Page 49 of Necessary Roughness

Sloane

I fled from the house, and of course that’s when Logan and Roman were arriving. Both of them stopped, looked at the box, then glanced up at me.

“Where are you going?” Logan asked.

“Need help?” Roman added.

“Talk to Knox,” I said, circling around them like a running back avoiding two defenders. I tossed the box into the bed of the truck, then climbed into the passenger seat. To my relief, Logan and Roman rushed inside to see what had caused all of this.

It meant they didn’t see me cry.

Bryson, still sitting in the driver’s seat, reached over and caressed my back. “Shh. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t. None of this was okay.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “Once everything is moved back into your place, you can come over to our apartment. All you have to do is sign our guest spreadsheet.”

I could barely get words out through my sobs, so I just nodded.

He started the engine, but then Logan came running out and pounded on the window with his palm. “Want me to drive away?” Bryson asked. “Or hear him out?”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, then rolled down the window.

“This is for you!” Logan said, shoving a stapled stack of papers through the window. “Your Creative Writing paper. It’s good, but I have some notes. It’s all written down at the end.”

“I… thank you,” I said. This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. “Did Knox… did he tell you…”

Logan reached through the window and squeezed my hand. “He told me you’re a distraction and that you need to leave?”

His voice rose up at the end, asking me if it was true. I slowly nodded, then asked the question that really scared me: “What do you think?”

Logan hesitated, and it broke my heart.

“I don’t know…” He took a step back from the truck and looked around as if he could find the words floating in the air nearby. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we need to bear down and focus, especially with the conference championship next week. Once that’s over…”

He trailed off, leaving that word hanging in the air. Over . It felt too real.

“Roman?” I asked.

Logan hesitated again. Another heartbreak.

“He doesn’t know how he feels,” Logan said slowly. “We’ve had a shitty day, capping off a shitty week.”

I patted Bryson’s arm, and he put the truck into gear and drove away. I didn’t know if Logan watched me go, because I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until we arrived at my apartment.

The key still worked on the door, which kind of surprised me. Everything was exactly as I had left it, although the apartment held the scent of a cheap candle. Jayden was tidying up in my room, while Morgan stood nearby with her arms crossed in obvious disapproval.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” I snapped at her.

The shocked expression on her face was satisfying, and she quickly went into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Jayden immediately wrapped me in a tight hug. “Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

The tears began flowing all over again as he held me. “You guys were right. I bit off more than I could chew.”

“As much as I like hearing that I’m right,” Jayden said, “it doesn’t matter right now. Let’s get you unpacked, then we can talk all about it.”

“I can’t believe Morgan let you in,” I said.

“We had to bribe her,” Bryson muttered.

“Really? With what?”

“With a gift card to Starbucks,” Jayden said. “That girl is basic .”

I let out a small laugh. “I think I broke up with my boyfriends.”

“I know, sweetie. We’ve all been there.”

“But you haven’t ,” I insisted. “This is three times as bad as any regular breakup.”

Both of them gave a start.

“Wait a minute,” Bryson said. “ Three times as bad?”

“Did their roommate finally decide he wanted a slice of Sloane Pie?” Jayden asked. “Forget unpacking. You need to tell us all about this right freaking now .”

Rather than go back to their place, we stayed there and I caught them up to speed on how Roman had entered the picture. Bryson ran out to pick up beer and Thai food, and we sat on the couch and watched a random romantic comedy on Netflix.

“This is so much better than Die Hard ,” Jayden said. “I don’t know why the straights love that movie so much.”

I drank until the pain went away, then allowed the twins to tuck me into bed. The last thing I remembered was Jayden making a joke about how I was like a drunk toddler. When I woke up the next morning, I found Jayden asleep on the couch.

That’s how you knew who your friends were. They took care of you without you needing to ask. They certainly didn’t blame you for their own failures.

Granted, I was the one who had decided to move out of the house. But I had expected the guys to protest more, to insist I stay. I certainly hadn’t expected Knox to get so angry about it, especially with regards to his parents.

I didn’t feel great the next day, but I felt good enough to study.

I cruised through my Physics practice exams thanks to all of Roman’s help.

I actually understood the material now, rather than just memorizing answers without knowing why they were correct.

Then I read Logan’s notes on my Creative Writing paper.

Half his notes were helpful, and the other half were filthy jokes.

He also drew at least a dozen dicks in the margins in thick red ink.

It made me laugh, but then I started crying again. It reminded me of what I had lost.

None of them had texted me since yesterday. Their silence was deafening.

I’d finished all of my Art History assignments, and was confident that I would get an A. The final exam was mostly a formality. That made things feel even more complete with Knox, like there was nothing left to connect us.

I was actually looking forward to Monday morning.

It was the last week before finals, and I desperately needed to lose myself in my studies.

That was the real reason I was here. Heck, it was the reason I’d agreed to the insane sex-deal with Knox and Logan in the first place: to help me focus on my classes.

That felt like such a long time ago. So much had changed in four short months.

And yet here I was, back where I started. Ignoring Morgan’s annoyed stare as I left my apartment and walked to campus.

It was almost as if my affair with the football players had never even happened.

Yet as I walked to class, I realized that wasn’t true.

I passed a cluster of sorority girls who saw me and began whispering in hushed tones.

Two guys sitting on a bench stopped their conversation to glare at me.

Less than a minute later, a circle of freshmen playing hacky sack all stopped to stare at me.

I heard the phrase, “their girlfriend,” and, “the one from the party,” and one of them tactlessly pointed at me.

I couldn’t forget about my affair with the guys because everyone on campus knew about it .

It was a relief to reach class and take my seat. But as I took out my notebook and pen, I noticed the girl sitting next to me staring like I was an animal at the zoo.

“Is it true?” she whispered when I finally glanced over at her. “You’re sleeping with the entire football team?”

“Fuck off,” I hissed at her.

The professor began the lecture, a review of the semester’s material and which parts would be excluded from the final exam next week.

Five minutes into the lecture, a male student to my left reached over and tapped my arm.

He was trying to hand me a folded up piece of paper.

I shouldn’t have taken it, but he had what seemed like a sympathetic smile.

I quietly opened it in my lap so the professor wouldn’t see.

YOU RUINED OUR PERFECT SEASON. FUCK YOU.

Growling to myself, I tossed the paper back at the kid, who had to cover his mouth from laughing so hard.

“Ms. Collins!” the professor snapped. “You’re free to distract whoever you want outside of my classroom, but during my lecture I expect your full attention.”

I mumbled an apology. Was her comment about being a distraction a reference to Knox, Logan, and Roman? Realizing that both the students and the faculty hated me made me feel even more alone than before.

And the worst part about it all? I still had the spring semester to look forward to, and then another full year. I couldn’t help but wonder how long people’s memory would last.

In the meantime, I felt like the lowest person on campus.