“Hey, Viola!” Ashley calls out as soon as I walk through the door.
“Hey! You’re back early.” I set my stuff down on the table and rummage through it.
“Class got dismissed as soon as we finished the quiz,” she says between bites of chewing her lunch.
“What a waste of a class.” I love school. Yes, I’m one of those students who absolutely loves studying, doing homework, and participating in class lectures. I even devote an entire weekend to shop for school supplies and then organize it all by color and subject.
I’m smart, so sue me.
Actually, don’t. I can’t afford a lawyer.
“Doesn’t bother me!” She stands up from the couch and stalks over. “Jesus, Viola. What is all this shit?”
I furrow my brows at her. “This shit is called textbooks, notebooks, and reading material. You might’ve heard of it?” I tease.
“I swear to God, Viola. You are way too focused on school. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a book in your hands.”
“Plenty of times, actually. But you see this building we live in?” I dramatically twirl a finger around in the air. “And all the larger buildings that surround us? That’s called a campus…and it’s where people come to learn.”
“It’s also where people come to party and get laid, but I never see you do any of those things,” she says with a grin.
I scoff. “I get laid plenty of times.” No, I don’t.
She snorts, laughs, and nearly chokes at my words. “That’s the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
I sigh. “I’m leaving now. BYE.” I pile my stuff back in my bag and head back out toward the door.
“Love you!” she calls out, but I just flip her my middle finger over my shoulder and slam the door behind me.
I’m really not the buzzkill she’s portraying me as, but it’s safe to say I’m focused on school. More importantly, I’m focused on my future. I’m two hours away from home, and to stay away from that little town after graduation, I’ll have to continue my education or find a job that pays well. I am trying to keep my options open because there really isn’t a home for me to go back to. After our parents’ nasty divorce, the house I grew up in was put on the market and sold. Mom moved on and fell in love with a nice guy named Larry. They’d let me move in without a doubt, but I could never do that. It would just be too weird to live with a man who’s virtually a stranger to me. Dad is still happily married to his job at the law firm, which isn’t surprising. Most days, it feels as if Drew and I only have each other.
Majoring in international business makes me happy. It keeps my mind busy, and I’ve always been fascinated by how other cultures conduct business. I geek out over micro and macroeconomics and just the mention of foreign trade policies gets me hot and bothered.
Earlier in the semester, Dr. Johnson pulled me aside after class and asked if I’d consider an apprenticeship after graduation. I had already started applying for graduate schools, but I wasn’t against the suggestion. If she thought it would benefit my future, I’d definitely consider it.
She handed me a stack of papers with a smile and gave me several handwritten recommendations for each corporation. After looking them over, I decided to apply for a few of them. I’ve been on edge waiting for their replies, but so far nothing yet. After doing further research into these corporations and weighing the benefits of what these experiences could mean for a future career, I’ve become obsessed with planning out every possible path I could take. Those offers will single-handedly decide my future after graduation.
It’s something I’ve kept from Drew, which I feel bad about, but I know if I tell him, he’ll either try to talk me out of moving away, or he’ll ask me on a daily basis if I’ve heard anything yet. The pressure and disappointment are something I want to avoid, so until I know for sure, I’m not telling him anything. As far as he knows, I’ve only applied to graduate schools within the state.
However, I know I’m going to tell him eventually. I’m just waiting until I have to. Once our parents started fighting regularly and their focus shifted from being a family to sabotaging one another, Drew took care of me. Even when he was annoyed with my books and my distaste for sports, he still kept an eye on me. I was a sophomore in high school and he was in his last year of high school when our parents’ fighting really got bad. I could no longer remember a time when we all sat down to eat a meal together or even to attend one of Drew’s basketball games. Somewhere between middle and high school, something shifted, and I really never knew what or why, but it pushed Drew and me together. If anything good came out of my parents' divorce, it was that.
After my final class, I head back to my room, pile my clothes in a basket, and drive over to Drew’s house. Since he and Travis rent a house just ten minutes from campus, I visit after Drew’s shifts and do my laundry every Wednesday night. But since Drew works patrol all day, I stop in after he’s home from work so we can hang out while I wait for my clothes to wash.
“Hey, Vi,” he greets as soon as I walk in. His dark locks are a wild mess as usual, his eyes glued to the TV as his fingers furiously move across the game controller. You wouldn’t know by looking at his muscular frame that he’s a total video game junkie. If he’s not in uniform or killing zombies through the screen, he’s working out with the guys in his unit.
“Hey. Washer free?”
“I think Travis just put his in a few minutes ago.”
I curse under my breath. “He knows I come over on Wednesday nights to do laundry. Why is this a hard concept to understand?”
He doesn’t answer, but we both know why.
Because Travis is a fucking arrogant douche who thinks he runs the world.
“Fine, whatever. I’ll wait then.” I drop my basket on the floor with a hard smack and stalk toward Drew. I plop on the couch next to him and ask if I can play too.
“You don’t know how to play,” he retorts.
“Well, then teach me. It can’t be that hard.”
He chuckles. “All right. If you think you can play with the big boys.”
“Stop being sexist and give me a damn controller.”
We battle it out for a half hour before Travis struts in the living room in a pair of low-riding jeans. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from commenting, but it’s a hard task. I hate it when he walks around shirtless, showing off the outlines of his taut muscles and the V that runs below his waistline.
As if he could be any more of a walking, talking cliché, he has a sleeve of tattoos on one arm and half a sleeve on the other. I catch myself admiring it more than I should, so I quickly look away before he notices.
“What’s up, V?”
“Why don’t you tell me, asshole? Your clothes almost done?”
“Not washing clothes,” he says flatly, but I see the corner of his lips turn up slightly.
“Then what are you washing? You know I do my laundry here on Wednesdays.”
“My sheets.” He grins, and I have to swallow back a gagging noise. “I have a guest coming over soon.”
“Well, if you’d slow down the parade of visitors, we wouldn’t have this conflict.”