Friends. I used that word loosely.
“I’m really not that bad,” I said, speaking as a few other students exited the bio lab room and headed our way. Two girls, giggling to each other as they passed us. I glanced at them, mostly waiting for them to pass us, but Kelsey saw my wandering eye and must’ve thought something else.
“Uh-huh. Why don’t you go be not that bad somewhere else, then,” she suggested, saying nothing more as she spun on her heel and stormed off.
I watched her go. I’d learn soon enough that watching her go was one of my favorite pastimes.
Chapter Seven – Kelsey
That guy, I really didn’t know what to make of him. Levi. Ugh. First off, that was a stupid fucking name. If I ever had a kid and wanted to name him Levi, I gave anyone and everyone permission to slap some sense into me. Why couldn’t his parents go with a name like…Bob or Kyle or something?
You know, something boring. A name that was the opposite of special. Levi was…Levi was the kind of name you remembered. Unfortunately for me, Levi also had the kind of face that you could never forget.
I’d be lying if I said he was handsome. Handsome was a way to describe an older man, someone who was mature and refined, someone who wore suits or something. Levi? Levi wasn’t handsome. He was drop-dead fucking gorgeous, sexy as sin and hot enough to cook meat on. Very lick-able, I bet. All muscly and shit. He had the kind of body I could easily imagine laying under—or riding.
Oh, damn. Either way, it’d be fucking hot.
I felt myself warm in my lower gut, and my thighs clenched of their own accord as I hurried away from the science building.
No. Levi and I could never happen anyways. Not even a quick fling, not even a fast hookup. He was my lab partner now, the bastard, so I’d have to see him every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour and a half for the next few months.
So not looking forward to that. Not at all.
Plus, you know, he was friends with that dickbag Dean, and anyone who was friends with that douchebag was not the kind of person I wanted to associate myself with. I mean, how would Mel feel if I started seeing Levi? No, no, it was sisters over misters.
During my walk back to the dorm, I replayed Levi’s words. Did he really want to spend more time with me, or was he just being stupid? My money was on stupid, not like I had money to bet. I had no money at all, which meant I had to be careful around here. No exorbitant spending on the meal card. That bitch had to last me all semester.
When I got back to the dorm room, Mel wasn’t back from her classes yet. I dropped my bag on my desk and heaved a sigh, face-planting on my pillow. I shouldn’t be so torn about that guy, considering that was only our second encounter. I shouldn’t let his pretty face dominate my mind.
Dominate. That was…that was a word that held a lot of different connotations. It was a word I probably shouldn’t be thinking of. Dominate.
I rolled onto my back, staring at the white ceiling above me, my mind thinking of its own accord: I wouldn’t mind letting Levi dominate me. If things were different, if he wasn’t friends with Dean, if Mel didn’t have such a horrible history with Dean, maybe I could.
But I couldn’t. Guys would come and go, and maybe after this semester I’d never see his face again. Mel, on the other hand, would be my roommate for this semester and next semester, and I was due to spend a hell of a lot more time with her than him. I owed my loyalty to her, not him. He could go fuck off. I would stick to my roommate’s side, not that there were sides in this. This wasn’t some war or anything. It was just…life.
This was life, and it was ridiculously complicated—and only week one.
How much more complicated would my life get as the weeks wore on? It was a question I lost myself to, even after Mel returned.
“I literally already have a paper due in two weeks,” Mel muttered, plopping herself at her desk and fishing out her laptop from her backpack. “I can’t believe it.” She seemed like the kind of girl who never procrastinated, who always did things right away. We were opposites.
Maybe she’d rub off on me. Or maybe not.
I didn’t tell Mel about my bio partner. I didn’t want to. I knew she’d probably tell me to ask the professor to switch. Or, hell, maybe she wouldn’t, and she’d simply quiet and close herself off from me. That was something I didn’t want, so keeping Levi a secret felt like it was the right call.
Mel remained quiet as she started researching her paper. I fiddled on my phone. This became our routine as the days wore on, even as classes started to get harder. Pop quizzes popped up, class papers assigned and—ugh—even a few dreaded group projects.
Yeah. Fuck those group projects. Fuck those group projects hard. Not only was I a procrastinator, but when I was tossed in random groups to make class presentations and shit, I always ended up with groups that didn’t want to do any work at all. I always had to do everything, and because I was a procrastinator, I waited until the last possible minute to do everything, which meant stressing myself out even more.
Of course, I knew to fix that would be to not procrastinate. Easier said than done. It was an ingrained habit by now, honed by years and years of procrastinating all
