Forever Altered (15 page)

There
is plenty of time before my class tonight, so when we finally get back to
campus I’m thankful for the break.  My foot started hurting a little while
ago and I’m wondering why I was crazy enough to pick such a sensitive spot to
be tattooed.  Now that I’m looking at it again while Rocco is rubbing
ointment on it, I cannot ignore how I absolutely love it. 

“I’m
so glad you are this happy about your tattoo,” he says. 

“Me
too.  Thank you, again.  Today was one of the best days ever!” I tell
him.

“Yes
it was,” he answers.  

Just
as he’s getting ready to cover it up, Leah walks through the door with Tyler
and Julia trailing behind her.  “Where have you two been all day?” she
asks.  Then she almost freaks out when she sees the gauze sitting on the
couch next to me and my foot on Rocco’s leg.  “What the hell happened to
your foot?”  She rushes over and glances down to my foot.  Her smile
mirrors mine.  “You finally did it!” Leah blurts out.

“Finally
did what?” both Tyler and Julia ask at the same time. 

“Oh
my goodness,
Lyss
!  I love it!” Julia
practically screams.  “How bad does it hurt?”

“It
actually hurts pretty badly right now,” I admit.  “I don’t think I’m going
to my class tonight.  Just the thought of putting on my sock makes it hurt
even more.”

“If
you want to go, I’ll drive you over and pick you up when it’s over,” Rocco
says.  He looks like he feels bad. 

“Don’t
you dare,” I demand.

“Don’t
I dare, what?” he asks me.

“Don’t
you dare feel
bad.
”

“I
do feel a little bad.”  He looks down at my foot biting his bottom
lip.  “But it does look really awesome.”  He’s holding my foot from
underneath.  “I have to admit, I was a little worried when you said
butterflies, but it suits you perfectly.  Very sexy,” he adds running his
hand up the back of my leg.

“Oh
please,” Julia says. 

“No,
it kind of is, Jules,” Tyler says looking over Rocco’s shoulder.  “Right,
Leah?”

“Totally,”
Leah agrees.

“I
wasn’t talking about that.  I was referring to Rocco totally eye fucking
her right here in front of us.”  Rocco and Tyler burst out laughing. 
However, I’m not sure if it’s because of what Julia said or my reaction to
it. 

“Don’t
be jealous, Julia.  You just miss getting that look from Tommy. 
Maybe you should have held out a little longer,” Leah says plopping down next
to me smirking.

“Okay,
that’s it,” I say getting up.  “I’m going to class after all.”  That
just sends them all into another fit of laughter. 

I
leave the room shaking my head.  Rocco comes in after me still
chuckling.  “Let me finish covering that up for you.”  We relax on my
bed for him to apply the gauze.  His hands lingering on my skin ignite
something inside of me that I’m not ready for yet.  “Sunshine, we need to
get out of here.”  Knowing he feels the spark as well makes me think this
will be happening entirely too soon.

Rocco
grabs my backpack and we head out to the living room.  “See you guys
later,” I say to my roommates.

“
Lyss
, we are grabbing Chinese for dinner.  Want your
usual?” Julia asks.

“Sure,
thanks.  Don’t wait for me to get back.  I’ll just reheat mine,” I
say pulling money out of my pocket and sticking it under the magnet on the
refrigerator. 

“Rocco,
you want anything?” Leah offers.

“I’m
going to grab something with the guys.  Thanks, though,” he tells her
opening the door for me. 

“Just
so you know, your girlfriend is ours tonight.  We have a ton of shows to
catch up on.  We’ve gotten far behind since you two started this dating
shit,” Julia says giving him one of her serious looks.  They aren’t nearly
as powerful as Leah’s, so he just laughs her off.

“I’ll
think about it,” he says.  We leave and start walking to the parking
lot. 

“I
can walk to class, Rocco.  You don’t have to take me.”

“I
know I don’t have to.  I want to.  Besides, I’m not going to let you
limp all the way across campus.”  He raises his eyebrows daring me to push
the subject further.

“You
are too good to me.”

“Sunshine,
you haven’t seen anything yet.”  He gives me the smirk that sends shivers
through my body.  

He
leaves me right outside of the building reminding me he’ll be back to pick me
up by the time my class is over.  This almost three hour class always
drags, but tonight it seems exceptionally long.  By the time class is
over, my foot is throbbing from being inside of my shoe and I’ve grown quite
grumpy.  That is until I walk out of the door and see my boyfriend leaning
up against the wall across the hall waiting for me.  I cross the hallway
and fall into his open arms. 

“Hey,
Beautiful.  Let’s get you home.”  It feels so good right where I
am.  We start to leave when someone calls Rocco.

“
Yo
, Matthews!  Hold up a sec.”

Rocco
turns around searching for the voice.  It belongs to one of the guys I
recognize from the class I was just in.  “What’s up, Ryan?” he answers
irritated pulling me closer to his side.    

“Haven’t
seen you around the Village lately.  What’s going on?”

“I’ve
been busy.  Do you need something?”

“So
the rumor is true.”  He looks me up and down then back to Rocco. 
“Rocco Matthews actually has a girlfriend.”  The cocky look on his face
bothers me.  These two are clearly not friendly.  “Nice to know.”

“Leave
her alone, Ryan.”  Rocco is clearly warning him away.  What the hell
is going on between these guys?

Ryan
starts laughing.  “Keep her close, Rocco.  See you around,
Beautiful,” he says to me before turning to walk down the hallway in the
opposite direction.

“What
the hell was that about?” I ask Rocco as soon as Ryan is out of sight.  He
leads me down the hall and out of the building where his car is waiting in the
commuter parking lot.  When he opens the door for me, I don’t get
in.  “Are you going to answer me?”

“He’s
a scumbag.  Make sure you stay away from him.  If he bothers you, I
need to know about it right away.  I don’t care where I am.  You call
me if I’m not with you.  If you can’t get me for any reason, you call
Shane.”  He’s looking me straight in the eye.  He hasn’t answered my
question and I’m getting annoyed.  “Alyssa, do you understand me?”

“Yes,
I get it.  Now answer my damn question.”  I don’t mean to snap at
him, but I don’t like being ignored either. 

“Ryan
thinks I’m the reason his girl dumped him.  He thinks I slept with her.”

“Did
you?” 

He
sighs before he answers.  “No.  She tried coming on to me one night
at a party.  I’ve never really liked Ryan, but I wouldn’t sleep with anyone’s
girlfriend.  I have some morals.  She tried to follow me when I left
and some of her friends told Ryan that I took her to my room.  I have no
idea where she went, but it wasn’t with me.  I’ve never brought a girl
back to my room other than you the entire time I’ve lived here on campus.”

I
believe him and relax immediately.  I put my hand on his cheek and kiss
him quickly.  “I promise I will keep an eye out and call you if he bothers
me.  Now please take me home.  I have cold Chinese food and TV shows
waiting for me.”  He chuckles shutting me inside the car.

Rocco

Life
had been going pretty well up until the last couple of days.  I was
supposed to spend the night with Alyssa Thursday night, but that didn’t work
out.  At the last minute, Leah’s mom had to go out of town for work. 
She needed Leah to come home and watch her younger brother since the normal
babysitter wasn’t available until Saturday.  Tyler already had plans he
couldn’t change so he was unable to go with her.  Alyssa, being the
sweetheart that she is, went because she didn’t want Leah to be alone. 
Normally this wouldn’t have bothered me.  I’m not the kind of guy who has
to have his girlfriend around him all the time, nor would I get pissed if she
had to change plans suddenly to help out a friend.  The problem was that
yesterday was my dad’s birthday.  I was sort of hoping this year would
finally be the year I wouldn’t dwell on it.  No such luck.  Maybe if
I had told Alyssa she would have stayed with me, but I didn’t want her to feel
like she had to pick between me and her best friend.  I could get through
this like I had every other year.

The
worst part about all of this is I can remember that day like it was
yesterday.  Dad and I were just coming off the lake. 

“Dad,
wasn’t that the biggest fish you ever saw?” I asked him excitedly as I watched
him pull our boat out of the water.

“Sure
was,” he told me proudly grinning ear to ear.  Looking back on it, the
fish really wasn’t that big, but Dad would have never told me otherwise. 
“We’ll have to show Mom the picture.”

“I
bet she never saw a fish that big in her life!” I babbled still smiling. 
“What kind of fish was it again?”

“It
was a pike,” he said for about the tenth time.  He was never impatient
with me.  We didn’t get to see each other very often with his work
schedule being so crazy, but on his days off, he always spent time with
me. 

“Oh,
right.  A pike.  Can we come back here again?  Maybe next time
you’ll catch one.  It sucks that you didn’t catch anything,” I chatted
away.

He
chuckled at me.  “Sure, we can come back the next time I have off and the
weather is nice like this.  Buddy, I wouldn’t care if you caught every
fish in the lake and I didn’t catch any,” he said handing my tackle box and
fishing rod to me from the boat.  I took them from him as he rumpled my
hair.   “Just make sure you don’t say sucks in front of your mom,
okay?  I’ll get in trouble.”

“Okay,
Dad.  Where are we going now?  Can we go out to lunch?” I asked.

“Good
idea.  Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“Look
who we have here,” a disturbing voice said.  I turned in the direction it
came from and saw a man holding a gun facing us.  I remember thinking he
wasn’t a police officer like my dad.  Everyone was screaming around us and
people were running away.  The rest happened so quickly.  My dad
never even had a chance to say anything to him.  “I lost my daughter
because of you, so I’m going to take your son,” he yelled.  Dad grabbed me
and pulled me behind him and the boat blocking my view of the man.  Then I
heard the loud bang that still haunts me to this day.  My dad slumped over
our boat.  He clutched his chest as he slid to the ground. 

“DAD!”
I screamed as I saw the color red everywhere.  “Dad, are you okay?” 
I panicked.  I fell on top of him.  “Dad?  Dad?”  It felt
like forever before he answered.

“I
love you, Rocco,” was the last thing he said.  Someone ripped me away as
strangers surrounded him.  I never saw my dad again.  I squeezed my
eyes closed pushing the horrible memory away.          

The
guys tried to help out.  Thursday night we went to our usual bar in
Madison.  We forgot that it was usually busy with college students from
both our school as well as the other university a few miles down the road
because of the football game.  They should have forced me to go home at
halftime.  Right before the third quarter started, Ryan, Carrie, and a few
of their friends came in sitting at the table directly behind us.

It
didn’t take long for Carrie to spot me and come over to our table starting her
bullshit.  “Hey, Handsome.  Already done with that pathetic, little
girl of yours?”  She just walked in the door, yet she already reeked of
booze.  Even as drunk as I was, I could smell it on her. 

When
I went to turn around to tell her to fuck off, Carrie plopped herself in my lap
and draped her arm around my neck.  I immediately stood up and she
stumbled to the floor.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I screamed
backing up away from her. 

Ryan
came over and got right in my face.  “Who the fuck do you think you are,
you piece of shit?”  He shoved me back toward the table.  Good thing
for him, Shane was there to catch my arm before I punched him.  By that
time, Ryan’s friends were already grabbing at him, trying to drag him in the direction
of the front door.  Just before they made it to the waiting area of the
restaurant side of the place, he shouted, “I cannot wait to get Alyssa in bed
and screw her like the tramp she is.”  This time Logan, Troy, and a couple
other people I didn’t know had to help Shane hold me back.

“Let
me go!” I hollered at them.  “He doesn’t get to talk about my girl like
that.”  I tried fighting them off, but it was no use.  There were
just too many hands on me.

“Calm
the fuck down, Rocco,” Shane yelled directly in my face.  He’s had to do
this more times than I care to admit.  They managed to get me back in the
chair, except I was anything but calm.

“
Aww
.  Don’t worry, Rocco.  You’ll be over her and
in my bed before you know it,” Carrie said before running out after the losers
she came in with.

“Holy
shit, that girl is insane!” Logan said from behind me.  “Doesn’t she see
how close he was to knocking her ass out?”  He paused briefly before
adding, “This would have been so much worse if Alyssa was sitting here.”  My
anger flared again and I attempted to jump out of the seat.  The thought
of her being here to see or hear this shit was enough to make me snap. 

“You
are not fucking helping, Logan.  Shut the hell up.”  Shane glared at
him over my shoulder struggling to hold me in the seat.

 I
took a few deep breaths and was making an effort to talk myself down from this
rage.  I haven’t felt this angry since middle school when someone started
talking about my dad being a bad cop because he got shot.  “Take me back
to school, right now,” I told Shane through clenched teeth. 

“Absolutely
not, my friend.”  Shane patted my shoulders and they all were returning to
their seats seeing that I was trying to calm down.  He held up his finger
to our regular waitress and she came right over.  “Some water and an order
of nachos, please.”    

“Rocco,
you need anything else?”  What she was really asking was if I wanted
something stronger.  We’ve been coming here for four years now.  She
knew us very well.  I just shook my head.

We
stayed until the third quarter ended then left to go back to school.  If
the guys weren’t with me, I would have gone over to the Village to hunt that
bastard down and beat the shit out of him.  It was going to be interesting
the next time we ran into each other.  On such a small campus, it won’t
take long.  I became concerned about him being in one of Alyssa’s
classes.  I’m going to be taking her to that class every week and probably
watching from the hallway until the end of the semester.  He’s too
arrogant to be afraid of me.  The second the guys got me back to my room,
I collapsed in bed and fell asleep. 

The
next afternoon, whenever it was I finally managed to get out of bed, Shane
mentioned how he answered my phone when Alyssa called the previous night. 
Evidently, he opened his big mouth and told her what happened at the
restaurant.  She was concerned about me and asked if she should come back
to school.  He told her he could handle me and not to worry.  At
least he was smart enough not to mention about it being my dad’s
birthday.  I spent the rest of the day with a bottle of Jack Daniels in
our apartment refusing to leave just in case I ran into anyone.  That
particular day was not a day my friends would be able to restrain me from
ripping someone’s throat out.  By the time Alyssa called again, she was
very well aware that I was loaded.  The uneasiness in her voice made it
obvious she was worried about me, but part of me didn’t care.  After all,
I should be celebrating with my dad.

“What?”
I answered just before the call went to voicemail.

“Hey,”
she said taken back by my rudeness.  “You doing any better today?”

I
took another sip of my drink.  “I’m great.”

“How
come you don’t sound so great?” she asked cautiously. 

“Don’t
know.”

She sighed
and waited before asking her next question.  “Rocco, how much have you had
to drink today?”

Something
inside of me snapped and I was irritated at how she was talking to me like I
needed her approval.  I don’t answer to anyone.  “I didn’t know I
needed to get your consent before having a drink.  If I had known that was
the case, I would have reconsidered this whole dating thing.”

“I
didn’t say you did.  You just don’t sound like yourself,” she said
offended.  “I’m worried about you.”

“You
aren’t the only one who has bad days, Alyssa.  If I want to have a fucking
drink, I’m having a fucking drink,” I yelled in the phone.

“Rocco,
knock it off, man.  Alyssa didn’t do anything.”  Shane came out of
our room.  Troy must have heard the commotion because he came out, too.

“Whatever,”
I say to them all.  “I
gotta
go.”  I hung
up on her and went to bed. 

Since
I have finally sobered up, a heavy, sickening feeling is sitting on my chest
over the way I spoke to Alyssa on the phone last night.  Shane was
right.  None of this is her fault and there was no reason for me to snap
at my girl the way I did.  She was just trying to figure out what was
going on with me.  Now I can see she was feeling helpless over being so
far away and not knowing what was wrong.  Perhaps I should have told her
about it being my dad’s birthday.  Then she would have at least understood
why I was acting like such a jerk.  I cannot even call her to apologize.
 She sent me a text about an hour before I woke up saying she was on her
way out to go shopping with Leah and Paige.  At least she said she’d see
me tonight.  Hopefully she doesn’t dump my ass for the way I treated
her.  I settle for sending a simple text saying that I can’t wait until
tonight and telling her how much she is missed.

Good
thing I slept well into the afternoon because it helped the day go by a little
faster.  It felt like no sooner did I get back from the gym and showered
that Troy is telling me Paige is on the phone saying the girls are going to
grab something to eat before heading to the bowling alley.  They are
inviting us to meet them.  Feeling a little unsure as to whether or not
Alyssa actually wants me to go, I send a text asking her.  My phone is
ringing in a matter of seconds.

“Hey.” 
The guilt has me feeling like a scorned child.

“Why
would you think I wouldn’t want you to come?”  No hello or simple
greeting.  She just goes right into drilling me with questions.  “Did
I do something?”  How could she possibly feel like she did something when
I was the one who screwed up?

“No,
Sunshine.”  I sink into the couch defeated.  I don’t care that Troy,
Shane, and Logan are staring at me listening to our conversation.  They
know how badly I screwed up.  They have all been telling me about it since
my ass crawled out of bed a few hours ago.  “You didn’t do anything. 
I’m so sorry for being such an asshole to you last night.  I wouldn’t
blame you one bit if you wanted me to stay here.”  I hear her sigh into
the phone.

“Rocco,
you’re definitely not off the hook for that, but we’ll talk about it
later.  I miss you and I want your arms around me within thirty
minutes.  Understand me?”  Her tone couldn’t have been any more
demanding and I want nothing more than to give her exactly what she wants right
now.

“Clearly. 
I’ll see you soon.”  The smile on my face has to be gigantic.

“See
ya
.”  She disconnects the call.  Maybe
tonight wouldn’t be as disastrous as I thought.

“I
never thought I’d see the day,” Logan says from across the living room.

“You
never thought you’d see the day for what?” I wonder.

“The
day that Rocco Matthews is a love stricken idiot,” he answers shaking his head.

“What
the hell are you talking about?”

“Dude,
it’s all over your face,” Troy joins the conversation as he’s pulling on his
shoes.  “I’m not judging, just saying since I’m right there with you.”

“You
guys think I’m in love with Alyssa?”  The idea is so foreign to me I’m not
sure what to say.  Are a bunch of guys really having this
discussion?    

Shane
starts laughing.  “Rocco, even you aren’t that dumb.  Come on. 
It was written all over your face from the second your phone rang.” 

I’m
deliberating what they are saying, but I’m not convinced.  “Well I
honestly have no idea what it is, but it’s fucking amazing.”