When Stars Burn

Chapter One: Love (or not) Interrupted

"Don't you dare go!" Kendra shrieked, her hands flying to anchor on his broad shoulders, chipped neon pink fingernails digging into hard muscle. "I'm so close, baby."

At the combined sounds of her breathy gasps and their slick bodies moving together, and the undeniable smell of sweat and sex that filled the room, my gut clenched.

"Oh, God."

And before I knew it, the spicy taco salad I grabbed for dinner before heading back to the dorm surged up my throat and exploded into a spectacular volcano of vomit, annihilating this pair of doomed, star-crossed lovers who should've left my bed and my life alone.

***

I stayed in a shower stall in the common bathroom, vomit-free and shivering in a towel.

I'd walked out as soon as I was done puking, armed with a towel and my shower basket, and holed up in the bathroom wishing that my life didn't feel so horrible at that moment.

In the grand scheme of things, my life really wasn't that awful. There were hundreds of far worse possibilities. I had a unique kind of scholarship, some savings, and an amazing future ahead of me-that is, if I didn't murder my roommate nearly two months into the fall semester and get locked away in prison for life. The alternative was that instead of murdering her, I'd die myself a quick, awful death either by lack of sleep because Kendra was always bringing guys into the dorm on top of making my life a living hell, or by loss of sanity where I walk in front of a speeding car or something stupid like that.

I have to do something. Because as always, it's only up to me.

So I forced my feet to trace back the path of my hasty, humiliating escape.

I'd lost track of time but I must've been out a while because the room was now clean and smelled thickly of Kendra's cloying cherry blossom lotion.

"Um, what happened here?" I asked in confusion, frowning at the sight of my bed all tidy and draped with fresh sheets—the same ones I clearly remembered decorating with salsa and chili beef earlier.

Kendra was sitting cross-legged on her own bed in her electric orange tank top and red pajamas, applying moisturizer on her face. Her murderous glare was hard to miss even without the racoon eyes she usually accessorized with.

"Julian grabbed your sheets and my laundry card. Then he came back and scrubbed the floor and the bed frame clean," she answered, her voice grating. "He decided to be a fucking house maid instead of finishing me off."

I grimaced as I hung my towel and put away my toiletries. "What is it with you and this constant itch that needs scratching twenty-four-seven?"

"Prudes shouldn't ask when they don't have any way to relate to the answer," she shot back.

I grabbed my wide-toothed comb and ran it through my long, wet hair. "I'm sorry about the whole puking mess. My stomach has been tormenting me all day and the sight of you two... Let's just say I was angry but I didn't mean to shower you with regurgitated salsa."

"You think I'm ticked about that?" Kendra was looking at me like I somehow grew snakes on my head. "I don't care if you puked enough to cause the Great Flood. I care that you interrupted what might've been my one and only chance of getting down and dirty with the guy I've been waiting to have my entire life!"

I couldn't help the pity as I stared at Kendra. "It's funny how we all aspire for very different things in life. The most momentous event of my existence isn't going to be some clumsy quickie in a dorm room, on someone else's bed, with a guy who isn't even looking at me while he's trying to screw me into the core of the earth."