Mary is my best friend who lived next door as we grew up. She was there before my mom passed away, but afterwards, we drifted apart when the abuse started, and I didn’t really see her again until college started. She didn’t know about it, no one did until freshman year, when I tasted a small amount of freedom and told her everything. I closed everyone off to crawl into a dark hole that I’m still trying to fight my way through to find the light. There has to be a happy ending for everything, I just haven’t found mine yet.
Those are some depressing thoughts, so I try to focus on the professor’s boring voice, as she drones on and on about nonsense that’s on the syllabus. I start doodling on the open notepad on my desk, and thoughts from earlier overcome me. I daydream about the stupid, grumpy jock. I wonder what crawled up his ass and laid tiny angry eggs? It’s always the insanely hot men who turn into ass hats because they know that their gorgeous good looks can turn women into bumbling dumb hoes. Not this one, no way. I’m not affected at all by him or wondering if I will see him again. I don’t have an exciting shiver travel down my spine at the thought of touching his sharp jawline and feeling the tingles of his five o clock beard scraping my fingers. My fingers flex as I imagine the feeling, and I have to mentally slap myself as I tuck my hands under my butt so they stop having a mind of their own. Oh, sweet mother of God, I don’t want to think about that brooding, grumpy, hot ass that I could bounce quarters off—wait, not his muscular ass. He’s an asshole jock.
There’s already enough on my plate. I have to keep my grades up because if I fail, I’ll be crawling back to daddy dearest when they take my scholarship away… I’d rather choke to death on a bag of dicks. I was lucky enough to talk him into letting me go to college when I graduated high school early, I just have to live in his house while getting free schooling. I can’t get a job because Father has threatened a million times to take away the small inheritance I do have if I even think of getting a minimum wage job. He always has something up his sleeve. The only thing he’s pushing right now is for me to finish college, but I’m scared where that will leave me once I do. He’s a powerful man who knows people and controls my every move. I’m freaking twenty-one years old, and yet he still has a say in my life. Where would I go? How would I hire a lawyer to get my money when he controls it all? I just want to leave this state for good, but until then, I’m still stuck at my father’s until graduation day. If he even lets me go.
A prickling sensation of someone staring at me runs along the back of my neck and pulls me out of my musing thoughts. Turning my head slightly to the right, I try to shake off the heebie jeebies of Jeff Gold staring at me with unblinking eyes. My creep alert is ringing, urging me to break eye contact before he gets any ideas. Jeff has been trying to get into my pants since sophomore year, and he has a hard time with the word fuck off. I’ve managed to dodge him pretty well, and he left me alone most of my junior year because whatever sports team he’s on kept him pretty busy. Plus, he was seeing some red-haired chick who was cheating on her boyfriend with him, or so the rumor went. It looks like I’m back on his radar, lucky me. I turn my attention back to the front to watch Miss Barnet try really hard to look threatening by pacing around with her ruler slapping her hand. Trying to ignore the gaze I feel drilling a hole into the back of my head, I will the clock to go faster.
“You are dismissed for the day. I want a one-thousand-word essay turned in by Monday at exactly at eight AM sharp,” she announces like a drill sergeant and waves her hand, telling us to get out of her class.
Groans fill up the classroom as I gather my books and shoot out of my chair like my butt is on fire, rushing towards the exit with a silent prayer. A quick glance over my shoulder, and I can see him pushing other students out of the way, heading in my direction with a grim expression plastered on his ugly mug.
Don’t follow me, don’t follow me.
I chant that until I’m outside with fresh, fat snowflakes falling down and a cold that sets in my bones as I lift my face to the sky with a relieved sigh. That was a close call. I’ll have to dodge that creep for the rest of the semester. I take off in the direction of Mary’s dorm, hoping she doesn’t have a sock on the door. I don’t want to go back to my father’s townhouse.
Sprawled out on Mary’s bed with my arms spread wide and my feet dangling over the edge of the bed, I give a small thanks that she changed her sheets. This girl has seen more dicks than a men's locker room. She always talks about her, um… love interests like she is currently. As she does her makeup,
