Ten
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While I stayed with Jay on the lounge area, watching the people below, we saw a little crowd at a corner brew up a fight. I leaned forward and watched for another moment until I made out Carli's blue hair and heard her yelling and cursing.
"It's Carli!" I grabbed Jay by the arm and pulled him along with me as I scurried down the steps.
Pushing through the crowd, we reached them just in time to find Carli in a fight with another girl. Grayson grabbed her and pulled her away while Vanessa stood in the middle trying to hold the other girl away as she thrashed toward Carli, when in fact, her hands kept falling on Vanessa's head.
"Stop it. Stop it. Ow! Stop!! You're hitting me instead!"
"Then get the fuck outta my way!"
"Fuck off, Grayson!" Carli yelled at her boyfriend as she fought to get out of his hold.
Before I could get to Carli, two bouncers in casual black t-shirt and jeans appeared the next minute, broke them apart, and told them to leave. Grayson followed Carli to the door but I saw her shove him away and telling him to fuck off. Jay and I followed them outside the club. The other girl left with her friends at once. I called Drew since he was our ride and Carli had came with Grayson, whom she'd rather kill than ride with at the moment. Jay was with me but his car was only for two people.
Carli wouldn't talk to Grayson as she stood far from him at the sidewalk, Vanessa by her side.
Jay turned to Grayson. "Lemme guess. You hooked up with another girl again."
"It was only a kiss. Wasn't really planning on banging her."
"Why don't you just stop dating her, man? What's the point? Let her go and bang every chick you find in the street without causing cat-fights in my club."
"I like her."
Jay stared at him dead in the end with the most hopeless face in the entire world. Then he rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You're a real pain in the ass."
Drew scurried out with Jarvis the next moment. "Where's Lola?"
"Here." I went forward.
"Are we really leaving now?" Jarvis grimaced.
"Yup. Come on."
He groaned and got in the front seat with Drew, Vanessa, and Carli at the back. I turned to Jay. "I'll just leave with them."
"I could still drop you."
I glanced toward Drew and saw his displeasing eyes watching me like my dad would.
God.
"That's alright. You don't have to."
He said nothing more as he calmly reached out for my wrist and led me toward his car.
I looked back at them and said, "We'll be right behind you!"
The way Drew stared at me would haunt me for a lifetime. Nonetheless, I went with Jay. When he parked right behind Drew's car in front of our dorm, he moved in and kissed me again. The fact that Drew would see us made me uneasy for a while until I realized he wasn't my dad and I wasn't bound to please him. So, I went forward kissing Jay back as hard as I could. It was, in no way, less than incredible as the taste of his tongue and my own freedom filled my mouth.
"I'll see you tomorrow," he said as we pulled apart.
"Okay." I nodded and stepped out with a growing smile on my face, which I fought to suppress since Drew didn't look too impressed.
Vanessa and Carli went inside while Drew stood by his car, waiting for me and watching Jay drive away.
"Is he like your boyfriend?" He asked me when I approached him.
I took a breath and shook my head. "No. I mean. . . I don't know. We're just hanging out together."
A quick frown appeared on his face and he scoffed in disbelief. To say that it didn't offend me would be a big, fat lie. I was ready to bitch back but I refrained from it just because he was my best friend.
"I didn't expect that," he said.
"Well, I didn't expect it either. But, I do think that, if I want to, I can go out with whoever I want. Right?"
"Of course, you can but he's just not your type, Lola. He's from the ghetto!"
"I know!"
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm only trying to live a little, Drew. That's what I'm doing."
"But it doesn't have to be with people like them!"
"God! For once, I just wanna go out and explore! I wanna stop being this girl who lives by the definition that other people give. I just wanna be who I really am!"
"You are who you are, Lola."
"No. I'm not, Drew. I'm not. All my life I've been what my parents want me to be. I have never been fully me and I'm just trying now."
Drew stared at me incredulously for a moment like he had just heard me say I wanna grow a tail. And then he nodded. "Okay. Alright. If that's what you want. . . but just so you know, Lola, you don't have to change in any way. You are perfect."
I met him in the eyes and offered a smile. "Thanks, Drew. But I don't wanna be perfect."
"Okay." He nodded again, hardly able to say anything more.
I went and hugged him. "Goodnight. I love you."
"I love you too."
I went to my room and found Carli on Vanessa's bed, crying. I stepped forward and sat with them.
"Fucking asshole," Carli cursed as she pulled out a tissue from the box and wiped her eyes, leaning back on the wall. "I thought he could change. Fuck boys."
Vanessa and I sat quietly and I figured it'd be nice if I say something to make her feel better, so I said, "I'm sorry."
Carli responded with a faint shrug and leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. "You be careful, Lola. Nobody's going to change for us. You could have fun with Jay but that's it. These guys could make us feel like they love us but they don't. I've been going in circles with Grayson. He doesn't change at all and I can't stay away from him."
Her words hit me like a truckload of disappointment and I felt a heaviness in my stomach. Heat washed down my back and the idea frightened me yet I remained silent. I couldn't even look up to her, scared that she'd be dead right and I've been nothing but naive. I didn't wanna be.
"But no one's the same, right? I mean Grayson and Jay are different. I haven't really seen Jay with other girls besides Antonella and these days he's not even with her." Vanessa offered and that made me feel better somehow, but it didn't last.
Carli scoffed and laughed, "You'd think. You don't come out as often as I do so you don't see it. He does take girls home every other night. Antonella is a different story. She gets a kiss from him once in a while but I doubt he would have ever fucked her. She's just possessive of him but Jay actually cares about her like a sister."
"Like a sister he kisses once in a while?" Vanessa drawled and made a face.
"Yeah."
Now that's fucked up.
"But even when he shows up in front of college, he never takes any girl with him."
"He doesn't really hook up with college girls. That's just something about him."
"You know I think he might have hooked up with Antonella too. Like they're always together ninety percent of the time. Surely they must have slept together one day or the other."
"Yeah. I guess. They probably have."
I sat chewing on my lips, eyes on the floor, uneasy with the conversation.
"Sorry if you didn't want to hear it but girls come and go in their lives, Lola. It's good that you know, given that I see you often with him," Carli said.
"Thanks."
"You're not falling in love with him, are you?"
"No! No!" I shook my head vigorously. "We're just hanging out together."
"I know you like him a bit though. Just keep it that way. You don't wanna wind up like me. Grayson keeps cheating. I keep getting angry but I spiral right back to him. If I see him, I just wanna be with him. It's crazy but I guess I'm stuck with him until I'm done with college. Like it or not and it's not pretty."
I nodded again and Vanessa butted in to lighten the situation. "Well, I don't know but they can't all be the same. We'll just have fun. That's all, right? We don't even have to think about them. I highly doubt I'd even end up marrying a guy I met in college. So forget it."
"You're right. I won't marry Grayson anyway. Might as well just fuck him untill college is over."
"That's the plan!" Vanessa chirped and got up from the bed to change.
Carli got down too. "Night, girls."
I hardly slept that night. While Vanessa slept, I lay awake. What Carli said was true in so many ways. Jay surely had taken several girls to his place, slept with them and I wondered if I was just one of them to him. I wondered if he had taken other girls to his bed after we met. I wondered if he would throw me away once we have sex. I wondered if that's his plan.
Who was I to him, anyway? I wasn't anyone special and I highly doubted he would change just because he's met me. We weren't some characters in a fairytale. I twisted and turned in my bed, hugging my pillows as tight as I could, and trying to force myself to sleep. But every time I closed my eyes, the image of Jay in my head seemed to get clearer, haunting me with the thought that maybe all those times we'd been together meant nothing to him and so much to me; that I've been nothing but a fool.
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Thank you so much for reading! ❤
Hope you enjoyed the chapter (:
Love, Hermyne