Again Page 12

  Kate

  When I reached the dorm on Friday, Steph and Alex were smoking without jackets on the porch out front. Even from here I could see their exposed skin was chapped red from the wind. It was one of the coldest days yet and snow was tumbling down. It was like they were just asking for swine flu.

  Somehow I’d escaped them all week, and after dealing with everything sober Monday through Friday, I didn’t need any inducement to drink. It was my downfall. I was starting to understand why people went to rehab. At least it took temptation out of the equation.

  Temptation and clothes that needed to be dry-cleaned.

  I stood there, the snow stinging my skin, considering what to do. I couldn’t walk back to campus. There was no way I was going out into the tundra again with my wet hair and boots.

  I watched them on the porch, the smoke flying out of their mouths like plumes of atom bombs. I heard them laugh and immediately wished I knew what they were talking about, unless of course it was about me.

  I steeled myself and headed up the steps. Apparently, temptation is a bitch mistress and likes to go after you when you’re most vulnerable. After you’ve had another week of sobriety and are starting to believe maybe, just maybe, you can do this.

  “Hey, Crazy Kate,” Steph yelled, waving with her cigarette.

  “Hey, Hey, CK,” Alex added.

  I walked over to them before they had the chance to yell anything else. Mostly because I knew they would.

  “I definitely acted crazy, but I’m not always.” I eyed their cigarettes. I used to smoke, even sober, but I’d been able to give it up. I wondered why that had been so much easier, especially considering the whole nicotine thing.

  “No, that’s your new nickname,” Alex said.

  “We think it’s perfect,” Steph added, stubbing out her cigarette and popping a piece of neon green gum in her mouth. “Crazy Kate acts crazy,” she sang.

  Great, exactly what I needed, a name to remind me what an ass I’d made of myself.

  “Yeah.” I fidgeted. “Sorry about that.” Could I not stop moving because the snow banks on each side of the porch reminded me of shaved ice, perfect for strawberry daiquiris, or because I wished I could be on Alex and Steph’s side of things?

  It was so much easier than my side. Pretending like you have your whole life ahead of you and actually having it are completely different.

  “Why are you sorry?” Alex asked, stubbing out her cigarette and smacking on her own wad of gum.

  “We thought it was awesome,” Steph added, a crocodile smile etched on her face.

  Why had my peer pressure chosen the form of these two sirens of Sprits, out of everyone on campus?

  The thing was, it wasn’t a question. I understood fate sent me two girls exactly like I had been in college-take-one. Clearly they were a test.

  “Awesome?” I asked.

  “Yeah, except when you left with Creepy Carter,” Steph said with a sour frown.

  Creepy Carter? He was like the opposite of creepy.

  “You know what he did, right?” Alex asked.

  “Sure,” I lied.

  “So stay away from him,” Steph said.

  I nodded, playing along like I actually knew. I didn’t want to hear about what he’d done in his past, not from them. I’d always been judged for my mistakes. I wouldn’t do that to him.

  When it came to Carter, it was all about how he treated me, how he made me feel.

  Why couldn’t I stop thinking about the way he made me feel?

  A moment passed between us even colder than the air.

  “Anyway,” Alex said, “we still had fun after you left, a lot of fun, like beyond, but it was more fun with you there. You know what I mean?”

  It might have been the longest sentence she’d ever uttered. As a real nineteen-year-old this acceptance would have been all I needed. As a fake one, I had to admit, it wasn’t so bad, either.

  All anyone wants in life is to be liked. Quadruple that when you have trouble just liking yourself.

  “It was fun,” I admitted, because it had been until Carter got there and made me question everything. He was the reason I stopped. The reason I left. The reason I felt guilty because I saw the way he had seen me.

  They say you can become your best self in someone else’s eyes. Could my best really be in the eyes of someone who seemed so good and pure?

  Or were the way Alex and Steph saw me the best I could ever hope for?

  “I know, right!” Steph exclaimed.

  “Salad bar never disappoints,” Alex added.

  “I think it’s totally gross you guys call it the salad bar,” I said, relaxing enough to lower my bag from my shoulder.

  “Do you know what those guys probably call us?” Steph asked.

  Alex tilted her head back. “I’d say we’re being generous.”

  “I guess I never thought of it like that.”

  “Words can be power,” Steph said.

  “Just like anything else,” Alex added.

  “What major are you guys?” I asked, suddenly viewing them differently. They were smarter than I gave them credit for. I shouldn’t have dismissed them. It was probably what people did to me sometimes.

  “English Lit,” they both said at the same time.

  Like I had been, the difference was they seemed to be handling themselves perfectly well. I mean, they were still here. They could get away with acting this way for the next year, even for the next three.

  But I was going on year eleven. It gave every decision I made more weight, more significance.

  It made every slipup monumental.

  “We’re going to another party tonight. Come,” Alex said.

  “You should, some of the guys were asking about you,” Steph added. “They actually have their own nickname for you.”

  I clamped my eyes and lips down, waiting.

  “Cute Kate,” Alex said.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised at the eager lilt to my voice. The simple sensation that is oh-so-complicated of being noticed, wanted, told you were attractive.

  But why wouldn’t they call me cute? I’d voluntarily gotten wasted and whipped off my shirt. Some guys spent several weeks trying to get that far and I’d done it in minutes. Why wouldn’t they be interested in what I had up my sleeves, or rather, my shirt, for round two?

  “I don’t know that I’ll live up to either nickname anymore,” I said, the cold coming through the neck of my coat. Like Steph and Alex had said, words could be power. By saying that, by denying the pull, could I make myself behave?

  “Well, that would be a bummer,” Steph said.

  “Don’t you guys feel kind of dumb about how we acted?” I needed perspective. If I were nineteen, doing what I’d done was just another night out, but the thing was, I wasn’t anymore. I guess I needed them to remind me of that.

  “Dumb?” Alex asked.

  “I mean bad, like guilty.”

  “Booooring,” Steph said, making it come out like a yawn.

  “Yeah seriously, Crazy, that doesn’t sound like you,” Alex added.

  For college-take-one Kate, for the Kate I was before I came here, it didn’t. When things got bad I forced them down with more alcohol. I never ruminated about them, never made myself sit with them. Eventually I guess it became me. Forgive and forget, more like forget and forget some more.

  “Don’t let us down,” Steph said.

  “We don’t like being disappointed,” Alex said.

  “You’re coming,” Steph said, lighting another cigarette.

  “You have to,” Alex said, mirroring her.

  I just nodded and walked inside the dorm alone, unsure of what I was going to do, wishing maybe there was something, anything, to make it so I didn’t even have to decide.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Carter

  I stuck a thumbtack into the sign-up sheet for the annual SPCA volunteer day, making room for it among the other flyers and notes, and turned to glance at K
ate walking into the lobby. She seemed tired, but still had the determination in her stride that made me notice her in the first place. An uber-confident body language screaming if you don’t like it, get the hell out of my way.

  I understood being tired. The kind she must be feeling. When you’re trying so hard to do right, to be the kind of person you wish you could be, but everyone around you is pulling you down. Or at least, no one is holding you up.

  It was one thing to tell myself I needed to stay away from her. It was another to do it. Kissing her opened a door I didn’t want to close. I’d closed so many doors over the past three years it was good to finally let someone in, to have someone who’d wanted to come in.

  She noticed me and her stride quickened. Her high heeled boots clicked against the tile as fast as a deer scrambling away—tap, tap, tap.

  I didn’t blame her. I knew all about trying to avoid the sickly cold sting of silence from someone you thought actually cared. The exhaustion of trying to pretend you didn’t give a shit what they thought, of trying to act like you didn’t need them, the heaviness of giving them the out.

  I had the power not to let her walk by. I didn’t have to be like the people I’d always needed to avoid.

  “Big plans tonight, Kate?” I asked, loud enough she’d have to notice. I leaned against the bulletin board, the backside of the tacks sticking into my shoulder blades.

  Something flicked on, changed behind her eyes. Surprise. Gratitude. Relief. She’d thought I was going to ignore her. Be the kind of person I’d had to deal with for years.

  “Bigger than studying, you mean?” Her face split into a wide grin.

  “You’re not studying on a Friday night, are you?” I asked, even though if she hadn’t walked in, that is exactly what I would have done.

  “Are you trying to ask me out or something?” She cocked her bag on one shoulder, took off her silly cat ear hat and shook the snow out of her blond hair.

  There were feet between us, an expanse much larger than the night we’d kissed. Her words brought me right back to the closeness. Her touch had awakened something in me I’d thought, before I met her, might never return.

  My body was uneven with her question hanging there, transforming me from cold immovable stone into someone scrambling for anything to hold on to. She was so direct. It was unnerving and sexy and, having lived surrounded by lies for so long, a lot like air.

  I stepped toward her and breathed it in, vowing to be as real as she was. I steadied myself, prepared to meet her beat for beat. “No, I was wondering if I would need to come and rescue you again.” I smiled my best flirty smile.

  Okay fine, maybe it wasn’t exactly what I should have said, Yes, I am asking you out. I want to kiss you again, I don’t want to ever forget what happened between us, but I would get there. Reminding her about that night was enough for now.

  “Oh, so do I have you on retainer now?” she asked, her fingers tightening around her bag. Her nails were painted with silver glitter, glistening like the snow still melting off her purple jacket.

  She could have told me to fuck off. A lot of people would have, but not Kate. She kept right on swinging, right on reminding me why I needed to be near her.

  “Retainer,” I said, my smile saturating my face as I walked even closer, “look at you with the law terms.”

  It was clear she knew a lot more than she should about the law, she’d said as much when she left me in the library the other night. I could have asked her why. But that was far less interesting than what I hoped was about to happen. What I hoped I’d finally be able to make happen.

  She tapped her forehead with her pointer finger. “Cramming them in there as fast as I can.” She pushed out her bottom lip. A lip I’d bitten, sucked on, and wanted to do a hell of a lot more to. Her brown eyes filled with so much they seemed black, like universes. She blinked; dark lashes hit white skin as soft as a whisper.

  I tried not to show any signs of my nervousness. My heart ticked up like a helicopter in my chest preparing for takeoff. A cold sweat covered my skin. If I said the wrong thing I would lose her. Not forever, but in this instance I had to be exactly who she needed me to be.

  Kate wasn’t the kind of person who would deal with only half of what she needed from someone.

  “Then maybe you don’t need to study, maybe you could do something a lot more fun,” I said. Just looking at her brought the truth out of me. The real person I longed to be.

  “I could go to a party with Alex and Steph,” she started, focusing on her boots, “but…”

  I knew what she was fighting. How everything here could push you into being someone you hated just because it felt good for the moment.

  “But,” I replied, pausing like I was considering how she might end her sentence, “they’re kind of bitches.”

  She smiled. “Not what I was going to say.”

  “So tell me what you were going to say.”

  “Tell me what you were going to say,” she pressed.

  The helicopter was in my throat, whopping blades making it hard for me to breathe. “You could go to the party, or you could have dinner with me instead.”

  “So you are asking me out?”

  “Would you want to go to dinner with me if I asked you?”

  “No offense, Carter, but you kind of suck at this,” she said, laughing, a genuine grin overtaking her features.

  My cheeks filled with heat, I forced myself to stay calm. She wasn’t saying no. She was saying yes. She was telling me to ask her in a way so that she could finally say yes.

  “Kate, would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

  She watched me for a moment, words seemingly collecting on her lips like dew before she finally said, “I would love to.”

  Kate

  I walked down the long dorm hallway toward Carter’s room. It would have been easy to take Alex and Steph’s invitation, to lose myself in the night. I’d done it plenty of times before. Getting lost was easy; being with Carter was hard in a good way.

  He demanded more from me, and it was nice for a change to have someone believe I was capable of offering it. I liked when Carter rescued me, but I didn’t need him to.

  I would be the person he knew I could be.

  Though honestly, if I hadn’t taken his invitation, I probably would have gone to the party. I could lock myself in my room, but even being strung up like Houdini wouldn’t be strong enough to fight the temptation of alcohol.

  Being with him, however, was. Sure, I had my rules, but when I’d made them I hadn’t counted on meeting someone like Carter—someone who was actually good for me.

  I knocked on his door and smoothed down my red cowl-neck sweater. When it came to him, it was time to be a matador.

  He swung the door open, his gaze sliding from my boots to the top of my braided hair.

  “What?” I asked. Maybe the red was a little too much.

  “I’m trying to figure out if you’re coming with me or blowing me off,” he said, putting his hands in his back pockets. His chest bulged under his ivory cable-knit sweater, his delicious hips slanted on one side.

  “If I was blowing you off, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

  “So that means you wouldn’t give me the courtesy of a heads up I would be eating dinner alone?” He put his hand against his heart in feigned indignity.

  I could tell he liked the balance of power having shifted. I was here, knocking on his door waiting for him.

  “Can we go before I do change my mind?” I asked, attempting to get some control back.

  “Maybe I already changed mine,” he smirked.

  Guess that wasn’t going to happen. “Okay,” I said, trying to keep up the joke as I moved to pull his door closed.

  “Nah,” he said stopping me, grabbing his coat, “I’m still hungry.”

  We took the stairs down. Our feet pounded on the cement, making an echo like a chant as we walked down to the ground level. Carter was a half a flight ahead of me.
>
  “I get the feeling you don’t want people to know we’re leaving together,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

  “It’s none of their business, and you know the whole ‘I’m your RA’ thing.” He turned to smile at me, but there was something else, the need to keep what we were doing as something just ours—a protectiveness.

  “At least I’m getting my exercise before dinner,” I said, my heart beating so fast I tasted metal.

  If this was how a date would have started back in New York, I would not have been so agreeable. Of course, we were actually going out, something rare for me when I had been with David.

  “There will be dinner, but we need to make one stop first,” he said.

  “Are you going to tell me where?”

  “I don’t think you’ll come if I do,” he said, bounding down ahead of me.

  “You are quite the charmer,” I laughed. Carter knew he didn’t need to charm me. He already had.

  It was snowing even heavier when we got outside—big, fat flakes coming down without a break like lace tablecloths hung from the sky.

  “You sure you still want to go out in this?” I asked, the snow pricking my face.

  “I don’t do rain checks,” he said, opening the passenger side door of his black Jeep. It was already cleaned off. He must have come out earlier and done it. He was either insanely confident I wouldn’t blow him off or had some nervous energy to burn. Probably a little of both. Even arrow-hot confidence had a tinge of fear underneath.

  “I’ll remember that,” I said, buckling up.

  We drove out of the lot. The road was covered in so much snow the truck bumped along like we were driving over rocks. We headed down the hill and away from the dorm, through the quiet, empty quad. Everything was suffocated by white.

  It might have been too crappy a night for even Alex and Steph to venture out. I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t given them the courtesy of telling them I wasn’t going with them, mostly because I didn’t want to give them the chance to try and convince me otherwise.

  “You’re seriously not going to tell me where we’re going before dinner?” I asked.

  “We’ll be there soon,” he said, his Jeep sliding slowly down the street.