Page 27

TWENTY-SIX

Knock, Knock . There it is again, that incessant knock on the door making my eyes sting when I come back from a deep sleep.

I breathe deep and then a floral scent hits my nose recognizing it from last night but it doesn’t belong to me.

Knock, Knock. Knock . Something warm rubs me on my side and then I remember. I’m not in my motel room but in Rose’s dorm room.

Shit.

I peel my eyes open to find Rose snuggled up to my side sleeping peacefully. She’s in a deep sleep like I was because she didn’t hear the knocking until…

Knock, Knock. “Rose,” a guy’s voice filters through the door. “I know you’re in there because your car is outside.” There is an audible smack that sounds like a hand. “Rose.”

Who the fuck is this asshole? I remove myself gently making sure not to wake Rose to get this asshole to fuck off.

“Is someone in there?” he continues.

I open the door forcefully that the asshole in question almost falls face forward when I step back.

“Shit,” he mumbles.

His light brown hair sticking up at all angles from him probably tugging on it. He’s tall and then I narrow my gaze recognition hitting me in full force.

This asshole was sitting next to Kevin the other night at the burger joint.

He straightens, glancing at Rose sleeping and then at me. “Is there anyone you’re not fucking?”

Ah, this must be the boyfriend. The high school sweetheart

I push him back with the palm of my hand out into the hallway. “What’s it to you if I was,” I snip, looking at my black-painted nails.

He crosses his arms scrutinizing me with his gaze like I’m shit beneath his shoe. “Maybe because she’s, my girlfriend.”

“She never mentioned you last night,” I lie. Let him think whatever he wants.

He may look like the cute boy next door type but I know who he hangs out with. This guy screams asshole from every hole in his body.

This is the type of guy who wants his cake too. I don’t need to know him to figure that out. I can see it in his face.

“You go here?”

I adopt a clown like smile. “Would it make a difference if I did or didn’t?” I lick my top lip slowly like I just finished sucking.

His eyes widen. He must see it in my eyes because I feel it in running through my veins. The need to experiment just to piss him off. Rose told me she doesn’t want to be with him. Not really and I can tell why. Nick is a selfish prick.

“You can’t be here if you don’t go here?”

“She needed me to come,” I say slowly letting him read between the lines.

Flashes flitter through my mind. Dark hair sliding through my fingers. Soft lips between my legs. I almost come on the spot thinking of how soft they would feel.

He pins me with a hard stare. “What the fuck do you want with Rose?”

“Whatever .The. Fuck. I. Want.”

Someone needs to put this asshole in his place. He acts like he owns her when I know he is too busy hanging out with his stupid friends. He doesn’t care about her because if he did, he would notice sick fucks like that professor that followed her to the bar.

Footsteps echo from the stairs and I know that’s his cue to leave.

His eyes dip to my chest and I forgot that I’m not wearing a bra under the thin tank I’m wearing as he smirks and walks away.

Dick.

I wait for him to leave before I head back inside, pushing the anger away to deal with later. I’m positive I’m not the only one he has looked at that way but I need to stay under the radar. Too many people have seen me around, curious to know where I came from.

“Was someone knocking on the door this morning?” Rose asks eyeing me curiously.

“Oh, I didn’t want to wake you,” I say truthfully smoothing the lie over. “It was no one. They apologized. Wrong room.”

I didn’t want to tell her it was that Nick came to see her for some reason. Something in me told me that she was hung up on him and that needed to change. She needs to see who he really was underneath because I’m positive there are things she doesn’t know.

“So what’s your favorite meal of the day?” she asks taking a sip of her coffee.

She wanted to stop for coffee at a small café on the edge of campus. She gave me a small tour on the way. The university is nice. New with faux architecture features making it seem like it’s a gothic revival. I guess it was smart to build it this way instead of a modern building. It would have stuck out and not had the same charm.

The good news that the café is not as full. I’m sure during the week when classes are in full swing there isn’t a table available.

“Breakfast,” I say quietly, images of Draco’s mouth on my skin from the other night making me shift in my seat. Eating cereal in his house. Waking up in his arms. The scent of his skin.

“Umm…breakfast is good but I’m not a morning person so I kind of like the in-between,” she says snapping me back to the present. My self-esteem taking a nosedive when I think of him breaking me like shards of glass.

“Snacks or brunch is a good one,” I note taking a sip at the gourmet coffee I would never in a million years think I would drink. Looking around at the pretty paintings hanging on the walls with pictures of lattes and pastries, I also never thought I would feel some type of normalcy again. Get the chance to talk to someone who doesn’t think I’m a monster.

As I look at her eyes, and pretty face. I wish I could keep the truth from her forever so she would never look at me with distrust and be my friend.

I clear my throat. “How’s school?”

“Good, I guess. It’s boring sometimes but at least I don’t have to deal with my mom so much,”

“Is it that bad?”

“She isn’t perfect, but…the important part is that I’m in school. My goal is to get a job in the city. How about you? I mean, I know dancing is good for now but isn’t there something you want to do?”

“I’m going to get an apartment and then I’ll see what happened. Baby steps.” It was all I could come up with. It’s lame but I couldn’t tell her that I have a record and have no career aspirations. Once they run my name, I wouldn’t be able to volunteer at a soup kitchen.

“Oh, where at?”

“The apartments off the beltway. You know the one with no sign by the abandoned mall?”

If she thinks I’m crazy she doesn’t show it and I’m grateful.

“Oh, the ones we saw the other day.”

“Yeah, I know it isn’t much but it’s better than the motel. That’s where I’m headed next.”

“I can take you,” she says with excitement.

After we finished our coffee’s, we head to the apartment building. It’s run-down. Nothing to be excited about but it’s better than nothing.

When I reach the management office, I run into one of Rachel’s regulars. And if things couldn’t get any worse, he recognizes me.

“Trix, right,” he says enthusiastically. “I mean it’s okay to call you that? I’m Lance.”

I glance around the chipped would desk in his office and mixed matched chairs with spots on the fabric. The place looks like they haven’t fixed anything in years. It’s like a seventy’s horror film.

“Yeah, I guess.”

He taps on the dirty keys on the computer like he’s an executive at the bank or something. “Looking for an apartment, huh.”

“It’s why I’m here?” I say brightly hating that he’s going to think we’re friends or something.

“Well, I have one on the second floor. Apartment 2B. It’s a one bedroom for fourteen hundred.” My eyes almost pop out of my head at the price. “It’s ready to move in and all I would need is, to run a background and credit check plus one month’s deposit. I know you’re good for it.” He smiles.

Rose looks away breathing deep, clearly annoyed.

I have the money but not the credit and can’t run the chance for him to run a background check on me.

I dig my nails in my skin hating having to turn him down and give him an excuse. I check my phone like I’m running late for something. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

Rose gives me a surprised look and then she does the unthinkable. “We’ll take it. Can I have the form so I can fill it out?”

He hands it to her and she takes a pen out of her bag and starts to fill it out. I don’t ask why but I don’t stop her. She hands the form back and then he sets it all up. He pulls up her information in a new system that checks background and credentials instantly. He doesn’t need to call the Church because he knows I work there.

All that is left to do is log online and pay the deposit and first month’s rent, and just like that we are good to go.

“Here you go,” Lance says with a smile. “You’re all set. Remember the apartment is as is. All that we ask is that you return it in the same condition you received it.”

Which is a step up from being a roach motel. The walls are yellow instead of white. The walls outside hallway are better looking with the graffiti tagged on the walls than this. The kitchen cabinets have seen better days. Light brown with dark trim. The bathtub is aqua in color.

“Jesus. At least you won’t have to do much when you move out. I think moving it out is like renovating the place,” Rose says scrunching her nose when she opens the fridge.

The smell of fish and old food permeate the air. I think the motel not having a fridge wasn’t so bad after all.

I cup my nose with my hand. “That stinks like…really bad.” Then we laugh because there is nothing to do but laugh. The apartment is horrible and the building should be condemned.

“Who lived in this place?” she asks trying to catch her breath.

I shake my head rubbing my show over the cracked linoleum flooring. “Animals.”

“Thank you,” I say softly not knowing why she did it.

She swallows. “For what?”

“You know what, but my question is, why?”

She shuts a cabinet door that doesn’t aligned properly and then another. The only thing between us is the silence and her shutting the cabinets as I wait for her to give me a reason.

“I know,” she finally replies.

I’ve done everything to keep myself busy and not think about the past. Used the excuse to come back here to find answers. Surrounded myself with work. Distracted myself with Draco and believe a story from a fortune teller as a Band-Aid not to feel how shitty my life really is that I can’t even rent my own apartment. Go to school. Get a real job. Be touched by a man with regret in his eyes when he sees me in the morning because of who I am.

“I hope me knowing doesn’t change your mind about you wanting me to be your friend,” she says and for the first time since I was released, a tiny weight lifts from my shoulders.

Needles prick my throat but I swallow them down so I can assure her that there is nothing I want more than for us to be friends.

“I would like that,” I say in a shaky voice and it was at that moment, I knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.