Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) (11 page)

“You’re really leaving, huh,” she said. Tall, blonde, buxom, I didn’t even remember her name. I only saw her at the mandatory events for freshman because she went to bed earlier than I did and didn’t go out with the older students to Club Grit, which is the only place I wanted to be anymore, the only place I thought I belonged.

“Yeah, yeah. I am.”

“You know, you’re lucky,” she said with a whisper.

“Lucky how? I’m getting kicked out of the most exclusive sorority at UCBH. I’m losing the one thing that I wanted more than anything: guaranteed popularity. I’m not about to be another God Damn Independent who gets lost in the crowd. This was going to be the thing that made everything okay,”

“You don’t want to be here, Emma.”

“Yeah, I do. In case you missed it, I’m leaving because I’m getting kicked out and don’t exactly feel like picking up my bras and panties off the lawn of Beta Rho Omega instead of just leaving gracefully.”

“You’re not getting kicked out. You’re escaping.”

“Escaping? What? That’s stupid,”

“No, it’s really not. Maybe you want to be here, but not everyone does. I’m a legacy, you know,”

“Oh, no, I didn’t,”

“Yeah, my mom went here, to this chapter, actually. Ever since I was a girl, I’ve been given stuff with pink anchors on it. I was valedictorian of my high school but nothing made my mom prouder than me getting into Omega Mu Gamma, and I don’t even want to be here.”

“But you pledged.”

“It’s the only thing that I could do to convince her to pay for college. For an education that retails at over a hundred thousand dollars, wouldn’t you join a sorority to? I play the game, go through the motions, but I try to stay in the library as long as possible to avoid dealing with all this bullshit. I’m tired of this. I have been since before it even started.”

I had never known this about her, about the roommate I’d assumed had been accepted as a joke or a mistake or on some fucked up bet like the ones the Bigs had made about me at Club Grit that fateful night I first met Skylar, the night everything started to spiral out of control.

Maybe, if I’d talked to my roommate sooner, if I’d gotten to know her, all this could have been avoided.

Maybe I would have never ended up at Club Grit last night with DeAndre, the man that’d try to rape me.

Maybe I would have never ended up kicked out of Omega Mu, and I could have lived in a dream land where things like rape and assault didn’t happen, and where I saw the world through Coach tinted glasses instead of through the lens of a girl becoming something more than a girl and at the same time, being seen as something less.

“Ahem,” came a cough from the doorway. We both turned: it was Kim Lee again.

“I just came back up to collect your lavaliere, but I heard what you said, Emily. You don’t like being in Omega? That’s fine,” she said with her perfect smile before walking over to Emily’s bed to her sorority dream sheet poster that she must have made at one of the events. It was covered in anchor stickers, pom poms, and glitter glue, but Kim Lee ran one of her perfect stiletto nails over it before ripping it off the wall.

Emily and I both cringed before we looked and saw that she’d been fucking with us. She hadn’t actually ripped it off the wall.

“You’re right. You’re lucky you’re a legacy, and you haven’t stepped out of line before, Emily. Don’t be difficult. Don’t be like your ‘friend’ here, and don’t be like your mom,” said Kim as she sauntered out with her clipboard and pen in toe. How the fuck did Kim have info about another whole generation of Omega sisters? How deep did this go?

I looked at Emily but she got up from the bed and went back downstairs. I heard the freshman chanting some stupid song as I got back to packing my stuff up.

Maybe Emily was right.

Maybe I didn’t want to be here.

I texted Skylar.

It was time to cash in that favor.

S
KYLAR SENT ME HIS ADDRESS VIA TEXT AND I HAILED A CAB. I would make arrangements later about getting my stuff sent to the apartment, and then having them put wherever I’d end up eventually, maybe a condo in the Hills while I finished up the year at UCBH. I had to call my parents eventually, I knew that, but I hadn’t. I couldn’t. They’d worry and I’d end up coming home and never being allowed to leave the nest again and in some ways, my freedom was worth keeping a secret, even one as terrible as what happened the night before.

I’d been worried I wouldn’t be able to stay with Skylar, but luckily, his roommate, Jared, said it was fine. He was planning on going on leave anyway for a while, to travel and visit friends in Portland and Austin, so he didn’t need the house for the next few weeks.

While I figured out where I was going to live, Skylar would help me get set up in a new apartment but for now, for the next week or two, I just needed to get away from Omega House. I could take cabs to and from campus and although it wasn’t ideal, it was better than being stuck in a place where I’d ended up making enemies with the most powerful girls on campus.

I was this close, this fucking close, to hoping a plane and leaving California, either heading to South America or to East Asia to get a better perspective, but I knew that living my nouveau rich, first class always lifestyle was a recipe for forgetting but not for recovering. I knew that it wouldn’t help me as much in the long run.

There was one reason and one reason only that I always flew in first class. It wasn’t for the champagne, the sexy flight stewards, or the luxury factor, although they weren’t objectionable. No, it was so that I could get some sleep and not be bothered. Up in the air, I turned off all electronic devices not because of some silly regulation but so I wouldn’t be disturbed. Although I’d never flown as much as I had in the past year since my parents won the lottery, I enjoyed getting much needed R+R, and not just on the beaches of a private island near Malta, with models flown in from Milan. Surprise, surprise, I’m human and needs my beauty rest too...

And I guess that’s where Skylar came in. Being around him was better than a vacation. Being around him was better than getting a massage or my nails done. His apartment was small and had an industrial look, with exposed brick and a metal balcony, but it was a home instead of a house, and in many ways, that was all Omega had been: a very fancy house filled with very fancy girls that lived very fancy lives. Maybe there was more to life than that.

“You think I want to see you fucked up or hurt up? You think I want to care or want to want you? You really don’t know me at all. It doesn’t matter what I say or how many times I save you. I just want you to understand why this is so unhealthy, but obviously you don’t even care enough about yourself to see why this is so toxic. We’ve talked about it for hours. I’ve fucking saved you from a rapist. I can’t save you from yourself. Expecting me to was unfair and it was unfair from the start but now I’m in a viscous cycle to and I hate it. It’s like I’m addicted to saving you but I never wanted to be the hero. I’m just trying to so my own thing and save for college because not everyone’s parents win the lottery you know. You don’t have an average, mediocre life, so I don’t get why you’d want one. I don’t get why you’d want to give up what you’ve got when you could use it for so much more than this than for being a waste of youth”

“Or maybe you’re the one that doesn’t understand what it’s like for me. How am I supposed to fit in with these girls? Money made things worse not better and there wasn’t a way to go back. What was I supposed to do, live in Iowa for the rest of my life and pretend we never won that stupid lottery, that nothing ever changed?”

“If that means I didn’t meet you yeah that’d suck but at least that way you would be ok u wouldn’t be a fucking drugged up strung out mess. What’s it going to take to make it stop what’s it going to take to save you from yourself “

“Just sleep with me Skylar just sleep w me and make all the pain go away make me forget about everything and make everything better. Please, it’s not like I’ve asked u for anything before”

“Ha ha, that’s funny. Sometimes it seems like that’s all you do. Please Emma, you’re so fucked up you know and it’s not cute and it’s sure as fuck not sexy.”

“What can I do to change your mind,”

“Why does it matter, Emma? Why me?”

“I just...I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t know what to do. Maybe it doesn’t matter, because we all die alone.”

“Nobody goes over the other side, whether that's darkness or something else, with you. But even if there's nobody there to hold your hand, it doesn't mean you're alone. You'll be in somebody's thoughts, who'll be in somebody else's thoughts when they go on. We're not meant to live forever. Nothing lives forever. You can waste your time worrying about death and dying, or you can spend your time doing something more worth your while. Are we alone when we sleep, when we dream? Then we're not when we die.”

“See, it’s that, Skylar. It’s things like what you just said that make me want you, things like that which make me need you. Please, Skylar. Just...just do me.”

“Emma. Fine. If I sleep with you? You have to promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll go clean. Or, at least, you’ll try to.”

“But I don’t know if I can,”

“And I get that. I really do. I know quitting can be hard, I’ve seen friends go through it, but I want this for you. So please, will you make the effort at least?”

“But how will you be able to tell if I’m quitting or if I’m lying?”

“Because I think I can trust you, Emma. Even after all the lies, all the drama, I see something in you that I can’t explain. It’s like potential, but not the kind you’re thinking of, probably. It’s the kind of potential where there’s an innate good in someone, the kind of good that you don’t see often but that when you do, you have to make sure they never let go of. That’s why I’m sure you’ll be honest with me, that you won’t lie. I also think that after what’s happened this past week, with you, with me, with Club Grit, with that sorority you’re part of, that you won’t want this lifestyle anymore, that you’re going to find something else to replace but hopefully, something that isn’t going to destroy you. So what’s it going to be?”

I only had one answer, and it was to lean in, to give him the answer with my lips.

T
HIS TIME. HE DIDN’T PULL AWAY. Instead, I did, as he lead me to the bedroom, so I wouldn’t have to walk backwards behind him like a weirdo.

“You want me to fuck you?” he asked.

“Yes, Skylar, please!”

“Say it. Out loud.”

“Please, Skylar, fuck me, fuck me, Skylar,” I begged, willing to grovel if I had to but I wouldn’t.

“Get undressed. Get on the bed. Now.” Skylar had never spoken to me this way and in a sick way, it turned me on. It turned me on to know that I was going to be fucked by him on his terms, that I was going to be with the man I’d wanted to be with since the night I’d met him, the man I’d been denied for so long but that I should have been fucked by a long, long time ago.

As I disrobed with easy, I watched Skylar. He was wearing pajamas when I’d come by, which made sense given the fact he had a night job, but what I didn’t expect was to see what was under them.

Across his entire body, he had tats.

For some reason, I’d thought he’d just had the sleeves, like most guys.

I didn’t expect that the sleeves would go all the way up his arm, the designs on one arm nautical, on the other Japanese inspired

.I didn’t expect the front to have tribal work that accented his natural musculature.

I didn’t expect his legs to be covered in a mosaic of artwork.

And I didn’t expect his back to have a pair of angel’s wings.

I didn’t expect there to be two more pairs: one pair on the back of his upper arm, one pair on the back of his thighs.

The wings were all outlines with shading, but there was no color and they were not filled in, not even with white ink which was all the rage now. They were like negative space, embossed with ink, in the field of color that was his body, his canvas.

“Why are there so many wings?” I had to ask.

“Seraphim.” His answer was short and curt, just one word that opened up a world of questions. It was infuriating, the way that Skylar made me want to actually learn stuff outside of school, the way he kept me on edge in terms of knowledge and kept so much secret, so much forbidden

“Is that a band?”

“You’re not a humanities major, right? Please tell me you’re not,” he groaned.

“No, I’m in engineering.”

‘Figures. Take a theology class, philistine,” he said as he slapped my ass hard. Skylar liked it rough? Surprising given his demeanor, not surprising given his look.

“Or, you could just tell me.”

“Seraphim. S, E, R, A, P, H, I, M. They’re one of the highest orders of angels, working for God directly. They have six sings. One pair is on their back, another on their arms, and another, on their legs,” he said, touching each tat in turn.

“But why would you get them?”

“Because, if you haven’t guessed by now, I like to save people,” he said sarcastically.

“So...you’re religious or something?”

“Actually, not at all. Raised Catholic, ended up agnostic, I just like symbols. I like things with meaning, things with permanence.”

“Things like tattoos.”

“Bingo.”

“So Seraphim...they’re like God’s bouncers.”

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Sure. They’re like God’s bouncers.”

“Then they’re fitting on you.”

“Do you want to get fucked or not, Emma? Do you want to get fucked or not?” He was growing impatient, but that’s not all that was growing. His dick was getting stiffer by the second.

“Y-yes,” I stuttered.

“Not good enough, I need full consent,” he said more gently and with a sigh.

“Please, Skylar, fuck me,” I said, getting onto the bed.

Skylar didn’t have to answer with words. He took off his boxers, exposing one of the few parts of his body from the neck down (but to be fair, I hadn’t seen his scalp without his luscious hair covering it) that was not tattooed (yet): his cock.