I groan. “I’m not doing this with you right now. You’re pissed at your mom; I’ve got to keep my shit straight for this interview. I’m going to ignore that you said that.”
“Don’t ignore it. Fucking talk if you have something to say.” Her voice is piercing as it reaches that irritating pitch that’s somewhere between a cat screeching and scratching on a chalkboard. I can feel my face getting hot. “You just know I’m right, that’s all.”
“No, you need to stop acting like a damn child.” I explode. “You don't take any responsibility for yourself. Hell, you bent your wheel hitting a curb and decide it's a great fucking idea to drive down the street. You could have caused an accident.” I’m not looking at her, noticing that cars are starting to slow to a stop a couple hundred feet ahead of us. I ease my foot onto the brake, slowing our pace and cursing. I'm still one mile away from Felicia's exit.
“No, you’re boring. You never want to do anything. Oh wait, I take that back. You’d go if your precious Xia asked you. God knows you’d do anything for her.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. If it’s not about school, football, or Xia, I can pretty much count on your absence.”
“You’re being dramatic. We hang out all the time. You slept at my apartment the entire weekend.”
“Yeah, and the entire time it seemed like you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
“Well, you know, it's not the worst idea, right about now.”
She seethes as we continue to argue about the stupid bullshit that she's complained about for the last year. Maybe she's right. Maybe I am a bore. But I just don’t care. She’s not the one I want and I need to stop wasting her time, and mine.
The traffic jam is painful and the entire time we spit harsh words back and forth at each other. The type that neither of us are going to be able to take back tomorrow. When I pull in front of her place, we’re still going at it.
“You’re just a waste of time, Jordan. I can’t take this anymore.”
“Great! All the more reason we should break up. I was going to wait to do this better, but fuck that. I’m done being miserable. Go find someone else to torture.”
“No, you go find someone else to ignore. I should have chosen Roman over you anyway,” she screams right before snatching her things out of the car. She slams the door and runs up to her apartment. She didn’t give me the chance to respond and she sure as hell wouldn’t have liked what I had to say to that. Roman has hated her since day one and only tolerated her shit because I put up with it.
I really was going to do this breakup a lot more nicely, on the off chance it made her upset, but fuck her. I knew she'd be pissed to lose her status symbol because even though I’m hanging my cleats up, I’m sitting down as one of CHU’s most record breaking tight ends in the history of the school. My college football career will be ending, but I’m pretty damn proud of the damage I've done. Fuck. At least the break up is over. I watch as she enters her apartment then I look down at my clock. I have just five minutes to make it to the professor's office and I'm going to be late. Fuck me. I pull from the parking space and speed to the school.
3
XIA
College life is ass. Well, so far, it has been for me. My friends get to stay out late, drink to their hearts’ content, and party like it's 19-fucking-99. Whereas for me, the daughter of the Dean of Admissions of the Science Department at my school, it’s like living under a microscope. It feels like every adult on campus has a direct line to my father. Every missed assignment, every tardy, everything goes directly to him. Do you think he gives me a break? Hey, my daughter is living her life as a normal college student. Hell no, he comes down on me harder than any of his other students. It’s like I have to live up to his name, and right about now, he's the last thing I want to think about.
After Jordan and I left the coffee shop Wednesday morning, I asked him to drop me off at my dorm. He was worried, but after I promised to call him later he finally left. And here I’ve stayed for the last two days. I skipped my classes, but it’s fine, we are just doing a bunch of review work for finals next week. It’s just me, Netflix, and the half bottle of vodka my roommate, Shana, left me in our minifridge before she went to sleep over at her boyfriend’s. She was going to stay, sensing something was wrong, but after some coaxing, I convinced her to leave too. She had been planning on spending the weekend with Kyle and I just needed to be alone. I feel like my heart is broken and I don't want to talk about it. My father called last night, probably to tell me he “made it home,” but I didn’t answer. I knew if I picked up that phone and listened to him outright lie to me again, I’d lose my shit. I would have driven home and confronted him in the worst way possible, in a way that would hurt my mother. She is the only reason I’m trying so damn hard to get my head wrapped around this before I say something. I don’t want to see her hurt. But I don’t think there’s any way I can save her from this.
The sound of banging makes me sit up in my bed, pulling my blanket with me. I look immediately to the wall across the room, knowing exactly where the banging came from, but a warmth pressing against my leg stops me before I stand. Lying next to me is Craig, a guy from my English class… or more importantly, the last guy I should be hooking up with. He was a “drunk at a party, pissed after watching Jordan make out with his girlfriend, now I need to distract myself” hookup. Ever since that night, he’s texted me almost every day. Asking me out on dates, showing up at my dorm… it’s been a lot. He wanted more than I could give him and it took me a long time to get him to stop calling. And, of course, I’d ruined all that progress and called him to come over last night. Great.
It takes a second for the memories to return. We didn’t have sex, I know we didn’t. But I’m in my underwear, he’s in his boxers, and we were going to. That was the reason I drunk dialed him in the first place. I wanted to find a way to escape the pain for just a little while. Craig came right over, we fooled around, but I backed out of the actual sex portion when the time came. Good. I’ve almost forgotten what woke me until I hear the banging again.
Damn it. I really don’t need this right now.
I slide off the bed, keeping the blanket with me, causing it to slide off Craig and expose his bare chest. I nearly trip as I scurry across the room, knocking twice on the wall to thank Carrie. I turn toward Craig, all set to dive on the bed and wake him. Then I stop.
Carrie lives in the dorm right next to mine. Her room faces the east side of the building where all the windows have a perfect view of the parking lot and entryway. Carrie spends a lot of time in the window seat, doing homework, talking on the phone, reading books. She knows my father likes to pop in on me, because that’s how he is, and anytime she sees him, she runs to the wall and knocks twice to alert me. Thank God for her. Usually, I’d be clearing out evidence of anything that would cause trouble… like the half-naked guy in my bed or the empty bottle of alcohol on my nightstand. But you know, right now I don’t give a shit what he thinks.