Dylan is there too, Silas’s arm draped over her shoulder and holding her tight to his side. They all wear looks of concern as they talk, and I swallow, feeling as if the distance between us is much greater than the length of a table and a dozen yards of playing field.
I’m on the outside here. And what hurts more than the fact that no one seems to notice me as I turn and head for Dylan’s car is the fact that I’m comfortable on the outside. It’s what I know. It’s who I am.
Is that something that can be changed through will alone?
DYLAN DROPS ME off at home, but doesn’t come inside. She offers to, sure. She’s been looking at me funny ever since she found me waiting at her car alone, but I just told her I’d walked off to think. Which is the truth. Besides, she had plans to go over to Silas’s house, and I didn’t want to ruin that. I flip on the lamp beside the couch, leaving the overhead light off, and take a seat in my dim living room.
My roommate has been seeing Silas only since the start of the semester, and I can already acutely feel her absence. When she stays at his house, and I’m left alone in our two-bedroom apartment, I should be happy. The place is by no means big, and I should relish the extra space, the alone time.
Instead, the loneliness creeps into the shadowed corners, and I find myself turning on every light in the place just so that I don’t feel so alone.
This could be my future.
It’s not as if I can keep a roommate forever. When I’m thirty-five, I’ll be hard-pressed to find a friend to live with me just so I don’t have to come home to an empty house. But I suppose I’ll spend most of my time in a lab then anyway. I’m not afraid to be married to my job, or at least I didn’t used to be.
But this feeling is just a phase. It has to be. I will love the challenge of working in biomedical engineering. I’ll be on the cutting edge of medicine and technology. My time and focus could change innumerable lives. That will make up for any loneliness I might feel in the few short hours a day I’ll spend in my empty apartment. Better than getting myself into a relationship that will only be half real. No, I don’t want or need to have another person mucking up my life. There is too much I want to do, too much I want to accomplish. And though my relationship experience is limited to a few simple high school dates, I know enough to see that relationships take work. You can’t just consider your own needs anymore, and that weighs people down.
No. I’m happy as I am. Especially when it’s the only way I can be.
Despite those determined thoughts, I find myself pulling out the spiral where I’d jotted down my list a few days ago. I’d added a handful of things that had seemed obvious at the time.
NORMAL COLLEGE THINGS
1. Hook up with a jock.
2. Make New friends.
3. Go to a party (and actually stay more than half an hour).
4. Do something Wild.
5. Lose my virginity.
They’re things I associate with college, even though they’re out of my own personal wheelhouse. And they’re all far enough out of my comfort zone to function as the kind of catalyst I’m seeking in my little experiment.
I reconsider the list for a moment, feeling simultaneously stupid, naive, terrified, and thrilled. It might be silly, but I love this kind of thing. I can’t magically make myself a different person. I can’t force myself to be better with emotions or at talking to people. I can’t snap my fingers and become normal, but I can observe normal people and follow their behaviors. I can check items off a list. Figures that the only way social life would become interesting to me is by making it an experiment.
And even though I’m not expecting any major life changes like Dylan experienced, who knows, maybe with a little practice, things will start to come more easily to me. It wouldn’t hurt for me to be a little more comfortable outside of a classroom. It’s kind of like the age-old debate between nature and nurture. Just because I’m not predisposed to be like everyone else doesn’t mean I can’t become that way as a result of my environment.
And then in the future, when my family or my friends or anyone tries to urge me to be different, to focus less on my career, to be normal—I’ll know with certainty what that kind of life feels like, and I’ll know it’s not for me. And I can be done questioning myself once and for all.
With that thought in mind, I jot down a few more tasks for my list. Then I pull over my laptop from where it sits on the coffee table and open it up. With my pulse beating at a frenzied staccato, I type into Google:
College Bucket List.
Then I dive into my research, pen at the ready to add to my list.
Chapter 5
Nell’s To-Do List
• Normal College Thing #3: Go to a party (and actually stay more than half an hour).
Just shy of a week later, I tug at my horrendously short skirt for the seventeenth time (maybe eighteenth . . . I can’t be trusted to count when I’m this nervous).
“I don’t see why I can’t wear jeans and a regular shirt,” I grumble. Clothes have never really been my forte. Give me jeans and a plain V-neck tee any day.
Dylan doesn’t look away from the bathroom mirror, where she’s brushing another coat of mascara onto her already too-pretty eyes.
“We’re going to a Halloween party. Trust me, you’ll feel more awkward if you’re not dressed up. When we get there, you’ll see. This is no big deal.”
I don’t look down at the white button-up shirt that’s gaping open over my boobs. I’ve looked at the awful naughty-schoolgirl costume enough times to imprint the thing on my memory.
“If this costume weren’t so . . . so . . .”
“Sexy?” she prompts.
“Atrocious.”
“Well, that’s what you get for buying a costume the day before Halloween. Everything is picked over by then. You didn’t want to go as Jasmine and have your stomach showing, so this is what you got. Besides, it kind of fits you.”
I gesture to the button over my chest that’s threatening to pop with any sudden movement. “It does not kind of fit me.”
“I mean, the schoolgirl vibe. It’s like the amplified version of you. That’s perfect for Halloween.”
“There is absolutely no universe where the amplified version of me would not be wearing yoga pants and glasses.”
“Fine. It’s the bold and wild version of you. Nothing wrong with trying bold and wild for a change.”
I groan and throw myself down on the toilet seat beside her. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think I should go to this party after all. All those people, and costumes, and decorations. I think Halloween is way too overwhelming for my first foray into the college party scene.”
Dylan tosses her mascara into her makeup bag and faces me, her look now complete. She manages to appear both classy and sexy in a homemade Statue of Liberty costume. Only Dylan could make Lady Liberty look hot.
“Just take a deep breath, Nell. This isn’t nearly as scary as you’re making it out to be in your head. I promise.”
“Maybe not for you. But the idea of being in some frat house with a bunch of people I don’t know—”
She cuts me off. “We’re not going to one of the frat parties. Everyone has been avoiding that scene since . . . well, it doesn’t matter. The group decided it would be better to have something smaller, more manageable. It’s at Silas’s house. And it’s only people they know and trust. You’ll be fine. I know it.”
Apparently “people they know and trust” translates into about thirty people on the lawn, fifteen on the porch, and more people than I can count on the inside. Dylan’s hand is wrapped tight around my elbow as we step through the entryway to Silas’s house. She’s on her tiptoes, searching for him, and all I can think about is making a break for it and getting out of there as soon as possible.
I’m so concentrated on keeping my short skirt down and the too-tight white shirt buttoned up that I don’t even realize she’s found her boyfriend until she lets go of my arm. At the loss of
her touch, I look up, panicked. Silas is dressed as a fireman, and he drops his helmet to circle his arms around Dylan. His fist clutches at the material on the back of her dress, just above her bottom, and I immediately look away, only to lock eyes with the one person I want to see even less than a very public display of affection.
Mateo Torres.
He has a beer lifted halfway to his mouth, but his jaw is slack, and he’s staring at me. No, “stare” does not quite do justice to the look he’s giving me. His eyes raze me, and when I lift my hand to touch my neck, subconsciously covering my all-too-visible cleavage, I’m surprised my skin doesn’t flake away into ashes from the fire in his gaze.
Adrenaline surges through me, and for a moment it feels like a fight-or-flight impulse, and I wonder why my brain still reads his presence as dangerous. But then I stop and think. It’s not quite the same sensation. Fight or flight generally makes me either panic or freeze up. It’s about fear. This is different. When seconds pass and he still hasn’t taken his eyes off of me, I recognize the extra sensation riding on the adrenaline’s heels.
Power.
He makes me feel powerful.
I drop my eyes, overwhelmed by the rush of pleasure I feel at that idea, and am faced instead with his costume, which I hadn’t noticed before. Or more correctly, his near lack of a costume. His chest is bare, and I can’t help but measure him with my eyes. His chest is broad, hewn in muscles that couldn’t be more defined if an artist sculpted them. His skin is a warm bronze, and it looks so smooth to the touch. Everywhere. Except for the small line of dark hair disappearing beneath a strange, leatherlike cloth.
God. A loincloth. He’s wearing nothing but a loincloth.
Oh, mercy.
Then he’s moving toward me, and I don’t know where to look. His dangerous gaze. His naked chest. That cloth that hides only . . . oh, mercy.
“Girl genius,” he says, and I can hear the smirk in his voice without even looking away from the suddenly interesting spot on the floor. Then he shifts, and something changes in his voice when he says, “Nell.”
A part of me likes hearing him say my name entirely too much. And that part . . . is a fool.
“Still ignoring my request that you stay away?” I ask stiffly.
“If you wanted me to stay away, you definitely shouldn’t have worn that.”
A furious blush steals across my cheeks and down my neck. “Dylan insisted I wear a costume, and this was all that was left at the store.”
“Thank God for Dylan, then. And for procrastination. Can you do me a favor and say, ‘Hit me, baby, one more time?’ Pretty please?”
Rather than answering, I actually hit him. But when my palm makes contact with the hard muscle of his shoulder, I wish I hadn’t. Because now that I know what his bare skin feels like, I’m not sure I’ll be able to forget the sensation. My brain is already cataloging the feel, comparing it to all the other people I’ve touched, and coming up empty for comparison. Is it normal for him to feel so warm?
It’s the alcohol, I decide. It must be. I read something once about it dilating blood vessels and bringing warmer blood closer to the surface of the skin.
Yes, that’s absolutely it.
Dylan comes back to me then, and I’m so grateful I latch on to her arm like she’s my port in a storm. And frankly, “storm” seems too tame a word for the overwhelming atmosphere of this place and the guy standing across from me.
Silas joins her, and then I notice a few more familiar faces in the group. Stella, dressed in a stunning Greek goddess costume. Ryan stands just behind her shoulder in a suit with a martini glass in his hand. I’m guessing he’s the dude from that “shaken, not stirred” movie that I can’t seem to remember the name of.
“Here’s my question, Teo,” Stella says, stepping up beside Torres to close off our little circle. “Your normal tendency at parties is to lose articles of clothing as the night wears on. Dare I hope that you’re working backward tonight and will put clothes on as you drink?”
“Maybe tonight I’ll focus on helping other people lose their clothes, for a change. We can call it Strip Halloween. It will be a huge hit. I promise. Take this little Grecian sheet dress of yours. One good pull, and you could start the game.”
Ryan shoulders his way into the circle then, and Stella stiffens beside him. It’s Torres who says something: “For God’s sake, man. I was joking. Loosen up. This is a party.”
Those words don’t seem to assure his friend. “I know.”
Stella rolls her eyes and walks away, over toward the kitchen counter. “And on that note, I’m getting a drink. Anyone else need one?”
Several of the college bucket lists I consulted online had “do a keg stand” listed among the tasks. Along with “play beer pong” and other alcohol-related festivities. After a little more Internet research, I learned what exactly a keg stand and beer pong were. And considering the only alcohol I’ve ever had was the wine during Communion at church, I figure I need to start small. Which is why “drink alcohol” is number six on my list.
“I do,” I say, leaving the group to follow her. Standing at the counter, I survey all the options, and even without looking in the ice chests by my feet, I’m overwhelmed. Stella opens one of the chests and grabs a bottle of beer. I decide my safest bet is to copy her, so I grab one, too.
After she opens hers, she reaches out a hand for mine and opens it for me using a complicated-looking little gadget that reminds me of an oversize Swiss Army knife.
“Thanks.” How horrifying would it have been for a girl who prides herself on her intelligence above all else to have been stumped over how to open a bottle of beer?
“No problem. I have a feeling I’m going to need a lot of these tonight.”
I want to ask her about Ryan, about the obvious tension, not just between them, but among the whole group where Stella is concerned. But I remember Dylan’s warning to be understanding with her. And I know myself well enough to know that sometimes I inadvertently put my foot in my mouth, and whatever is going on, I don’t want to cause trouble by prying where I shouldn’t. So, I follow her lead and take a big gulp of the beer in my hand.
Then I proceed to gag so violently that I have to turn around and spit the vile liquid out into the sink behind us. My reaction draws the attention of several people in the room, including Torres, who starts toward me.
I panic and turn away from him, only to meet Stella’s amused smile.
“First time drinking beer?” she asks.
I nod. “It’s awful. Why would anyone drink it?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Torres says as he steps up beside me. “You get used to it.”
“Why would I want to get used to it? That would be akin to punching myself just to get used to pain.”
He shrugs. “That might make sense for fight club or something like that.”
Stella smacks his arm with the back of her hand. “Dude. First rule.”
He laughs, and they both drink their beer, and I have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about. This. This is why I don’t do parties. Reflexively, I take another sip of my drink, and immediately regret it. Groaning, I force myself to swallow.
Proud of myself, I say, “Hey, I didn’t gag that time.”
It’s Stella who spits her drink out into the sink this time. She gasps, “Oh my God.”
“What? What did I say?”
I look at Torres, and that same blazing look is back in his eyes, and I swear I can feel my blood heating. Surely one sip of beer isn’t enough to heat my skin like his was heated earlier . . . is it? It shouldn’t be possible to actually feel the warm blood rising to the surface, should it? Curious, I lift the long-neck bottle back to my lips for another drink. I make a face, but force myself to take a few swallows. As soon as I pull the bottle away from my lips, Torres snatches the beer right out of my hand.
“Let’s get you something else to drink. Before you kill me.”
“Kill you? How on ear
th would I kill you?”
“One swallow at a time.”
“Oh God, Torres.” Stella groans, pushing at his shoulder. “You’re terrible.”
“What? It’s the truth!”
He moves past me to the counter, where he grabs a cup and a few bottles. Stella’s eyes meet mine, and she points at Torres’s broad back. “Watch out for that one.”
But despite her warning, she walks away, leaving me alone with him. I stare after her as she heads out of the kitchen. Ryan makes a move to follow her, but she glares, and moves to stand with Brookes by the front door. My eyes search for Dylan and Silas, but they’re no longer in the kitchen.
I gulp, suddenly wishing I had that beer back just so I’d have something to do with my hands. The chaotic atmosphere of the party is even more stressful than Torres’s presence, so I turn and settle for watching him as he mixes. He starts with lemonade, and then adds liquor from a glass bottle that I don’t recognize. He tips in some cranberry juice and two more kinds of liquor.
“What is that?” I ask.
“A Bad Decision.”
“Then why are you making it for me?”
He shoots me a lopsided smile, and I’m forced to acknowledge that maybe the warmth creeping up my neck has far less to do with alcohol than I wish it did. “No, sweetheart. It’s called a Bad Decision. The drink. It’s my own special invention.”
He hands me the cup and I stare at it warily. He moves closer to me, nudging the cup closer to my mouth with his finger.
“Why should I trust you?”
He seems to enjoy my suspicion.
“Always gotta fight me. Just try it. It’s sweet. I guarantee you’ll like it much better than the beer.”
I take a deep breath, think of my list, and then lift the cup to my mouth. The flavor curls over my tongue, tangy and sweet. “I can’t even taste the alcohol,” I say.
He smiles. “That’s why it’s called Bad Decision. Because too many of those will sneak up on you.”