Did I regret being with him? Hell, I didn’t even know. Maybe. Maybe I regretted every single kiss. Maybe I regretted going to him at that party, practically throwing myself at him after learning of my parents’ divorce. God, it felt insanely childish now, when I looked back; having sex with a guy, just to forget the shittiness of my life.
Guess the joke was officially on me now, huh? My life was even worse now than it was that night. My parents were still getting divorced, I’d pretty much shut Ash out of my life, and the guy I was practically head over heels for had royally fucked me over by spreading a video of us having sex.
Yeah. Just when you thought life couldn’t get any worse, it came and showed you how wrong you were. Things could always get worse. Things in life rarely got better, in my experience. If this was how the rest of my life was going to go, I…I didn’t know if I even wanted it.
Maybe after college I’d move away and start a new life, pretend my past simply didn’t exist.
It was late by the time Mel got back. Late as in super late. Late as in I didn’t think she’d ever returned to the dorm so late. I was already in bed, half asleep, the moment the door creaked open and she stepped in. With a groggy head, I checked my phone. Mel never texted me back. Huh. Was she taking a page out of Ash’s book?
“Everything okay?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows to look at her.
Mel tossed me a look. She didn’t move to turn on any lights; the only light that was in the room came from the crack underneath the door from the hallway. “Yeah,” she eventually said. “Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”
And because I was me—letting the stress of my life eat me whole—my head plopped back down, I rolled over, and went to sleep.
Little did I know that everything was not fine. The very opposite, actually.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Levi
Every time I had bio, I did my best to ignore her. It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, pretend that Kelsey didn’t exist. My body craved hers, and I missed her presence near me while doing these stupid experiments involving algae and other tiny creatures. I missed her sass, her snark, her quick wit and silver tongue.
Oh, that tongue. I missed her tongue especially.
Each time class wrapped up, Kelsey was one of the first out of the room. She probably figured if she hightailed it from the class she wouldn’t have to see or talk to me, and that was fine, because each time I let her go. If I wanted to catch up to her, to talk to her, I could’ve easily; she wasn’t as wily as she thought she was. No, I let her go. I let her go because I had to.
There was no other choice in this. I had to let her go. She was better off without me. I’d only cause her harm, like I’d already done, thanks to Dean.
Now Dean? I didn’t plan on sitting back and taking his shit. Oh, no. I had a plan, but it was a plan I’d have to move slowly on for it to work.
Once lab was over, I packed up leisurely. So fucking sluggishly as if I was a snail. I was the last one out of the classroom, besides the professor. I didn’t even take the side stairs, even though they were faster than waiting for the elevator. I had time to waste and no one to talk to, so there was no point. I waited for the elevator, refusing to look at any of the other SCC students who were already in it on its way down. I filed in, and the doors closed.
I stared hard at the elevator’s metal ceiling, wondering how the hell my life had gotten so screwed up. Karma was a bitch, and she’d finally gotten me back. This, being without Kelsey, was torture. I hated it more than I’d ever hated anything before.
When the elevator hit the ground floor, the doors opened, and I was the first out. The elevator faced the main front doors to the science building, and I was greeted by a sun that was too bright. Too yellow. Too fucking happy, considering. If the weather could match my mood, it’d be a downpour, a rainstorm like no other, complete with flashfloods and mudslides.
I took my time in walking back to the house, my head hanging low. I really just wanted to press fast-forward and be done with this place, but a part of me—the stupid part of me—wanted to try to win Kelsey back. Tell her the truth, convince her that it wasn’t me. She’d probably think I was lying, trying to push the blame on someone else like the asshole she believed me to be.
I was on the sidewalk near the fraternities when I spotted someone leaning against a tree that sat in our neighbors’ yard. A girl who was fiddling with the bottom of her shirt, her blonde hair cut short. Her backpack sat on the grass beside her, and she looked every bit as hurt as she did way back when, before everything happened last year.
God, I really was a fuckup. I couldn’t ever do anything right. Last year, I regretted it completely, but still, just because I regretted it didn’t mean I could take it back.
My feet
