Crashing Into You (2 page)

“Hey you,” I said, when I
stepped out the door.

“Hey Syd, you’re late,” he
said, and brought his feet down to the ground. “You’re usually here before me.”

“I know.”

“Did you sleep in?”

“No. I’ve been up since
5:30.”

He set his iPad on the table and
brought his elbows down. “Mel didn’t wake you, did she?”

“No. Why?”

“We were out pretty late last
night.”

I opened my yogurt. It was
runny at the top. “No, she was asleep when I left. A dream woke me up.”

“A dream?”

“Uhh, yeah.” I wanted to slap
myself. What compelled me to bring
that
up?

“What kind of dream?”

“Well, it was more of a
nightmare.”

“Oh.” He picked up his
Gatorade, opened it with one quick twist of his fingers. “Did you have a
nightmare about leprechauns? Those wake me up constantly.”

I laughed. “No. Nothing like
that.” I needed to change the subject. I hadn’t even given Melanie all the
details about that tragic night, let alone Evan. She knew I was in a car
accident my senior year of high school, but that was all. “I think I’m just
worried about my presentation.” I took a bite of the yogurt. It was warm, so I
set it down. “I don't feel very prepared.”

“Nah, you’ll be fine. I barely
worked on mine, and I got an A. He’s not grading these very hard, you know
that.”

“He better not be. I bombed
the midterm.”

“You’ll be
fine
,” he repeated. “I promise.” He grasped
my hand, without a warning, then took off his sunglasses and gazed into my
eyes. I breathed in, deeply. The sun behind me shined the perfect light on him.

He looked like he had jumped straight
out of a catalogue, like he was one of the new models of J Crew. His face had a
mesmerizing depth, with sturdy cheekbones that made him look like a man, and
adorable little dimples that turned him back into a kid. His eyes were sky
blue, and his hair was a soft, thick brown that had cute little curls above his
neck. He was a swimmer, so his body was lean and strong. And his lips were red
and robust; he was so damn kissable that every time I sat next to him I had to
refrain from asking the forbidden question, “I know you're dating my roommate,
but would you care to make out?”

“Syd?” he asked. He dipped
his head a little. “You okay?”

I blinked, twice, and looked
away from him. “Uhh, yeah, why?”
 

“You disappeared for a second
there.”

“I did?”

“I mean… you got quiet.”

I pulled away from him, and put
my sociology binder on my lap. “Sorry. I guess I'm just nervous.”

He leaned back in his chair,
and gazed up at the sky, like he was deep in thought. He was so comfortable
with me that sometimes I wondered if he wanted me just as much as I wanted him.
Did he have any clue what I felt about him? Did he know I wanted him, and his
body, his very naked body?

As soon as I thought it, I
put it out of my mind. I could never do that to Melanie.

A few minutes passed. We
didn’t say much. I looked over my index cards. Took a few bites of my apple.

“It’s 8:55,” Evan said. He
grabbed his backpack and jumped up from his chair. He was six foot four, a
giant next to me, although at five foot seven, I wasn’t exactly a
shrimp—I was still three inches taller than Melanie. “We should get
going.”

“Okay.” I grabbed my binder,
pushed my chair in. I didn’t have to throw out my yogurt or apple core, because
Evan did it for me. “Oh, thanks.”

“No problem. So you have any
plans for the weekend?” He opened the door for me, just like he always did. He
was such a gentleman.

“Probably just studying for
finals. What about you?”

“Oh come on, you’re not gonna
have any fun?”

“I’m sorry I’m not as smart
and perfect as you, Evan, but some of us have to work to get good grades.”

He shot me a dirty look. “Hey,
I study.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes.”

“Then how come I never see
you in the library?”

We headed up the stairs. Our sociology
class was on the second floor.

“Maybe I study somewhere
else,” he said. “Maybe I like to go off on my own once in a while. Ever think
about that?”

We reached the classroom.
With one minute to go, the room was packed. I’d been hoping half the kids would
have called in sick today, but alas, it was too good to be true.

Evan opened the door for me,
again. He was so sweet. Too sweet. What was his flaw? It was a question I asked
myself time and time again. He had to have
one
.

I immediately thought of two:
he was already taken, and he would never want to be with me.

I frowned, and looked up into
his hypnotic eyes.
 

“Some of us aren’t always
what we seem, Syd,” he said. “I would have hoped you’d figured that out by
now.”

And with that, he took his
seat in the back of the room. I was all alone, and didn’t have Evan to protect
me any longer. The long hand on the clock hadn’t even hit the 12 yet, and Mr.
Hernandez was already waving me to come forward.

I gulped, loudly.

And headed toward the front
of the classroom.

Chapter 3

Polite applause broke out in
front of me. Had it already been ten minutes? I felt like I’d only said four
sentences.

“Nice job, Sydney,” Mr.
Hernandez said, and turned to the students. “Does anybody have any questions
before we move on?”

“Yeah, I have a question.”
The voice came from the center of the room. Todd Langdon. The insipid jock. The
one who did his presentation on how the Kardashians and Snooki are healthy to
society.
 

I set my index cards down.
“Uh huh?”

“Are you…
insane
?”

Soft laughter arose from the
back of the room. I looked at Mr. Hernandez, who simply shrugged; apparently he
thought the question was valid.

“Let me get this straight,”
Todd said. “You want the legal driving age to be raised from sixteen to nineteen,
and you think anyone who’s caught drinking alcohol under the age of twenty-one
should spend an entire week in prison. Is that what you’re
saying
?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”
I wrung my hands together, and avoided eye contact. “These are just ideas,
suggestions, for how to stop this epidemic. And I mean it, when I say,
epidemic. I know everyone likes to let loose once in a while, trust me, I’ve
been there. But the statistics are real. Over 10,000 people died last year
because they had a few drinks before they got behind the wheel. Nearly 2,000 of
those? Teenagers, aged sixteen to nineteen. Do you find that funny, Todd? Is
that a joke to you?”

“Of course not,” he said. The
laughter ceased. “But come on. You could say that about anything. There are
thousands of car crashes every day where alcohol
wasn’t
a factor. Are we supposed to get rid of cars, too?"

“That's totally not the
same—”

“I agree with Todd,” a girl
said, interrupting me. Maddie, the sole ginger in the class. “Alcohol isn’t the
problem. I studied abroad last semester, and I saw twelve year olds walking
around with beers in their hands. It’s not a problem over there. It’s a problem
here because of people like you, Sydney, who want to put restrictions on
everything.”

“Look.” I paused, waited for
Mr. Hernandez to put a stop to this. He said nothing. “We’re throwing car keys
at our kids when they’re still
kids
,
and they’re getting behind the wheel before they’re ready. That's all I'm
saying.”

“When do you want them to be
ready?” Todd asked. “When they’re thirty-five?”

“Yeah, or how about fifty?”
Maddie added.

“I’m not the only one who
thinks this. There are studies, there are petitions. Teenagers are dying, and
we’re not doing anything about it.”

Todd chuckled and tapped his
fingers against his desk. “What, and you will? You know what I think? You’re
gonna talk about this your whole life, but you’ll never do a damn thing.
Because you know, as well as I do, sometimes shit happens. And there's nothing
you can do to stop it.”

“Hey! Todd, that’s enough,”
the teacher said.

“Can I be done, Mr.
Hernandez?” I asked. He nodded, and I headed back to my seat. I was on the
verge of tears. I had to sit down before anyone noticed.

“Afraid of a little
confrontation there, Sydney?” Todd continued, so cocky I wanted to strike him
across the face with the hardback sociology book. “Afraid I might be right?”

“Stop being an ass, Todd,”
Evan said, finally coming to my defense. “She made some good points.”

Todd spun around. “Oh, you’re
the one to talk, Evan. I’m pretty sure I saw you tossing back about a thousand
Jell-O shots at Michael’s party last weekend.”

“I was
not
,” he said, but looked the other way.

“Sure you were! You were the
champion!” Todd returned his gaze to me. “I’m not sure I saw you there, Sydney.
Oh wait, that's right. You're afraid of parties, aren't you? You're afraid of
people who like to have a little fun.”

I bit down on my tongue.
Tried not to scream. “I’m not afraid of parties, you idiot.”
 

“Oh really?”

“Todd, I'll say it one more
time, that's
enough
,” Mr. Hernandez
said.

“Yeah, dude, shut up!” Evan
added.

Todd jumped up from his seat.
Crossed his arms. “No! I wanna know! You want to do all these things, Sydney.
You want to change society as we know it. But why? What is it to you?”

“Because!” I didn’t think. I
just did it. I lifted up my hair. Showed the laceration that stretched from
above my right ear, all the way to the back of my head. “It happened to
me
, all right? My boyfriend was driving drunk
and hit another car. He flew through the windshield, died on impact. He killed
a mom, and her son. And I almost died, too. I would have, if the ambulance
hadn’t showed up in time.” I paused. The room was dead silent. “Not a day goes
by that I don’t think about that little boy, what I could have done differently
that night so he could still be alive. Was having
a little fun
that night worth another human life, Todd? A child’s
life? I don’t think so.” My eyes swept the room. I looked at Mr. Hernandez,
then at all the other students. “Anybody else have any fucking questions?”

Evan and I walked in silence
down the hallway after class, until we exited U-Hall and got away from our
classmates.

“That was so amazing, oh my
God,” he said, shaking his head. “Holy shit, Syd. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“About what?”

“You know damn well what. Mel
told me you were in a car accident. She didn’t say people
died
. Why would you keep that from me?”

“I don't know. It's just... it’s
not something I like to talk about.”
     

“Man, you put Todd in his
place. I thought he was gonna piss his pants.”

I laughed. “I wish he
would’ve. What an asshole. Why does he do that?”

“He does that to everyone in
the class. He just likes to be the center of attention, that's all. He's the
same way at parties. He can be fun, but he's super insecure—”

“Oh, so what he said was true
then?”

“About what?”

“About that party you were
both at. Were you the Jell-O shot champion?”

He didn’t answer right away.
His silence told me he was. Evan could be so disappointing at times. He was
always the perfect guy when he was with me, but then I heard stories about him
that made me roll my eyes. It was like he pretended to be the sweet, caring guy
when he was around me, but the real Evan was the guy who woke up every morning
hung-over, having beaten out his frat bros the night before in the latest beer
chugging contest.
  

“He exaggerates,” Evan finally
said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We headed across the bridge
and sauntered toward the sophomore dorms. Dozens of students crowded the
walkway.

“I mean, it's okay if you drink
Jell-O shots, Evan. I don’t want you to think I'm some kind of loser.”

“What? Why would I think
that? Because you don’t drink?”

“I can have fun. I’m not… you
know… joyless.”

“You
are
fun, Syd. I love spending time with you. You know that, right?”

He said it in a casual,
friendly way, but I had trouble separating my feelings for him from his choice
of words. He had fun with me. He thought I was fun. I almost reached for his
hand, but I stopped myself.