Blank Pages Page 9

  “Sometimes, maybe, and then sometimes maybe they’re not—if you just give them a chance.” His usually deep voice had softened. Although it wasn’t phrased as a question, there was a plea there, tucked away under his usual confidence.

  It was hard to hold on to the fear when all of his words were wrapping my soul in blind courage. He was forcing hope into my heart, no matter how hard I tried to block it. It was the most fragile and the most resilient of organs, and like a rogue traitor, it was ignoring the defenses we’d worked so hard to implement. He’d broken through, and that hope he’d started with warm sparks was going to rage like a forest fire, leaving nothing but destruction in its path.

  I was gathering my things and heading toward the door when I found a reply for him. My voice, small and soft, was full of unsure hope when I said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “So do you have plans…” His words trailed off as we filed out the door. He stopped when he spotted her, and I looked up, too.

  “There you are.” Her voice was annoyingly chipper. “I’ve been waiting forever.” Her smile faltered when she noticed me, but only to turn slightly condescending. She was beautiful, of course. Ben was, too, so it was kind of mandatory. Hillary was her name, I thought. They’d done the whole on-again, off-again relationship the previous year. Golden curls framed her golden face. Her dress hit mid-thigh, and I couldn’t even hate her for her awesome legs, because I knew she worked hard for them. Okay, I still hated her a little.

  I waved a half-hearted goodbye and bolted down the opposite hall, not even in the direction I needed to go. I didn’t plan on giving him a chance to see my disappointment, because that’s what it was: deep disappointment. It etched its way around my soul, wreaking havoc on the walls softened by the hope that had just fled the confines of my heart. Of course there was a stupid girl waiting for him outside class. Why would I expect anything different than the gorgeous co-ed who leaned against the wall in the hallway waiting to escort him home? My expectations were the enemy here. That hope I’d tried to block out was raging in my chest.

  “Lex!” I heard my name a second before he caught up to me, his arm brushing mine, his hand reaching out to wrap around my own. “I want this.” His ragged breath told me he’d run to catch me. No Hillary in sight.

  “I put up walls.” It was the simplest way I knew to explain the self-preservation of my own heart.

  “Walls can be destroyed.”

  “So can hearts.” I looked everywhere except at his eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  CHAPTER 15

  THE TOPIC FOR my second article had yet to be decided. It was due in three days. Procrastination at its finest, ladies and gentlemen. Potential topics had shuffled in and out of my brain for weeks, but in the end, I deemed them all garbage. It was becoming clear that I was going to have to pick from the garbage and attempt to make it look more like buried treasure.

  My computer stared back at me, screen empty. Input: coffee; output: words. My processor seemed to be running slow, and there it went altogether. If I had been a cartoon, I’d have had smoke coming out of my ears, my head would have blown apart, and I’d have been walking around with half an empty skull.

  Originally, I was focused on the frequency of date rape on college campuses. I didn’t normally project my article toward one sex, but with the crime rate increasing, I thought maybe it was something girls needed to hear. People didn’t take the school paper seriously, though. It wasn’t The New York Times, Playboy, or Cosmo, so it didn’t rank high on the list of preferred sources of journalism among college adults. Mostly the paper ended up as trash, coasters, or nests for birds.

  But if just one person read it and benefited, wasn’t it worth it? Wasn’t that the point of this? It probably wouldn’t make a big impact, but for that one girl, that impact could make all the difference. If just one girl read the article and it altered her course in a positive direction, it was worth it. That was the goal. That was the impact I wanted to make.

  How could we have forgotten the buddy system? It was useful again. Remember when we only traveled in packs? Now, men picked us off one by one, secluding us away from our friends and our support systems. Women are statistically less likely to be targeted or attacked if with another person. I’d already started on the research. It was unnerving.

  Don’t accept drinks from strangers. I was writing my thoughts hastily on a yellow legal pad. Or even sketchy people you think you know, I added. I know, women think men should by them a drink. I’m all for chivalry, but please, for the sake of safety, buy your own. Watch them pour it. Never set it down. Carry pepper spray and a TASER if you aren’t comfortable carrying a firearm. Both are defensive weapons. Also, rape whistles are available at the service counter in the student center. Yes, I definitely wanted to be sure to mention that. Most people didn’t know all the freebies the university offered.

  What if they’re already a victim? I asked myself. They definitely needed to report it. Continuing the research as any good journalist would do, I found support groups all over town. The truth needs to be told, if only to prevent it from becoming a reoccurrence.

  Hope was blooming in my brain that this article might be easier to complete than I’d thought. Then my email binged with an incoming message from Dr. Rodgers.

  “He vetoed my idea,” I said to the silence of my darkened room. So what if the topic was hard? Not all journalism is fluff pieces. So what if it only focused on one gender? It needed to be said. So what if it had some vulgarity to it? Newsflash, rape isn’t pretty! I was fuming by the time I finished reading his reasons for denying my one good idea.

  I slammed my laptop shut, making the three picture frames I had on my desk topple over. I wanted to write because I had a voice, because I had things to say that I wanted people to hear. Shouldn’t I have been able to say what I wanted? Especially when it was the truth? Freedom of speech, right? Isn’t it funny how it’s perceived that you have all these freedoms, yet they all come with hindering constraints?

  I abandoned writing for reading, magazine articles to be specific. The coffee table was littered with magazines ranging from home improvement to beauty to sports. It was research, at least that was what I told myself when I spent an hour rehashing the marriages and divorces of various celebrities.

  “Look at this girl.” I shoved the magazine in Jules’ face. “Are they going for irony?” The title said ‘Real Girl.’ “Do they realize this is the furthest thing from real? Her hair color is from a bottle and those breasts are far too perky to be the ones she was born with.”

  “You spend too much time looking at these magazines,” she told me. “It’s not healthy.”

  “I read them for the articles,” I protested.

  “Ah yes, The Three Things Guys Want to Hear During Sex and How to Dress to Impress at Work—both things you surely need to research.”

  “I mean the style of writing! It’s journalism research!”

  “Let’s research that.” Laughing, she pointed to the half-naked athlete on the cover of a sports magazine.

  “Too beefy. He’s compensating for something.” The model was clearly overusing steroids, and body oil. “Why do they always make the cover girls so blemish-free?” I asked, flipping through an old fashion magazine. “Don’t they know beauty is in the imperfect flaws?”

  “Don’t they know they’re forcing young adolescent girls to compare themselves to this airbrushed fake perfection?”

  “Comparison is the enemy,” I agreed. “It’s hard enough to grow up a girl in this world. Why do they keep making it more difficult?”

  Teen girls are forced to hide their insecurities. College girls are pushed to conform to societal expectations. Women of all ages make perfection the goal. Our world is laser-focused on image. We get hit from every side. We aren’t pretty enough, or we’re beauty queens. We care too much, or we’re superficial. We weigh too much, or we don’t have any curves.

  The line society expects you to walk is too
thin to manage. The pressure is too much. I refused to conform to society’s way of making me feel inferior. Society has had a vice-like grip on image for too long. Time’s up.

  CHAPTER 16

  PEOPLE CHEAT. I wished there were something more to say, some poetic way to explain infidelity, but there just isn’t. I wished I had a great explanation, but sometimes it’s just that: they cheat.

  This was the conversation I’d been having with Jules for two days, two days she’d spent cocooned in blankets on the couch, wearing thin candy cane Christmas pajamas, eating way too much icing from the can.

  “But it’s worse, Lex. There’s not even another woman—I’m the other woman. He’s married!” She’d been saying this repeatedly in between sobs. It was a huge shock to her, I could tell. “He even had the balls to tell me he still wanted to see me! Can you believe that?”

  “Of course he still wanted to see you—you’re freaking awesome.”

  “Damn straight.” She threw back her water bottle like it was tequila. “He said they were high school sweethearts and got married at eighteen, said it was just a mistake.”

  “JERK.” I threw in, simply for her comfort. “How did you know he was cheating?”

  “Well, I got my first clue when he said he wanted to keep the relationship private for a while. You know what my mom says—if a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.”

  “True dat, Mrs. Montgomery.”

  It was another two days before I could coax her out of the apartment, and a promise of pizza got her into class.

  “I need a drink. Or twelve,” Jules told me on an exhalation. Apparently, her three classes that day had taken a lot out of her.

  She wasn’t used to this breakup thing, or at least she wasn’t used to being the dumpee instead of the dumper. She excelled at being the dumper. Clearly, she didn’t like the other side of that coin.

  It was another forty-five minutes before we left the apartment with Jules dressed—or rather, not dressed in a leather miniskirt and a sequined silver tank. An inch or two peeked out between her skirt and her top, and many more inches of her long tan legs were on display.

  She was back in her element, if only faking it. Eyes followed her, appreciating her beauty and confidence. Her game face was on, and I could already tell she would refuse to go home alone. You know the saying: misery loves company.

  Three shots in and an hour of garbled shouting over music later, she was on her way to plastered and leaning toward aggressive.

  “Is that girl looking at me with that ugly face?” Her bitter words caused me to swivel my head, looking for the object of her distaste. I almost rolled my eyes, even though it did seem like the bleach blonde had taken a particular interest in shooting dirty looks Jules’ way. Regardless, Jules didn’t need to be riled up.

  “She’s probably just jealous. Ignore her, and her estrogen posse,” I told her, referring to the equally bleached entourage. To Jules’ credit, she did overlook the glaring for three more songs. The tall, lanky guy Jules had been dancing with leaned in more, whispering what I assumed were sweet nothings based on her giggles. That’s when the glowering of the blonde brigade turned into confrontation.

  My grip tightened on Jules’ arm, knowing she was itching to fight. This was not a good night for the five-foot-three Barbie. Jules had a good four inches on her without the heels, along with a whole lot of anger to work out.

  “That’s my boyfriend,” Blondie protested, shoving a finger against Jules’ chest. Oh dear.

  Jules shot a sideways glance at the lanky boy, and his sheepish expression confirmed he was, in fact, taken by the miniature blonde Nazi claiming him.

  Before I could stop her, Jules raised her fist. It wasn’t a slap, but a cold, hard punch right in the jaw. Blondie gasped, but it wasn’t her on the receiving end of Jules’ knuckles. The boy clutched his face, cursing loud enough to turn a few heads in the crowded bar.

  “Learn how to be faithful,” she spit out, already turning away. Then, Blondie made a mistake—a big mistake.

  “How dare you hit him?” She tugged Jules around by her blonde ponytail. Either from the shock, or because I just didn’t care anymore, I let go of Jules’ arm, giving her free rein to pounce on the petite blonde. What kind of girl gets mad at another girl who hits her so-called boyfriend for being disloyal? I was pretty sure that broke the rules of girl code, and it was yet another reason I just couldn’t understand the dating world.

  Jumbled shouts, hair-pulling, and other feminine fighting techniques lured a very large, very muscular man into the fray. He lifted Jules off the poor girl, unintentionally showing everyone what Jules was working with under her leather skirt.

  “Put me down!” she demanded as the lanky guy helped his supposed girlfriend to her feet and they both discreetly made their way to the door.

  “Easy there, tiger,” Mr. Muscles said, amused by Jules’ useless flailing. “I’ll only set you down if you let me buy you a drink.” Immediately, Jules stopped moving. Thankfully, the silly catfight had not diminished her flirting skills.

  “Meaty isn’t usually my type, but the muscles work on you.” She winked, and I snorted.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, tone formal.

  “Ma’am? What am I, fifty? Do I look like a ma’am to you?”

  “You look like a force to be reckoned with, and I’m just trying to be a gentleman.” He smiled at Jules, amused. A faint blush tinged his cheeks, and it didn’t look quite right on him, as if all the muscles would prevent him from blushing.

  “You just pulled me off another girl, saw everything under my skirt, and you’re still working on being a gentleman?” Jules lacked a filter in everyday life; add alcohol and words spewed out regardless of appropriateness.

  The bodyguard’s blush deepened, his cheeks rosy red under the dim bar lights.

  “I’m Julie. Or Jules, if you prefer.”

  She stuck her hand out, which was not easy considering she was caged in his arms, feet dangling three feet off the floor. He took it easily, giving it a gentle shake.

  “Dean.”

  “What time do you get off, Dean?”

  His eyebrow rose, and I didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered on Jules. “I’m already off the clock. I pulled you off of that poor girl for free.”

  “Lucky for her,” Jules huffed, which amused Dean.

  “Come on, slugger, I’ll buy you a drink.” More or less, it was a typical post breakup night out, at least as far as I was aware.

  She must have really hit it off with Dean, because the next night she dragged me and Tay back to the same bar. He told her he’d be working until eleven, and she was anxiously waiting for him, dressed to the nines and ready to stake her claim.

  I was having fun, dancing and dancing hard. I found my rhythm with Jules and Tay dancing in a half-circle with me. After a dozen more songs and lots of awkward hip gyrations, we needed replenishment—more alcohol for Jules, water for Tay and me.

  It wasn’t long until we were surrounded by more guys vying for our attention. Most of them I recognized. Some were in Ben’s fraternity, which meant he was nearby.

  “It’s Lex, right?” the guy behind me asked as one song melted into another. My nod brought a smile to his face. “I’m Tyler.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said distractedly. My mind was elsewhere, as in looking over their shoulders in search of the one guy in the fraternity my eyes always seemed to seek out.

  Ah, there he was. Ben was laughing with his friends near the pool tables. A stick in one hand, his eyes met mine, and I could almost feel my cheeks flush. I tried to look away. I really did, but when his eyes roamed down my body, I felt ten feet tall. I’d gotten more attention than usual in my tight jeans with tears across the thighs paired with a light purple top Jules said brought out my eyes and set off my dark curls. Ben’s attention was all I cared about.

  “There’s nothing going on there, right?” Tyler questioned, breaking my eye contact.


  “Huh?” I asked, trying to pretend he didn’t catch me staring a hole through Ben.

  “Well, I’ve heard him talk about you before, and he’s currently staring daggers at me.” I looked up, and sure enough, Ben’s eyes had narrowed to slits. I was too distracted by the first part of Tyler’s statement to speak. He talked about me?

  “He’s coming over,” Tyler observed. Ben had abandoned his game and was making his way over to us. Confident, cocky—all those things girls love and I begged myself to hate. I could feel Tyler shrink the closer he got.

  “Can I have this dance?” he asked, stepping in between Tyler and me. It clearly wasn’t a question as he’d already dragged me a few feet away and began moving to the music.

  “What just happened?” I asked, barely moving, confused by the sudden change in partners. Miles and another of their fraternity brothers were talking quietly to Tyler.

  “He’s a sophomore and he only pledged this year. He doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know what?” I asked him, no longer moving at all.

  Ben sighed heavily before answering my question. “You’re my exception.”

  “I’m your what?”

  “My exception. When you pledge the fraternity, you get one girl no one else can date. You are mine—he just doesn’t know that yet.”

  “What the hell, Ben? You think you can just brand me as yours so no one else can date me? Why don’t you just tattoo my ass!” I yelled. The music was dying down in between songs, and my words echoed off the walls. Everyone turned to stare at us.

  I stormed out of the club away from him as fast as my heels would carry me. I would have given anything for my Chuck Taylors right about then. I knew he was right behind me, but it took a moment for me to rein in my anger enough to speak in a normal tone. I didn’t want to yell at his absolutely barbaric games. What was this, caveman dating? Was that what people did these days? He’d just effectively beat on his chest and pissed on my leg. And I, being the strong, independent woman I was, wasn’t having it. Who does he think he is?!