In Ruins

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Five Years Old

“
Princess
,” Daddy loud-whispers to draw my attention from the rainbow I'm coloring on the brick driveway with chalk. I don't have all the colors, so I used purple three times. I think I like it better than a regular rainbow.

“Coming, Daddy!” I top off the rainbow with a fluffy white cloud and run to the front of the garage. My face spreads into a super big smile when I see the shiny car with the big red bow.

“What do you think, Princess? Will Mommy like it?” Daddy asks.

The car is big and small at the same time. Sneaky looking. Like it can go really fast without even making a sound. The color is special, too. It's shiny and white, but not just white. Like one of the pretty pearls Mommy sometimes wears around her neck. Like white glitter.

“She's gonna love it, Daddy!” I squeal with giggles as he grabs me and plops me up onto his shoulders.

“Too bad I don't have anything for you,” he says in a way that makes me think he's up to something.

“That's okay. It's not my aversity, silly,” I remind him.

“Ann-i-ver-sary,” he says for the ten hundredth time today, and I say the word the way he said it, even though it still comes out different.

Daddy walks us into the garage going slower than a turtle, and then I see it.

“Yay!” I start clapping and wiggling so much I almost fall, but Daddy catches me—he always does.

“Whoa, calm down there, Carleigh! You don't want to break your neck before you ever get to drive it.” He laughs with his big mountain voice, and it booms like a happy drum through the whole garage.

I rush over to what I know is my present, even though it isn't my a-ver-sity. It's exactly the same as Mommy's new car. Only smaller. And it has no top. A
converble
. It even has a big bow like Mommy's car, except this one is my favorite color—purple.

“What do you think, Princess?” Daddy asks. “I had it made custom for you to match Mommy's. They don't sell it in stores, you know.”

I hug his leg as tight as I can—it's as high as I can reach unless he picks me up or leans all the way down.

“It's the bestest car ever,” I tell him. “I love it so so so much. Can I drive it now?”

Daddy bends down and picks me back up. “In a few minutes. It's all charged up for you, but let's give Mommy her present first, okay?”

“Will!” Mommy calls Daddy from inside the house.

“Come out here, Nik!” he calls back.

A minute later Mommy appears with my baby brother, Billy, in her arms. He is cute and tiny and I just met him a couple months ago when Mommy and Daddy brought him home from the hospital, and I already love him even more than my favorite doll. If I'm super careful Mommy lets me hold him sometimes, but only if I'm sitting down and either she or Nanny Marina is right next to me.

“God, what is it, Will?” She seems tired. Billy doesn't really sleep so good, but Nanny Marina takes care of him at night and Mommy and Daddy's room is so far away they can't even hear him. Sometimes I hear him cry and I wake up, but I don't mind. He likes it when I sing him songs from my favorite princess movies like
Beauty and the Beast
and
The Little Mermaid.

“Just wanted to show you something real quick,” Daddy says, and he smiles back at me in that sneaky way.

“Honestly, Will, I was going over instructions with Marina, and I still have to finish packing.” Mommy sounds like me when Daddy tells me I'm whining.

“Well, we could stay home. Celebrate our anniversary with the kids,” Daddy says, and he gives Billy a baby kiss. “We've been to the south of France plenty of times. We can take a trip when this little man gets a bit bigger.”

“Ugh, stop it. Last summer I just found out I was pregnant and couldn't even enjoy a glass of rosé! It's my turn for some fun,” Mommy says, and I wonder why she can't have fun with me and Billy.

Daddy doesn't say anything else; he just tucks Billy into his elbow and holds my hand with his other hand.

And then we can see Mommy's present. Daddy turns around with a giant smile and I yell “Ta-da!”

Finally Mommy also smiles, and not the one that only shows in her mouth. Her eyes are smiling, too.

“Oh, Will!” She runs over to her new car and touches it from the top down to the front like she can't believe it's real. “You got me my Aston Martin!”

“Happy anniversary, Nicole,” Daddy says, and Mommy gives him a big hug and an even bigger kiss. “I promised you, didn't I?”

Mommy claps like a little kid and gets inside, and starts pressing buttons and looking around.

“Told ya she'd like it,” I tell Daddy, and he pats me on my head like the puppy Mommy won't let him get me.

“Right as always, Princess.”

Present Day

I wait, until my mother blows her air kisses and the door to my dorm room closes behind her, to let the fake smile fall from my face. I don't know which of us is more relieved for her to go, but once she does, I allow the finality of her departure to finally sink in.

Freedom
.

I turn to face my roommate and a genuine grin pulls at my lips.

Devin mirrors it. “She's something, huh?” she says of my mother.

I raise my eyebrows in mock exasperation. Nicole Stanger is certainly
something
. I plop myself down onto my narrow twin bed—the smallest one I've had since I was in a crib—and sigh. “Well, she's gone now,” I assure myself more than her.

Devin smiles at me in sympathy. We were fourteen when we met on a cross-country teen tour my summer camp was sponsoring, and we connected instantly, staying in sporadic touch despite rarely ever seeing each other. So when we learned we'd be heading to the same college, we put in our roommate requests immediately.

She has never met my mother before, and I'm sure she wasn't quite what Devin expected. We're nothing alike—never have been. I was a Daddy's girl, though the idea that I might take after him isn't something I especially want to entertain.

“
Carleigh, darling, be sure to put your best foot forward for rush week
.” I repeat my mother's words in a perfect mocking impression, and Devin laughs. I roll my eyes. I may have simply smiled at my mother in response—arguing with her gets you nowhere—but I have no intention of joining a freaking sorority, that's for sure. I'll just tell her none of them wanted me.

“Do you want to go down to the dining hall for dinner?” Devin asks.

“Nah, I want to get to these.” I gesture to the excessive number of moving boxes considering the shoebox of a dorm room we now share.

“Okay,” she replies. “Just remember we need time to get ready for tonight.”

My pulse speeds uncomfortably and my stomach rolls. “I don't know…” I say for the hundredth time. And I hate myself for it. I should be excited to go out tonight. My first night of college, and it's a notoriously huge party night. But Devin isn't the only person from my past here at school with me, and I hate myself even more for being
that girl
. The one naïve enough to make college plans with her high school boyfriend, only to have the relationship implode before summer was out.

But it's so much worse than that. Because ours wasn't your standard high school romance. Sure, it was tumultuous for a time, until we admitted our feelings for each other, but then…then I thought it would be
forever
.

And ours wasn't your standard breakup, either. It was a disaster.

It was
Chernobyl
.

Devin sits down beside me on my bed. She doesn't know that Tucker is here at school with us. All she knows is that I had a tough breakup over the summer, and she has made it her personal mission to get me out of my funk. It's something I would do if the roles were reversed, but hers is a role I could handle. It's this one that has me utterly lost.

Because I'm the strong girl. The one who doesn't need a boyfriend. Who could hook up and walk away. Or so I used to tell myself.

Now I feel like every step I take on this campus is on eggshells, because Tucker knows my secret. He hates me for it, and he should. And I honestly can't fathom why he hasn't outed me as the fraud that I am. Why he hasn't told all of our friends. But he hasn't.

But that doesn't mean he won't.

“Come on, Carl. It will be fun. You'll get your mind off of your ex, and maybe meet someone new,” Devin coaxes.

I slip on my fake smile. She doesn't notice. I've been pasting it on for so long, lying for so long, I'm not sure
I
can even tell when I'm faking it anymore.

There are three main parties tonight, and I've managed to convince Devin to go to the one at The Library bar, even though it's the least popular of the three. It's famously lax on ID's, so I told her my fake isn't convincing enough for the others, even though my ID happens to be spectacular. But Morgan's is the bar everyone wants to be at, so that's where I expect Tucker to go. Because that's who he is. He is popularity, and likeability, and utter male perfection, and he will put absolutely no effort into it whatsoever, but by the end of the week, every freshman here at Hofstra University will know his name, and every girl—and some guys—will be fantasizing about warming his bed.

I squeeze my eyes shut to chase off the image of his army green eyes, the way his dirty blond hair falls into them. I try to forget that boyish grin and those dimples that melt my heart. But they only appear when he smiles, so they are decidedly absent in my memory of the last time we saw each other. No, that one features his rare scowl, directed at me with such resentment and contempt that it shocked the air from my lungs. Even recalling it now has my eyes welling with moisture, and I have to blink to fight it away.

I suck in a deep breath and dab under my eyes with a tissue, then fix my eyeliner and concealer. I'm skilled with makeup, and I'll admit I put extra effort into my look tonight. I needed to account for the shadow of heartache staining my features, and I have.

I brush my stick-straight, light golden-blond hair. It's grown quite a bit since I cut it to my shoulders last winter, and it now hits just above my cleavage. I wonder if I should cut it again. Perhaps something drastic. Something to make me feel like someone else. Someone new. Anyone but the girl Tucker Green hates.

“You ready?” Devin asks as she spritzes on a final spray of Hanae Mori perfume. She smells like cotton candy, and she looks beautiful, too. Her chocolate bob is sleek and straight and parted down the side. I did her makeup using a new technique I learned from a YouTube video, and while she looks equally gorgeous without any at all, I'm deeply pleased with the result. Her eyes are almost the same chocolate shade as her hair, and the coral and earthy shadows make them look impossibly large under her long, black mascaraed lashes.

“You look hot,” I tell her, and she smirks at me.

“Not so bad yourself, Stanger. Come on, let's go make all the other bitches jealous.”

We walk outside, following the throngs of students all headed to the same strip of bars. The girls are dressed to impress in their favorite outfits—short dresses, tight miniskirts, tighter tops. Tonight we will all make our first impressions here, and the air is thick with possibility.

Three more blocks and I can see our destination up ahead—a vintage-y white and green sign that reads “The Library.” It may be lackluster in appearance, but it's brilliant with significance. The bar is one of the staples of our new school—a bona fide landmark—and its dull sign glows under the streetlamps; and under that, a crowd of students smokes and chats. A couple of guys pass us and shamelessly rake us both with their gazes. One smirks. I think I hear another murmur something about
fresh meat
.

I try to force myself not to wonder what Tucker is thinking right now. What
fresh meat
he's checking out. Who he might go home with tonight. The truth is it wouldn't be any less painful if he were across the country at some other school. As long as I don't run into him, anyway. But no matter where he is, he'll be doing the same thing. Meeting new people, checking out the girls, and inexorably attracting their attention.

My phone buzzes with a text from my friend Rory, who's in New York City at freshman orientation for NYU.

She doesn't know the details of why Tucker and I broke up, but she knows my devastation. She's one of the few people who can actually understand it, as she experienced her own last year when she and Cap couldn't get their shit together. They're practically married now, but then, she hadn't been harboring some monumental secret that would inevitably destroy them.

I text her back.

I text her back a smiley face that in no way reflects my actual mood. I'll call her tomorrow. At least one of us is happy. And Rory and Cap deserve it, especially after all they've been through. I don't know what I deserve, but I fear happiness isn't it.

The night passes slowly. It's a strange juxtaposition. Because while the dull ache in my chest is always there, surprisingly, I am kind of having fun. I've met a few girls I'll be in classes with, including one in my creative digital marketing class, the one I'm most excited for. Which is ironic since I ended up in the class by default when it was the only one available to replace the class Tucker and I had planned to take together prior to our breakup.

My new friend Julia, on the other hand, has been looking forward to digital marketing ever since she visited campus last year and happened to audit the class, though her enthusiasm is less about the coursework than about Professor Stevens himself, who apparently has a reputation as the hottest professor on campus.

Personally I'm hoping to gain a lot more than eye candy from that class—namely credits toward my major. I love makeup, but I don't just want to own a salon one day—I want to own a chain of them, and a line of cosmetics, too. And for that I need a business degree.

I swallow the last sip of my beer and debate ordering another. As Devin predicted, we have gotten our share of attention from the opposite sex, and I should feel flattered, but honestly, I just feel inescapably lonely.

The place is packed, and the guys are all on the prowl. Most of the girls, too. The guy with the shaved head I've been trying to blow off all night suddenly sidles up to me
again
, and I sigh in exasperation. “You sure I can't buy you a drink?” he slurs.

“I already have one,” I say for literally the fifth time.

He shakes his head and taps the glass of my empty beer to make his point. “Not anymore.”

Well, nothing gets by you
. “I can get my own drink, thanks.” I turn away from him.

“Fucking bitch is too good to let a guy buy her a drink,” he murmurs drunkenly to his friend, who isn't even listening to him.

I should let it go, I know, but I just don't have it in me. I swing around to face him. “Actually this
fucking bitch
is just too good to let
you
buy her a drink. Who do you think you are, anyway?” I hiss.

Devin turns from the guy she's flirting with, her eyes wide and alarmed, as do quite a few of the people surrounding us. I hear my mother's voice in my head warning me not to make a scene, but I just don't care. I'm not going to take that shit from this douchebag.

Douchebag chortles loudly, spitting beer out of his rancid mouth, and I recoil from his rank breath. “Who am
I
? I'm Ricky fucking Vance,
bitch
!” he says proudly, and I vaguely recognize the name, but can't place it.

I glare at him, unimpressed.

“I'm the fucking number one lacrosse goalie in the goddamn state!” A few cheers erupt around him. “And you're just some fucking slut who should've taken the drink I so generously offered. I—”

“Ricky, shut the fuck up,” a deep male voice commands from behind me.

Douchebag—or Ricky, whatever—refocuses his very dazed, inebriated gaze behind me. “Fuck this uptight bitch. She was disrespectful.” But the fight is draining out of him, replaced by uncertainty.

I turn to see who seems to have called off the douchebag, and I'm a little taken aback. He's stunning. At least six foot two with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. I noticed him in the bar earlier—a gaggle of girls gathered around him, desperate for his attention, and finally I recognize who he is. Ben Aronin, the captain of our very popular lacrosse team, and a nationally ranked attacker. And he's offering me a conciliatory smile.

“I'm sorry for my friend. As you can see, he's had a little too much to drink.”

“The fuck, man?” Douchebag sounds betrayed.

“
The fuck
is right. A girl doesn't want a drink from you so you start cursing her out? You make us all look bad when you act like that. Go back to the house and sleep it the fuck off,” Ben orders, his eyes narrowed in censure.

Douchebag starts to say something else, but suddenly there are two guys beside him guiding him toward the door, and I just stare after him, a little dumbfounded.

“Sorry about that,” Ben says again. He nods to the bartender and holds up two fingers.

“I was handling it,” I murmur. I am not the girl who needs saving. I can handle a drunk douchebag. And at least the douchebag
asked
to buy me a drink. Ben just hands me a beer, and I don't know why I take it.

He's handsome, sure, but all I can see when I look at him is how much more vibrant Tucker's eyes are, how much more thrilling his smile.

“I don't doubt that. But I'm not about to stand by and let my teammate behave like that. Sorry,” he says matter-of-factly, as if he wasn't doing it for me at all—like it was simply his responsibility—and strangely, that makes me feel a little better about it.

“Thanks for the beer.” I hold it up and turn to go find Devin, but he stops me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, you don't have to run off. Not all of us are assholes,” he says sheepishly.

But I already know not all lacrosse players are assholes. I know one in particular who is absolutely wonderful. But he hates me. And he lives in the same house as Ben and the rest of the lacrosse team, and the last thing I need is to get to know anyone who has anything to do with Tucker.