Breathless (5 page)

Chapter
Five

Georgia and I had agreed to meet up for lunch on the
first day of classes before we had to go to our
Precalculus
class together, so I left my first session of American Literature and found my
way across campus, back to the dining hall, as quickly as I could. I knew that
I’d eventually know the campus like the back of my hand, the same as Johnny;
and I told myself that when I did, if some Freshman came up to me and asked for
directions to one of the dozen or so buildings, I’d make sure to at least give
them some kind of advice on how to get there.

Georgia was waiting for me at the entrance to the
dining hall, peering through the crowds of students coming and going. She
leaped up from the bench when she saw me, running over and grinning. “Did you
get lost? I did. But at least I managed to get to my class on time; man, there
was one kid who came in twenty minutes into class…” Gigi and I talked about the
impossibility of finding our way across the campus, and how there should have
been a much more involved orientation that centered on where everything was.

When I told her about Johnny saving me, she gaped,
staring at me in shock. “Seriously? Man, you have the best luck. I just wish
some hot guy could have swooped in and showed me where the classroom was.” She
shook her head as we moved slowly forward in line, commenting again on how
lucky I was. “Oh man, Becky, he’s totally into you.” I shook my head.

“He’s a frat guy, I doubt it.” I told her about the
party that Johnny had invited me to and Gigi made the face that I hadn’t quite
dared to make when Johnny had mentioned the frat party.

“What frat is he with, do you know?” I shrugged; he
had mentioned it, but I hadn’t really paid much attention.

“Phi Kappa something?” Georgia’s eyes widened again
and she grinned.

“Oh man, that is the one with the
worst
reputation. All the different sports guys are in it, and
they’ve nearly been broken up like—a dozen times for how wild their parties
get.” She shook her head, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “It’s probably just
all hype, though.”

“Yeah, I mean, parties are all the same.” We grabbed
trays and browsed along the lunch line; I dared to get the eggplant parmesan
with some salad and garlic bread, while Georgia ordered a sandwich from the
deli line and got soup to go with it.

There weren’t quite as many people in the dining room
as there had been at dinner before; some of the kids had just grabbed to-go
boxes with food in them and rushed off to classes that met during the lunch
hour. The dining hall stayed open until three, but they didn’t have much on
offer after 1:30—just sandwiches, the salad bar, and leftover pizza and soup.
Georgia and I agreed that we’d hit up the frozen yogurt machines for dessert,
since none of the cake or pies looked particularly appetizing. I tried a new
juice, along with pouring myself some more coffee.

We sat down and talked about Johnny and the other guys
we’d seen rushing about campus. “You know, I still haven’t seen anyone as hot
as he is. You’re lucky he’s interested.” I rolled my eyes.

“Oh please. He’s an upperclassman, obviously gets away
with murder, and a frat boy. He’s got plenty of women who want him; I doubt he
even gave me a second thought.”

“Really? He remembered your name from the night before
last. He obviously thought about you a little bit.” I shook my head.

“Or he’s really good at remembering names.” Georgia
laughed.

“Guys only remember names when it’s someone they want
to fight or someone they want to bang.” I shook my head.

“My dad remembers plenty of names.” Georgia rolled her
eyes.

“Whatever, Becky—Johnny wants you. I’m totally jelly,
but you deserve to get a good lay after going without.” I threw a piece of
garlic bread at her and she caught it and ate it. “You should totally go to the
party, even if it’ll probably be lame.”

“Eh, it’s a party. How lame can it be?” Georgia
grinned.

“I’m picturing half-naked ape-men hanging from the
light fixtures in togas,” she said. “At least there will be plenty of other
guys behaving badly.” I laughed, even though the idea of Johnny as an “ape-man”
didn’t quite jibe with the impression that I’d already gotten of him. I didn’t
like judging people I’d never met, but I didn’t have the most optimistic
predictions about the party itself. I agreed that I would think about it and we
put the whole topic behind us, focusing in on the rest of our classes for the
day.

As I sat in Math with Georgia—after we both managed to
find our way to the building it was in—I tried to focus on the introduction the
professor was making, but my mind kept slipping up. I knew I needed to pay
attention to what the professor was saying; I knew that since math wasn’t even
close to my best subject, I especially needed to focus, but I couldn’t keep
myself from thinking about Johnny.
Oh
God, this is bad,
I thought, writing down notes without even really hearing
what the professor was saying. All I could think about was the conversation I’d
had with Johnny, how cute he was, how sweet and funny and nice. I had no idea
what I was even putting down in my notebook; for all I knew the professor could
have been speaking Latin and I would have just obediently written down words I
couldn’t even understand.

Instead, I was thinking of what it would be like to
talk to Johnny again. I was thinking about his strong hands, his cute smile,
and the way his eyes sparkled when he told a joke. I remembered my fantasies
from the night before last and thought about what it would be like to feel him
touching me everywhere. I could feel myself getting hot, my skin tingling as I
shivered in the cold classroom, thinking of him. I couldn’t help myself; he was
just so hot, and even though I knew there was almost no chance of actually
getting him, I had to admit that I was more than a little attracted to him. He
was in a frat, which wasn’t the greatest thing, but at least he was a decent
guy. I couldn’t imagine him being like some of the jerks my dad hung out
with—he was way too nice for that.

Gigi and I parted ways, heading to our other classes
for the afternoon, and the thoughts I was having about Johnny only got worse. I
started imagining what he would look like naked, how it would be to kiss him,
trying to speculate what he would be like in bed. I thought as funny and sweet
as he was, it would have to be a lot of fun to sleep with him. I’d been with a
couple of guys, but not very many; at the high school I’d gone to, word got out
really fast. I definitely didn’t want to come across as a slut and it would
have been really easy with the close-knit crowd I hung out with. Especially if
I’d ever slept with anyone who wasn’t “approved.”

As I sat through my classes for the afternoon, I
thought with dread about how bad it was that I couldn’t even manage to keep it
together on the first day. I’d never had a problem with keeping my mind on my
work when I had been in high school. Even when I’d had a huge crush on someone,
I had been able to at least focus on whatever task was in front of me. But
suddenly, with Johnny on my mind, I couldn’t think of anything but him. I would
make up for it later, but for the moment, I kept picturing him, remembering
every detail of the two short conversations we’d had—the way he’d touched my
shoulder or tweaked at my hair. I couldn’t even really remember the last time I
had been with someone and knew for a fact that the last guy I had dated was
nowhere near as hot as Johnny was. No matter how much I tried to push him out
of my mind, I kept coming back to thoughts of him, my imagination running wild.
It was hopeless.
I will just have to cope
with it as best as I could
, I thought as the class ended surprisingly
suddenly, with me none the wiser about what it was even about, what anyone had
discussed, or what any of the deadlines for the semester would be.
I have my syllabus, it can’t be that hard.
I took a deep breath as I gathered up my things.
Get your head straight, Becky. You can’t get behind your first week.

Chapter
Six

Later that day, Georgia and I had decided to head over
to the dining hall with some of the other girls on our floor. After classes I’d
run into them and we’d started talking, and to my surprise we actually had a
little bit in common with each other. One of the girls on our floor was from a
family like mine, with parents who had wanted her to go to an Ivy League
school, another one was an English major—she was taking British literature
instead of American for her first semester, but she was pretty interesting and
smart all the same.

We had both started getting to know people; even as
distracted as I was, thinking about Johnny all afternoon, I had at least
managed to make conversation with a couple of people in one of my classes, and
I wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to get to know some of the better
kids in the dorms just because my brain was all twisted around Johnny.

We all went to the dining hall as a group and were
talking about the different classes; I found out that I hadn’t really missed
out on much while I’d been daydreaming, which was a relief. The dinner that
night was some kind of Asian-fusion stuff, and we all joked about whether there
was or was not the stereotypical low-grade meat in the stir-fry. We piled food
on our plates; I realized that I hadn’t really eaten much all day, I’d been so
distracted.

We all grabbed a corner of the table and started
talking about what we wanted to do with our majors. Georgia told the other
girls about my goal to possibly join Greenpeace, and we came up with one or two
other post-graduation scenarios that would be just as wild. Giselle thought she
might want to go to Korea to teach English, Sam said she was going to go backpacking
through India. We started to get to know each other better, comparing notes on
what we had learned over the couple of days since we’d moved in. Apparently the
RA on our floor was pretty nice—though Annie had managed to embarrass herself
by knocking on the RA’s door in the middle of the night, locked out of her
dorm, and discovered that while our RA had strict rules for us against having
boys in our rooms, she had one of the other RAs over—and they were barely
dressed.

I was relaxing, my mind off of Johnny for once,
talking to the girls on my floor and getting to know everyone. It was nice to
have a little bit of time when I wasn’t thinking about the incredibly hot guy
I’d only run into twice. I smiled and laughed, telling an edited story about
what had happened to me that morning, without mentioning Johnny—and
fortunately, Georgia had the presence of mind not to bring it up. We all joked
about how hard it was to get around on campus and how we were eventually going
to be the mistresses of the layout, how we were all going to end up being much
nicer than the upperclassmen who refused to help us freshmen when we were lost
or frazzled.

As I was talking, though, I was looking around, just
taking in the scene around me and trying to get a feeling for the people in the
dining hall. I had eaten my dinner and got up to get some dessert—the brownies
actually looked decent, and I thought I had seen “Chinese donuts” among the
offerings. “I’m going to get something sweet, anyone want anything?” A few of
the girls said that they would come with, and I started back into the food
service area.

I made my way over to the dessert area and looked
around as I grabbed a brownie and one of the sugared donuts. Off to the side,
my gaze stuttered to a stop as I caught sight of Johnny. He was talking to one
of the upperclassmen girls, smiling—not quite the way he had smiled at me, but
smiling at her nonetheless. For a moment I was frozen in place. The girl,
whoever she was, was obviously into Johnny; she kept touching him, moving her
hips, tilting her head, playing with her hair. I heard her cloyingly sweet
laugh and wanted to throw up.

Georgia had come with the rest of us to grab a quick
dessert; she saw me staring and glanced in the direction I was looking in.
“Oh,” she said. She nudged me, shaking her head. “Snap out of it, girl,” she
told me quietly.

I gave myself a shake and shrugged. “It’s a free
country, I guess,” I muttered, grabbing another brownie and piling it on top of
the one I’d already gotten. Georgia rolled her eyes.

“Dude, he’s the hottest guy in the school,” she said
lowly. “Of course women are going to throw themselves at him. I mean, it’s no
big deal, right?” I shrugged again, taking a deep breath and trying to get
better control over my face.

“Right, of course.” I turned and made myself walk away
without causing a scene, without trying to interrupt the two. I knew I was
being foolish; after all, how many times had I told Georgia that Johnny
probably hadn’t even taken any particular notice of me? But I felt a little
rattled, nonetheless.
He’s just a nice
guy, and he probably flirts as easily as he breathes. It’s no big deal. Let it
go.
I told myself I was getting depressed over nothing, and that probably
Johnny didn’t mean anything with the upperclassman girl any more than he had
meant anything with me. He probably invited every girl he ran into to the frat
parties. He had just been being nice to me when he’d helped me get to class. I
should take what I’d said to Georgia seriously and just pretend like nothing at
all had happened—because obviously, Johnny didn’t think anything at all had
happened.