“I don’t want you to be here by yourself.” It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Mel on her own—she was in the dorm room often by herself, with me needing to write all of my papers and do all of my online homework in the library—but more that I…I didn’t trust myself. I felt completely off the rails; I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d wanted to get so blindingly drunk that I couldn’t remember the night before.
I needed someone to hold me back, and I was worried that Ash would no longer be that person.
If she had so much drama, would she care about mine?
Mel gave me a smile absolutely no one would believe if they saw it. “I’ll be fine, Kelsey. Really. I don’t need you here to watch over me.” That smile was supposed to make me feel better about hightailing it out of here, but it didn’t.
It only made me feel sad. Sad because I knew I shouldn’t go. Sad because I knew I shouldn’t run from my problems, because running from them would not make them go away. Sad because, in the end, I knew I’d only be back where I started after the weekend was over and I was back here.
Just sad.
“There’s nothing I can do to make you come with me?” A last-ditch effort by me to get her to come.
Mel shook her head. “No, but you should go and have fun. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” Again she said it, and again, I wasn’t sure if I believed her. A part of me worried that this whole Levi thing would make her regress. She’d been moping around all semester, but this was enough to push even the best person off the edge, to make her relapse.
If something happened to her while I was gone, I wouldn’t forgive myself.
But did that stop me from going? Would it stop me from doing what I set out to do while at Hillcrest? No, no it wouldn’t. The sad thing was, I had blinders on. I was so focused on my own problems I couldn’t see the girl having even worse problems right in front of me.
We went back and forth for a little while longer, but no matter what I said, or how many jokes I tried to make, Mel wouldn’t budge. Mel was going to stay here, alone, while I went off and tried to forget my problems. She was going to be sad and depressed while I acted like everything was fine.
And everything was fine, as a whole. So what if my heart hurt? So what if I felt a weird sense of betrayal by Levi? I would be fine. In time, I’d look back and laugh at all of this. Levi was just some stupid college boy, and I should’ve known enough by now not to let any stupid college boy worm his way into my heart.
Until him, I did pretty well. Until him, I thought I had everything in the bag. I thought I knew myself. Turned out, I was wrong. He came into my life and showed me just how wrong I was for believing that.
I couldn’t focus at all the next day, could hardly listen to my professors drone on and on about whatever useless topic they were on in their lectures. My nerves were antsy. Ash kept trying to tell me it wasn’t a good weekend for me to come up, but I wasn’t going to let her dissuade me. No, I was going to Hillcrest, going to see my best friend, and you know what else? I was going to see if her penis-endowed roommate was cute.
Yeah. I could focus on that for a while. Declan, his name was. He sounded cute, if a little depressed, but to that I say—join the club. He and Mel would probably get along, or maybe it would be two sad people being sad together.
Uh, no thanks to that.
I had no idea how anyone could be sad while rooming with Ash. Ash had this…way about her. There was just something about her that made you like her. Her personality wasn’t that great—out of the two of us, I was pretty sure mine shined more—or maybe that was just me being conceited. Ah, well. Didn’t care too much at this point.
I asked her to send me a shirtless picture of Declan, but she hadn’t. Every single time she’d come back at me with some excuse. Well, guess what, sugar plum? I was going to see for myself just how cute this Declan really was.
Declan wasn’t the only guy in her life giving her butterflies, either. Oh, there were lots. A tattooed, smoking guy named Travis, and a blonde brute named Sawyer. Uh, I think there was one more—was his name Bill? No, no. Will. It was definitely Will. No sexy Bills around, sorry.
If I was lucky, maybe I’d meet them all. But then again, maybe not. Ash was having some drama with her group of guys, so maybe temporarily forgetting them for a weekend would do her some good. We could pretend like we were still in high school, and she was my wingwoman. No guy drama, no tempting penises.
I mean, I wanted a tempting penis, but not one attached to any of her guys. A different penis. A new penis. A penis that I’d never have to see again after this weekend.
Yeah. A penis with no strings attached would do me some good.
Once my classes were over for the day, I did a bit of research while waiting for my mom. Hillcrest was not party central, and I doubted Ash would want to go to a party that any of her guys might be at. No,
