“Sounds like you guys were kind of mean.”
“You know how it is. Locker room talk.” Rhett chuckles, but I don’t say anything and when he realizes I’m not laughing, he stops. “You didn’t ask what my name is.”
I probably just bruised his massive ego and I didn’t even mean to. “What’s your name?”
“Rhett.”
“Oh. Like Gone with the Wind?” I make a tiny face, as if I’m offended.
He winces. “Yeah. Tell me you’ve never watched that movie.”
“I’ve never watched that movie,” I say, my voice monotone. I’m lying. I’ve totally watched that movie. When I was a little girl, my father made me watch it, calling it a classic. I thought Scarlett O’Hara was a total bitch and Rhett Butler was funny-looking.
“Good.” He smiles again, his cheeks the faintest pink. He’s blushing? Damn it, I don’t want him to be appealing or cute. “My mother is from the south.”
“She named you?” We’re already talking about family and we barely know each other. I thought this guy was a jerk. King douche of the douches. But he’s being so nice right now. So…sincere.
I don’t get it.
“Yeah.” His tone is wistful, and I know why. His mother is dead, though I don’t want him to tell me that. I don’t want to feel sorry for him, but maybe he doesn’t want me to feel sorry for him either so he’s keeping that bit of information to himself.
“I should go.” Before he can say anything else, I grab my backpack from the floor and set it on the table, unzipping it and shoving my textbook inside. He stands when I stand, as if he’s going to walk me out of the library like some sort of gentleman, and I’m not prepared for that. Nice, handsome, seemingly wholesome boys who want to do right by me. It’s ridiculous, a myth, a fairytale in this harsh, cruel world. I know Rhett isn’t nice or wholesome.
There’s no way he can be.
“You live on campus?” he asks as we exit the library together. He even holds the door open for me, and I have to thank him because I’m not a complete bitch.
“No, I have my own place.” It’s a total shit-hole that’s drafty and cold and in a scary part of town, but it’s all mine.
“You parked out in the south lot?” When I glance up at him, he shrugs. “You probably shouldn’t be on campus this late at night by yourself. I’ll walk you to your car.”
There’s campus security who will escort you wherever you need to go—you just have to call or text. I guess Rhett wants to be my campus security tonight. “I don’t have a car.”
My dad’s car finally broke down for good right before he died, and I haven’t had one since.
“Do you walk home?” He asks way too many questions. Why can’t he just say good night and we go our separate ways?
“I take the bus.”
“I’ll walk you to the bus stop then,” he says, his words final, like I can’t argue with him.
So I don’t.
We walk side by side, him chatting me up, asking endless questions about school, what courses I take, how long have I been there. I give him vague answers, not asking anything in return. I pretty much already know everything about him, and any of those small, secret details he might reveal? He won’t share those yet.
Finding out his flaws, his worries, his fears, will only make him more human. That’s the last thing I want. I need to treat him like the bridge that will lead me to what I’m really looking for.
When I come to a pause at the bus stop, he glances around, his expression serious before his gaze meets mine. “It’s dark here.”
“I’ll be fine.” I shrug then smile, because I want him to leave. “Thanks for walking me.”
“I’m staying here until the bus arrives.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“I’m staying,” he says firmly, his gaze dark. “It’s not safe here.”
“I wait for the bus here pretty much every night.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You don’t have a friend to give you a lift? Or to at least ride the bus with you?”
I shake my head, sending him a fierce look that says don’t you dare give me a bunch of sympathy because I have no friends.
He doesn’t. Instead he says, “You should take Uber. Or Lyft.”
I scoff. Literally scoff. “I can’t afford to take an Uber everywhere. I’m not rich like you.”
He tilts his head to the side, contemplating me. “How do you know I’m rich?”
Panic races through my brain and I stand up straight, contemplating him right back. “Look at how you’re dressed.” I wave a hand at him, at his expensive Nike sweatshirt, at the track pants, the very expensive Nikes on his feet. “You’re like a walking billboard for Nike. And that watch you’re wearing.” I point at his wrist and he shakes his sleeve down so it covers the thick silver watch. “Probably worth one year of tuition.”
“Not quite,” he mutters, looking irritated.
I almost want to laugh. “Close enough.”
“You don’t know me.” His gaze locks with mine again, practically daring me to say something in return.
“You don’t know me either,” I say with a lift of my chin.
The bus chooses that moment to rumble up the street, stopping in front of us with a screech of brakes and the stench of exhaust. The doors whine as they swing open and a few people disembark. The driver—his name is Stan—looks at me, waves me on with a weary waggle of his fingers. “Don’t got all night,” he calls.
Without a word, I climb onto the bus and settle into my usual seat at the very back, staring straight ahead. I can feel Rhett watching me and I want to look at him, but I don’t. Not until the bus pulls away from the curb and we’re inching our way to the stoplight do I glance over my right shoulder to see him still standing there.
Watching me.
Nine years ago
“I want my mama.” I cross my skinny arms and tuck my chin into my neck, glaring at my father from beneath my brows. I do this when things aren’t going my way, say those cruel words so I can watch him wince, witness his heart practically writhing in pain when he hears the word mama or mommy or mom.
I’m only twelve and I already know how to stick it to my father where it hurts the most.
His voice is reed-thin when he says, “You know she can’t be here with you, Jenny. I’ve told you this time and again.”
“I don’t care.” I cross my arms tighter, to the point that it hurts, and I relish in the pain. At least I’m feeling something. “Where did she go? Why doesn’t she like me?”
“She loves you, sweetheart. She just…doesn’t know how to show it.”
“I don’t believe you.” I know he’s lying. Why won’t he tell me the truth? “Why doesn’t she come see us? Come see me? Where is she?”
Daddy sighs. Shakes his head. Blinks at me like he’s trying to bring me into focus. “Gone. Gone, gone, gone.”
The thing is, he knows where she is. I know he does. I found a thin folder in his desk one Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, when he was outside mowing the weeds in the front yard and I was supposed to be cleaning the bathroom. I got bored and started rummaging around in his desk, looking for clues. To what, I’m never sure.
I just know my life is a mystery and he’s the one holding onto all the information.
I flipped through that folder with muted fascination, reading all the newspaper and magazine articles he clipped out, all about a woman named Diane. I picked up one glossy page torn out of a magazine, clutching the jagged edges tight as I stared hard at her face.
Her face sorta looked like mine, especially when she smiled. And when I saw that, I knew without a doubt she was a part of me. That I was a part of her.
“She’s not gone,” I tell him, feeling defiant. My voice is firm and my heart is beating so hard it feels like it wants to leap out of my chest.
“Yes, she is,” he says wearily, rubbing a hand over hi
s eyes. He’s tired. He works hard but makes little. There’s never much to eat, I don’t have many clothes to wear and my shoes are too tight. I don’t remember the last time I got a haircut and I need a bra but I don’t have one, so I wear that old coat of mine all the time so the boys can’t see my boobs. They’re getting so big and sometimes they hurt, especially when I do P.E. But how do I tell Daddy that? He doesn’t know how to get me a bra. He can barely take care of himself.
“No, she’s not. And I need her. There’s stuff a girl needs from her mom that her dad can’t help her with,” I tell him, lifting my chin. “We need to call her.”
“We can’t.”
“Write her then.”
“Can’t do that either, Jenny.”
“Then let’s go to her fancy house and tell her I need her help!” I scream the last word, relishing in the pained expression on my father’s face. I bet I shocked him when I said fancy house, because she lives in one. I know exactly who my mama is.
It’s that lady in the magazine. Diane.
She doesn’t have the same last name as us because she’s married someone else, even though I thought she was married to my daddy. She’s got some other rich guy who takes care of her. They have a family, kids and stuff—two that look my age, maybe a little older, and a younger one, a little girl who wears beautiful dresses and has pretty hair—and here I sit with just my daddy in a rotten old house with hardly any food in the fridge and nothing much to call ours.
I hate her for that. If she’d just come see me, if she would just help me, then maybe I could forgive her.
But I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.
“What do you need help with?” Daddy asks. “I can help you.”
I shake my head furiously. “No, you can’t.”
“I can, Jenny. I’m here for you. I’ve always been here for you.” The look he sends me is pleading. “Let me help you.”
“I want my mama!” I sound like a baby, but I don’t care.
Anger makes his face tighten up. I made him mad, but for once, I don’t care. “No. She’s dead to us,” he spits out.
He hasn’t said that to me in a long time. His words used to make me cry. I’d scream no and run to my room, crying into my pillow. I didn’t like it when he said she was dead to us.
Now I realize it’s the opposite. We’re dead to her. She doesn’t care about us. She can’t. What mom would act this way? Why would a wife leave a man she’s supposed to love? I don’t get it.
“That doesn’t mean she’s really dead. I know who she is, Daddy.” I drop my arms and stand right in front of him. My father is tall, but he’s skinny. He’s not very intimidating, what with that sad look on his face all the time. People know my daddy has a broken heart, but he doesn’t do much to try and fix it. No one else does either. How can you fix a man who doesn’t want to be fixed? “Let’s go see her.”
“No.” He shakes his head, his eyes glassy. Like he might start to cry.
I’ve seen him cry a lot. You ever watch movies or TV shows where the men say they don’t cry? They’ve never met my daddy. He cries all the time. I used to cry with him.
I stopped doing that about a year ago. I’m tired of crying. I want to do something.
“Why not?” I grab his hands. They feel paper-thin and they’re so cold. Like there’s no life in him. “Please, Daddy. I bet if she saw me, she’d want to help.”
“She left us a long time ago. She doesn’t want to help us.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to help you, but she might want me.” That’s the only thing that gives me any hope, that my mom doesn’t realize how much I look like her, or how much I need her. Maybe she forgot about me. Maybe my daddy told her we didn’t want her, but that’s not true. I want her.
I want her in my life so bad.
He sighs again, more shaking of the head, more whispers of my name like I’m a hopeless, ridiculous little girl. I’m not. I’m growing up. Daddy might not see it, but it’s true.
“It’s not going to happen,” he says firmly. “So for the love of Christ, stop asking for her like a little baby! She doesn’t care about us, okay? She doesn’t care about me and she definitely doesn’t care about you.”
His tone is venomous. Final. He’s breathing hard when he finishes and I’m breathing hard too, tears streaming down my face, landing on my lips so I can taste the salt. We stare at each other, our chests heaving, our bodies trembling. Mine is at least, and I think his is too.
“I hate you,” I whisper just before I turn and run to my room.
“You don’t mean what you say,” he calls after me as I throw myself on my bed. “You don’t have anyone else, Jennifer Rae! And don’t you forget it!”
I push my face into my pillow, trying to drown out his words, but I know he speaks the truth.
I know he’s all I have.
I know my mama doesn’t love me.
I don’t know what I did to her to make her feel that way.
The only reason I’m at this college is because of him. How messed up is that? But it’s true. Rhett is why I’m at this university, and while I’m taking courses and actually doing well, all of that comes second to my true purpose.
To get close to Rhett Montgomery.
He could go to any college in the world, I’m sure, considering his family is so wealthy. But he chose to remain close to home and go to a state university near where he grew up, which is surprising. His mother went here, though, and I even read a newspaper article online that quoted him saying that he came here to be close to her, or some sentimental bullshit like that. Any normal girl would say, “Aw, how sweet,”, but I don’t get it.
What I do get is that I’m done with being scared. Hiding in the shadows for the first eight weeks of the fall semester is pretty damn stupid—and cowardly. I’ve wasted half the semester alone just following him around. But it took that long to even work up the courage to say something to him. Not that I was the one who approached him first. Of course, he had to notice me versus the other way around. The girl who pretended not to care about him, that’s the one he wanted to talk to.
Not surprising though. I discovered pretty early that boys love a challenge. I lost my virginity when I was fifteen to my first serious boyfriend, a loudmouth guy two years older than me who could burp the alphabet after draining almost half a keg at the regular Friday night parties. All the girls laughed and thought he was so talented and funny while I merely rolled my eyes and told my one friend—Lyssa, who I miss terribly—that I thought he should be embarrassed by his so-called skills.
Turned out he overheard my rude comment, and then he chased after me for weeks. I kept telling him no. Finally, I relented, broken down by his constant texting and walking with me in between classes. At one of those infamous Friday night parties, he got me drunk, took me up to his parents’ bedroom—they were away for the weekend, so it was his turn to hold the party—where he proceeded to kiss me all over my body and then take my virginity with a couple of swift pumps of his hips.
Once he got inside, it was all over in less than ten minutes. I was left with a searing pain between my legs, a wet spot beneath the mattress, and the dawning realization that I’d sacrificed my virginity to the boy who was popular for burping the alphabet.
Talk about lame.
But once it was over, it was over, and I could freely give away my body to any boy I might be interested in and not feel shame or guilt over it. It’s weird, but it was like once the bridge had been crossed, I never looked back. Any attention is good, right? Better than none at all. I’m not ashamed of the list of boys I’ve had sex with, but I’m not necessarily proud of it either. Mainly because I never loved one of them. I can’t even say that I cared for any of them. Not in a deep and meaningful way.
Does that make me callous? Probably. But sex is just sex. Love is for those who want to end up damaged for the rest of their lives. Look at my father, nursing his broken heart for years while the woman who ruined him for anyon
e else continues to live her life like he doesn’t even matter.
Love is for idiots who want to hurt. Love is for suckers who think they need it in order to survive.
Love doesn’t keep you alive. It bleeds you dry.
I can pretend to fall in love with Rhett, though. That won’t be difficult. He’ll take me right where I want to go.
This is why I’m hanging around the gross diner just off campus, the one I know he likes to frequent with his friends on a Saturday afternoon. The place smells greasy and I want to go home so I can take a shower, but instead I’m drinking a bitter cup of coffee and messing around on my laptop, scrolling Pinterest. Really, I should be studying, or writing the essay that’s due Tuesday. But I’m too anxious, too keyed up thinking about seeing Rhett and what I might say to him to concentrate on anything meaningful.
I’m not disappointed when I finally spot him either. He enters the diner within twenty minutes of my arrival, surrounded by his frat brothers. My stupid heart trips over itself at seeing his dark brown hair wind-tousled and his cheeks pink with health, wearing a black sweater and jeans. He looks like he walked straight out of a goddamn Ralph Lauren shoot, the all-American rich boy who can do no wrong. I ignore the tingles of electricity I experience when our eyes lock, ignore my fluttering, nervous stomach when he slowly makes his way toward my booth, that giant smile on his face unabashed in his pleasure in seeing me.
“Why do we keep running into each other?” he asks, his voice warm, his eyes sparkling as he takes me in, as if I’m the best thing he’s seen in a long time.
“Small town, I guess.” I shrug with so much fake nonchalance I pray he doesn’t realize what a phony I am. But he doesn’t. He’s too enthralled with me, which is unbelievable. I tried my best to look like the girls he takes photos with on social media, and I did it all on a budget too, while those girls probably spent way too much money on their hair, clothes, jewelry and whatever else they own.
Me? I sorta already looked like them. I’m a dark blonde, and if I had more money, I’d pay for highlights, but that’s not going to happen. Instead, I bought a cheap curling iron at Walgreens and practiced and practiced until I got the waves just right. He seems to like girls with wavy hair. Subtle makeup. Sun-kissed good looks and big, toothy smiles. Luckily enough, my teeth are fairly straight—thanks, Dad—and I never had braces. I’m blue-eyed and pink-cheeked thanks to my mother. I’m pretty, and Rhett seems to like them pretty.