Carnelian (12 page)

My phone buzzed where I left it on the
charger.

“Hello,” I said, answering it before it went
to voice mail. It was Sim.

“Hey new bestie, do you think you can come
down here and help me out? I’m by the food again.” Sim slurred her
words a bit. I didn’t need to be there to know she was drunk. How
could she get drunk down there? There was a no alcohol policy in
the dorms to prevent upperclassmen from getting the freshmen
drunk.

“I’ll be right down,” I told her before
hanging up. I wasn’t sure what kind of help she needed, but I
couldn’t leave her down there alone, no matter how much I didn’t
want to go back to that party.

I climbed down the stairs and hurried out
into the courtyard. By now, the party was going full blast and
didn’t show any signs of slowing down. I wove my way between the
people. It was obvious that Sim wasn’t the only one that was drunk.
I found my way over to the food area and didn’t see Sim or anyone I
knew. I turned to scan the crowd, wondering where she went next,
when I felt a tug at my shirt. Sitting on the ground to my left was
Sim.

“Hey, roomie.” She smiled from her spot on
the ground. “The world is spinning too much.” That explained the
help she needed.

“Are you here alone?” I asked, wondering who
had left her drunk on the ground.

“I was with the Barbies, but pink Barbie
puked on blue Barbie, and green and purple each took them away to
get them in bed and cleaned up. I think they missed me since I had
already sat down.” Sim smiled a big grin. I think she might have
been sitting there for a while.

I shook my head and bent over to pull her
standing. She giggled at my effort and moved to sit down
immediately.

“Come on, Sim, we’ve got to get you
upstairs, unless you want to sit around here all night and possibly
get caught for underage drinking. Bet your parents would love
hearing about that,” I added. You couldn’t reason with a drunk, but
her parents seemed to be the only motivation she had a times.

Sim stopped trying to sit down and let me
put her arm around my shoulder as I put my arm around her waist.
She leaned on me as her first step had obviously caused her to be
dizzy again. We made our way slowly through the crowd and back the
way I came. Halfway through the crowd we met Ty. I told him we were
fine. We kept our steady pace and made it to the edge of the crowd.
We still needed to walk around the square walls, but we were
getting closer to our hallway door. From what I found inside as I
came down, it would be just as much trouble going through the
hallways. We hugged the building as we made our way around.

As I passed an open doorway that was
creating an alcove, the finger I pricked earlier tingled. The
tingles traveled down my arm, and I couldn’t help but look around.
It was as if someone was shocking me with a little painless
electrical current. I only glanced, but immediately regretted it.
Seth was standing in the shadows with his ex-girlfriend Melissa.
Her arms were around him as she pulled him in closer to kiss him. I
turned my head instantly, but didn’t miss the kiss. His lips were
pressed to hers. My stomach dropped. I was just starting to trust
him. Once a player, always a player.

Chapter 7

Avoiding Fate

I went to
breakfast very early the next day to avoid seeing
Seth. I found a note written on our dorm door that he left the
night before. I wiped it away. I tried not to care, but I kind of
was beginning to like the guy. To have him be nice to me, only turn
around and make out with his ex-girlfriend… that just about broke
my heart. He was the perfect example why I swore off guys. They
couldn’t be trusted, no matter how nice they were or how they said
they were interested in you.

After breakfast I decided to hibernate in my
room all day. The first knock came at ten, but luckily Sim wasn’t a
morning person, so she didn’t wake up to get it. I looked through
the peephole and decided the best action was to avoid it. I didn’t
want to deal with that player, Seth Sangre. By lunch, Sim was
actually awake and heard the second knock.

“You going to get that?” she asked from her
bed. She was awake, but not really moving.

“Nope,” I whispered back. I didn’t need to
look. It was Seth again. Somehow I could tell from his knocking and
the tingling in my hand. Sim raised her eyebrows in response and
threw her legs off the bed to the floor.

“Are you here or not?” she asked, obviously
regretting the movement. She wasn’t tipsy like the night before,
but she didn’t look too well either.

“I already know who it is, and I don’t plan
to talk to him. Just go back to bed. Looks like you need more
sleep,” I said, motioning for her to lie down.

“You are going to have to tell me later,”
Sim replied, taking my advice and lying back down.

Sim went back to sleep and didn’t get up
until late afternoon. There were two more knocks, and I didn’t
answer either of them. When Sim finally got up and went for a
shower, I snuck out. I took different stairways to make my way
outside with my bag full of homework. I stopped by the union café
on my way to the library. Homework was going to have to be my
distraction. Finding a dark, isolated corner, I sat alone, and it
was quiet enough to study without worrying about being found. After
hours of being holed up in the library, I was going to have to go
back. I took the back route to my room and was happy that I did so.
Before I went around the corner, I stopped to listen to the talking
right by my doorway.

“I’m serious,” Sim complained. “She isn’t
here. Go ahead and search our room. She went out. Probably to do
her homework.”

The door pushed open with a whoosh. Within
moments, the door clicked shut and there was a loud sigh.

“I told you she wasn’t there. What did you
do, anyway?” Sim was actually getting defensive.

“I have no idea. I thought she had a good
time with me last night,” Seth replied. He sounded confused. “Girls
are such a puzzle. Why would she avoid me? I tried all morning, and
she wouldn’t answer.”

“If she really was there this morning, how
would you even know? She might have been gone all day,” Sim
replied.

“I know she was there, just like I know
she’s hiding now,” Seth replied.

“Don’t go there,” Sim retorted. “I just let
you look around. You didn’t see her. Then she isn’t there. I
haven’t seen her since I went to go get a shower. Honestly,” Sim
tried to convince him.

Seth huffed and then walked away. Sim huffed
her own reply of sorts and went back into our room. I waited a few
more minutes to be sure he was gone before I quickly snuck back
over to the door. I unlocked it and slid into the room before
anyone could catch me in the hallway.

“Was he was right? You were here?” Sim
asked.

“Around the corner,” I answered, before
climbing on my bed to face her.

“What did lover boy do?” Sim asked, starting
her interrogation. She looked eager to hear the news. I was
beginning to think Sim wanted to live vicariously through me.

“Ugh.” I threw myself back onto my pillow.
“We went to the lake and just talked. He was nice. I think I was
actually falling for his act. And I would have, until I had to get
you last night. When I went back down there, I found him kissing
Miss Popular. I was right all along.”

“That bitch from before?” Sim asked.

“The one and only,” I replied as the bed
flopped beside me when Sim hit the covers next to me.

“And he doesn’t know you saw, hence his act,
right?” Sim assessed.

“I guess not. But I know, and I am not
falling for that.” Sim threw her arm around me as I talked, giving
me a big side hug.

“I’m sorry. Cute isn’t worth it,” she added.
“If he’s interested in a girl like that, you are better off without
him.”

“That means you’ll help me avoid him?” I
asked. “No more letting him search our room?”

“I knew you weren’t in there,” Sim replied.
“We need to find you someone else, then. Someone for you to show up
on the arm of to make him see how good it feels. There are other
fish in the sea.”

“Just what my grandfather likes to say,” I
answered back.

“Smart man,” Sim added, before jumping back
up at the knock at the door.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, shaking my head
and waving my arms as she approached the door.

Sim smiled and opened the door a crack so
that she could still see me, but Seth couldn’t see in the room.

“Yes?” Sim asked.

“I need to talk to Mari,” Seth replied, not
even asking if I was there.

“She’s not here,” Sim replied, with a
coolness to her voice.

“I know she’s in there,” Seth argued.

“Have you ever thought that after seeing you
kissing another girl, maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you?” Sim
answered. I could feel my face turning red even though no one saw
me. I guess Sim wasn’t one for being discreet.

“Kissing another girl?” Seth asked,
confused. “I didn’t kiss another girl.”

“Then what do you call it when you have your
lips pressed to your ex-girlfriends lips?” Sim was getting madder
at him by the moment.

“Melissa? Oh, that? I can explain,” Seth
started right before Sim slammed the door in his face.

My mouth dropped open in surprise as Sim
laughed.

“I always wanted to do that,” Sim giggled at
my face. “College is turning out to be great fun.”

Sim helped me avoid Seth the rest of the
day, and I didn’t have to listen to whatever excuse he planned to
give me about his ex-girlfriend. By Monday morning, he had stopped
trying, but that didn’t mean I stopped seeing him around. After
each class he would be somewhere in the vicinity, watching me. He
was always there, as if he knew my schedule. Most times he was
alone, but other times there would be his brothers or Melissa with
him. He never seemed to see them when I passed by, but constantly
stared at me. He appeared to be pleading with his gaze alone. Seth
may have put aside chasing me out in the open, but his eyes still
watched me. Sim was right in that I needed to find someone else and
soon.

After a week of being observed, I was
grateful to be tutoring just Ty as Dee had another commitment. Dee
had been extra prickly since I had blown off Seth. Ty was the only
friendly and trustful one of the three brothers.

“Are you coming to the game this weekend?”
Ty asked as he packed his bag up after our tutoring session.

“Sorry. I’m a little busy,” I lied.

“Busy avoiding Seth,” Ty replied. Yep. He
was honest and hit that one on the head. I didn’t reply. “What did
he do this time?”

I raised my eyebrows in response. Seth
didn’t tell his brother? I doubted that. They seemed like the type
that told each other everything.

“Really, I didn’t ask him. I figured if you
were mad at him, he must have done something. He didn’t tell me
anything. Unless I ask, he always says nothing,” Ty replied. I
weighed his response. It looked like Ty honestly didn’t know.

“I found him making out with his
ex-girlfriend after CRUSH. I don’t think he knew I saw him, or that
I went back down to the party, but I had to get Sim. He was in some
corner making out with her. Sorry. I’m not into guys that tell you
one thing and do something else. Been there, done that.” I picked
up my bag. Ty joined me and we began to walk back to the dorms.

“Knowing Seth, he probably got trapped by
that one. Melissa.” Ty sighed, saying her name like it was a dirty
word. “That girl just can’t take no for an answer. You’d be
surprised by how much self-control Seth actually has. He broke
things off with her last year, and he found her naked in his dorm
room the next day. She really doesn’t understand when someone says
things are over, and Seth is too nice to hurt her feelings.” Ty
painted Seth in such a nice light, like he was a saint for not
sleeping with her as she threw herself at him. Ty didn’t understand
that a guy that looked like Seth would always have girls throwing
themselves at him. He needed to grow a backbone if he wanted to
keep a girl like me around.

“She must have kissed him?” I asked, hinting
that was what Ty was going to say next.

Ty shrugged. “I’d guess so. The guy has
completely fallen for you. I doubt he even noticed her approaching
him before it was too late. She’s quite the stalker. All he’s
talked about since school started was you,” Ty added. Why did Ty
have to paint Seth in a good light again? I was completely willing
to just throw away any connection we might have had.

“Well it’s too bad he can’t seem to tell
that girl no, because I don’t want to get involved with a guy again
that I can’t trust completely, whether a girl throws herself at him
or not.” Ty nodded. He may be on Seth’s side of the argument, but I
think he could understand my point. Actually, it was looking like
Ty was completely neutral, beyond telling me what a great guy Seth
was.

Ty stayed close as we walked through the
wooden path. It was as if Ty had the same feeling that the woods
weren’t the safest place. I looked around, but nothing seemed
suspicious when I was out with Ty. Then again, most people wouldn’t
confront the large guy walking with me. The muscles in his arms
were bigger than my thighs. If he didn’t smile, he would be
completely unapproachable.

“You still need to come to our game
tomorrow,” Ty added as we neared the dorms. “Not to watch Seth or
even Dee play. You need to come to watch me.” Ty flashed his
lopsided grin. “I plan to crush some heads and make everyone fear a
freshman.” A couple passing freshman jumped at his growl. I had to
laugh. If I had just met him, he would be terrifying, but I knew
Ty. He was harmless. “Come on. Please,” he begged. “You can be my
date to the after party. That, at least, should be worth it. We can
enjoy pissing off Seth together. I mean, he’s my brother and all,
but he needs to man up sometime. You’re completely right that he
needs to tell Melissa off. Maybe he just needs some motivation.” He
was winning me over with his new plan to woo me to the game. “Heck,
I can bring both you and Sim. I’d love to show up with two
beautiful women on my arms. That would piss off not just Seth, but
Dee, too.”