Two

Will Parke @TheoryOfBecause Dec 16

Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation –

Max Euwe #willwinbecause

Ashton

I’d taken my Italian Renaissance final and I had no idea how I’d done. Usually I had a feeling one way or the other, but all I felt was numb. I could not escape #whestonbreakup no matter where I went or who I talked to. It was the first thing on everyone’s lips all day long. It’s almost like the whole campus had come together to collectively laugh about my breakup. It completely sucked.

“Maybe she’s not frigid,” a guy at the next table in the library said to a group of friends. “Maybe he’s just really bad at paying for it, you know?”

My stomach tightened to a knot.

“Or maybe,” the girl next to him replied, “he just has a really small dick and couldn’t satisfy her.”

“What? You think ‘frigid bitch’ is all stretched out or something?” someone else added to a round of laughter.

I thought I was going to be sick. I left the library and started back for the dorms. I could maybe hide out there and study for my last final if Lisa wasn’t there. Even if she was there, my roommate never made a peep. She was always so strange, which is why I didn’t spend a lot of time in my dorm. But since she was strange, I doubted she had a Twitter account, which would be a plus today.

My cell buzzed and I pulled it out of my purse only to see Braden’s name illuminating my screen. He was probably going through the same shit I was today. In fact, he was probably the only person at school who would understand how I felt, but I still didn’t want to talk to him. Our shared hell aside, people wouldn’t be repeating the shitty things he’d said to me last night if he hadn’t said them to me in the first place.

I ignored the call and dropped my cell back in my purse. I mean, there was nothing he could say that would change anything. He could apologize or even swear that he loved me and…I still wouldn’t want to take him back. So what was the point in talking to him?

I passed a group of girls in the quad and one of them whined, “They’re not boring. They’re my friends.” And then her friends laughed right along with her.

I walked even faster to the dorms, hoping that no one would be able to figure out why I was hurrying. I mean, they couldn’t read it on my face, right? Nobody could tell anything just from looking at me, could they?

Just as I stepped back inside the dorms, my cell dinged. I pulled my phone out again and found a very sweet text from my ex-boyfriend lighting up the screen. Stop being a bitch and call me back!

He was such an asshole.

I nodded at a girl that I passed in the hallway as I made my way to my room. Then I opened the door, was relieved Lisa wasn’t there and collapsed onto my bed. How the hell had this happened to me? I hadn’t done anything to deserve this. I really hadn’t.

My cell dinged again with another message from Braden.

He was never going to leave me alone until I dealt with him. So I heaved a sigh as I clicked on his name and hit the call button. “What?” I said in my bitchiest voice, hoping it would dissuade him from trying to contact me again.

“You didn’t tell anyone that was us, did you?” he whispered.

Of course, he’d be mostly concerned with how things looked and not how I was doing or handling the situation. “Why would I tell anyone that was us? Do you think I’m an idiot?” I was the one who looked the worst in the whole exchange. I was the one with a fucked up family. I was the one with boring friends. I was the one who was a frigid bitch.

“Well, just don’t tell anyone,” he grumbled. “We didn’t fight. We’re still together. I’ll even fly to Connecticut and meet your dad if you want. Just don’t tell anyone that was us, ok?”

Arrogant prick. “Oh, we totally had a fight. And we’re not together. And the last asshole I’m going to spend Christmas with is you.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Ashton,” he complained. “I’m trying to do you a favor.”

“Don’t do me any favors. And don’t call me again.”

“Just give it three weeks. You want to be broken up when we come back after Christmas, fine. But if people know we broke up last night, they’ll think we’re #whestonbreakup.”

We were #whestonbreakup. But I got his point. And I didn’t want to be ‘frigid bitch’ the rest of the time I was at school. “Fine. I won’t tell anyone until after Christmas break.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, no,” I said, as a wild tale popped in my mind. “Thank you for being such an asshole to my entire family over the holiday and making my mom cry on Christmas Eve. After putting up with you for two straight weeks in Connecticut I decided I never wanted to see your face again.”

“What?” He sounded so confused.

“That’s the story I’m telling when I get back next semester, Braden. So you’ll probably want to make sure your story matches mine.”

“Fine,” he heaved out. “I was an ass in Connecticut and made your mom cry, and you were a bitch the whole time. I didn’t even stay for New Years and flew home early to Atlanta.”

“Whatever,” I said. Then I hung up the phone, fell back against my pillows and cried until my cheeks hurt.

I was so shaken, so emotionally drained from last night and all of the bullshit today. When I woke up this morning, the last thing I wanted was to go home for Christmas and now I couldn’t get there soon enough.

Someone knocked on my door and I winced. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. And I definitely didn’t want to see anyone, not with the splotches that had to stain my face. “Studying,” I called, and I didn’t even let my voice shake.

My door opened anyway and Brynne looked so concerned. “I could hear you crying across the hall.”

Shit. I didn’t think I’d been loud at all. I swiped at my cheeks.

“Ashton,” she whispered and dropped onto the edge of my bed. “What’s wrong?”

I’d broken up with my boyfriend. I was a laughing stock. And I couldn’t tell anyone about any of it. “I think I fucked up my final today,” I lied, or told the truth. Who knew how I’d done on that test.

“I’m sure you didn’t.” She smiled and pressed her hand to my back, like that was going to help soothe me. “Just freshman jitters. Don’t stress about it, ok?”

I was way past stressed, but all I could do was heave a sigh in response.

“You know what you need?”

A new life? “What?”

“Come out with us tonight. We’re going to be celebrating the fact that Nate did not fuck up our history final.”

“That’s not going to make me feel better.”

Brynne shook her head. “It’ll help you relax, which is really all you need. Hey, Desolate Sun is playing at The Keep tonight. Why don’t you see if Braden wants to come? We’ll all go together.”

That wasn’t going to happen. But I was pretty shocked at her suggestion. “Desolate Sun?” I echoed. She couldn’t really be serious. She’d briefly dated the band’s keyboardist and it was always a little awkward whenever she bumped into him now.

“Nate’s having a great day. He won’t care about Daniel at all.”

Nate was having a great day and I was having the worst day of my life. “I don’t know.”

She smiled again. “Oh come on, Ash. Braden’s brother’s in the band. So he’ll probably want to come too, right?”

And then it hit me. Nate might be having a great day, but Brynne was really suggesting Desolate Sun for me. It was pretty obvious that Braden never liked hanging out with my friends and she must think this was the in into getting him to come along with the group. She’d even put herself in an uncomfortable position just to make me feel better. And maybe I would feel better if everyone was talking about Nate passing History and not #whestonbreakup. “Braden’s studying tonight,” I said. “But he doesn’t really get along with his brother anyway. So if you’d rather not bump into Daniel, we don’t have to go to The Keep.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to ask him?”

Not in this lifetime. “He’s got a final first thing in the morning.”

“Ok.” She shrugged. “Then how about The Throne Room? We’ll end up as the DDs, but it’s always fun watching baseball players get lit and do stupid shit.”

Depending on what they did, it might take my mind off everything. “Ok.” I nodded. “I’m in.”

Will

“Head out of the book, Parke.” Chase leaned his shoulder against my doorframe.

I glanced up from my iPad. “I could be doing anything on this.”

“You were studying,” he said matter-of-factly. “You had that don’t-interrupt-me look on your face again.”

Which he’d clearly ignored. “I always have that look.” And I had been researching the Carnot process.

“Yeah,” he agreed with nod. “And just like always, I ignored it.” He gestured behind him to the hallway. “Hey, a bunch of us are headed to The Throne Room tonight. You want to come?”

Why Chase had decided he was responsible for me having a social life, I didn’t get. But the truth of the matter was, I wouldn’t have much of one without him. I’d stay in my room and get lost in the world of mechanics and thermodynamics.

But I was pretty sure I’d aced my Solid Mechanics final and I was done for the semester. So why not, right? “When are you leaving?”

“Five minutes.”

“Wow. Short notice, Breckenridge.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“Give me ten and you’ve got a deal.”

“Parke, you can have fifteen. I like you that much.”

I laughed. I don’t laugh at a lot, but Chase was usually responsible for the few things I did find funny. Probably why we’d hit it off our freshman year and were still rooming together. It was hard to get annoyed with someone who was always cheerful.

I changed into something more fitting The Throne Room, meaning better jeans and a nicer button down than I’d had on when Chase asked if I wanted to go. The Throne Room was a weird place. It was a college bar that thought it was upscale, or really what some Virginia backwater thought was upscale – like flashing LED lights in the bottom of all their glasses so the whole room would “sparkle”. It was about as far from LA upscale as you could get. And at the end of the day, it was still just a college bar.

Chase and I walked into the place and he nodded toward a table in the back. It was a smaller group than I expected. Usually the whole baseball team and whoever they were dating showed up at these things together. Which reminded me, “Hey, why didn’t you bring Avery?”

He shook his head as we started for the table. “She’s singing tonight and she’s got school in the morning.”

Only about half the team was there tonight and a handful of girls and…Fuck.

There was Ashton Sommers, sitting against a bench, her long red hair spilling over her shoulders and she was smiling at something Nate Carey was saying. I stopped in my tracks. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that I’d see her tonight. But then, she didn’t really know me. She might not even recognize me from last night.

Chase continued forward and clapped a hand to Andre Williams’s back. “The party has arrived.”

Andre shook his head and gestured to Nate. “The party has been here, Breckenridge. You’re late.”

I have no idea who said what to whom after that. It was pretty hard to notice anything else when Ashton turned her head in my direction and her clear blue eyes widened in surprise when she spotted me. Yeah, so she recognized me from last night. That was pretty obvious. One of the things I’ve always liked about redheads is how they can’t really hide anything they’re feeling. Their coloring always gives them away and right then her face started turning red. A pissed off red. And that I didn’t like.

“I don’t know,” Chase called over the din. “How many new followers did you pick up, Parke?”

Fuck. Were we already talking about #whestonbreakup? And with Ashton Sommers just a few feet away?

Her blue eyes were on me and I could feel the hatred rolling off her in waves. She’d gone from never noticing me to hating me in the span of a day. “Can’t we talk about something else?” I asked.

“Dude,” Chase complained. “How many new followers did you get?”

“Fifteen thousand,” I answered.

A chorus of oohs and ahhs filled the air at that.

“Yeah, yeah,” Chase chimes in. “And NBC wants to interview him.”

“Excuse me,” Ashton said to girl next to her. Then she pushed off the bench and started toward the back of the bar.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m gonna grab something to drink. Anybody else want anything?” And of course most of them did and they started calling out their requests to me.

“Hey, I’ll help you,” Andre Williams called after me as I started toward the bar.

But the last thing I wanted was help. I couldn’t talk to Ashton, I couldn’t apologize to her with anyone else around. “No, I got it.”

I kept one eye on the women’s bathroom as I reeled off the order to the guy behind the bar. “And can you just send it all to that group there in the corner?”

“You starting a tab?”

I didn’t really want to. Those guys could buy their own drinks, but… I could send the bill to Mom. Tell her it was an early Christmas present to make up for ditching me, right? So I dug into my wallet and pulled out the Visa that went to her account and handed it to the guy. “Here you go.”

Ashton still hadn’t come out of the bathroom. Was she just going to hide in there all night? Fuck.

I started toward the bathrooms, but after standing there a while and looking like an idiot, I pushed the door open just a little. “Ashton?” I whispered.

And a half-second later, the door flew open. She stood there, glaring at me with fire blazing in her eyes.