step up from my actual roommate. At almost every lunch, every dinner, there was someone to talk to over unidentifiable meat and soggy vegetables. Every night, I had people to watch movies with, I always knew the latest gossip and whatever this thing was with Dev, it felt like it had been going on for months plural, rather than singular. The good got better and the bad faded into the periphery, only to appear when Josie had her music turned up and in the midst of math class.

But even then, two Fridays later, the first thing I saw walking into the dining hall were the uplifted faces of adoring freshman groupies. Dev was surrounded and flirting with all of them. Innocently. In a friendly way. At least that’s what I told myself.

Pushing down impulses to walk out or drag him out, I made a PB&J instead and sat down with Amie and Scott. They didn’t seem to notice. I pretended not to. He joined us a few minutes later, minus the fans. His arm slung around the back of my chair, his hand resting on my shoulder. Just habit? I wondered sometimes.

Wondered? Hah. I worried. But he didn’t have to know that either.

My foot slipped out of my shoe three times between the dining hall and the post office. It had been four days since I had checked my mailbox and Amie had to pick up Netflix from her P.O. box. It then took me three tries to get the combination right. When I finally opened it, I found myself staring into a deluge of brochures printed with identical trees and aged brick buildings. Happy students wearing ugly backpacks smiled at me from their wonderful lives at the many colleges advertising in my mailbox. I realized, sorting through them and tossing them in the trash, that half of them I had never heard of. The other half were supposed to be the be-all, end-all of my high school existence. Harvard. Princeton. Stanford. Yale.

I tried to find the enthusiasm.

“Bizza, we can go. I got my movies.”

Somehow, that sounded more exciting. I shoved the rest of the letters into the trash.

Clichés tell you that trouble comes in threes. They also say the third time’s the charm. Combine the two, and you have serious issues. Under parental pressure and still worried about and angry at Dev and his groupies, I wasn’t exactly looking for new things to worry about. Talk all the crap you want about how smiling makes you less anxious. Conscious flexing of facial muscles doesn’t count. So I didn’t see the third coming until I staggered into Cleo’s room on an early October Thursday, arms loaded with precalculus textbooks and last-minute history facts still bouncing off the inside of my skull.

“Cleo, I’m dying here…” My voice trailed off as I entered the room. She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her floor, her head tilted to one side as she contemplated a plastic bag resting in front of her feet. Didn’t take a genius to figure out what the barely visible contents were.

“Are you fucking crazy?” I shut the door with a little more force than was probably necessary and dumped the books on the floor. “Anyone could have walked in here.”

“Relax.” As usual, Cleo dismissed with a shrug the kinds of things that made me break out in a cold sweat. She patted the floor next to her with her free hand. I walked over but didn’t sit down, my gaze fixed on the plastic bag she held so casually. “It’s just Adderall.”

Just Adderall? That’s like “just one murder” or “we were just talking.” Just?

“Everyone here does it like it’s their job.” She laughed. “Especially with midterms coming up. I’m just giving this to someone for David.” She looked up at me. “Will you sit already?”

I sat slowly, trying not to stare at the innocuous-looking pills. They didn’t look threatening, so why did I feel like they might jump up and bite me?

“Breathe, babe.” She shoved the plastic bag in the drawers under her bed. “See? All better.”

“Why are you carrying stuff for David?” Her grin said it all. “God, Cleo!” Reaching back on the bed, I found a pillow to throw at her. She caught it, falling back on the rug, hair spilling out around her head in that iconic, ironic halo.

“I hear sex on E is amazing.” Her matter-of-fact tone gave me a few blissful moments of ignorance, before I realized what she had said. My face must have twisted into some extreme emotion, because she laughed. “Not that I’m gonna try it. I think.”

“Uh huh.” I didn’t really believe her. Then again, I really didn’t want to know.

“I actually need to head out.” Cleo sat up and reached back under the bed for her plastic bag. “You can hang here ’til I get back if you want. Chinese tonight?”

“Of course.” Wednesdays were free egg-roll-with-entree night. We memorized these things quickly. “Six?”

“Perfect.”

I leaned back against her bed as the door shut. To do or not to do was always the damning question. Cleo’s advice still stayed the same: don’t just pussy out.

Alec and Dev were out on the Green when I joined them ten minutes later. The screen of Alec’s laptop was filled with the frozen image of a woman in black leather jumping at something that looked like it had been dug up from the vast annals of bad special effects. It was a good thing I didn’t hang out with them for the cinematography.

Alec hinted several times that he was willing to leave us alone, but I pretended I didn’t hear. It shocked most of the student population that Dev and I were still able to hang out together, in public, without trying to take off strategic pieces of our clothing. At least most of the time. He still had an arm slung around my waist, and I buried my face in his shoulder at a couple of the really gross movie moments. All very family friendly though. We had nothing on the suspiciously moving figures covered in blankets in some of the less visible corners of the grass. I was a shameless offender of the entire student handbook section covering PDA (or at least its rumored content) but even I had my standards. Namely a bed. Preferably a lack of other people.

The movie dragged on longer than I thought possible, for something that completely lacked plot or script other than “insert heaving, gravity-defying cleavage here.” As the credits started rolling, I pulled the computer toward me. Dev’s arm slipped lower down my back as I did, and he didn’t move it as I signed onto my AIM. That was more what I was used to. Alec raised his eyebrows with a grin. I ignored him.

Almost everyone was idle or away, except a handful of kids I didn’t really talk to and, of course, Erin.

aDORKable291:
heeeeeey

“Who’s that?” Dev pointed to the screen with his free hand.

“Erin.” The answer was automatic, and I didn’t look up from the screen as I typed a reply.

“Your sister?” Alec grinned.

“Cousin.” Hadn’t we already had this conversation?

“You guys look a lot alike.” Alec ran a hand through his hair.

I shrugged. “I get that a lot.” Even if it was a complete lie. If we really looked that much alike, boys wouldn’t keep picking her over me.

aDORKable291:
omgomgomg im dating the cuuutest guy i love him u have to meet him

“Damn.” I looked up at Alec, the question written across my face. I had a feeling I knew what was coming. His shrug was unapologetic. “She’s hot.” To him, that was all the explanation I needed.

My laugh was a little bit forced, but I don’t think either of them noticed. “Now who’s hitting on freshmen?”

“Yeah, Alec. Amie know about this?” Dev was teasing Alec, not sticking up for me, but that was okay. I could pretend. He was playing with my hair now. Focusing on that helped a little. Erin wasn’t the only one with hot friends.

Alec grinned, his utter lack of shame more than a match for Cleo’s. I turned back to the computer.

elizabethj:
ya definitely when im home for thanksgiving?

I doubted they’d make it that long. Erin’s average relationship spanned about three weeks tops.

Amie messaged me before Erin responded, asking if I wanted to go to dinner. Once I signed off, the three of us went to meet her outside her dorm. Dev walked me back to my dorm after Chicken Hoagie Night (every second Wednesday). I’d stuck with fries, in preparation for Chinese food later. I wasn’t really a hoagie fan, but I hadn’t wanted to miss out on a dining hall double date. A soft kiss, and I was ready to go up, but he didn’t let go of my waist.

“You okay?” He looked concerned.

I didn’t even consider telling the truth for a full second. There was a definite possibility that he was just asking out of obligation. Besides, we weren’t in a relationship, sharing our insecurities, hopes or fears. My hands slid into the pockets of his sweatshirt, and I looked up at him with a tired smile. “Just midterms.”