After Math (3 page)

“Well, there you go. Tina was invited to the same party.”

Her eyes light up. “Oh really? Then the fates have aligned. I’m going to the party, and you’re coming with me.”

My breath caught. “What? Oh, no. No way.”

“Yes! Come on! You never go to parties. You need to loosen up and have some fun.”

“I do have fun.” Caroline went out all the time when she was with Justin. Our freshman year, she invited me to parties, but she soon gave up after my many refusals. Plus, Justin began to suck up more and more of her time, and my lack of a social life was simply accepted.

She scrunches her nose. “With math problems. Don’t you want any boy problems?”

“Look how well that’s worked out for you.” I immediately regret my words, but they are at the root of my hesitancy to date.  I can’t afford to get close to someone, to let him get close to me, only to have him break my heart. I’ve made too much progress over the last two years to throw it away over the risk of potential heartbreak. But Caroline thrives on human contact and connections. Staying holed up in our apartment is making her worse.

Tilting her head to the side, her lips pucker. “True. That’s because I stuck with one guy for so long.” Her eyes widen with excitement. “Let’s make it the semester of boys. We’ll go out with a different boy every week.”

“Are you drunk? When was the last time
I
went on a date?”

“My point exactly! When was the last time
either
one of us went on a date?” She puts the back of her hand against her forehead and arches her back. “Two beautiful young women, home alone night after night. It’s a tragedy.”

“You should have been a theater major,” I say dryly. “I like my life the way it is. Neat and orderly.”

“But life is meant to be messy, Scarlett. You need to live a little.”

“You can’t live a little or a lot, Caroline. You simply live.”

“Says the girl who’s never lived at all.” There’s no malice or sarcasm, only a hint of pity.

I’d prefer the sarcasm. I take the empty ice cream container and toss it in the trash. “I’m not going to a party, Caroline.”

She gives me a wicked smile. “Oh, we’ll see about that.”

Oh, yes we will.

***

The next morning when I wake up, there’s an e-mail in my inbox time stamped ten minutes earlier.

I would have texted, but the school refused to give me your number. We need to set up a tutoring time.

Tucker. I’m almost surprised he got in contact with me so soon. Not to mention he’s awake before eight-thirty. Maybe he’s taking this seriously after all.

I email him my free times then get in the shower, worrying about the Friday night party. Individually, Tina and Caroline are manageable, but I made the fatal mistake of introducing them last November. Now they’ve made it their combined effort to force me into some kind of social life. I seriously don’t understand why they can’t leave me alone. I’m happy with the way things are. Don’t they get that?

But when I rub my towel across the mirror to wipe off the steam, the expression on my face says differently. Funny how I never considered whether I was happy or unhappy until the last twenty-four hours. After I saw Tucker’s face in the cafeteria.

I shake off my melancholy and dry my hair, mulling over the question of happiness. Isn’t happiness getting what you want? If so, I’m the epitome of happy. My academic track has me well on my way to helping me get my dream job: working for the CIA or DOD, analyzing data. I have a great roommate and a handful of friends. I have student loans, but nothing monstrous to pay off after I graduate.

By my definition, I’m happy. So why does it feel like something is missing?

I get dressed and check my e-mail, surprised to see Tucker has responded already.

3:00 at the coffee shop on campus.

The hair on my neck prickles. I breathe in, filling my lungs and blowing out the air as I imagine blowing my anxiety away, and try to reason through my fear. I didn’t have problems with tutoring Tucker in the lab, so why does meeting him at the coffee shop make me nervous? It’s an easy answer. I’m comfortable in the lab. It’s a familiar environment. The coffee shop is an unknown variable.

Also, Tucker is a wild card. He was behaved in my environment, but I know that isn’t his usual behavior. I’m having major second thoughts about this endeavor, but I shake my head and force myself to calm down. This situation is manageable as long as I don’t flake out.

I pack my messenger bag for the day and pour a cup of coffee in my travel mug before I poke my head into Caroline’s room. Her clothes are scattered everywhere, and her sheets and blanket are a tangled mess. She’s lying sideways on the bed, her feet hanging off the side.

“Caroline.”

She buries her face into her pillow. “What?” she mumbles.

“You’re going to miss your textiles class. Get up.” She’s not usually like this, but this isn’t uncommon after late-night
Gossip Girl
and ice cream binges.

She pulls the covers over her head.

I step into the room, and grab a handful of the sheet and jerk it down to her waist. “Come on. This is your last warning. I’m leaving now or I’ll be late for class.”

“You’re so mean, Scarlett.”

“I can’t even imagine how you’ll survive in the real world,” I mumble and walk out of the room.

“I heard that!” she yells after me.

I meant her to, knowing it would get her out of bed. The more I study people in my attempt to fit into life, the more I realize that people are often driven by their fear. With my mother and her drinking and her many men, it was her fear of being alone. But with Caroline, whose family insisted she was wasting her time with college, her fear was that she’d never escape her trailer park roots. My own fears are too numerous to list.

I grab my coffee and a banana, and head for the front door, pausing until I hear her padding around in her room.

The rain has stopped, but heavy gray clouds hang in the sky. My first class is at ten, but I want to get there early. Set and logic is the class that separates the wheat from the chaff in mathematics majors, and I want to make sure I’m doing everything possible to ensure I do well. This includes getting to school early enough so I don’t have a repeat of what happened in Western civ yesterday. I can’t afford to spend ten minutes recovering from the embarrassment of being late. I can’t afford to miss even thirty seconds in this class.

Some days the lessons are more difficult, but I’m thankful when today’s concepts slip easily into place. When I struggle, all my fears that I can’t do this—that I’m destined to fail—swamp my head. And I need all the confidence I can muster to face this afternoon.

After my Arabic III class, I head to the coffee shop with a knot in my stomach. I arrive ten minutes early and order my drink and sit at a table by the window, pulling my Arabic homework out to work on while the subject matter is still fresh in my head. I lose myself in verb conjugation, and I’m surprised when I see that it’s already twenty after three. Tucker hasn’t shown. I pull out my phone and double-check his e-mail to verify the time. He said three o’clock, and this is the only coffee shop on campus.

Tucker enters the shop with two friends as I’m packing up. They are loud and boisterous, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. My anger flares at his lackadaisical attitude as well as his disrespect. But mostly I find myself disappointed with him, although for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. Tucker Price is Tucker Price. The guy I saw yesterday was a figment of my imagination.

Tucker sees me and wanders over, a lazy smile on his face. “Where are you going?”

This part I dread. The attention Tucker has drawn follows over to me. My face flames, and I keep my head down as my shaky hand stuffs my books into my bag. It would be so much easier to stay and avoid the eyes of everyone in the room, but the truth is that all these eyes would be on me anyway. Tucker is the center of chaos everywhere he goes. I refuse to be sucked into it. Computer program or not.

He puts his hand on my bag. “Scarlett, where are you going?”

I look up into his face. Confusion wrinkles his brow. He really doesn’t get it.

I dig deep down and find the strength to do this. “You said three o’clock, Tucker. It’s now three twenty-two. You’re late, and my time is valuable.”

His eyebrows rise in surprise.

I jerk my bag from his hand and loop the strap over my shoulder.

He holds his hands out from his sides, his cocky attitude bleeding through his stance. “I’m here now.”

“Good for you. I’m not.” I head for the door.

Tucker follows behind, cutting in front of me and blocking the exit. “Scarlett.” My name rolls off his tongue, smooth as silk. I’m sure many a girl has given him much more than their attention when he’s used that voice. Fortunately for me, I’m not one of them. “Let’s just sit back down, and we’ll work during the time I have left.”

“Tucker, if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll call campus security.”

All eyes in the shop are on us.  He shakes his head in disbelief. I’m quite certain he’s used to getting what he wants whenever he wants it. He’s not sure how to handle me.

My throat tightens and my lungs burn for oxygen. My body wants to gasp for air, but I fight the sensation, focusing every speck of my attention on the puzzled blue eyes less than a foot in front of my face.

We have a standoff, in the doorway of The Higher Ground coffee shop. People are outside the door waiting to get in, but Tucker’s hand is on the handle, preventing their entrance as well as my escape.

I lift my chin and grit my teeth to keep them from chattering. “Get out of my way. Now.”

He stares for another three seconds before he curses under his breath. His hand drops, and he takes a step back.

Someone outside pulls the door open, and I push through the group, my eyes stinging from my unshed tears and the cold. I walk at a brisk pace until I get to the mathematics building, then find a back stairwell and sink to a step. Closing my eyes, I bury my face in my hands and give into a full-blown attack as the realization of my fate sinks in my head.

I may have stood up for my principles, but I’ve just committed career suicide.

Chapter Six

Several minutes later we climb the staircase to my apartment. I worry that Tucker will fall down the stairs in his stupor, but he only trips once. When we reach my apartment, he leans his shoulder into the brick wall as he watches me fumble with the lock. I push the door open and wait for him to enter. The soft lamp light from the living room welcomes us in from the cold.

He waves to the opening. “Ladies first.”

More surprises. I go inside, and he follows, shutting the door behind us.

I go into the kitchen, my stomach churning. I’m suddenly unsure this was a good idea. “Sit down at the table, and I’ll clean up your hands.”

He obeys, sliding a chair across the floor closer to the wall and landing in the seat with an
oomph
.

I take off my coat and lay it across the back of another chair. “I need to get some towels.” When I come back from the bathroom with several hand towels, I wet one with warm water and lay the rest on the counter. I reach for his right hand and begin to tenderly pat the now-drying blood.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks.

I’d love to know the answer to that question myself. “You can’t do your homework if you can’t hold a pencil.”

He slides down in his seat, leaning his head back and shutting his eyes. “Strictly professional reasons.”

“Of course.”

We both know it’s a lie, but he doesn’t call me on it.

When I get most of the blood wiped away on his right hand, I sigh. His knuckles are swollen and purple. “I think you should go to the ER and get x-rays. You might have broken your hand.”

The back of his head is propped against the kitchen wall, and his eyes are closed. “Good thing I don’t need my hands in soccer.”

“Tucker, I’m serious.”

One side of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “So am I.”

Shaking my head, I open the freezer and look for a bag of something frozen to put on his hand. The freezer is unsurprisingly bare. Caroline and I exist on mac and cheese, spaghetti, and ramen noodles. I have to settle for a partially used bag of pizza rolls. I set Tucker’s hand on the table, cover it with a washrag, then top it with the bag.

He sits up in alarm, as though I just woke him. “What the fuck?”

“I’m trying to help you, but I won’t if you’re going to cuss at me.”

He closes his eyes again. “You’re cute.”

Incoherent Tucker is back.

I clean up his left hand, relieved to find the swelling and bruising aren’t as bad. When I finish, I put his hands together on the table, scoot the washrag to cover both hands, then adjust the bag on top.

“You should be a doctor, Scarlett.”

I move to the sink and wash out the towels. “Nah. I’m just exceptionally practiced at cleaning up injuries.”

“Your old boyfriends get in a lot of fights?”

“No. My mother.” There goes my filter again.

One eye cocks open. “Your mother was big into fights?”

My chest tightens. I don’t like talking about this. Why am I so truthful with this guy? “Let’s just say she was on the receiving end.”

His other eye opens, and he focuses his full attention on me. Something flashes in his eyes, as though he’s seeing me for the first time. I’m not sure I like it.

I turn around and get a glass and fill it with the water pitcher from the refrigerator. “You need to drink this. And we need to call one of your friends.”

He groans, and leans his forehead into the edge of the table. “I told you I don’t have any friends.”

I don’t want to argue this point with him again. “What about your roommate?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Fine, then I’ll call a cab.”

His head rotates from side to side, still leaning against the table. “No.”