A pipe dream. A fucking pipe dream, because even after knowing what she did, my body, my heart still yearned for her. A fucking stupid thing, but I couldn’t help it.
Before I knew what the hell I was doing, I ran a finger along the screen, swiping up, and opened the phone.
This was a bad idea, probably…but I had to know.
What exactly did I have to know? No clue.
I just had to see if…I didn’t know. If she was texting the rich boy, if she had a lineup of other guys. If I really lost her, or if I ever really had her to begin with.
Kelsey really didn’t text many people. Her parents, although it looked like she hadn’t texted anyone in a little while. Me, but that was even before that. The most recent messages—and calls, lots of them, apparently—were to someone named Ash, and this morning’s calls were from Mel. I took that to mean Kelsey knew her phone was missing and Mel tried to call it, both of them hoping it had maybe slipped and tucked itself away in a nook or cranny in their room.
But back to all of her messages and calls to Ash.
Ash was her friend who went to another school. Kelsey had told me about her in passing, mostly when she was complaining about Ash not being here because she got some scholarship to Hillcrest, a rich, hoity-toity fucking university that was stuck in the old ways. As in, male-only.
My gut churned when I glanced over the messages. It was a mostly one-sided conversation, with Kelsey being the one sending the messages. A lot of apologies, of groveling and…saying she didn’t know.
I had to lock the phone and look away as I wondered if something more happened that weekend she was gone. Did she get into more trouble she didn’t want to tell me? Did she and her friend get into a fight? Was it…was it over the guy Kelsey said she hooked up with? I didn’t read all of the texts, but…what else could they mean?
It was Friday, so I had some time before my first class. I should return this to her. When your phone was missing, it was like a piece of your soul was gone, too. Funny, because I felt like that now, knowing Kelsey had been with someone else. I wasn’t mad at her, because we weren’t together, but…
How could I not feel envious? How could I not be upset? I had every right to be, didn’t I?
Hmm. Would it be wrong of me to hold onto her phone for a bit? Probably. A good man would promptly return it and not make a big deal out of it, but I thought we all knew by now that I wasn’t a good man. I made mistakes too, I fucked up, just like Kelsey did.
I did wonder just what the hell she’d been doing out there. In the flowerbed, at night? Did she come here for me, to talk to me, to apologize for how bitchy she was and then change her mind? Who would say what was on that girl’s mind—I knew I couldn’t. I was no mind reader, but when it came to Kelsey, I really couldn’t predict where she was or why she did the things she did.
Even after all this time, I couldn’t tell where Kelsey’s mind was.
At least now I was smart enough to know that wasn’t a blessing. It was a curse.
The day passed in a blur, and Kelsey was on my mind more often than she wasn’t. I itched to see that girl again. Not only to give her phone back, but to talk to her. She could try to push me away, but I’d known it the first moment I saw her in lab after that weekend—something was wrong. Something had happened over the weekend, besides her hooking up. She could put up a prickly front all she wanted, but I’d get the truth out of her.
I would get the truth from her, and then make her see that we weren’t up for debate. Yes, I fucked up, but so did she. Yes, we’d probably make more mistakes down the line, but this? Going through the days without her? I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Late that night, with the battery in Kelsey’s phone at less than five percent—practically a death sentence in this day and age—I used her phone to text Mel. I didn’t say it was from me, but I said that I found this phone, to let its owner know I’d be in the student union tomorrow morning at ten waiting with the phone in my hand.
When Mel texted back asking who this was, I didn’t respond. I did wonder if Kelsey thought it was me, or possibly Dean. Either way, she would show. She wanted her phone back. She didn’t have the kind of money to replace it. Money was tight in her family, which she didn’t like to talk about. She definitely had some kind of complex when money was involved; accepting any gifts from anyone was viewed as a handout, and handouts to Kelsey were the worst thing ever invented.
Luckily, the house didn’t throw a party that night. There was one a few houses down, and that’s where most of my fraternity brothers went. Dean, however, stayed. He’d been staying in a lot lately, probably because his nose was still swollen and bruised. I steered clear of him any time I saw him out of his room.
No more fights. Besides, I had someone else on the brain. Something other than revenge on Dean.
Kelsey.
I was going to see
