After watching both Sex and the City movies and drinking more wine, the girls were lying on the floor of the lounge area. Outside, darkness had crept in, smothering the campus in the emptiness of night. "I just can't believe she didn't call," Dusty admitted, slurring her words.
"I know," Ashley agreed.
"I mean, how hard is it to call someone?"
"Not hard at all. And you called her ."
"So many times. Too many times. I started to feel like a freaking stalker." Dusty giggled.
"You need to forget her ," Ashley instructed, her eyes focused on the ceiling, which seemed impossibly far away.
"I know."
"Forget her and move on."
"Yes."
"Pretend she never existed."
"Okay..."
"She's dead to you." Ashley's anger was intensifying.
"Want me to also kill her puppy?" Dusty laughed. This made Ashley giggle too.
"No, let's avoid bunny boiler territory." Ashley smiled. They continued to lie on the floor, the CD player they'd previously turned on belting out Demi Lovota's latest album, but neither of them were really listening.
"Why is the ceiling spinning like that?" Dusty asked.
"I don't know. I was trying to figure it out."
"We should really get to bed," Dusty decided, trying to clamber up to her feet and failing, sliding back onto her bottom, much to Ashley's delight.
"You're drunk." Ashley laughed.
"No drunkerer than you." Dusty leveled an accusing finger at her friend, which wobbled in the air as though it had a mind of its own.
"Drunkerer, that's not even a word." Ashley giggled.
"It so is."
"Isn't."
Dusty was smiling. It felt good to smile, to not be alone anymore. Finally being able to discuss Kyera felt like a massive weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she felt light and free.
Eventually, after several attempts, she managed to stand up as a particularly high-energy song began to play. Uneasily, Dusty began to sway back and forth before breaking into more of a shimmy.
"What are you doing?" Ashley laughed, still lying on the floor.
"I'm dancing. I feel like dancing."
"I want to dance too." Ashley tried to get up but couldn't. "Dusty, help me up," she pleaded. Dusty came over and let Ashley grab on to her arms, but rather than help her friend up, she got pulled down so that they were both on the floor in a crumpled heap.
"Wow, we are too cool." Ashley laughed.
"I hurt my leg," Dusty moaned, making a face of faux pain.
"I'm glad I'm back," Ashley admitted in a rare moment of sincerity, the frivolity of the evening fading briefly.
"I'm glad you're back too. I really missed you." The girls hugged, knowing in their hearts that they would always be the best of friends.
"Kyera doesn't deserve you," Ashley said.
"I know." Dusty sighed. "Does Pierre have a sister?" she teased.
"Haha, no."
"I'd settle for a cousin."
"I bet you would."
After a few more tries, the girls finally were both on their feet and dancing around the sofa, throwing up their arms in carefree abandon, no longer worrying about school, wasted romance or the big, bad world beyond the sorority house. They were lost in the moment, and it felt amazing. Neither of them wanted to break the spell and end the evening.
****
At some point, however, their evening did end, and Dusty awoke on the floor of the lounge area, the sun streaming in through the window, burning her eyes. She tried to move and winced in pain as her back protested the movement, sore from sleeping on such a hard surface all night.
"Urgh," Dusty moaned, stretching and trying to get her bearings.
"No light," Ashley cried out from somewhere close by. Hearing her bones creak like a haunted house, Dusty managed to stand up and survey the damage of the previous night. There were a few empty bottles of wine littered around, along with strewn cushions from the sofa, three of which Ashley was curled up in like a cat. The CD was still playing, they must have put it on a loop, and DVDs were all over the floor from when they'd drunkenly tried to select a movie to watch.
Dusty strained her eyes to focus and noticed that the sudden influx of sunlight had come from the now open front door, within which stood a very unimpressed-looking Cindy, who regarded both girls with disdain.
"I see you've been working hard this summer," she said to Dusty, who flinched at the directness of the insult.
"Ashley just came back last night," Dusty tried to explain but struggled to suppress the nauseous feeling inside her. The room continued to spin as it had done the night before, only now the spinning was accompanied by an intense pounding in her head.
"Well, make sure you clean it all up," Cindy instructed. "Playtime is over."
****
Dusty sat in class and listened diligently to the lesson taught by her professor. She ceased staring at the front of the room only to glance at her notepad as she scribbled down the key points. She was a changed student. No longer did she arrive late for class, her hair wet, and her clothes thrown on. Dusty was now always on time, if not early, dressed impeccably with her hair tied in a neat bun, her jeans now ironed and coupled with a crisp white shirt.
Her image reflected her new, serious attitude.
She found that she enjoyed studying. Now that she allowed it to be her focus at Princeton, she finally felt like she was reconnecting with the young girl she had once been, the girl who had dreamed of one day attending the prestigious college and expanding her mind. The best part of it all, however, was offering her thoughts a distraction from Kyera.
She found that whenever she had a spare moment for her mind to drift, it immediately went to her, wondering where she was, what she was doing or more distressingly, who she was doing. Dusty kept seeing girls around campus who looked like her from a distance but was always disappointed when she drew close; it was never Kyera. She began to consider if perhaps she had dropped out of school altogether. Her attendance was certainly poor enough to warrant expulsion.
"The best way to get over one is to get under another," Ashley had declared the previous evening in their room as Dusty gazed dreamily into space.
"Huh?"
"You're thinking about her again," Ashley noted.
"I can't help it." Dusty sighed.
"You need to get yourself a new toy, someone new to occupy your thoughts."
"I don't want to date anyone else," Dusty admitted. The wounds over her breakup with Kyera were still fresh and sore; she didn't feel strong enough to let someone new close to her.
"Well, let me know when you're ready. Pierre has some really hot friends I could introduce you to."
"Does Pierre like you calling his friends hot?" Dusty teased.
"I'd just say he was misinterpreting my meaning, the language barrier, and all." Ashley smirked.
"You're terrible."
"Terribly good," Ashley clarified. "And while you, Dusty Black, are now a model student, you are a poor friend. All you do is mope around here. You need to get over Kyera pronto." Ashley's mantra about how Dusty needed to forget about the last man she had loved had become a daily ritual.
"I just can't stop thinking about her."
"Well, she seems to have stopped thinking about you," Ashley said. "I'm sorry to be cruel, Dusty, but I feel like I need to be blunt with you. She never texted or called. She's probably off with some skank, or multiple skanks, while you sit here torturing yourself by thinking about her."
l"You're right."
"I'm always right," Ashley said confidently. During class was the only time when Dusty's mind was occupied enough to stop her thinking about Kyera. She lost herself in the complex equations and theories she had to learn, enjoying the simplicity of mathematics and numbers. There was always a right answer, a right way to work something out; you just had to learn the method. She wished that life could be that simple.
"Miss Black," Miss Dunne called to Dusty one morning after class had concluded. Dusty hung back from the other students who were leaving the room, and she loitered near her teacher's desk after being called back. "I just wanted to commend you on your newfound study ethic." Miss Dunne's hard face actually broke into an awkward-looking smile as she spoke. It was evident that she was a woman who rarely smiled because the gesture looked so unnatural.
"Thank you." Dusty stood awkwardly before her, clutching her textbooks to her chest like a shield. She was so accustomed to being berated by Miss Dunne that she felt nervous, like a naughty child awaiting their punishment.
"It's rare that students like yourself manage to turn things around so dramatically."
"I've tried to apply myself and be focused."
"Well, you've done a good job. You should be proud of yourself." Miss Dunne smiled awkwardly again.
"Thank you." Dusty nodded, but loitered again before leaving the room.
"She didn't get expelled," Miss Dunne said, as though able to read Dusty's thoughts. "That's what you want to ask me, right?"
Dusty was taken aback by her teacher's astuteness, and it left her speechless. "Ms. Aroura is still here studying at Princeton," Miss Dunne continued, "but by the look on your face, you were hoping she wasn't." The color drained from Dusty's face as she finally succumbed to the grim reality that Kyera was walking around campus and just choosing to ignore her, not caring that she'd not seen her, no longer having any feelings for her.
Her chest became tight as though someone had just drove a knife into it but was then applying extra pressure, turning it to induce as much pain as possible. "You want my advice?" Miss Dunne asked sharply, her smile long gone. Dusty could only nod numbly. "Forget you ever met her and focus on yourself. It's been working for you so far this year. You've got perfect attendance and impressive grades. There's a lot more to life than men or women; don't forget that." Miss Dunne nodded at her young student, satisfied with the knowledge she had imparted, and walked purposefully out of the room, her heeled shoes clicking methodically against the hard floor as she left.
Dusty listened until the footsteps were beyond earshot before slinking out of the classroom, her head down, eyes on the floor. She felt as though she'd just been stepped on. "She's still here," Ashley screamed when Dusty told her about the conversation with her teacher.
"That's what she said."
"And she hasn't bothered to get in touch with you since classes began. The little rat." Ashley was fired up, pacing around their shared bedroom in her pink fluffy slippers.
"I'm not surprised, to be honest," Dusty said.
"She better hope I never see her," Ashley declared through clenched teeth.
"Ash, it's okay. I'm trying to do like Miss Dunne suggested and just forget her."
"Well, you must be Gandhi to be able to be so calm about it all!"
"I'm trying to take the high road," Dusty said.
"Good luck with that." Ashley waved a dismissive hand. "Personally, I'd feel a lot better once I've smashed a few windows out of her car, or at least slashed some tires."
"She doesn't have a car."
"Of course she doesn't. Because she's a rat." The soft tap at their bedroom door caused Ashley to cease pacing. Cindy's head came poking around the white wooden door, glancing first at Ashley and then over at Dusty, who sat on her bed.
"Just to remind you that the Kappa Pi pow wow starts in five minutes," Cindy whispered into the room.
"We can tell the time, Cindy." Ashley sighed. "Pow wow starts at five every day. You don't always have to come in and tell us." Cindy scowled at Ashley and then closed the door, leaving the roommates once more in peace.
Things had been icy between them and Cindy since she'd found them after their reunion evening. At precisely five, Dusty and Ashley headed out of their room, down the wooden staircase and into the lounge area of the sorority house. There were already a dozen girls waiting, leaving them no space to sit except on the floor. Dusty positioned herself cross-legged next to Ashley.
She glanced around the living space, feeling like it was a faraway memory when she was alone in the house. It felt like a lifetime ago, as did her time with Kyera. It pained Dusty how time could erode so much. Recently, she found herself struggling to remember her father's face. Panicked, she'd looked at his picture to remind herself, but she was beginning to feel like she was looking at the picture of a stranger.
It had been so long since he was a part of her life it felt like he was no longer in it at all. When Dusty told Ashley about her fears that she was forgetting her father, Ashley had nodded sympathetically. "Don't worry, Dusty, you're not forgetting him. You're just healing and learning to cope without him."
"But I can't remember how he used to smile or what he smelt like," Dusty declared.
"None of that matters. You might forget the small stuff, but you'll always remember the big things." Dusty felt comforted by her friend's words but was still distressed over forgetting details about her father. She feared that life and the passing of time would eventually steal from her what she had left of him.
"Good evening, sisters," Marie Spencer, current president of Kappa Pi, greeted the collection of girls gathered around her.
"Evening, sister," the girls chorused back at her.
"Thank you for meeting me for our daily pow wow," Marie continued. The meeting always started and ended with the same generic greetings. Dusty felt it was all the more tiresome that these were daily events and attendance was mandatory. "I hope we are all settling into the school year." Marie glanced around at her sisters. "We need to start focusing on getting pledges. We've got some important initiation parties coming up, so it's important you all attend and spread the word about Kappa Pi!"
The mention of a party always got the girls excited, like a disturbed flock of birds, chirping and flapping with anxious anticipation. "And we want to extend a big Kappa Pi congratulations to one of our own. Stand up, please, Dusty-Rose." Marie gestured towards Dusty, whose eyes widened with surprise as she awkwardly got up off the floor.
"Dusty-Rose has worked hard all summer, forsaking holidays and fun, so that she could study and raise her GPA, and she is now in the top four percent of her class! So let's give it up for Dusty-Rose!" All around Dusty her Kappa Pi sisters graciously clapped for her achievement, sending approving glances her way, while Dusty blushed profusely, embarrassed by the attention. Marie gestured with her hand that Dusty could sit back down.
"Let Dusty-Rose be a lesson to us all that with hard work and determination you can always find your way back to the top." Dusty wasn't sure if she offered her sorority sisters such a great lesson. She knew that she should feel proud about her improved grades, about being close to the top of her class, but still her mind was polluted by thoughts of Kyera.
She began to wonder if no achievement would ever satisfy her. She just wanted to know what Kyera was doing, how she'd spent her summer and, more importantly, if she missed her, be- cause she missed her terribly. Kyera haunted her dreams and existed on the periphery of her waking thoughts, seizing any lull in activity to enter her mind.
Ashley placed an arm around her friend and gave her a comforting squeeze after once more spotting the faraway glance, which meant that the boy with the mad curly hair was on her mind. "It gets better," Ashley whispered to her as Marie gave precise instructions about the impending pledge parties.
"Does it?"
"Sure. It only hurts because you loved her, but that's the thing with love, you've got to risk the pain."
"Focus please, girls," Marie instructed, throwing a warning glance over at Ashley. But the command to focus was lost on Dusty, who could only sit there for the rest of the pow wow thinking about Kyera.