Rush (29 page)

“Leave me the hell alone.”

“I didn’t do that to hurt you.” He
caught my arm.

“Don’t touch me,” I snarled at him. “You
hear me? Never touch me again.”

He recoiled, dropping my arm. “Caroline,
I just thought you should know.”

“You did it for revenge. Well, you got
what you wanted. I hope you’re happy now.”

“No. I want to help you.”

“I don’t need your help.” I sped up,
hoping he’d get the message.

“I need to make sure you’re all right.”

“If you think this will make me go back
to you, you’re deeply confused.”

“I know you,” he said in a reasonable
tone that reminded me of his stepfather. “You need a guy in your life. You hate
to be alone.”

“Fuck off, Trent.”

“What did you say to me?”

“You heard me. I don’t want you, now or
ever. Leave me alone or I’ll call campus security.”

“Jesus.” He stopped walking to gape at
me.

I just kept on going. At the moment, I
didn’t know who to despise more, him or Max. They were both bastards. Lying,
cheating bastards.

Max had manipulated me after all. He’d
cozied up to me, pretended to be my friend, pretended to care about me, all so
he could steal me away from Trent. All so he could hurt his stepbrother’s ego,
embarrass him, humiliate him. He’d used me and I couldn’t forgive that.

I was better off alone than with one of
them.

I made it to my room without breaking
down. As I inserted the key in my lock, a terrible feeling came over me, worse
even than the despair that had hit me in the commons. This was like a weighted
blanket settling over me, hopelessness woven into its fabric and sealed in with
every stitch.

My hand hesitated on the knob. I was
trembling. The key didn’t want to go into the lock. My legs didn’t want to hold
me up. Somehow I managed to get the door open. I went inside and shut it behind
me and sank to the floor, staring at the contents of my room without seeing.

The sadness felt so big I couldn’t wrap
my mind around it. Max and I hadn’t even been together that long. Six weeks?
Not long at all, yet it felt like forever. It had felt eternal.

What a sick joke that was. We hadn’t
even made it two months.

I’d told him I loved him. And it was
true. I had loved him. I still loved him. My body craved him.

Slowly, I curled up on my side. The hole
in my insides kept widening, deepening, yet tears refused to come. All I could
do was stare at my carpet, my mind a blank desert of pain.

Chapter 24

Max

The brewpub had sent me a sharply worded
email asking me why I hadn’t submitted the final on their logo design yet, and
I couldn’t focus. If I didn’t get my act together, I was going to lose their
business. Yet I sat at my desk and stared blankly at my monitor, which was the
same thing I’d been doing all afternoon.

It had been two weeks since Caroline had
left me. I hadn’t seen her at all in that time. I’d gone to her dorm room and
knocked, but either she wasn’t home or she refused to answer. I’d called.
Texted. No response.

I couldn’t sleep or eat. I’d lost her.
From the beginning, I’d known it would happen sooner or later, but stupidly I’d
hoped for later. Much later.

I hadn’t talked to Brad and Marie. If I
went there or even called, they’d know instantly something was wrong. And I
didn’t want to tell them. How could I explain what I’d done? How could I look
in their eyes and admit how I’d used Caroline and how I was now paying?

It served me right, of course. What I’d
done was indefensible. That fact did nothing to ease the pain of her loss.

Someone knocked on my door. Caroline? I
jumped up so fast my chair went zooming across the floor, my heart pounding in
sudden, stupid hope.

I opened the door and it was only Paige.
My shoulders fell about a foot.

“I’m here for her things,” she said,
giving me an appraising glance. “Wow, you look terrible.”

“Thank you. Come in and I’ll get them.”
I felt like howling.

Not only had Caroline not come, she was
taking away her things. She’d sent Paige for them so she wouldn’t have to speak
to me or look at me. I felt like a piece of shit she’d scraped off her shoe.

Paige stood tensely in the center of my
living room while I went into the bedroom to get Caro’s stuff. She’d left a
tote bag with some overnight things in my room.

The bag was on my mattress, where it had
been when she’d gotten up that morning. I hadn’t moved it. I picked it up and
looked inside.

A small cosmetic bag with some make-up,
a toothbrush and toothpaste, her panties, a camisole, a pair of socks. I pulled
out the camisole and held it to my nose, inhaling her scent with closed eyes.
It made me ache.

I threw the camisole onto my pillow and
carried the bag out to Paige. She was standing in front of my computer and
staring at my monitor. As I came near, she looked up at me.

“Is this your design?” She pointed at
the logo.

“Yes.”

“You’re really good,” she said in a
somewhat grudging tone, like she hated to admit it.

“Thank you.”

She held out her hand for the bag.

“How is she?” I said, almost fearing the
answer.

“How do you think? She’s terrible. You
broke her heart.” Paige glared at me as she took the bag from me.

“I—tell her I miss her. And I love her.”

“No way. I’m not telling her anything.”

“She won’t talk to me.”

“Hm. I guess you have a problem, then.”
She gave me her back as she walked to my door.

“I want to explain. I need to explain,”
I said, following her.

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

“Is she—” My throat closed down
painfully. “Is she seeing Trent?”

Paige shot me a disbelieving glance. “No,
she is not. She won’t talk to him either.”

That gave me a spurious sense of relief.
At least she hadn’t gone back to my prick of a stepbrother.

“Please tell her I need to see her.”

Paige opened my door, shaking her head. “I’m
not getting involved in this. Picking up her stuff is as far as I go. If you
want to talk to her, you make it happen.”

She walked through my door and shut it behind
her. I shouldn’t have asked her to be my go-between. She was Caroline’s friend,
not mine, so of course she’d be loyal to Caroline. And that was good. I was
glad Caroline had a friend on her side. I just wished I had someone on mine,
but everyone had deserted me. Even Fred hadn’t come around.

I went back to my computer and emailed
the logo to my client. It was good enough, and if they didn’t like it they’d
let me know. Better to send them something imperfect than nothing at all.

That chore done, I went to my
refrigerator and got myself a beer. Gods, I’d sunk low, drinking by myself. I
hadn’t done anything like this in years, but what the hell? I flopped onto the
hard wood floor, perversely enjoying my own discomfort, and downed the contents
of the bottle as quickly as I could.

“You need to fight for her.” Fred’s
voice came from behind me.

I turned my head lazily. “Surprised to
see you. Thought you’d lost my address.”

“I had some matters to attend to.”

“Oh. I see.” I got up and went back to
the fridge for a second beer.

Fred waited for me in the living room.
He was back to wearing the sack suit and derby, but the moustache was still
missing. Without it, he looked like me in historical costume. I settled back on
the floor and swallowed a good slug of beer.

“She doesn’t want me to fight for her,”
I said.

Fred scoffed. “Of course she does.”

“She said she didn’t want to see my face
or hear my voice.” Another slug of beer.

“Spoken in the heat of the moment,” he
said.

“Yeah, well, she seemed pretty sincere
at that moment.”

“Max, she loves you.”

I tilted the beer again and let it run
down my throat. This shit wasn’t doing the job. I wished I had some whiskey or
vodka.

“She tell you that?” I said without
looking at him.

“I haven’t spoken to her, but I have
observed. She seems as miserable as you are.”

“Then why won’t she answer my calls or
texts?”

“Pride, I suppose.” He sighed. “Women
are very proud creatures in their way.”

“Fight for her,” I said, and took
another swallow of beer.

“She wants you to.”

“That’s an assumption, Fred. Never
assume.”

“She’s not eating.”

I set the bottle on the floor and looked
at him. “Not at all?”

He shook his head. His eyes were
serious, almost mournful. He was worried about her. “Not as far as I could see.
She just drinks coffee.”

My stomach gave a nauseous lurch. “She’ll
make herself sick.”

“She very well might.”

“I’m going over there.” I got up,
leaving the beer on the floor.

“Good.” Fred disappeared.

***

I ran almost all the way to Caroline’s
dorm. My hair and jacket and shoes were soaked with rain by the time I got
there, but I barely felt the cold wet of my clothes. Fred’s words had fired me
up, given me a reason to move beyond my work desk and bed. They’d given me a
reason to hope.

I can’t explain why the knowledge that
Caroline wasn’t eating gave me hope. Except maybe that she was suffering, too.
Maybe she missed me. Maybe she still needed me.

The gods knew I needed her.

As usual, I got no answer when I knocked
on her door. She could be anywhere—out with Paige, at a class, at the student
union, the library, a movie. And if I called or texted her, she’d know I was
trying to find her and then she’d go out of her way to avoid me.

Instead, I sat down on the floor next to
her room and settled in to wait as long as it took. In mid-afternoon, the hall
was lively with students going to and from their rooms. They all gave me
curious looks, but no-one said anything.

I don’t know how long I sat there. My
bladder filled because of all the beer I’d had. It was starting to hurt. Damn
it. I didn’t want to leave, not even to go take a piss, in case she showed up
while I was gone.

Eventually, though, I had to give in or
wet my pants. I hustled down the hall to the male side of the floor and used
their bathroom. It reminded me of the locker room in my high school—not a place
filled with good memories. Finishing up as quickly as possible, I hurried back
to Caroline’s side in time to see her putting her key in her lock.

I strode toward her, determined to catch
her before she could lock me out. I’d almost reached her when she glanced up
and saw me. Her face lost what little color it had.

She looked ill. Dark smudges shadowed
her eyes. There were hollows beneath her cheekbones and her hair was dull and
tangled-looking. She stared at me with a mixture of dread and fascination—at
least, that’s what her expression looked like to me.

“Caro,” I said, my voice coming out all
hoarse and stupid-sounding.

“Max, go away. Please.”

I shook my head. “I have to talk to you.”

“No. It’s over.” She struggled with her
key, the metal rattling against the doorknob.

“It’s not over. Not for me.”

Her chocolate eyes glistened with unshed
tears. “Paige brought me my things. Thank you. Now please, just go.”

“Why won’t you let me explain?”

She shook her head, biting her lip. “There’s
nothing to say.”

“Yes, there is. You haven’t heard my
side.”

Finally she got the door open. She held
onto the knob and twisted her body to face me. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want
explanations. I just want to be left alone.”

My face crumpled. Damn it, I was going
to lose it any second. Going to break down and cry right here in front of
everyone on her floor.

She eased into her room. “Good-bye, Max.
Don’t come here again.”

Her door shut in my face. I leaned my
forehead against it, struggling for control. I couldn’t give up and go away. If
I did, I might never see her again. It seemed pretty clear that she’d never
come looking for me.

The only strategy I could think of at
the moment was to wait her out, so I slid back to the floor.

I’d never missed anyone like this. Never
needed anyone before. She was like some nutrient my body needed to function
correctly and now she was gone and I was slowly falling apart. If this was
love, I wasn’t sure it was worth the agony.

A girl with mouse-brown hair in a high
ponytail came up to me, her head tilted to the side, her eyes full of worry. “Are
you okay?” she said softly.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look so good.”

“I’m waiting for my girlfriend.”

She looked over her shoulder like she
was hoping for some support, but no-one was there. “I overheard her tell you to
leave. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if I could help.”

I stared up at her, knowing my
desolation was painted all over me and that there was nothing I could do to
hide it. “I’m waiting so we can talk it out.”

“Okay.” She offered a tentative smile. “Good
luck.”

“Thanks.”

The girl turned and disappeared into the
room across the hall. Had Caroline heard any of our conversation? Did she know
I was still here, waiting pathetically for her to come out and acknowledge me?

Never, in all my dreaming about girls,
had I imagined myself in a position like this.

A long time later, she opened her door
again. She came out and stopped short when she saw me. Then she heaved a
gigantic sigh.

“Max, go home.”

“Hear me out.”

“There’s nothing you can say that will
change my mind.”

I thought I saw pity in her eyes, and
that pissed me off.

“You need to leave,” she said. “Don’t
make me call campus security.”

My mouth opened. And closed. And opened
again. “You’d do that to me?”

“I don’t want to, but if you won’t go on
your own, I will.”

“Jesus, Caro.” I climbed to my feet. “What
happened to us?”

“You happened. You lied to me. Used me.”
Her chin trembled and her voice broke. It hurt me to see that. “You have no
idea how bad that feels.”

“I know how bad it feels to have thought
of doing it, for even one second. I’m so sorry, Caro.”

Her lip was trembling now as well. “So
am I.”

“Please, let’s talk about this.”

She reached into her purse and pulled
out her phone. “It’s too late for that. If you don’t leave, I’m going to call
security.”

I’d thought I’d already hit bottom. I’d
been wrong. This was much further down than I’d been before.

She turned on her phone and started to
hit the number buttons. There was nothing left for me to do except leave, so I
started walking. The only other option was to kidnap her and make her listen to
me, but that was not only illegal, it would definitely make her hate me even
more than she already did.