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  It’s amazing how stubbornness appears reckless in hindsight.

  “Lucky for you, I’m the RA for floor twelve and a senior,” he said, smiling purposefully. “So, if you have questions about anything, I probably have an answer. Including where your bathroom is.”

  “I’m on floor twelve,” I said, skipping over his joke. Crap, apparently I would be seeing Carter again and again, probably daily.

  There was something I couldn’t pinpoint in his eyes. “You sure you don’t want help with your bags?” he asked.

  “Thanks, I got it,” I said, moving away from him quickly. Carter in my room on day one was not a safe way to start college-take-two. It was hard enough to imagine having to stay away from him when he was coming down the hallway from the shower half-naked and glistening.

  I headed to the elevator, trying to ignore him watching me as he greeted more students and parents. Forget rule number one, with Carter around rule number two might be the bigger problem.

  Chapter Two

  Carter

  You can call me Chazz? What an idiot. Being a second semester senior made me a lot more confident than I had a right to be, especially when I said stupid shit, but something about Kate made me aim to impress her.

  I have a nickname, impressive.

  Maybe it was because she seemed like she’d been through a lot more than the average freshman.

  Maybe it was because when we were alone in the bathroom, I wished she wasn’t in such a rush to leave.

  She also had no idea yet about what happened to me my freshman year. A blank slate was incredibly attractive considering I’d spent years wishing I could erase mine.

  My friend Tristan, the RA for floor ten, came up behind me and slapped me on the back. “He shoots, he misses,” he said, laughing like only a friend can at your perceived embarrassment.

  Tristan was a senior too. He’d been my roommate freshman year. He knew what had happened, but believed I wasn’t lying about it unlike most everyone else. It had been three years since then. Long enough that people didn’t talk about it anymore, but that didn’t mean they didn’t think about it every time they saw me or one of the other guys who used to be in the since- disbanded TKE fraternity.

  “She’s on my floor,” I said. “It’s good I missed.”

  It would be hard to avoid her on my floor or not. I liked her confidence. It was damn sexy and rare. There was something else, too—the way her brown eyes reminded of a deer’s, the same hollowness—almost like they’d been through too much to give away anything. Maybe because of what had happened to her parents. You never fully recovered from tragedy, from experiencing the worst of human nature.

  I knew.

  Tristan scoffed. “Who follows that archaic hands-off rule?”

  “I follow every rule.”

  Tristan paused, assessing me. “Forbidden fruit,” he finally said, “is the sweetest of all.”

  “I’m a semester away from graduating. I don’t need any fruit, especially not forbidden freshman fruit,” I reasoned, as much to him as to myself. Part of my atonement for what had happened my freshman year was working as an RA, giving back to the university that was nice enough to let me stay. My father’s sizeable endowment hadn’t hurt either.

  “Then why are you still staring at her?” He waved his hand in front of my eyes.

  “Shut the hell up,” I said, smacking it away.

  “Couldn’t have your view blocked for even a minute?” I heard a chuckle in his voice. “Damn, you’ve got it bad, Chazzy.”

  I’d received my nickname in my frat. I still told people to call me that as a reminder. Everyone kept telling me to forget what happened, to move on, but I couldn’t. I never wanted to forget the night I discovered I was a coward.

  Kate was clearly the opposite. Maybe I hoped she could teach me how to be as strong as she seemed.

  “She’s new, isn’t she?” he asked, rubbing his palm against his buzzed scalp, his own red RA polo pulling up from his waist to show off his hairless stomach. Tristan was on the diving team. He was good, Olympic trials good. He became an RA to do his best to avoid the temptations college had to offer.

  That was probably the real reason my father made my being an RA a stipulation of his endowment. He was willing to do anything to make sure I didn’t fuck up again.

  “Yeah, so?” I responded, even though we both understood what “new” meant. It meant she didn’t know what Chazz and his frat brothers had been accused of doing to Jeanie Pratt, what Chazz had actually done, or even worse, not done.

  “So that makes you the helpful RA, instead of…”

  Just because Tristan believed me, didn’t mean he could talk to me about it. No one could.

  “I only asked her if she needed me to carry her bags.”

  “There are lots of other people around here to ask.” He gestured around the busy lobby.

  He was right—there were tons, but none of them had walked into the men’s bathroom and gotten adorably stuck inside. None of them had her wistful eyes.

  “She was alone. Her parents are dead,” I added, though I immediately regretted revealing that. Maybe Kate didn’t want to tell anyone.

  I knew all about wanting to keep certain things secret. Not that what had happened my freshman year was a secret to anyone—even the students who hadn’t been here when it happened heard about it eventually. Maybe I hoped to be able to get to know Kate a little better before she did.

  “Seriously?” He was pale. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, in some ways I envy her,” I exhaled. “That’s terrible, right?”

  He shook his head, “Your dad is a prize-winning dick hole. Why wouldn’t you?”

  It had been my father who forced me into a settlement, my admission and his money had given me probation and a clean record. The thing was, I had to say I was guilty of doing what I had been too much of a chicken to stop.

  Honestly, though, admitting something I hadn’t done wasn’t the worst part. Feeling like shit for doing nothing to help Jeanie was.

  “How’d they die?” he asked, whispering the word.

  “I didn’t ask, but I actually told her that sometimes I wished my parents were dead.”

  “Dude, do you need me to teach you how to talk to a girl you think is cute?”

  “How often are you talking to girls you think are cute?” I decided not to bother denying Kate was. That would be a lie.

  “I had to pretend I was straight for eighteen years,” he said. “I have more practice in looking like I know what I’m doing than most guys do.”

  “I talk just fine,” I said, even though I was pretty sure it seemed like Kate had run from me to get to the elevator.

  “You haven’t been with anyone in years. You might be rusty.”

  “I’m not rusty…” I paused, clearing my throat, “…I’m careful.”

  He looked down, like he shouldn’t have said what he’d said, “I know.”

  “It’s cool,” I said as a response to his unspoken apology.

  “But you like her?”

  “I just met her.”

  He sighed. “This is the first girl you’ve talked to for more than five minutes in years. Sorry if I got a little excited.”

  “She’s just a girl on my floor,” I said, but even as I dismissed her, my pulse beat in my ears.

  He tilted his head. “Whatever, dude. Guess I’ll go back to being an Adam who would never have been allowed in the Garden of Eden. Maybe I’ll find some forbidden fruit of my own.” He walked toward a group of freshman guys with a grin as wide and open as a venus flytrap. Tristan talked a big game, but he was trying to act normal. Treat me like I was any other guy, instead of the guy I became that night freshman year.

  The thing was, I was afraid to be like most guys. The reason I hadn’t been with anyone in years was a choice. I needed to be punished for what I had done.

  For what I hadn’t done.

  Regardless of whatever she had seemingly awakened in me, all Kate cou
ld ever be was just a girl on my floor.

  Chapter Three

  Kate

  I’d made it through the front doors and up the elevator without incident, well, if you didn’t count the whole bathroom fiasco and then trying not to picture licking the embroidery stitching off Carter’s shirt.

  Maybe I’d be able to do this. Of course, I still hadn’t met my roommate.

  I took a deep breath and stepped off the elevator into the hall.

  I knew nothing about her other than she was one of the few students who had an opening in her room for someone starting second semester. This either meant she was a total nerd or a hard-partying high-maintenance bitch. Clearly this time around my twenty-nine-year-old comparably arthritic fingers were crossed for nerd.

  I wasn’t here to make friends. I had a best friend at home, Veronica. She thought I’d lost it when I came up with this idea. Eventually, I convinced her going back to college was a better choice than rehab, which I could have paid for with the money I used to finance this semester. I went through a very long explanation about how rehab would only solve one problem and how I had several; the largest in my mind was that I’d never gotten a college degree.

  If I had graduated the first time around, I never would have been David’s assistant. I would have had my own career, my own life. I wouldn’t have only been working to make someone else’s everything easier.

  Besides, I’d told her, “If this doesn’t work, I always have rehab to crash into.”

  What I didn’t say but couldn’t stop thinking was, if rehab didn’t work, there was nowhere lower to go.

  Veronica had said to “stop being stupid and to do what everyone else did when they were about to turn thirty and get Botox.”

  Examining the dorm hallway, the half-open doors and students hugging and high-fiving hellos to each other, I wondered if I should have just stuck a syringe of poison into my brow.

  Of course, there wasn’t enough plastic surgery in the world to forget how David had ended things. You’re a drunk, you have no direction, you’re fired, and we’re through, was the basic gist. Our relationship wasn’t going anywhere anyway. He was not only my married boss, but a father and fifteen years older than me.

  I reached my dorm room. The door was closed and music was crashing from it like a litter of kittens being strangled. I touched my cat ears hat; she was going to hate me.

  I considered knocking, but it was my room and I was eleven years older than the person I was suddenly insanely nervous to meet. I opened the door quickly and walked inside.

  She squinted. Her black-lined eyes slithered from my boots to my white cat ears hat.

  My side of the room was as naked as a jail cell, hers was like the store Hot Topic had thrown up and then had a seizure all over it.

  Her wardrobe matched the walls. She wore plaid boxer shorts on top of tights, and a ripped black T-shirt seemingly sliced to shreds by a demon’s talons with a blood-red tank underneath. If she was on one of those makeover shows, her look would have been a serious make way over.

  My roommate was goth. Or at least that was what we called them back in my day.

  I smoothed down my hair. I needed to switch off that part of my brain. This was my day now.

  She didn’t have to ask the question plastered on her face. Who the fuck are you?

  “I’m your new roommate, Kate Townsend,” I said, wondering if I would have to go see Carter. I wondered what the protocol was for being afraid your roommate would carve you up in your sleep.

  Maybe being stuck in the bathroom with Carter had been safer. Clearly, I couldn’t stop remembering being stuck with him in the bathroom.

  “If you tell me to call you Katie or Kiki or Kitty Cat,” she said, staring at the ears on my hat, “I will kill you.”

  “Kate is fine,” I said, throwing my duffle bag on the bare mattress. The way she looked, I believed her. At least I wouldn’t be distracted from my studies by any late night gab sessions.

  Did people even say gab anymore?

  “What should I call you?” I asked, attempting to show her I wasn’t afraid of her. Even though, who was I kidding?

  “Dawn.”

  That seemed far too sunny for someone so fixated on being dark. I couldn’t tell if she was being ironic or if it was her given name. “Pretty,” I tried.

  “Not really,” she explained. “Dawn is when night starts to cease. It is an extremely dangerous time for the underworld.”

  “Fierce,” I replied, hoping that might go over better.

  “Who are you, Tyra Banks?” she sneered above her music.

  Apparently nothing with Dawn was going to go over better. I didn’t mention her name would probably also make most people think about dish soap.

  She regarded me more closely, her black eyeliner vibrating as she glared. “What year are you?”

  Shit, here we go. Carter had probably given me a pass because of my fake dead parents. This girl in a bed next to me wasn’t about to be nearly as generous. “Freshman,” I tried.

  “You don’t look eighteen.”

  Fuck, I was busted—busted by a girl who wore dog collars as jewelry.

  I got carded every time I bought alcohol. I was asked if my parents were joining me when I went out to eat alone. I should have known it wasn’t enough.

  In some countries I would have been old enough to be Dawn’s mother. Of course, if I was, I would have told her she was wearing way too much makeup.

  I worked on not shaking, not sweating. I needed to pass as a freshman to everyone. The stocks my grandmother had left me in her will only paid for one semester’s tuition and board. My credit was crap, so I’d need a scholarship to stay in school beyond that. My best chance at getting one was being an active, actual, on campus student—a real freshman.

  If Dawn didn’t believe me, I’d have to make her.

  “I’m nineteen,” I replied, “I took a year off.” I added quickly. Using the lie I’d planned on telling.

  She considered it—and me. Her gaze was like the sharp side of a knife. She shrugged and went back to what she’d been doing before I arrived: polishing her nails black to match her eyeliner, hair, outfit, and side of the room.

  Cheery.

  I’d done a lot of research to find a place that had scholarships available once you were already a student. Hudson University in Kingston, New York, a mere ninety-one miles from the city, was small and prestigious enough to become my choice for college-take-two. It also helped that it was a school David always talked about. He had an honorary degree hanging from Hudson on his wall and used to say if he had the opportunity to travel back in time he would have made it his actual pre-law degree.

  I could go back in time. Sure, a portion of my decision might have been based on spite, but there was also the pure noble intention of aspiring to do better, be better.

  And of course, having something David could never have.

  Unfortunately, one of the stipulations for a scholarship was living on campus. For someone who was determined not to flunk out this time, living in a dorm as a “freshman” was like carrying around a stick of dynamite.

  I unzipped my duffle. “What’s your major?” I asked, starting to unpack.

  Light conversation was better than silence and her music and the black everywhere. The darkness in my dorm room might actually succeed in pushing me to slitting my wrists if I didn’t give myself something else to do.

  I’d been close enough to jumping off my fire escape the morning I turned twenty-nine—in addition to considering rehab and college-take-two—anyway. I didn’t need Miss Suicide USA assisting me any further.

  “Women’s Studies,” she said. Her lips were painted black as well, thick enough to pave a street.

  “Cool,” I said, even though she was headed down an academic path like the one I’d been on during college-take-one. I’d been an English major and my prospects had been slim, even before I’d flunked out; hers would be tighter than her disapproving mouth. “I�
�m Legal Studies.”

  That was what Hudson University called it. I called it what I should have studied all along.

  “Lawyers are assholes.”

  “Thank you,” I replied, hanging up my new nineteen-year-old wardrobe; though considering David was a lawyer I would have had to agree. I’d chosen pre-law not only because I’d grown to enjoy the wild adrenaline of working on a trial, but because one day I hoped to be standing across the courtroom from him kicking his ass in a case.

  I realize giving eight years of my life for one sweet moment of shock might seem pathetic, but no less pathetic than screwing your own married boss.

  “My dad’s a lawyer,” she added.

  “So that means your dad’s an asshole?” I could tell she thought I was.

  She shrugged and slipped in her earbuds, silencing her music and ending our conversation.

  I guess I’d convinced her I should be here, at least for now. I only had 1,400 more days and 7,000 more undergrads to go.

  Chapter Four

  Carter

  I stood against the back wall of the lounge waiting for the floor meeting to start. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to assembling the little snots from my floor into one big room of eye rolls and sighs on day one, but being a dickhead was kind of my job description.

  A few students milled around in front of the soda machine, maybe trying to pretend they weren’t coming to the meeting. A few others sat together laughing on the couch. They were so excited to be back, to be away from their parents again. They had no idea what freedom could change some people into. Freedom to do and be whatever you chose had the power to turn some into fools, others into victims or, at its worst, into monsters.

  Kate and I shared a smile when she walked in. Her roommate sulked next to her dressed in enough black to drown a widow. Her name was Dawn. She’d never been a problem, she was quiet enough and, unlike most of the other students on the floor, she didn’t party.