Kelly swiveled in his seat, his blue eyes boring into her through the dark. “What did you suspect people would do after you bared your titties for the town? Praise you? Christ, Sheilagh, use your fucking head!”
“Like you have any room to talk, Kelly! There isn’t a woman in Center County who hasn’t seen your wank!”
“And do you think I didn’t pay a price for my actions, Sheilagh?” Kelly stormed.
No, she didn’t. Kelly lived the high life and still managed to find his soul mate. No one in this car had a right to even pretend they understood what it felt like to be invisible.
“It’s like the sheep fucker!” Kelly snarled and turned toward the windshield.
What? “What?”
“Shamus the sheep fucker!” her brother snapped. “The old Irishman in the bar that built the church and sailed the sea, but no one remembers that because he fucked one sheep.”
“No one’s fucking a sheep, you moron!”
“Well, what do you think people would say if you started stripping? You wouldn’t be Sheilagh the beautiful McCullough or Sheilagh the genius. No, you’d only be Sheilagh the stripper. Do you want that kind of reputation?”
She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared out the window.
Tristan turned. “Why would you do this, Shei?”
She blinked repeatedly. Because no one notices me anymore. Forcing an expression of indifference, she shrugged. “Why not?”
“You’re better than that. You know you are,” he said in a soft voice.
She didn’t know what to say back. Maybe she wasn’t better than that. Maybe that’s all she was meant to be, a stripper in some Podunk town.
Luke wouldn’t look at her, but she still heard him growl. “This is bullshit. When are you going to grow up?”
She pivoted and turned her glare on him. “Me? How about you, Luke? When are you going to grow up? You have an awful lot to say about how everyone lives their life, when you don’t have the balls to let the world see who you really are!”
The car grew deathly silent. Kelly said her name in warning and she snapped. “No! I’m sick of it! Just say it! Say it!”
“What do you want me to say?” Luke roared.
Tristan’s stare cut to her and she felt a pinch of regret much like the lament she saw in his eyes. Why couldn’t they just come out and let everyone know they were in love?
“This isn’t about Luke,” Tristan said quietly. “It never was. I’m sorry, Sheilagh. I know this isn’t what you asked for, but sometimes life is unfair.”
She fumed as she glared back at him. “I wanna go home.”
No one said anything for quite some time. “You’re going away,” Kelly finally announced.
“What?”
“You’re going to college. There’s nothing for you here and you know it. It’s time for you to get on with your life and make something of yourself.”
“You don’t get to decide for me, Kelly.”
Luke turned to her. “Stop being a brat. Do you have any idea what kind of potential you have? You don’t know what it’s like to have such opportunities snatched away.”
She knew he was referring to his own life. Luke was supposed to be recruited by the NFL until he blew out his knee in college and was sent home, scholarship revoked.
“I really don’t care what any of you think. This is my life—”
“Then do something with it!” Luke snapped. “You haven’t done shit since you graduated. What are you waiting for?”
I don’t know! She wanted to scream.
It had been years since her self-made, carefully organized plan was shattered. Life used to be simple. She coasted through school, never really having to study for the A’s she’d earned. Then she was expected to accept one of the full ride scholarships being thrown at her from several noteworthy colleges.
But that never happened. Before she left for school, she wanted to actually accomplish something that meant something to her. She wanted him—Tristan. Her failure haunted her in ways she could only stifle, but never truly cope with. All she wanted was closure. She wanted the pain of rejection to disappear once and for all, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get over her hurt.
Kelly stared out at the road and quietly said, “Here’s how this is going to roll. You’re going to get dressed and we’re going to take you home. Tomorrow, you’re going to fill out applications and this fall you will be enrolling in college. You either agree to that, here and now, or we drive your ass right to Dad.”
Her heart raced. They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t shame her like that in front of her father. She wasn’t the best daughter and her dad knew it, but he’d always been patient and forgiving. This would crush him. It finally struck her how stupid her plan was. Frank McCullough would have eventually heard about her stripping had she gone through with it. Center County wasn’t that big and everyone knew who the McCulloughs were.
She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. There was no ignoring the pain in her chest that even her family didn’t want her around anymore.
“Do we have a deal?” Kelly asked.
She didn’t answer. Tristan continued to watch her. “Sheilagh, do this for yourself. You deserve better than the life you’ve been leading. Go be something amazing, because the rest of us don’t have the gifts you have.”
A tear tumbled past her lashes and she batted it away. They put so much pressure on her. High school was a breeze, but once she became an adult she only wanted one thing and when she set her mind to it she failed miserably. What if she failed at other things?
“We’re all scared, Sheilagh,” Luke softly said. “No one ever truly gets what they want in life. You need to do this. You need to get out of here and make something of yourself.”
It wasn’t that easy now. She was older. People her age didn’t move into dorms. The moment had passed and she’d missed it.
Her arms were suddenly cold and she shivered. Reaching for the material on her lap, she realized it was a shirt and fit it over her head. She wouldn’t agree with them now. She was too stubborn for that, but they were right. She was losing herself here and she needed to leave. Her family was simply too overbearing and the thought of moving away, although terrifying, was suddenly more appealing than it had been in years.
She shut them out, their presence no longer registering. Knowing she could be stubborn, they eventually understood this was all they were getting from her. They made their way back to their family home in utter silence.
Luke and Tristan were cowards. She hated the way they closeted their true selves away from the world. Yes, she’d been about to bare it all and knew that wasn’t right either, but thanking them for saving her was something she’d likely never do. Her humiliation was far too great, her shame too raw.
When they reached the house someone said her name, but she climbed out of the car and slammed the door on all three of them. Done. She was done.
Chapter One
I think I’ve finally decided my major. I know it’s only the first day of the second semester, but I love my new classes, especially Philosophy 101. The opening lecture was so profoundly moving, it was the first time I forgot I was forced here and found myself enthralled in learning. I’d love to major in philosophy, but I can’t find the sense in such a career. Psychology, however, I can turn into a career. Plus, I’ll be able to minor in philosophy, which I’m shockingly passionate about. This sudden burst of energy to dig in and explore is unexpected, but so very needed. Finally, I have something to distract me from the depressing thoughts I’ve been having.
As Sheilagh walked off the campus and down the street to her apartment, she could barely contain her excitement to tear into her syllabus and start on her reading. Dr. Alec Devereux was an awesome professor. There was just something about him.
He was older, likely nearing forty, but something about the way he lectured made him seem younger. He had a captivating presence. As his voice filled the lecture hall wit
h that throaty, British baritone she found herself hanging on his every word as if he were reading poetry. He cursed from time to time and told the class they could call him Alec, which had Sheilagh rolling her eyes at first, but then, as he’d introduced Philosophy 101, she found herself enthralled and wanting nothing more than to be on a first name basis.
He definitely knew his shit. He proclaimed this semester would alter their way of thinking forever and he would enjoy watching them grow into mature adults. She was already older than most of the students enrolled in the class, but she looked forward to the mental challenge.
They were starting with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. She’d heard of it, but never read it. There was truly a geek hiding under her wild façade, because nothing gave her a rush quite like learning. On the other hand, nothing set her on a self-destructive path like boredom. When the simplicity of her existence spread wide and dull, Sheilagh often did terrible things she later regretted. Her reckless behavior was due to a need for constant stimulation she couldn’t always feed. She savored those moments when her brain was challenged to accept new theories, because so long as her mind was actively engaged the sense of emptiness went away.
Mathematics was all about thoughtless equations. Long ago she’d mastered the art of impressing people with her ability to solve formulas and piece together algorithms. Math was also a very isolated field. She couldn’t bear the thought of spending her life in some régime facility breaking down codes and inadvertently driving the world into the next war by unearthing some piece of detrimental information the government was after. That was too much bad karma.
She could have gone into the medical field, but blood made her queasy. When she was seven she memorized the Periodic Table and that convinced everyone she would go into a science field, but she didn’t want that either.
Some days she only wanted to be normal. Normal people were never asked to perform polar tricks to demonstrate the complexity of their mind like some freak show exhibit. She liked when people forgot she was exceptional and treated her like a regular woman. Gifted or not, there really wasn’t anything remotely exceptional about her. She’d simply been smart enough to disguise all her other—less appealing—sides.
Years were spent doing stupid, juvenile things, which helped people forget she was hiding an IQ that went off the charts. It was nice when her family stopped expecting her to be Sheilagh the virtuoso and accepted her as just one of them. The problem was, being the ‘smart one’ was her shtick. When she acted dumb, people stopped paying attention to her all together. It hurt, realizing her mind was the only remarkable thing they noticed. But she had to keep up the act in order to keep the hollow parts of herself hidden from the rest of the world.
She didn’t want to be Sheilagh the savant any more than she wanted to be Sheilagh the sad and pathetic. Overtime she’d managed an entirely fabricated persona of Sheilagh the outgoing, up for anything, wild child. Amazingly, people bought it. The only drawback to keeping up the act was actually having to act on certain situations. More than once she’d left a stranger’s car feeling dirty and used, but hey, no one wanted to hear about all that. No, they just wanted wild Shei-Devil, always a good time and up for anything.
She didn’t know why her intelligence irritated her so much. The only excuse she had was being smart was sometimes lonely. She was always the youngest in her classes, which made her current situation new and refreshing being that she was years older than the rest of the freshmen at college. Still, being advanced made her early education incredibly isolated and it wasn’t until she finished school that she thought to discover other sides of herself.
She should probably be grateful she wasn’t stupid. Moments like today made her glad for her aptitude. There was no doubt she’d impress the professor when she aced her first paper and, for the first time in a long time, her IQ didn’t seem like such a burden. Perhaps college was finally helping her embrace who she really was. She was gonna rock this class like a casbah.
She unlocked her apartment and dumped her bag on the ratty chair by the door. Most freshmen lived in dorms, but Sheilagh couldn’t handle the thought of rooming with some kid just out of adolescence. She lived alone and having always lived with her crazy family packed into one house, she really enjoyed the solitude.
Her finger flipped on her iPod sitting in the dock and The Dropkick Murphys filled her apartment. Off went her sweater and shoes and down came her hair. She bounced to the small kitchen and turned on the burner.
As the pricking strings of Rose Tattoo plucked out under the scratchy voices of the Celtic punk band she danced to her bookshelf and dug out her text. The used book was worn and yellowed at the corners. She tossed the book to her couch and it landed on the afghan her grandmother, Moira, had made.
The kettle whistled and she pulled out a mug. Dropping a teabag in the mug, she doused it with whiskey and poured in the scolding water. It was cold in Princeton, New Jersey in January, but not nearly as cold as Center County.
Her first semester had been lonely. It was definitely an adjustment, but she was coming to love the historic town built around the university. There was something nostalgic and magical about being able to cut through Albert Einstein’s front yard on her walk from the campus to her apartment. The town was charming with a scholarly air she found refreshing. Here, she could be herself and not worry about intimidating the locals.
Sipping her spiked tea, she plunked down on her sofa. Yes, it was only eleven in the morning, but she was a McCullough and it was five o’clock somewhere. The song on her iPod switched to the Warrior’s Code as she pried open her text.
A fist pounded on her wall and her pain in the ass neighbor yelled through the plaster for her to turn down the music.
“Blow me!” she shouted back, and ignored him.
When she’d first moved there, she’d been a touch more courteous, but then she realized her neighbor, Wesley—which she said in her head with the snobbiest dialect—had an issue with a light sneeze. Wesley—who called their kid Wesley anyhow?
She only knew his name because their mail sometimes got mixed up. She’d seen him once and was pretty sure they’d never be friends. He was the kind of guy who wore scarves as accessories and probably polished his shoes. Basically, he was the poster child for every prep school in Princeton, but he was a dick, so she didn’t care about being all Mr. Rogers won’t you be my neighbor with him.
The not-so-phantom hand behind the wall pounded again and she reached for the remote, turning up her music to drown him out. She turned onto her stomach and settled into Plato’s The Republic, the philosopher’s greatest work.
An hour later she was completely submerged in the science of logic and psychology. Her mind stretched over theories of means and ends, causes and conditions, rational, concupiscent, and irascible elements, and truths veiled in metaphysics.
Plato’s work differed from Aristotle’s. She found herself recalling literary works and seeing similarities that were undoubtedly borne of great thinkers’ theories. Memories of Troy, legends of Arthur, and myths of Atlantis swirled in her mind as her eyes plowed over each written word.
The essay, which wasn’t due until just before spring break, took her four days to write. Her other classes, totaling her twenty-four credit class load, only served as minor distractions from her task.
The following Tuesday she waited until Alec had finished his lecture to walk her masterpiece to the front. He’d rolled up his sleeves and removed his blazer sometime in the middle of their three hour lecture. As she stood by his desk watching him drag the soft eraser over the board she noticed he had a dark dusting of hair on his forearms.
She cleared her throat and he turned. “Ms. McCullough, did you have questions about today’s lecture?”
His dark hair showed flecks of silver by his temples and she swallowed, finding his hazel eyes intense, regardless of the friendly creases at the corners. “No. I wanted to give you this.”
Returning the eraser to the
tray running along the board, he brushed off his hands and stepped closer. She grinned and held out her essay. He took the neatly annotated paper and flipped open the clear cover.
His brows rose. “This is your midterm paper.”
“Yes.”
“But it’s only been a week.”
“I’ve read the entire text.”
He met her gaze and she smiled, sure he’d be impressed once he read her summary. “Plato’s work is indeed readable, but I find it difficult to believe you’ve had time to digest the fundamental meaning behind such thought provoking work.”
Shrugging, she said, “I enjoyed reading it.”
A slight chuckle escaped his lips. “I should hope. I’d hate to think I’ve been suggesting rubbish for the past fifteen years of my career.”
She shifted her shoulder bag and stepped back. “I just figured I’d turn it in since it was finished.”
His long fingers, stained with pen at the knuckle, flipped the cover back into place. He grinned. “I look forward to reading it.”
Sheilagh nodded. “See you next Tuesday.” The moment the words left her mouth she gasped, realizing she’d just said the euphemistic backronym for calling someone a cunt—C U Next Tuesday. Eyes wide, she quickly corrected, “I mean, see you at the next class.”
The side of his mouth kicked up and shoulders twitched as he chuckled again. “I look forward to it.”
Turning abruptly, she quickly left the lecture hall. She wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that she’d said that or the fact that he laughed, implying he noticed the slip. But if he laughed, he must have a sense of humor, right?
When she stepped outside she forced the embarrassing episode out of her mind. You could take a McCullough out of Center County, but putting one in a sophisticated environment was about as normal as putting a donkey in a tiara and tutu. At home they could say whatever they wanted, but she was at Princeton now and the standards of couth were dramatically higher.
As she walked home, taking in the lovely old homes she passed along the way, her mind wandered to home. Anger with her brothers for forcing her to go away still lingered, but she missed them anyway. As she entered her apartment her mind considered what she had left to do. She needed to keep busy in order to keep herself from getting homesick and sad.