Beware of Love in Technicolor (13 page)

             
“Not at all,” I answered, kissing him on the tip of his nose. “Even knowing that tomorrow is a much different day, I have no regrets.” Surprisingly, I actually meant it.

             
We were both silent for a while. For the first time since arriving on campus, the two of us fell asleep together before the sun came up.

Chapter Five

             
As I suspected, that Friday was a much different day.

             
“I imagine I probably won’t be seeing you for a few days,” I said to him as I attempted to find all my clothes from the previous night. For such a small room, it sure was easy to misplace socks.

             
“You are probably right,” he said from atop the loft. He was still lying down, head propped on one elbow, watching me. “I’ll take Ben and the guys, and you can have Topher for the weekend.”

             
“Is this what it’s going to be like when we’re getting divorced?” I laughed.

             
“Not funny,” he said, throwing a pillow at me. He jumped down from the bed, and excused himself to the bath room. I took the opportunity where I found it. I knew his room-keeping habits by now, and I was pretty sure he would neglect to make his bed, even before Abby arrived. I took the lacy, black panties he had removed so deftly the night before, and tucked them in between the bed and the wall. Not too easy to casually spot, but easy enough for her to come across. I smiled an evil little smile, and resumed pulling on my boots when he walked back into the room.

I had no intention of going down without a fight. Not after I had come this far.

***

That evening, I was climbing the walls in my room. I knew I could not sit in The Pit all night, thinking and wondering what they were doing
. I snagged a hall phone and called Topher.

He and I went into town, and I bought him dinner at The Claw. I didn’t want to take the chance of running into them at Holt, or at the dining hall. Though it was killing me to see what she looked like, I could only imagine what kind of scene it would turn into, should we accidentally meet. And I had promised, after all.

“I met Abby back in September,” Topher said to me between bites of French fries. I figured he was as good a spy as any.

“Is she pretty?” I asked, trying not to sound too pathetic.

“No,” he said bluntly. “But I can see what he likes about her.”

“Slutty?”

“Not exactly.” He thought for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to eating. “She was nice. And smart. I wouldn’t worry too much about her, though.”

“Why is that?” I asked, a scowl on my face.

“Well, she’s no match for you. So just chill, ok?”

On our walk through town, we ran into Prim and her new boyfriend. They invited us to a party off campus. I jumped at the chance for something to do for a few hours.

“Where’s John?” Prim asked me innocently. She was a lot nicer than her blue Mohawk would have most people believe.

“He’s entertaining visitors this weekend,” I said. She looked confused.

“Abby is up again,” Topher explained to her. Prim rolled her eyes, and looked back at me.

“And you are ok with that, Greer?” she asked.

“What can I do? I have no control over it,” I told her.

“Ew. She was just, ew. Even for me. What an idiot,” she babbled. She hooked her arm in mine as we walked. “We’ll have fun tonight. You’ll show him,” she said.

***

The party was a crowded affair in the dirty basement of a small, blue house near the highway. It was my first keg party. The most fortuitous thing was all the boys. All the boys from Holt, second-long.

Lucky for me, I was dressed for such an occasion. Short leather jacket, short black mini-skirt, and cowboy boots. Most of the girls were wearing bulky knit sweaters and baggy cords. It was hard not to have an edge over them.

Topher fetched me a beer. He was a popular guy among his floormates, so there was a steady supply of boys to talk to me and tell me how much prettier I was than anyone else there. They were more than willing to keep my hands around a beer at all time.

I got drunk. There was no getting around it. It happened really fast, but that was ok. It felt good to let go of the wondering.

             
The first boy I kissed that night was a cutie named Mike. He lived at the opposite end of John’s floor in Holt. He had a nice smile and fast hands, and he was not afraid to make the first move. We kissed for a couple of minutes. I wanted to push him away when I thought about John, but kissed him harder when I thought about Abby. Suddenly, Mike stopped, noticing Topher’ angry glare from halfway across the room.

             
“Who does he think he is? Your father?” he asked, laughing.

             
“Don’t worry about him,” I said, feeling my face flush in embarrassment. “He’s just a concerned friend.”

             
“You need another beer,” he said, taking my empty cup from my hand. “Don’t go anywhere.”

             
I walked to where Topher was standing, and put my arms around him.

             
“You are so cute to worry about me,” I slurred, and hugged him. He tried, unsuccessfully, to untangle himself from my grasp.

             
“What are you doing, Greer?” he asked.

             
“I’m having fun,” I stated. “You’re not going to ruin it, are you?”

             
“I told John I’d keep an eye on you.”

             
I let him go and glared at him.

             
“You’re not my keeper, and neither is he.”

             
“Slow down, Greer,” he warned. His summer day smile warmed me over, and I melted.

             
“I’m fine,” I stated firmly. “Just having some fun.”

             
“Ok, ok,” he said. He was pretty drunk as well. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Have fun, do whatever, and whoever, you choose. Cheers,” he said, raising his red plastic cup to the new beer Mike had placed in my hand.

             
The second boy I kissed that night was a shy soccer player named Brad, with blond curls that reminded me of John. He, too, lived on John’s floor, and told me he always wanted to say “hi” to me whenever he saw me on campus.

             
“I thought you and John were a couple,” he said in his quiet voice. I had to strain to hear him over the music thumping through the stereo.

             
“Nope,” I said, taking another gulp of my drink. When Mike joined us and began adding some of his own beer to my cup, Brad put his hand over it to stop him.

             
“She’s had enough for now,” he said to his friend. I decided he was too nice a guy to mess with, and found my way back to Topher and Prim.

“Greer!” Prim practically yelled in my face. “You are quite the ball of the belle!”

We both gripped each other’s arms, and burst out laughing.

“I mean, belle of the ball!” she squealed. We kept laughing. When I looked up, and the room stopped spinning, I noticed I was surrounded by boys.

“This must be how Scarlett felt at the Hamilton’s barbeque,” I whispered loudly, to nobody in particular. Topher heard me, and caught the reference. He always did.

“Hey, Topher,” one of the guys called out. “Where the hell is John? I woulda thought he’d be here tonight.”

Topher looked at me. I nodded, and shrugged my shoulders. I took another swig of my beer, which was getting warm.

“He’s got company this weekend,” Topher answered.

“Not that girl from before? That little one, from UMass or something?” Mike asked, laughing. Some of the other guys laughed lasciviously along with him. I looked from one boy to another, not comprehending.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, in my most innocent tone.

“John had this girl up at the beginning of the year,” Mike began. “It was late, a bunch of us guys were just hanging out in the hall, you know, just shootin’ the shit and stuff after a night of drinking. And we hear this girl screaming, you know? And she just keeps going.” He stopped and took a drink of his beer. There were about nine or ten of us, listening to his story.

“So, finally it’s quiet. John’s door opens, and this tiny little thing of a girl comes out, wearing nothing but a towel. All us guys gave her a standing ovation. What else could we do? We heard the whole thing!”

All the guys laughed. Prim and I stood looking at one another, horrified.

“Did she say anything?” Prim asked.

“That was the best part!” Mike said, still chuckling at the memory. “Without so much as blushing, she says, ‘Well, you’d scream too, if you just had five orgasms!’”

More laughter. There was no way in hell she was going to take these boys away from me, too.

“Well,” I said, taking a swig from my cup for confidence. “She’s either easily impressed, or a really good fake, because I was with him last night and he wasn’t that impressive.”

My comment received the loudest round of laughter, and I was back to having fun again.

***

The third boy I kissed that night was a tall, skinny kid from Pennsylvania, named Andy. Andy lived diagonally across the hall from John, and certainly knew there was something between his floormate and me. He didn’t seem to care, though, and I was not exercising much restraint at that point in the evening.

Andy was a nice enough guy, but not a very smart one. I don’t think he made it past first semester at school. Funny thing, though, of all the guys who tried something with me that night, he was the only one who really talked to me first. We actually had a nice conversation, though I do not recall the details now.

As the party wound down and it was time to head back to campus, I was back with Mike; the boy with the fast hands had found me again as we were walking out into the cold night. We were across the street from the driveway, kissing and laughing and waiting for the others to join us. I remember him telling me how good a kisser I was. I could hear the others laughing and yelling as they stumbled and ran across the road toward us, but I did not turn away from Mike.

Suddenly, I felt myself being knocked to the frozen ground, and rolled down the embankment into the shallow ditch below. The group of us, including Prim and her boyfriend and Topher, lay sprawled in the frosty grass, looking up at the stars, laughing and coughing while cars zoomed past up above. In their drunken enthusiasm, they had tackled us much more violently than they had anticipated. I was the first one to get back on my feet. I held my hand out for Mike, and helped him up.

“C’mon,” I said, still laughing and brushing dirt from my skirt and tights. “Let’s ditch these clowns.”

He grabbed my hands and we began running up the street laughing as we listened to the rest of the group moan and groan and get themselves up. When we veered off into the woods I must have hesitated slightly, because Mike stopped for a moment and looked at me in the moonlight.

“It’s a shortcut, back to Area 1. See, there’s a path,” he said, coaxing me. “C’mon,” he said. “It’s cold. The others will catch up.”

I was drunk. I was cold. Unbeknownst to us, Prim and her boyfriend and some of the others had accepted a ride back to campus when some young stay-at-home type picked them up in her BMW and deposited them in front of Holt. I didn’t like that I could not hear the rowdy group behind us. So when Mike stopped and tried to kiss me again there in the woods, I wasn’t so much in the mood for those games any longer.

“Oh c’mon,” he said, pushing his weight into me until I was backed up against a tree. “You’re not going to start saying no now.”

“Um, yeah,” I stammered a bit, still drunk but able to understand what was starting to happen. “I am saying no now. I want to go home. Take me home.” I tried to step sideways away from him, but he blocked me and I was back up against the tree. He was holding my right arm down by my side with his left hand. He leaned into me, using his weight to pin me in one place, and kissed me again, hard this time and not at all enjoyable. His right hand started finding its way up my skirt. With his weight against me, I could not bring a knee up to get him in the groin, so I bit his lip when he tried to kiss me again.

“You bitch!” he cried out, letting me go as he stepped back from me. I lunged forward and pushed him down, sending him backwards on his ass. He grabbed my arm and pulled me down on top of him and tried to kiss me again.

“Hey you guys! What’s going on?”

I scrambled up and ran to Topher, whose sudden appearance there in the woods interrupted what was quickly becoming an ugly scene. I threw my arms around him.