We could pretend like it was old times, like we were still back in high school, not a care in the world. We could go out and party, I could get wasted and find some random guy to hook up with. Maybe getting someone else’s dick would make me forget all about Levi’s.
Hey, I never said I was the smartest tool in the shed. My plans might not be great ones, but it was the only plan I had. I couldn’t think of anything else to do at this point. I just needed…a break. I needed a break from this, from Levi and Dean, from Mel and her sadness, from SCC and its stupid campus. I needed a break from it all, and God help me, Ash was going to be that break, even if it meant I had to focus on her drama for a few days.
At least it wouldn’t be my drama, right?
You’d think the first person I would’ve talked to was Ash, since she was the one I was going to be visiting and crashing with, but no. The first person I talked to was my dear old mom. I asked if she could pick me up on her way home from work on Friday, and she was more than happy to. Once I told her that I planned on taking the rust bucket down to Hillcrest to visit Ash for the weekend, she was a little less enthusiastic, but at that point, she couldn’t take it back. She was going to pick me up, and she was going to take a few things from the office.
You couldn’t go to a Halloween party without a costume, and I had a super cheap and easy costume in mind, because, you know, I was a super cheap and easy kind of girl.
Well, in my mind that was funny, anyways.
The next person I talked to was Ash.
Dear old Ash. I loved her. I did. She’d been my best friend for years, but ever since going to separate colleges, it was like we were growing apart. I hated it. Of course, I knew that’s what life did—very rarely did high school friends stick together over the course of their adult lives, but still. She’d been my constant, my steady, for so many years now I’d lost track. I needed her right now, and it was because I needed her that I refused to give in when Ash told me it wasn’t a good time for me to come to Hillcrest.
Hah. Guess what, buddy? I didn’t give a shit if it was a good time. I was going to Hillcrest whether I was bunking with her and her penis-endowed roommate or not. If I had to sleep in the rust bucket, I would. I was not above that.
No, Ash might’ve had drama going on, but so did I, and maybe a weekend together again like the good old times would help us both get away from it. It made sense if you didn’t think about it too hard, right?
That was that. I was going to Hillcrest, and no one was going to stop me. Not Ash, not her drama, and certainly not Levi.
The only one I didn’t want to break it to was Mel. I hated the thought of leaving her alone, especially after everything that happened. When Mel returned from her classes, she set her bag on her desk and hung her raincoat on the hanger that rested on the dorm door. The moment she turned to face me with those sad brown eyes, I felt my intestines twist.
I felt bad for her. Really, I did. Was it selfish of me for wanting to leave her here? Maybe I should offer to take her with me. Show her that, even though I was running away, I still cared. She’d probably say no anyway.
“You got any plans for this weekend?” I broke the silence of the room, watching as she fixed her hair and her makeup that had gotten messed up from the rain. There was no way Mel had plans; she hadn’t had plans once over the course of the semester so far. She wasn’t the partying type, and she was closed-off when it came to dicks. Couldn’t blame her, now that I knew what happened. I could understand why she acted so…well, broken.
Mel’s amber eyes turned to me, and she shot me a frown, as if telling me I should already know the answer. Her idea of a fun weekend was getting a pizza from the place in the student union and having a Disney movie marathon. Yes, that was a good time—if we were five—but we were adults. We should be having the time of our lives.
“No,” she eventually said, the word drawn-out.
“I’m going to Hillcrest for the weekend,” I told her. “Plan to see how the rich folk live, if they all drive fancy sportscars like they do in the movies. Do you want to come?”
“Hillcrest?” Mel echoed, moving to sit at her desk. Not once did she take her eyes off me. It was as if she couldn’t believe I, Kelsey Yates, was going to Hillcrest even for the weekend. “That’s the private university down south, isn’t it?”
“That’s where my friend Ash goes,” I told her. When she said nothing else, I added, “Come on. It’ll be fun. We can get away from SCC and the stupid guys in it. I can show you what a real party looks like—”
Mel’s blonde head shook. Her pixie cut had gotten a bit longer; she hadn’t cut it all semester. It was only three inches long, but
