True (7 page)

“That’s one way to put it.”

I realized he had stopped at the circle by the front door to my dorm, which meant he was not planning to park the car. Not planning to walk me to my room or even to the door. Not that I expected him to. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want him to.

Nor did he bother to put out his cigarette. It was a noxious smoking cloud between us as he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. “Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

It felt like a dismissal. For a second, I just stared at him, longing, wanting, and my expression must have been more obvious than I realized, because he swore.

“Jesus, don’t look at me like that.” His finger came out and wrapped one of my curls around itself. “You’re so fucking beautiful, you’re killing me.”

He did look agonized, though I didn’t understand why, and when he tugged on the curl, it was hard, not teasing, shocking me into action. I started to peel off his jacket. But he shook his head. “It’s cold out, don’t worry about it. Good night.”

He might as well have taken his foot to my back and shoved me, he sounded so ready to be rid of me. I suddenly felt sick and I threw open the door, repeating my actions of the previous Saturday night, but with a whole different set of confused emotions. This time when I bent over and removed my room key from my pageant sock, I glanced back to see he was rubbing his face with both hands, like he wanted to erase away whatever he was thinking.

Ironically, I didn’t want to erase anything. I wanted to hold on to it, to savor it, to remember it late at night alone in my dark room.

Ripping his jacket off, I ran up all four flights of stairs to my room, unwilling to wait for the elevator.

***

The door, thrown open too hard, slammed into the wall and woke me up. I was about to pry my eyes open and yell at Kylie and Jessica to quiet down when I realized they were talking about me.

“I can’t believe she actually did it, that she went home with Tyler,” Kylie said, her words slurred, a loud thump indicating she had dropped her purse on her desk. The desk lamp came on, casting a weak glow through the room, making it likely they would notice that I was, in fact, in the room.

Staying still under the covers, I kept my eyes closed and tried not to move, breathing as slowly as possible. I was curious to hear what their true opinion about it was. Especially Jessica’s.

I had fallen asleep almost immediately after Tyler had dropped me off, which had surprised me, and I had no idea what time it was. I had woken up so easily I suspected I’d been asleep for a while and we were cruising toward morning. They obviously thought I would still be at Nathan’s, cozied up with Tyler. Hardly. I had fallen asleep all alone, as usual.

“I know. I didn’t think she would go through with it either. She was kind of freaking out on me in the bathroom.”

That was an exaggeration. I had just been making sure Jess wouldn’t care. Her voice now sounded tired and almost as slurred as Kylie’s, making me think that she’d gone on to drink some beer after the Vicodin pill.

“Damn it, my feet are swollen.”

I could hear Jessica sink down onto her bed, which was positioned to form an
L
with mine. I knew she was going to notice me any second. Probably the only reason she hadn’t was because my bed was under Kylie’s loft, and I was in the shadows. “I wish more people understood how fucking smart and sweet Rory is.”

Aww. That was nice to hear. I was about to roll over and announce my presence when Kylie said, “No, shit. I really think this thing we’ve set up with Tyler is going to help her confidence.”

I stiffened and stifled a startled exhalation of air. What did that mean? I did not like the sound of
set up
.

“She’ll be able to put herself out there more once she’s gotten over this whole ‘I’m a shy girl virgin’ role. Because I don’t think that’s her. Well, the virgin part was I guess, until tonight. But the shy thing, that’s what I mean.” Kylie was fumbling around on her desk, knocking stuff over and shoving her chair against the wall. I could easily picture her, trying to unzip her banana, drunk, losing her balance and colliding into everything within a three-foot range.

“Totally. I’m glad Tyler finally got his head out of his ass. I was starting to wonder what the hell was taking him so long. I was starting to wonder what he was doing. He never put that much effort into getting me into bed.”

Kylie snorted. “Like it was hard with you.”

Jessica laughed. “Good point. But seriously, he was being weird about the whole thing. You’d think he’d be all ‘time is money’ and try to get the deal done as fast as possible.”

Now my heart was racing and my fingers twitched beneath the covers. It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep my eyes closed. Time is money? There was a deal between my roommates and Tyler? To do what?

I had a sneaking, awful, craptacular feeling I knew exactly what that deal was.

“For a hundred bucks, you’d think he’d be motivated.”

Oh. My. God. I sucked in my breath. I couldn’t help it. My roommates had paid Tyler to have sex with me. For whatever creepy, misguided reason. And he had been willing to take it.

I went still again, praying they wouldn’t notice me, spots dancing behind my eyes from clamping them shut so hard. I would die, I would literally die from pure mortification if they knew I had heard them. I couldn’t deal with it.

Tyler didn’t like me. He wasn’t even attracted to me. He had feigned interest in my life, had studied with me, had taken care of me after I puked from drinking, because he had an end goal in mind. It was all intended to bring down the defenses of a naïve virgin so that she would drop her clothes and let him use her. For money.

Use me. For a lousy hundred bucks.

For a second, I thought I was going to throw up and I actually gagged, horror and bile and disbelief clogging my throat like backed-up sewage, and I couldn’t stifle a little cough.

“Rory?” Kylie asked in amazement.

I let my eyes flutter, knowing there was no way out of it. “Hey,” I said, putting as much sleepiness into my voice as possible. “You just get back?”

“Yeah.” She leaned over me, sticking her face right into mine. She searched my face, looking excited. “How was it?”

“Good,” I said, because it had been. Until it hadn’t. Tyler had gotten me off and so in that regard, he had earned his money. I didn’t want to go into anything else with them. Ever.

She hugged me, an awkward embrace, given she was shitfaced and I was lying down, her breasts dangling in front of me. “Yay! I love you. You know you and Jessica are my best friends ever.”

“Me, too,” I said, because I couldn’t form a coherent sentence. I rolled back over toward the wall and closed my eyes, wishing I could shut her words out as effectively as the sight of her.

“I can’t believe he brought her back home,” Kylie whispered to Jessica in what was definitely not a whisper by sober standards. “He could have at least let her sleep there.”

“Douche bag,” was Jessica’s opinion.

All I could think was that he was definitely more than that, none of it good.

When I was ten years old, I was invited to Ashley Goldman’s birthday party, and while I was excited, I was shocked, too. We weren’t friends and she was the most popular girl in fifth grade. It made me suspicious to get the invitation, like it was either a mistake or I was going to be a joke of some kind, but my dad kept insisting that Ashley must like me and want to be friends, that it was a chance for new beginnings and some other such bullshit. The day of the party, I was so nervous I had diarrhea all morning and begged my dad not to make me go. But he did, and when I, gift out, stupidly optimistic, timidly approached Ashley, she ripped it out of my hands and tossed it on the table with, “I only invited you because I had to because your dad is my mom’s boss.”

I spent the whole party in a corner of the backyard playing with the Goldmans’ cocker spaniel and hating my father for his good intentions.

That was how I felt now.

An hour later, when I was still wide awake and my roommates were passed out, deep in sleep, I got up and went into the bathroom we shared with our suitemates. Stripping off my pajamas, I got into the hot shower in my panties and let the tears come. As the water streamed over me, I scrubbed my face, too ashamed to be fully naked, wanting a protective layer between me and the memory of Tyler’s touch.

I sobbed, for the little girl I had been, who had never understood why I didn’t just fit in, and for the realization that I never would. That my life was meant to be walked alone, with a thin plastic barrier pulled taut between me and everyone else, my thoughts never capable of running parallel with the majority of human beings. In the world of Stellas and Stanleys and Blanches, I was destined to be Harold, the guy who’s never in on the joke and wants everyone to like him, and never has a freaking clue what is really going on. When Harold finds out that Blanche is no virgin, and in fact she’s the opposite of pure, he’s stunned, and we all think he’s stupid.

That was me. Totally stupid. Really, was it so shocking to think that a guy like Tyler didn’t have the purest of intentions? No. It wasn’t.

But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

I sat on the floor of the shower, knees to my chest, hair in wet, damp hanks on my forehead and my cheeks, and I stared at the water swirling down the drain, wishing it would take me and my humiliation with it.

Chapter Seven

The plan was to let Kylie and Jessica think that I had actually had sex with Tyler. I figured if they thought the deed was done, they would let it go with him, and he in turn would let it go with me. The goal was to never hear from him again, and I figured he wouldn’t tell my roommates the truth. He would just take the money and disappear, which couldn’t happen soon enough for my taste.

It didn’t take long to put the plan into effect. I was studying at my desk the next morning, unable to stomach going back to bed after my shower, my eyes gritty, head throbbing from lack of sleep when Kylie sat up in bed, yawning.

“Oh my God, last night was crazy,” were her first words. Her second, which came after she threw a stuffed penguin at Jessica to wake her up, were: “Tell me how it was with Tyler.”

I was expecting their curiosity, and frankly, I had some curiosity of my own. I didn’t think I was ever going to really get an answer that would satisfy me, certainly not without telling them I knew the truth, but I still wanted to scrape and poke at the layers of their comments to see what was underneath.

“It was . . . quick,” I said, because that wasn’t being deceptive. What had happened between us was over in minutes.

Kylie made a face. “Did you come?”

I nodded, flicking my pen back and forth across my palm. I didn’t want to remember that moment, holding onto him, his mouth on my breast, my body tight and tense and aroused. Yet at the same time, I wanted to relive it over and over, which meant I had zero pride and no self-esteem whatsoever. I shouldn’t want to repeat it.

“Well, that’s something at least.” Jessica peeled the covers back, kicking them to the bottom of her bed. “God, I’m sweating balls. Why did he bring you back here? Was it like right after?”

“Yes. And I don’t know. He said he thought it was best.” I studied both of them, trying to read their expressions. They didn’t look anything but annoyed with Tyler and mildly hungover. “I guess he just got what he wanted, right? No reason for me to hang around.”

They exchanged an uneasy glance. “I’m sure that’s not it,” Jessica protested. “Maybe he had to work today or something. The important thing is that you had a good time.”

“I did.” But there was no warmth in my voice, and we all heard it.

Kylie started down from her loft. “You don’t regret it, do you?”

I thought about it, fiddling with the strap on my cami. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. I felt and looked like ass. But did I regret what I had done with Tyler?

“No,” I said truthfully. “I don’t regret it.” I regretted that he had felt like he needed to be paid to mess around with me. I regretted that my roommates felt like someone needed to be paid to want to stick his dick in me. That didn’t boost my confidence about my desirability and it reminded me of Grant’s parting words—that no one wanted me. Yet I didn’t actually regret kissing Tyler, which made me question my sanity.

“Oh, thank God,” she said, holding her perfect yellow manicure up to her T-shirt. “I would feel so shitty if you regretted it.”

“Why?” I asked, sharper than I intended. I didn’t think that she was about to confess, and she didn’t.

“Because we like totally encouraged you.”

“Why?” I repeated.

Kylie looked nervously to Jessica, who definitely tended to be more articulate. They were clearly picking up on the vibe that I was upset, and I tried to soften my mouth, my forehead. I was angry, but I wasn’t going to hold anything against them. Yes, I was furious that they had set me up to potentially be humiliated or used or mistreated, but strange as it was, I knew their hearts were in the right place.

But I needed time to cool down, to process what had happened.

Jessica pulled her hair off her lip where it had been stuck, most likely in lip-gloss remnants, and reached for a water bottle she had on the floor. “Rory, the thing is, you’re this amazing person, and no one ever really gets to see it because you hold yourself back from everyone. We thought that maybe if you got physically close with someone, that maybe you’d be able to get emotionally close with someone too.”

Stunned, I stared at her. “You think I hold back?”

She nodded. “I know you do. Maybe it’s because of your mom . . . but anyway, we shouldn’t have pushed you. I hope we didn’t encourage you to do something you didn’t really want to because I will hate myself if we did.”

Did I hold back? Was observer equal to emotionally withdrawn? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be involved . . . I didn’t think. Thoughts swirling in my head, I assured Jessica with a tightness in my throat, “No. No, you didn’t. Don’t worry. I’m not upset with you.”

They were my only two friends, and I wasn’t about to lose them, not even under these circumstances.

***

On Tuesday in the food court at the university center, I saw Kylie, over by the pasta and pizza restaurant, locked in a heated conversation with Tyler. While my cheeks burned, I hoped she was telling him what I had told her, that I’d had sex with him, so he would understand I had lied for a reason, and that he was off the hook, free and clear. Because my plan to have him stop talking to me had been an epic fail so far.

Sunday he had texted me.

Had fun with u last nite.

Surprised, I tapped the lame response

Thanks, me too.

Want to come to Nathans? Were watching football.

I have too much studying to do. Go Bengals.

Bengals suck. Watching the Giants.

To which I didn’t reply. I didn’t give a shit about either football team, and I didn’t have any studying to do, unless you counted reading ahead to the next book in lit, and there was no way I wanted to do that. I just wanted him to leave me alone.

Monday he texted again.

Whatya doin 2nite?

Working.

Only until 5, but he didn’t need to know that.

Want to hang out after?

I have a chem lab report to write so I shouldn’t.

Again, I wasn’t lying.

I pushed my quesadilla around on my plate with a tortilla chip and stabbed at my guacamole. Jessica and Robin and Nathan were talking away about a movie I hadn’t seen, and I was puzzling out all the things about Tyler that didn’t make sense. Why was he still texting me? If his goal was strictly to collect the money, then why had he put so much effort into being friends with me? Why would he still bother at this point?

But most of all, why wouldn’t he have taken me to Nathan’s and nailed me when I clearly had been willing? He had insisted we were just going to make out. That I could stop him at any point.

It wasn’t logical. But I kept learning over and over that people did not behave in any logical way. They were random and unpredictable, and didn’t always choose the quickest route to accomplish a goal.

Kylie and Tyler were making their way over to the table, and I hit the button to turn on my e-reader, forcing myself to stare at the words on the screen. It was a book I’d never heard of by an author I’d never heard of, and the language was so choppy, I basically gave up by the third line. But I still kept staring because I did not want to talk to Tyler.

A hand squeezed my shoulder and I looked up.

“Hey,” he said, smiling at me.

“Hey.”

“Whatcha reading?” He leaned over and swiped one of my tortilla chips.

As he crunched, I stared up at him, wanting to probe his mind, wanting to know what was going on there in his gray matter. But I figured every girl on the planet had found herself wishing she had a free pass inside a man’s mind at one point or another. Maybe it was self-preservation that we didn’t have such powers. It might be holy-crap creepy in there.

“I have no idea,” I told him honestly.

He laughed. “We studying this Thursday?”

My hesitation was obvious. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Tyler pulled out a chair and sat down on it backward, so he was leaning over the back watching me. “What’s going on? Why are you acting weird?”

“I always act weird.”

“No, you don’t. You are usually honest and straightforward. Now you’re just avoiding me.” He leaned closer, his voice dropping. “Why did you tell Kylie we had sex?”

“I never told her that,” I protested, because I hadn’t.

“Then you let her assume. Why? You told me it was no one’s business what happened between us. In this case, what didn’t happen.”

I glanced around, nervous. No one was looking at us, but it wouldn’t be that hard to hear what Tyler was saying. I played with my stacked bracelets, pulling them up my arm and letting them fall. “I don’t want to talk about this here.” I didn’t actually want to talk about it ever. I couldn’t tell him the truth, and anything else I might say to try to justify my behavior was going to sound like a lie, which it was.

He made a sound of exasperation and then shoved the chair back. “Then let’s go somewhere private and talk about it.”

“I have class,” I protested. But I couldn’t help but wonder why it mattered to him, why he was so clearly frustrated. Why he still wanted to see me.

Without another word, he stood up and slammed the chair back into the table, making me jump. Everyone at the table stopped talking and turned as he stalked off, hand raking through his hair. The minute he shoved through the front door he was digging in his pocket. For a cigarette, I was sure.

“What is his problem?” Nathan asked me.

I shrugged. The truth was I really didn’t know what was going on. I wished I did. It just seemed like if he had been doing a favor for my friends, or had needed the money, or was looking for the ego stroke of bagging the virgin, he wouldn’t react like this.

“Well, what did he say?” Kylie insisted, her smoothie hovering in front of her lips.

“He wanted to leave, and I said I had class and he shoved his chair. That’s it.”

“He’s been acting moody all week,” Nathan commented. “I wonder what’s up with him.”

“Yeah,” Kylie said, looking at me. “I wonder what’s up with him.”

Jessica and Robin’s eyes were on me, too. Nathan was frowning at me. So many eyes staring at me, it was unnerving. I didn’t like being in the spotlight.

“How would I know?” I asked defensively. Honestly, I was the one who knew the least about what was going on. They were all in on the Get Rory Fucked Fund. Well, I didn’t know that Nathan knew, but it seemed likely enough, given how much Kylie was into him. “I have to go to class.” I stood up, grabbing the plate with my barely eaten quesadilla.

“Rory,” Kylie started, but Jessica shook her head at her, an indicator to let me go.

So I left, with a wave and a half-smile.

Tyler texted me on Wednesday and I didn’t answer.

He texted on Thursday and I didn’t answer.

By the time he texted on Friday I felt like my skin was too tight and my legs wouldn’t stop bouncing up and down every time I sat. My fingertips felt cold all the time, and there were dark circles under my eyes from not sleeping. Everything I had heard Kylie and Jessica say and everything Tyler had said to me kept spinning around and around and around in my head like a violent whirlpool.

I spent extra hours in the lab, face covered in protective goggles, drowning in a lab coat. On Friday, I went to the animal shelter even though I wasn’t scheduled to work. They could always use an extra hand, and I didn’t want to be in my room or in the cafeteria with everyone.

What I didn’t expect was Tyler to show up at the shelter. I was on the floor playing with a few of beagle puppies when I heard Joanne. “Rory? Your friend is here.”

I glanced up and her eyebrows were raised in question, and she looked concerned. Behind her was Tyler, his hands crammed in his front pockets. I lost my balance and fell back onto my butt. Puppies leaped all over the front of me, and I tried to control them, hands blocking multiple tongues determined to lick my face.

“Tyler, what are you doing here?” I hadn’t thought he would track me down. I thought he would get tired of me not answering his texts and stop.

Clearly, I was wrong.

“It’s dark outside and I didn’t want you walking back by yourself. I’m here to give you a ride.”

I wanted to trust that he was genuine. I did. My frozen insides thawed just slightly.

Joanne’s expression changed. “You know what, I tell her that all the time. I can’t stand that she walks around in the dark by herself. All it takes is once for something awful to happen. We appreciate you picking our Rory up . . . She’s a sweet girl, isn’t she?”

Tyler smiled. “Yes, she is.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks. And thanks for the ride. I’ll get my bag.”

As I led the three stumbling puppies back to their kennel Joanne gave me a grin. “
He’s cute,
” she mouthed so that Tyler couldn’t see. I shook my head, wanting to laugh. Could she be any more obvious?

I was nervous to be alone with Tyler, but part of me was glad to just get it over with. Every single day my anxiety had been growing, not lessening. We walked silently to his car, me buried in my military jacket, footsteps squeaky as my rain boots bent with each step. It wasn’t raining, but I liked my rubber boots. There was something defiant about them. Like I was encased in something solid.

“I’m sorry I still have your jacket,” I said, feeling guilty as I realized he was just wearing a T-shirt, a metal cross dangling down over his chest. It was an elaborate piece with lots of scrolling and a detailed crucified Jesus on it. “I should have brought it to you.” Not that I knew where he lived, but I guess I meant I could have taken it to Nathan’s.

But he shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I don’t really get cold that easily.”

I had noticed that. Somehow it made him sexier than he already was.

The minute we were in the car, as I moved a pile of dirty papers off of the passenger seat, he spoke. “So, do you really want me to just go away? Is that the message you’re giving me? Because I can do that. But the truth is, I’d rather not do that. I like hanging out with you.”

I liked hanging out with him, too. I could admit that. Maybe it made me pathetic, but the truth was, I had fun with him. He was funny and smart and compassionate. Hot. I couldn’t discount that. What I saw when I was with him, I couldn’t reconcile with a guy who would coldheartedly agree to seduce a girl for money or laughs or whatever sick reason you’d expect a guy to say yes to something like that. He wasn’t going to take naked pictures of me and blackmail me online with them. He just wasn’t. I knew it. I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but I did.