Vérité (4 page)

“I know,” I whispered as I turned again to leave.

“Tingly,” he called out. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Don’t be mad; I thought it was funny. I didn’t know it would offend you. You have a nickname?” he yelled after me.

As I walked away, I waved my hand in the air and dismissed his apology. “It’s fine,” I yelled back, then ran down the stairs and out of the building. The last time someone called me a nickname, it didn’t exactly work out so well.

“I think I’ll call you Tigger because you’re fast like a tiger and sweet like honey. You know, the way Pooh is always eating his honey and Tigger is by his side.”

And then I ran all the way back to my dorm mentally reciting words that begin with
P
.

Pamela Anderson à la
Bay Watch
. Perfetto. Pumpkin pie. Peppers. Pasta.

A
week later I was bent over, leaning on my knees, catching my breath as my lungs clawed for oxygen, when a pair of male running shoes showed up in my limited field of vision.

“Hey, Tingly, welcome back. Hope you’re feeling better,” Logan Salomon said to me before he leaned in closer than I would have liked. Getting right up in my ear, he whispered, “Maybe you’ll give one of us guys your own age a whirl this year,” before he slapped my ass and ran off.

Logan and I met at freshman orientation when we were new track recruits searching for another friendly face. He was a piece of shit, even back then. He’d tried desperately to get me drunk that night in a full-on hot pursuit of getting inside my pants. Sadly, he was just like all the other rich, spoiled boys back at home who thought they were entitled to anything and everything.

Well, not me.

I’d spent all of my freshman year turning Logan down. Of course, he fell off my radar last year, enjoying his sophomore year while my soul died. Now that I was back, he was apparently chasing me again, unable to believe I would choose to sleep with a forty-something-year-old professor over him.

While I watched Logan run away, his surfer-boy blond hair flopping all around his head, I nearly barfed up my Gatorade.
What an ass
.

Then I heard a whistle.

My section coach, Stephanie, wasn’t a big believer in long breaks. Before I could even get my breath back, she was flipping her long shiny brown ponytail around while blowing her whistle, calling us back out on the track. With every strike of my foot, angry thoughts of Logan faded and my emotion bled away, diluted by endorphins. My heart was empty, not capable of trusting or caring for others, and that was a very, very good thing.

Nadine paced next to me, her lean pale legs struggling to keep in stride with mine as her bushy blond ponytail full of curls bounced in the wind. Her breath came out in short ragged puffs, but she didn’t waste her energy trying to talk to me. Although normally peppy, she was a quiet running partner, something I could finally appreciate.

As soon as practice was over, I hightailed it out of there, forgoing a shower in the locker room for an extended run back to my dorm. Running, feeling the burn was my only relief. Only when my thighs were screaming and my feet felt numb did I forget the real pain.

Yet I found myself slowing when I neared the field house. As I made my way past the large basketball arena, I wondered if Tiberius was in there, getting hazed as one of the new guys, or maybe lifting weights. We’d been avoiding each other for the last week. At least, I’d been doing the dodging, and he was finally obliging.

For a few days after our first stilted conversation, he’d call after me when study hour was over. “Tingly?” My name would come out all velvety in his deep, husky voice. Although he somehow knew not to drag out the end of it like he had the first night, I kept blowing him off.

Tossing a hand up in the air and giving him a quick wave, I’d say, “Gotta go. Sorry, got an early morning,” even though it was only eight p.m.

I couldn’t go
there
with him, but oh, my traitorous body wanted to go all the way.

It had been such a long time since I’d made a new friend or someone asked me if I was
okay the way he did the first night. I was hungry for contact. I’d starved myself for so long, I was like an Olympic gymnast on a severely low-calorie diet. Except, it was the no-relationship fast. Forever.

Although Tiberius’s curious stare made me itchy at study hall every night, I wasn’t willing to surrender to his sticky-sweet charm and concern, no matter how contradictory it was to his physical appearance. Yet I couldn’t make my feet move from the outside of the basketball arena. Maybe I thought if I stood there long enough, Tiberius would appear, asking me how my run was or how my day had been so far.

I’d never been inside the building or witnessed a hoops game live. Considering I lived with two female players, I’d have to learn a little. Maybe they were working out too—right now? With Tiberius?

Shoving any more errant thoughts of the basketball player out of my mind, I picked up my pace despite my legs begging for a rest. My quads burned, and my calves raged with my brain to stop. Air was pumping in and out of my lungs as I breathed deeply, maintaining my pace all the way back to my dorm.

Ginny was on the couch when I got home—reading, of course. My practice was in the morning and hers mid-afternoon, so we ended up watching a mindless rom-com together after I showered before lunch. When she took off for her practice after lunch, I decided to take another quick run.

Unsure of what to do with myself following my second brutal workout, I texted Ginny. Last year, all my hours were filled with therapy and crying. The year before that, it was running and Pierre. And now, this year, they were filled with nothing but psychobabble.

Pillows. Peace signs. Pisa. Pilots. Puppies. Puff Daddy. Pomegranate.

ME
: Hey, hope practice was great. I’m going to grab coffee and read in the Union before study hour. Catch you later.

It seemed like a normal collegiate activity to fill my time.

GINNY
: OK. I’m skipping dinner too. Not in the mood for the football parade. See you later.

As it turned out, sipping coffee while reading in a comfy overstuffed chair in the Student Union was surprisingly relaxing. Every so often, I would glance up from my book and get caught up in watching the people streaming by. This evening it was mostly students grabbing a few extra credits during the summer session, plus a couple of frantic teaching assistants running around with their arms full of stacks of paper. I didn’t even know these people existed on campus while I was busy fucking up, but now found comfort in their ordinariness, and the lingering smell of pizza.

Lost in people-watching, I was startled when the alarm on my phone beeped, reminding me it was time for preschool, or study hour, depending on how one looked at it. I reached for my bag and stood up a little too quickly, surprised when my head swam. Realizing I hadn’t eaten since lunch, I pulled a protein bar out of my bag to eat on my way to Henderson.

I’d been setting my alarm so I could at study hour arrive ten minutes early, hoping to avoid running into anyone at the door again. But I couldn’t be so lucky today because as soon as I hit the steps to the building, a deep voice called out, “Yo, Tingly!”

My feet stopped, even though my brain told them to keep moving, and my head turned, even though I willed it not to, making my long hair swish all around my face. I bit my tongue, unable to stop the “Hi” that automatically dropped from my mouth.

It only took three long strides for Tiberius to catch up to me, and there he was, apparently freshly showered and wearing another pair of shorts and the same hoodie. The scent of deodorant and some woodsy shampoo wafted from him, making him smell so commonplace, like every other college guy leaving the dorms. Yet on him, it smelled just right. Perfect.

“We meet again,” he said.

“Yep,” was all I said, trying not to encourage conversation, but secretly willed him to keep talking.

He grabbed the door and swung it open, stepping to the side before tucking his head under his arm. With his hand high above his head, holding the door ajar, he looked back at me and said, “After you.”

I slipped past him, doing my best not to brush up against him.
I should run in the other direction.

“You gonna take the elevator again?” Tiberius asked as the door banged behind us.

“Absolutely. My legs are toast,” I replied as I looked anywhere but at him.

“Cool, me too.” He followed carefully, slowing his gait to keep in stride with me. “You a runner?”

“Why do you ask?” I bit out, then smacked the elevator call button so hard that it didn’t even register my touch.

I stared dumbly at it for a second until Tiberius slid his hand across my arm and pushed his ridiculously long index finger against the button. Of course, as soon as he pressed the damn thing, it turned bright red.

“You said your legs were toast.”

“Yeah, I run. For Hafton, and for my sanity.” I held back a sigh at the realization that I’d just admitted another truth out loud to this total stranger. The worst part was, it felt good to be honest. I sort of liked it.

While we waited for the ding, he tried to make more small talk. “How was your day? I mean, your life? Better, I hope.”

“Oh, you know, it’s just dandy,” I whipped back, unsure why I was being such a raging bitch all of a sudden. I was an emotional yo-yo when it came to this freshman.

The doors chimed, then slid open. “Hmm. Dandy,” he repeated under his breath.

We were only enclosed in the steel box for two floors, but it felt like an eternity. His scent seemed overpowering all of a sudden. Masculine, and definitely not flowery. Or French.

I tried holding my breath, but I couldn’t. My lungs ached for a whiff of him.

He was handsome and strong, and his concern for me showed he had a protective side. Protection was something I knew nothing about, other than to stay away. Usually when someone said they wanted to protect you, it really meant they wanted to take something from you.

Just as the car came to a halt and the doors shuddered open, he spoke again. “Sorry, if I bugged you, T. I thought we could be friends or something. I’m new, the young guy on the b-ball team and all that.”

I had to take control. I’d said all of ten or twenty words to this guy, and he was ready to be BFFs or friends with benefits; I wasn’t sure which. I could feel the expectation or anticipation of something practically radiating from him.

Right outside the elevator, I leaned in close to Tiberius. Trying to ignore his über-masculinity filling my nostrils, I lifted my chin so I could make eye contact with the jolly giant.

“Listen, Tiberius, I appreciate the effort. I get that you’re new here and lonely, and all that crap. I was a freshman once, and believe me, I was
lonely
. So lonely that I fell for my professor and fucked his brains out for a whole year, and only stopped when I got caught red-handed doing the deed at the beginning of last year.”

His eyes grew wide, and before he could react any further, I forged on.

“I had to sit out a whole season while they examined my head. Luckily, my spleen decided to burst around the same time, and I could redshirt without too much disgrace. Ha! But everyone pretty much knows. I’m only telling you this now because you’re new and you don’t know me, but let it be a warning. I’m not who you want to be friends with, because I’m not right. And by not right, I mean fucked up in the head all the way down to my soul.”

Then I turned and stomped down the hall before he could say a word.

He’d have to find a new damsel in distress.

T
he remainder of the week went pretty much the same as the beginning. Practice, lounging around with Ginny, extra runs, and avoiding contact with Tiberius kept my dance card full.

I’d started eating most of my meals in the Union after spotting Tiberius at lunch in the dining hall on Wednesday. The anonymity of the Union was welcoming. I was nothing but a small speck among a bunch of people I didn’t know or have to get to know. It was like an airport, except I didn’t have to leave anytime soon and board a flight. So I stayed there. A lot.