Chapter Eight
Passion
The taste of honey
on your lips.
I’m a flower
waiting for pollination.
^^^
Even though I’m a few minutes late to my next class, my teacher doesn’t even notice. I’m stealth when I slip in since I sit near the back, high off my conversation with Professor Howard. I pull the flyer out of my back pocket and smooth it out.
It’s for the 15th Annual Poetry Festival. The event takes place every April right before Spring Break. There is a dinner and reception with an awards ceremony. I get the impression it’s a big deal. Am I ready for something like this? My poems are good, I know that, but are they competition good? I shove the flyer in my textbook, placing it out of my mind. I can’t think about this right now.
By the time my classes finish for the day it's almost four. I grab a bite to eat in the cafeteria before heading back to my dorm room. Once there, I whip off my shirt, sweaty from running back and forth between classes all day, and toss it on the floor. I'll wear my favorite teal blouse tonight, the one that compliments my dark hair.
Relieved Olivia is nowhere in sight, I let out a deep breath and yank my dresser drawer open. My clothes, all of my clothes, are covered in a white foam. I pick up my favorite teal blouse, now barely teal, and run my fingers across the milky layer covering it.
Shaving cream.
All of my clothes are ruined. This had to have been Olivia. No doubt about it. I ball my blouse in my hands and shove it into the drawer with the rest of my ruined clothes. What am I going to do? Not only do I have nothing to wear tonight, but unless I can figure out how to fix this, I have nothing to wear until I can buy new clothes.
I text Jesse that I can't meet him. My heart sinks as I hit the send button. I’ve been looking forward to this all day. It’s almost like Olivia knew. I blink my tears away, sitting back on my feet. My phone dings, and it’s Jesse asking why I can’t go.
What do I say? I don’t want to lie to him. I’m not that type of person. But I can’t tell him what happened, or that Olivia is the most likely culprit. I don’t want to cause a rift between anyone, especially Jesse and his sister. No. I’m a big girl. A college girl. I can handle this.
Some girls thought they were funny and put shaving cream over all of my clothes. I’ll be doing laundry tonight.
Some girls, one girl, I don’t even know if anyone else is involved. I know none of Olivia’s friends, and I don’t want to, considering they could be, and probably are, just like her. I’m not lying to him by not disclosing I think Olivia is behind this. I’m just omitting her from the equation.
What? He responds in his text. That’s childish. I’ll be over soon to keep you company.
I stare at the words. He wants to sit with me while I do laundry? What kind of man wants to hang out in a laundry room all night?
No. You’ll be bored.
My phone dings back immediately. No, I won’t. I’ll be with you.
My once sinking heart floats back to the surface with his words, and I’ve never looked forward to doing laundry so much in my life .
An hour later we’re parked in the laundry room of my dorm. I’m perched up on the dryer, and Jesse is sitting on a backwards chair, his arms crossing over the back. His muscles bulge out of the sleeves of his shirt. Here I am in my sweaty clothes from the day since I have nothing else to wear until I wash everything I own.
“You fell? Right on stage?” I’m laughing at Jesse’s graduation story. The one moment students look forward to most during our high school career and he falls right on his ass.
“Boom. I went down like a bag of bricks. I’ll never forget it. Maurice Framer stepped on my gown by accident, and I fell backward, almost in slow motion.” He grabs onto his stomach as he laughs. “Funniest thing ever.”
“So even though it happened to you, you can still laugh at it?” I’ve never been good at laughing at myself. Mostly because I tend to be the butt of jokes. Even when Jesse laughed at his own story, I hesitated to join in.
“Of course. It’s important to laugh at yourself, critical even.”
“Critical?”
“Yes. You’ll encounter so many types of people in life and go through so many stressful situations. Unless you can laugh at yourself, you’ll never make it through.”
I shrug. I understand what he’s saying, but I’m sure he’s never been a laughingstock like I have. “Do you think the situation with my clothes is funny?” I’m interested in his take on this. Just thinking about Olivia opening my dresser drawers, cackling as she sprays shaving cream all over my clothes makes it hard for me to breathe. Is he laughing, thinking I find it funny, too?
“No. This is not funny. It’s disrespectful. It would be funny if you did it to yourself somehow like accidentally losing control of the bottle and spraying it around the room like you’re Bugs Bunny or something. Someone doing this intentionally is not. Do you know who did this?”
“No.” I step with caution, riding a fine line between lying and admitting the truth. I have no proof his sister is behind it, anyway. I don’t want to make accusatory statements no matter how truthful I think they are.
Jesse takes a deep breath and shoves himself back from the chair. “Olivia didn’t do this, did she?”
I’m surprised he’s asked this. By doing so, he’s admitting she’s capable, that maybe she’s done something like this before. Why else would he say something like that? “No, no, no. It wasn’t her.” I can’t say for certain.
“But you don’t know who it was. Who else had access to your room?”
I have to get out of this. I don’t want him running to Olivia and saying anything. That will only make things worse. Of all the people to protect, Olivia is at the bottom of my list, but she’s at the top if it means Jesse is involved. “I don’t know, but I’m more than certain she’s been in class most of the day. She’s been nice to me lately. I don’t think it was her.”
Another small lie. I hope word doesn’t get out about what happened in the quad. Then he’ll know I’ve been shying away from the truth. I plan on finding Olivia’s schedule and memorizing it so I can avoid her in the dorm as best I can.
“I’d want you to tell me if it was. Olivia doesn’t always make the best choices. Sometimes she lets jealousy get a hold of her and before she knows it, she’s done something stupid.”
He says this as though she makes a habit of it, and he’s well aware. I wonder how many lives she destroyed in high school and how many others besides mine she’s messing with in college. Does she even realize the effect things like this can have on people? I’ve been through the ringer plenty of times so while these instances bother me, I can work past them. I can take them at face value, realize she’s the broken one, not me, and put it behind me as best I can. I can try to ignore it. I’m used to the jokes, the name calling, the stares and the whispers. After a while, it becomes a part of you—you become it. The ugly one. The weird one. You accept that this is who you are, even if it’s not who you want to be.
“I’m sorry she acts like that.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. She’s an adult now, and she makes her own decisions. She can choose to deal with her past by making others feel miserable, or she can take the high road and use it to help others.”
I want him to elaborate but his clenched jaw and sad eyes tell me not to say anything. He’s referring to something he doesn’t like to discuss, something he keeps close to his heart.
“I wish more people thought like you.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s just say if more people were like you maybe I would have enjoyed the past twelve years of my life more.”
He stands from the chair and approaches me. He stands next to me, so close I can smell the hints of patchouli in his cologne. I want to close my eyes and breathe him in. “Tell me what happened.”
Shivers run through my body as he takes my hand in his, caressing the palm with his thumb. I want to tell him everything in this moment, my life story, and everything I want for the future. His touch is electric, and with every stroke of his hand, I want to trust him more.
“It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s not. If it were nothing, you wouldn’t have said anything.”
He’s right, but I don’t want to rehash those years. I’m supposed to be putting them behind me, with no help from Olivia. He’s pleading with me, asking me to let him in. “I … I don’t want to bore you.”
“You could never bore me.”
We stare at each other, and I’m not sure where to begin. “The kids, they weren’t so nice to me. They did everything they could to make my life miserable. While you received an explosion of applause at your high school graduation, my classmates barked at me.”
“Barked at you?”
“Yeah. You know, Woof, Woof. Because that’s what kids do to the ugly girl.”
“Don’t you ever say that.” He grabs my other hand and then lets go, touching his hands to my cheeks. “You’re beautiful, Violet Duncan. You didn’t deserve that, and you don’t deserve this. You’re so much better than all those people. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Our eyes bounce back and forth at each other, and the gap between us shortens. I can feel his breath on my face.
“Vi, I’m so happy you’ve come into my life. I’ll protect you from them. From all of it. I promise.”
His lips hit mine, and I lean back against the dryer as he leans forward. He kisses my lips, my cheeks, my neck. When his hands crawl to the bottom of my shirt and search to find an entry from underneath, I push him away.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.” He apologizes for something we both wanted.
“No. I’m glad you did. I’m just … I’m not ready for that next step. This is all new to me.”
“New to you?” He furrows his brow and then returns to normal as he puts two and two together. “Oh, new to you.”
I’ve lost him. The last thing a college boy wants is a girl who won’t go to second base mostly because she’s never experienced it before in her life. How many come into college that way? Not many, that’s for sure.
“I understand if you never want to see me again.”
“What? Of course, I want to see you.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “We can take this as slow as you’d like. You’re worth the wait.”
For a moment I almost believe him.