“You fucking bitch,” Dean muttered, his face red. His posture was hunched, and he stepped towards me, swiping an arm through the air, but I was already gone, picking up my bag and linking my arm through Mel’s.
Together, arm in arm, we walked away from Dean’s screaming form.
Mel kept throwing looks over her shoulder as we rounded the sidewalk near the adjacent building, clearly worried Dean would still follow. He wouldn’t. Not yet. I’d made a fool of him in front of quite a few people. He’d lick his wounds and then try again. Maybe he’d try to get back at me, put all his focus on me and not Mel. That was something I could handle.
He’d already released a sex tape of me. What more could the prick do? I wasn’t afraid of him. This girl knew how to take care of herself. You didn’t go to bars and other skeevy places without knowing how to take down a guy who was bigger than you. That was common sense.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Mel spoke once she was sure the coast was clear. She let me drag her through campus, our arms locked together. “That was…wow.”
“He was being a dick. I don’t like dicks.” Well, I liked dicks, but not those kinds. I liked the real deal, the kind that filled you up and made you forget everything else. The kind attached to Levi.
Okay, right now it was only Levi’s.
“You have to be careful,” she told me, as if I didn’t already know. “He’ll want to get back at you.”
“He already released a tape of me and Levi,” I said, shrugging. “What more could he do? My reputation is shit, not that I had much of one to begin with anyway.” I’d never been a girl to worry about shit like that. A reputation? Who cared? As long as everyone was living life and having fun, what did it matter?
Mel’s feet abruptly stopped, and she managed to pull her arm from mine. She turned to look at me, causing my own feet to halt as I met her stare. “Dean was the one who released the tape?” Her voice shook a bit.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s what Levi said,” I spoke, trying to sound like I didn’t care either way. “I know I can’t trust what Levi says, but…” I shrugged again. “Kind of seems like something that bag of dicks would do, doesn’t it? I know Levi is a fuckup too, but Dean is the king of the dicks.”
She started to walk again, and I stuck by her side, going at her pace. She hooked her fingers through the straps on her backpack, tossing me an unsure look. “So you’ve talked to Levi?”
Ah, shit.
Too late now to rewind and take that back, huh?
“Yeah,” I admitted. “A little. He wants to…he says he wants to be with me, that he fucked up with you and he regrets it. He seemed genuine, but I know how liars are.” Liars tended to lie so well you never really knew until it was too late, and I didn’t want to be one of those girls, even if Levi had my heart.
Mel was quiet for a while, and our dorm building loomed on the horizon. “Do you like him?”
Her question came out of nowhere, startling me, and I whipped my head around to stare at her. My mouth might’ve dropped open at that. Okay, so cool Kelsey wasn’t exactly making a comeback yet, but she would be.
“I…I don’t know,” I muttered, inwardly frowning at how unconvincing I sounded.
“You do,” Mel whispered. “I can see it.”
I let out a harsh sigh as we walked through the front vestibule of the building, coming into the lobby and heading straight for the elevators. “It doesn’t matter, Mel. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him, because I know he fucked you over. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Mel pressed the up button, and we waited for either elevator to come down. “I don’t want you to not do something because you’re worried about me.” Her head tilted down, her chin touching her chest. “I don’t want to be a burden on you.”
“You’re not.”
The elevator to our left opened, a few students trickling out before we could get on. Once we were on, I hit the third-floor button and let the doors close.
“I am,” Mel said, amber eyes glancing to me. “I’m a burden to everyone. To you, to my parents…I was a burden to Dean when I was with him because I wouldn’t sleep with him. Everything would be so much better if I wasn’t around—”
She didn’t even finish the sentence before I cut in, “Don’t say that, Mel. Don’t ever say that. You’re my friend, and I care about you. If you weren’t here, I’d be lost.”
The elevator door slid open, and we got out. Mel was busy shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I know so,” I said, hoping to convince her. Sometimes she got in these funks, radiating depression and sadness, and they were the worst things ever. I hated that I couldn’t make her feel better; I hated that I didn’t know what to say. She was my friend, and I was failing her just like how I failed Ash.
Mel said nothing else as we walked to our room. She had her key out, sticking it in the lock and opening the door for us. I watched as she went to set down her bag and take off her jacket, her frame like a skeleton.
She…she really wasn’t doing well, was she? She might put on a smile every once in a while, might laugh at the stupid jokes I made, but deep down, she barely hung on.
