Chapter Eighteen: Caffeine Is My Natural Habitat
I stumble across my room in a desperate attempt to get dressed in time, but I know nothing short of me walking out the door in my sleep shorts and tank top with unbrushed teeth will make that happen. So, I mentally accept that I’m going to be late, but make an effort to be as little late as possible, and if that entails shoving both my legs in my yoga pants at the same time, then so be it.
I grab the first warm item of clothing I see and pull it over my head. Immediately, I’m surrounded by Cole’s warm scent, and I know I’ve put on one of his sweatshirts that almost drowns me, but it’s comfortable and snuggly, and I don’t have time to wear anything else.
I get done in the bathroom and wrestle together my textbooks for the day and my laptop. Throwing those in my tote bag, I lug myself all the way to campus half sprinting, half dragging.
I’m still over ten minutes late because I slept in way past my alarm.
And whose fault would that be?
Cole had an away game yesterday and arrive back to his apartment late last night. We talked on the phone for over two hours and I fell asleep sometime around three a.m., not the greatest move on my part, since I have an eight a.m. class. Everyone knows how nuclear I can be without sleep, so I do fear for the general well-being of the people around me.
I make it to class just as Professor Gingham is getting around to starting the lecture after setting up his mandatory slides. He gives me a curt look as I pass him by but doesn’t say anything as I scurry to my seat in the middle row. This is the first and only time I’ve been late for class, so he’s giving me a free pass; all hail being a Goody Two-shoes.
If only my luck were to continue. As I’m passing the aisle to get to my seat, a foot shoots out of nowhere, and the next thing I know, my knees are buckling and I’ve face-planted onto the floor, my butt sticking out for all the world to see. My laptop crashes to the floor loudly as my books land with a loud thump; my tote cushions my face from the impact of the ground. For some unexplainable reason, it takes me a while to actually register that I’m on the ground and that I should probably stand up. But when I do try to stand, the devil’s foot manages to trip me again, and this time I hit pretty hard on one of the ridges that make up the stairs of the auditorium. My cheeks are fire-engine red with humiliation as I try to collect myself.
The snickering starts slowly, mostly from the side of the room that has witnessed my fall, and spreads slowly around the auditorium as the rest catch up.
“Miss O’Connell, kindly take your seat; you’ve already disturbed my class once, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t for the second time.”
My face feels like it’s on fire as I sidle over to my seat. The girl who sits next to me and occasionally borrows my notes gives me a sympathetic look. “You realize this is going to be all over Snapchat by the end of the class, right?”
My mouth hangs open. “They were taking pictures?”
She nods solemnly.
“Wait, did you see who tripped me?” I ask in a hushed whisper. Because even though I know I’m clumsier than I can afford to be, even I would’ve seen that high-heeled, boot-clad foot appear out of thin air.
“Well…” she hesitates and I see her gaze travel down to the aisle where I had the mighty fall. “I’m pretty sure it was one of them; Allison Vega and her friends sit there.”
Ah, so she strikes back. I know that my little stunt at the Halloween party with Cole wouldn’t go without consequences. These girls sure as heck know more about playing the game than I do, and they’re pretty good at it. And now I’m left wondering if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew by poking the vultures in the eye.
***
Any suspicion I have over who tripped me vanishes when class ends and we leave. I’m walking away when the wicked witch of Providence calls out to me.
“Nice underwear, Tessa. How many grannies did you have to beat off to get to them?”
Her comment doesn’t get to me for a lot of reasons, mostly because I know my underwear wasn’t visible for the world to see. But more so because my decision to wear comfortable clothing is just oh so embarrassing to people like her, not me. That ship sailed when I tried wearing thongs for a couple of days straight and waddled around like a penguin. I’m not questioning my choices ever again.
I spin around to face her, and the smug expression on her face infuriates me.
“Should I be concerned about the fact that you paid enough attention to my underwear in the thirty seconds I was on the floor to tell what type it is? Are you generally that observant, or am I special?”
To my utter delight, her face turns pink, as if the prospect of liking a girl is that heinous to her. Great, on top of being a vindictive bitch, she’s also a homophobe. Such a pretty girl, such an ugly inside.
“Don’t flatter yourself; you’re not my type. Your boyfriend, on the other hand…”
She lets her words hang in the air, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to claw her face out. The most basic instinct I have is to remove that smirk from her face with my bare hands.
“Oh, that’s right, you have a massive crush on him, right? It’s got to hurt that he can’t even stand you enough to be your partner next semester. Besides, I don’t think shallow, petty, and immature are his type.”
Not in the mood to hear more of the wonderful words that might come out of her mouth, I walk off feeling all kinds of mad. I’d left this world behind and have experienced more bullying than anyone would be okay with. The thing about college, I’d thought it would be that people were grown up and would have moved past all the high school mindset and antics. I’m shivering, and it’s not because of the cold.
Not again, please, god, just not again.
I storm toward my dorm; my next class isn’t until the afternoon, so I’ll either take a nap to try to get rid of the anger, or I’ll hit the gym, go chat with Bentley and hope that it’s not because I’m mad at Cole.
Because it’s not really his fault that the girls who crush on him seem to take out all their frustrations on me.
Right?
Sarah’s about to leave for her own block of classes when I enter, and she immediately picks up on the dark expression on my face. She slides off the strap of her backpack and lets it fall to her bed.
“Uh-oh. Did your professor get mad about you being late?”
“No, I just had a major déjà vu moment in class.” I walk past her and collapse onto my bed.
I know she’s standing at the foot of it waiting for me to continue.
“One of the groupies thought it would be fun to make me face-plant for the world to see. That’s not the problem, I can deal with girls like her, I just didn’t think I would have to.”
“I’m sorry, Tessa…but wait, what do you mean you’re used to it?”
I sigh, not really in the mood for a retelling of my sob story. “I don’t feel like talking about it now. You should head to class; I think you’ve got about five minutes to make it.”
The poor girl has a true struggle in front of her, to try to make sure her crazy roommate doesn’t cry into her pillow all day or be late to class. She wouldn’t be Sarah, though, if she didn’t pick the latter, and even though I can feel her disappointment at my not having opened up to her, I just close my eyes and try to go to sleep as she leaves.
***
I do actually end up falling asleep and feel considerably better once I’m up. The Allison incident isn’t a big deal, and it’s not why I had the reaction I did. I’m just tired of the stupid game and have played it long enough to never want to ever again. But the groupies aren’t going away and some will get vicious; I just need to keep fighting.
I totter around the room for a bit and finally change into acceptable clothing. I put on some light makeup and decide to head to the campus coffee shop. My phone tells me that I’ve missed some texts from Cami, who wants to hang out, so I text her and let her know where I’ll be.
There’s also a text from Cole, but I ignore it for the time being. He texts me every morning, whenever he wakes up, and it’s usually something like an “I love you” or “Good morning, have a great day, Shortcake.” I’m not going to lie; his texts do make my mornings, but I don’t get around to reading it today.
I find myself an isolated table and after getting myself a croissant and a hazelnut latte, set up my laptop and begin working on my essay. And under no circumstances do I allow myself to check Facebook, nope, not at all.
“Have you checked Facebook?”
Apparently, Cami has different ideas.
She takes the seat across from mine and shoves her phone into my face. Sure enough, there’s a photo of me with my butt in the air and my sweatshirt wedged up quite painfully. I scrunch my nose in disgust and push her phone away.
“I already experienced that once; do not need a reminder.”
“But why didn’t you tell me about this? Who did it? Did you fall, or did someone think it was funny to mess with my new bestie?”
I smile at how angry she sounds on my behalf. She reminds me of Beth sometimes, but then again, she’s not like Beth at all.
Weird.
“It was just an immature prank by one of the groupies, nothing I can’t handle.”
“Oh, from what I heard, you handled it really well. There’s a video going around of your little spat, and I have to say you completely verbal bitch-slapped her.”
I groan. “How do people even record these things so fast and make them spread out?”
“Through the student group on Facebook, duh. There’s a reason why I’ve been asking you to join it.”
“I’d rather not.”
“But…”
“Hey, Tessie.” My eyes widen in panic as Cole sits down next to me and kisses my cheek. I try having a silent conversation with Cami, making sure she knows that Cole doesn’t need an update on how wonderful my morning has been. She looks at me a little weirdly but pockets her phone.
“Uh, hey. How’d you find me here?”
He looks at me a little weirdly before giving me an uneasy smile.
“Well, I texted you a couple of times, but you didn’t answer. Then I went around to your room and you weren’t there, either, so I thought I’d check this place out since…”
“Caffeine is my natural habitat?”
He laughs, a relieved expression evident on his face now that I’ve broken that awkward tension between us. “Something like that.”
“Sorry I didn’t answer your texts, though, I was just caught up in finishing the essay.”
He nods and kisses the top of my head before leaving us to go place his order.
Cami has watched the entire exchange and, as soon as he’s out of earshot, hisses at me, “He doesn’t know? His fangirls are plotting to send you to an early grave, or at least as far as Timbuktu, and you’re not telling him?”
“Be quiet! It’s not his fault, okay? And he’s already trying really hard to make sure football doesn’t ruin our relationship. He offered to quit the team for me, if I tell him about Allison or the rest of them, he’ll try to do something just as drastic.”
“He’ll find out one way or the other, Tessa; cyberspace doesn’t work as slowly as you’re guessing it does.”
“Well, lucky for me, Cole hates social media. He doesn’t have accounts on half of the things, and it’s lucky if he checks his Facebook about twice a month. I’m not worried about him seeing me with my butt in the air and wedgie to go with it.” I’m hoping she misses the bitterness lacing my voice.
She settles back in her chair and stares at me. “Wait, do you blame him?”
I shake my head a bit too forcefully, and the all-seeing thing that is Cami catches it quickly. “Oh My God, you do, don’t you? You think this is all happening because of him?”
“No, of course I don’t! He’s not responsible for what the groupies do any more than I am for Jay’s stupidity,” I continue without stopping to tell Cami who Jay actually is, which clearly means that the explanation is more for my benefit than hers. “It’s just that…at times it feels like Cole and trouble come as a package deal.”
Now that the words are out there and I can’t take them back, I think over them really hard and try to figure out if I really, truly mean them.
But Cole comes back then with his own coffee and a sandwich and sits down as close to me as possible, his thigh pressing against mine as he places his hand on my knee.
“What were you guys talking about? It looked pretty serious from back there.”
So, I do what I’d promised myself to never do again; I lie to him.
***
“You okay?”
Cole and I are walking back to my dorm after our last class together. He has practice right after, so he offered to walk me back, and then he’ll be gone till late, and I’ll probably see him sometime tomorrow evening as I have a study group taking up most of my day. After having coffee with Cami, Cole and I sat through two classes, and I’m glad that he missed a lot of the looks thrown our way or rather, my way. I’m also glad that no one had the balls to come right up to him and tell him about his girlfriend’s rather embarrassing moment being advertised for the world to see.
I want to tell him, but I know how he’ll react, his protective instincts will take over, and even though I know he would never hit a girl, chances are he’ll get himself into trouble. Allison what’s-her-face isn’t worth his time or mine.
“Yeah, of course,” I tell him.
“You’ve been really quiet today, Tessie. If something’s wrong, tell me.”
I stop walking and tug on his hand to do so as well. I cup his face in my hands and kiss him. “I’m fine, I swear, just a little tired.”
He looks really guilty. “I shouldn’t have kept you up, god, I’m such an asshole. You had a class this morning and I didn’t even think about it.”
I let him beat himself up for a few minutes because it’s better he think that was the reason why I’ve been in such a weird mood all day.
“Let’s just try restricting ourselves to an hour next time you decide to call in the middle of the night, okay?”
He pulls me to him and buries his face in the crook of my neck. “I missed you in my bed, Shortcake, especially after the Halloween weekend…”
My face heats up at the memories; let’s just say dressing up as Jessica Rabbit was the absolute best decision.
Shivering from his touch, I pull back. “We don’t have time to talk dirty, mister, you have practice, and I have lots of assigned reading to get to.”
He sighs dramatically and we continue walking to my dorm. Once inside, I’m instantly on alert when a couple of girls spot me first, before seeing Cole, and start laughing a bit too loudly. I ignore them and push the button for the elevator that’ll take me to my floor. Cole frowns at the giggling pair.
“Something funny?”
I make a huge deal of rolling my eyes. “I think that’s an automatic reaction to you being around. Women all over the world tend to become reduced to overenthusiastic toddlers.”
He doesn’t buy it and looks toward the girls again, but our elevator arrives before he can ask them why they’re still laughing, and I pull him inside. I push a couple of buttons so that it buys us some time alone and I can try to distract him.
“Who keeps texting you?” His phone’s been going crazy for a while, and I’m half afraid that it’s someone forwarding him the photos and video from earlier.
He grimaces like he’s tasted something foul and shoots me an apologetic look.
“It’s Allison.”
Wait, what?
I try not to throw a full-blown tantrum. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, I chant in my head.
“Why? I thought she wasn’t working with you anymore?”
“Well, yeah, in the psych class, but somehow we got partnered up in our 100-level engineering class and the TA’s refusing to change the pairings.”
My jaw might just become unhinged from how far I’ve let it drop.
That manipulative, psychotic, little she-demon!
“Oh.” I’ve curled my hands into fists and I’m ready to pound them into the walls when we arrive on my floor.
Cole walks behind me a little cautiously as I use my key to let us inside the room; thankfully, Sarah isn’t back to witness yet another thing in my life going wrong.
“There’s nothing to be worried about, Tessie; you know I don’t like her.”
But she’s freaking obsessed with you! Just like Nicole was, just like Erica was, I want to scream at him.
“I know, and I trust you; I just really don’t like that girl.”
“Well, I’ll try getting done with our project as soon as possible and submitting it before the end of the semester, okay? I don’t want to work with her for that long.”
He tips my chin up to meet his eyes. “If something was wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
I nod and he carefully studies my face.
“I love you, Shortcake.”
“Love you, too, Cole.”
He kisses me soundly before he leaves, and after he does, I collapse onto my bed and find that my eyes are stinging. I throw my arm over my eyes and scream into my sleeves. I hate overreacting; I hate being this weak. If I need to fight to keep Cole, then I will.
The problem is that I shouldn’t have to. He’s mine now, my boyfriend, and sometimes even the word boyfriend doesn’t seem like it’s enough. I’m secure enough in our relationship to know that we’re in a good place, but if I’m still left battling every woman who thinks she could be better for him than I am, then what’s the point of this security?