Breaking Fences (The Breaking Series) (2 page)

Butterflies danced in my stomach, my hands shook, and my palms sweated. A stupid smile adorned my lips, and I knew I looked like a dork. This was it. This was me, living my life, taking charge. Who cared about not transferring almost any classes from the two years of vet school in Brazil? Who cared if I had to take two years of pre-vet to be able to apply to vet school here? I was young. I had time. This was my chance to start anew, to do it better, to
be
better.

Following the campus map, I turned on the Greek Lane and instantly got the name. Large houses lined the street, with lush, green lawns, colorful flowers and tall trees, porches or archways, and big Greek letters flat against a prominent wall.

The famous Greek life. Brazil didn’t have anything like it, which made me that much more curious about it.

I slowed down, scanning around. Soon I realized that the left side of the street harbored sororities, and the right side housed fraternities. In the front lawn of the sororities, girls ran to other girls, embracing, squealing, and jumping up and down. In front of the fraternities, guys walked to other guys, bumped fists, shook hands, slapped backs.

At the last fraternity house of the street, marked by the letters BAT, a guy was sprawled on a lounge chaise in the middle of the front lawn, under the shade of an umbrella and drinking what looked like a colorful margarita glass. Around him, other guys played with a football, throwing it at each other, often bumping each other or stopping to gawk at girls who arrived at the sororities or walked down the sidewalk.

One of the guys pointed to a sorority house. “Look!” he yelled. The others turned, and they all looked at whatever. Despite it all, I looked too. However, before I could see anything, something hit the passenger door of my car. On instinct, I sank my foot on the break.

As I exited my car, one of the guys from BAT jogged in my direction.

“Sorry about that,” he said, picking the ball from the ground. “Garrett, there—” He gestured toward a tall guy standing a few yards from him. Wearing a dark brown cowboy hat and cowboy boots, Garrett turned his attention from the sorority house to me. One corner of his lips quirked up and he tipped his hat. “—was supposed to catch the ball.”

“But he was busy gawking at the girls across the street,” I said.

The guy smiled. “Well, yes.”

I shook my head and examined my car. A tiny dent marked the passenger door.

“Great,” I muttered.

“Hey, I couldn’t help but notice your accent. Where are you from?”

That was always one of the first things anyone said or asked me in any conversation.

“Brazil,” I said.

The guy’s eyes widened. “Wow. For real?” I nodded. “Cool.” Still smiling, he took a step closer to me. “I always heard Brazilian girls were beautiful.” His eyes raked me from head to toe and back. He seemed to like my faded jeans, cowboy boots, and tank top. “Glad to know it’s true.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

“Hey, Jeff,” Garrett called. “You’re hogging the ball, bro.”

“I gotta …” Jeff pointed back to his friends. What? Did he think I wanted to stand here in the middle of the street, messing with traffic, just to talk to him? “I’ll probably see you around. Right?”

“Yeah, sure.” I waved him off.

After glaring at the dent in my door for ten more seconds, I marched around my car and slipped inside. I avoided looking at the BAT house as I drove by and turned onto another street.

***

From the outside, the dorm building looked like most buildings in Brazil—four stories, with several windows lining the red-brownish walls. Except for the part where there were full apartments inside Brazilian edifices, and here there were tiny bedrooms and common bathrooms. That was going to be hard to get used to.

Since all the buildings looked the same, I slowed down again, reading the banners on top of each main entrance, looking for my future home, the Linda Hudson Residence. It was right beside the Colton Hudson Residence. Go figure.

The parking lot was behind my building, and I had almost given up parking there when I found an unoccupied spot in the back.

Holding my purse and a small bag, I entered the Linda Hudson Residence, climbed up one flight of stairs, and turned right, looking for room number 216. The room door was ajar. A girl stood in the middle of the room, and an older couple sat on one of the beds.

“Look, dear, this must be your roommate,” the woman said.

A blond girl with beautiful curls and brown eyes turned to me with a big smile. “Hi! Are you in room 216 too?”

“Yes,” I said.

The bedroom wasn’t as small as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t that great either. If there was a line running across the room, I could say the sides were symmetrical. A wooden twin bed, thin mattress, nightstand, desk and chair, a drawer chest, and a door, which was probably the closet.

Apparently, the girl had arrived here early, because her things were already spread over the right side of the bedroom. Pink comforter and pillow on the bed, pink lamp and alarm clock on the nightstand, books on the desk, and portraits over the drawer chest.

“Come in, then,” the girl said. I couldn’t help but notice the fitted pink polo she wore and the big Greek letters on the left side. “I’m Molly Stuart, your roommate.”

“I’m Beatriz Fernandes.” I stepped inside, dragging my bag over the worn beige carpet, and turned to the unoccupied side of the room. “But I prefer Bia.”

“Cool. Bia. I like it,” Molly said. “I hope you don’t mind, but I chose a side without waiting for you.”

I dropped my bags on my bed. “It’s fine.”

She introduced me quickly to her parents. They were from Denver and had come with Molly for her first day at school. They did that every semester, even though she was starting her third year here. As expected, they asked about my family.

I thought about lying because I didn’t want anyone pointing at me with one of three options. A, they loved my brothers and my cousin and were big fans, which meant they would bother me. B, they knew about Leo and everything involving him: his problematic phase and last year’s tragic events, in which case they would pity me or be wary of me. C, they knew nothing about polo and never heard of my family before.

Even if they knew who my brothers and cousin were, lying wasn’t for me. I was proud of my family, even through the rough patches.

“My brothers play polo and my father is the coach.” Then I lied, “They are at a big tournament this week, and I didn’t want to bother them.”

“That’s nice of you,” Molly’s mother said. “Well, if you need anything, let us know. We’ll be in town until the weekend to make sure Molly is okay. We don’t mind helping Molly’s friends.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“We’ll let you girls get to know each other now,” Molly’s father said. He kissed Molly’s forehead. “We’ll pick you up later for dinner. You’re invited to come too, Bia.”

“Thanks,” I said again.

Once her parents walked out of the room, Molly closed the door and leaned against it. She smiled at me, her eyes sparkling. “Let the party begin!”

Chapter Two

Two hours later, Molly and I had unloaded all of my things, dropping all the boxes and bags on the floor.

“I’m not going to organize this mess right now,” I said, sitting on my bare mattress.

“Don’t sit there!” Molly shrieked.

I jumped to my feet. “Why?”

“You don’t know where this mattress has been, what people might have done on it, with it.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “If you sleep on it, make sure to put several sheets, but if I were you, I would buy a new mattress ASAP.”

I nodded, making a mental note to browse the internet later for a local mattress store. The perks of never having lived in a dorm before. It seemed I had a lot of things to learn.

“Come on.” She picked up my purse from the chair. “Let’s take a break.”

“Where are we going?”

She smiled. “I’m going to show you around. There’s much to see.”

She wasn’t kidding. Molly and I walked around campus, stopping by the buildings where our classes would be; by the gym, which, according to Molly, was a great place to meet hot guys; by the main square, where lots of events happened; by the bookstore, where we browsed for the books we needed to buy; and by a coffee place three blocks from our dorm.

Molly bought a white mocha latte, and I got a cappuccino before we sat at a table by the window.

So far, I had found out Molly would turn twenty-one in two months, this was her junior year too, and she was double majoring in business and French. During high school, she had been head cheerleader and valedictorian, and dated the quarterback for almost two years, but they broke up right after prom. Here in college, she was taking it slow. She had a few dates, but nothing too serious.

“Life is a party and I want to enjoy my last two years here,” she said.

In turn, I told her where I was from, my age, that my two years in vet school had gone down the drain, though I was able to transfer a lot of core curriculum classes, putting me in my third year of pre-vet here. I also told her pre-vet was something that didn’t exist in Brazil, which bothered me to no end when I first found out. I almost gave up vet school because I didn’t want to lose a few years. However, I had come to terms with that and I was embracing the American lifestyle.

“So tell me,” Molly started. “Is it too different from Brazil so far?”

“You mean, being in college?” I asked, and she nodded. “A little. First, universities in Brazil don’t have dorms. You can’t live on campus.”

“Are you serious? Then what do people do?”

“Live with your parents, or if you’re from out of town, rent an apartment.”

She blew on her steaming mug. “Interesting. What else?”

“Brazilian colleges don’t have a Greek system.”

“No way! But that’s so fun. I’m in a sorority—” She pointed to her polo shirt. The letters embroidered on it spelled ATN. “—and I love it! My parents belonged to Greek houses, and they loved it too. They met during a mixer. Oh, and they met their best friends there too.”

“It sounds like fun.”

“It is! You know, tomorrow night is rush night. I’ll be at the house helping out, but you should come. You should rush!”

“Um, I thought only freshmen were supposed to do that.”

She chuckled. “No. We accept girls from any year. You should do it.”

“I’m not sure.”

That was when those guys, Jeff and Garrett and the one lounging on a chaise in the middle of the front lawn, strolled past the coffee place, outside the window.

They tossed the football around, chatting. Jeff saw me and nudged the other two. Without slowing their steps, the other two turned their attention to me. Jeff waved, the nameless guy gave me a big, bright smile and winked, and Garrett showed me the same lopsided grin from before.

I stared at my coffee.

“Do you know them?” Molly asked.

“Not really. They hit my car with that damn football when I was arriving on campus. But other than that, I have no idea who they are.”

“The shortest one is Jeff Smith, the tallest one is Garrett Blackwell, and the blond one is Jonah Hudson. They’re—”

“Wait. Hudson? Like in Colton and Linda Hudson?”

“Yes, those were his grandparents. They donated a lot of money to the university back when.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He’s loaded, and he’s the president of the Beta Alpha Tau fraternity, or The Bat for short. It’s the best fraternity on campus.”

Well, there were about six fraternities on campus. To me, that was a lot.

“So far, they seem full of themselves,” I said.

Molly laughed. “Like most college boys.” She pointed to where they disappeared. “But you saw how cute they are, right? Like, super cute.”

I shrugged, but the truth was, I noticed. I mean, I wasn’t a saint. I liked guys, and being in college meant getting to know lots of them.

I noticed Jeff, the shortest one, but still taller than my 5’7”, had an olive complexion and chocolate eyes, with a short, dark hair. Jonah was taller than Jeff was, and had fair skin, blond hair cut in layers, and blue eyes. Garrett, the tallest of the trio, had tanned skin, messy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a five o’clock shadow covering his jaw and chin. And the three of them looked like they worked out.

“Yeah, they’re cute,” I admitted.

“If you rush my sorority, Alpha Tau Nu, you’ll be seeing more guys like them.” She leaned over the table, and for a second, I thought she would leap over it, clutch my shoulders, and shake me until I agreed. “Please. Come over, even if you’re not interested. If someone bids on you later, you can always pass.”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, didn’t you say you wanted the full American experience? It doesn’t get much more American than rushing sororities.”

She had a point.

Since the idea of going to college here in the U.S. bloomed in my mind, I promised myself I would experiment with new things and try the American way of life. Rushing and pledging sororities were part of it. Still, I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted.