Chapter Three

Seven Years Earlier … First Semester Freshman Year

It took a week of three-times-a-day showers and hysterical crying before I formulated my idiotic plan. It was this: the best way to get over my first love was clearly to have meaningless sex with someone I knew only by his first name. Brilliant, right?

So, the following Friday, I recruited some girls from my floor and sought out info on a frat party.

I wore my tightest jeans, a shirt that showed off my midriff, and no coat. Even at the time, I knew going coatless marked me as a freshman, but I couldn’t figure out what older students did with their coats when they went out. All I knew was that I didn’t want mine to end up stuffed in a corner getting God knows what on it. Armed with five dollars for my keg cup and a condom, I led the charge into the frat house.

I tried out several guys before I found one who seemed drunk enough to be used and who would then forget me. Just what I wanted. His name was Jeff and he was big and not the sharpest crayon in the box. The kind of guy that gives athletic scholarships a bad reputation.

Around one A.M., I made several vows to be careful and sent my friends packing. Jeff took me up to his room. It wasn’t just messy, it was actually dirty. The rug was ground down and stained, the walls marked and the furniture nearly buried under empty soda and beer cans. The whole place smelled like dirty socks. I swallowed my urge to flee and tried on a sassy smile.

He shoved the blankets back to reveal sheets decorated with a sweat ring and collapsed onto the bed with a grin.

“Come here, cutie,” he said. I straddled his lap, fully clothed. I was honestly afraid to take my shoes off, but I knew it would have to happen eventually.

His breath smelled like cheap beer and his kisses were sloppy. The longer we fooled around, the looser Jeff’s hands were getting on my body, but I persisted. When I sat up to take my shirt off, I realized he had passed out.

Well that’s just fucking great.

In my desperation, I actually checked the crotch of his pants. Soft. I dismounted my unconscious frat boy and stood back to survey the situation. To proceed or not to proceed?

It was depressing. Not to mention humiliating. I couldn’t believe I was even considering the possibilities. Did I really want to perpetrate a sexual assault? Me? No. Get out now, I decided. My nose itched with the telltale warning sign of tears. This was a low point, for sure. Probably the lowest of my life.

I closed the button on my jeans and slipped out of the room. The party was still in full swing when I went downstairs, but I found the door. I was ready to go home.

Outside, the air was still and cold. The sky was clear and starry, but I didn’t have time to waste looking at it. I was shivering without my coat, and cursing my choice to leave it back in my nice warm room. Cursing my whole stupid plan, actually. Frat Row was loud with music, laughter, and the sound of girls’ heels clicking on the sidewalk. I passed couples, trios of sorority sisters with their arms linked, groups of guys who had reached the play-fighting stage of drunkenness. No one was alone. I picked up the pace.

At the end of Langdon Street, I found the bus line that would take me back to my dorm, and waited for the next pick up. My breath made clouds before me, and my nose was starting to run. I used the edge of my sleeve to wipe it, and realized my shirt smelled like cheap beer and cigarettes. Thank God I didn’t smell like Jeff’s room anyway. I blinked, expecting my eyes to be running as well, but I seemed to be out of tears.

I wrapped my arms around my exposed middle, questioning my judgment for the millionth time that night. My dorm was across campus, and the only paths there were over a huge hill or down a dark, isolated path along the lake. I was just contemplating walking the lake path back to my dorm when the bus turned the corner.

We called it the Drunk Bus, and for good reason. After dark, the university ran four bus lines in the city for free. It was the best way to move large groups of inebriated students around, and everybody knew it. The bus chugged to a stop in front of me. I could see through the windows that it was already full of students.

When the doors opened, drunken singing poured out like theme music. I climbed the steps and used the handrails to pull myself through the crowded aisle. Since the passengers weren’t paying, the drivers had no compunction about filling the buses well beyond capacity. The pink-cheeked drunks on board were launching into a rousing chorus of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” when the bus pulled away from the stop.

I managed to squeeze my way into a bit of space near the rear door, and found Matt Lehrer sitting in one of the side-facing seats.

“Hey, Joss,” he said, blurry-eyed.

“Matt, what’s up?” I mustered a smile.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I shrugged.

“I didn’t think you guys did that.” He smirked.

“Who’s that?”

“Girls. I thought you were pack animals.”

“I’m a rebel.” I wanted to dissuade him from asking me more about my night. It was too pathetic. “You alone?”

“Yeah, I met some guys from high school while I was out, but they live in Southeast.”

The bus lurched around the hairpin turn next to the library and I had to wrap my arms around the nearest pole.

“You wanna sit?” Matt offered.

“No, I’m good.”

The Drunken Choral Singers moved on to the opening strains of “Hooked on a Feeling,” really relishing the ooga-chakas. I smiled.

“Whereju go tonight?” he asked.

“Frat party.”

“Awesome.” Matt made a face and turned his hands into the international symbol for “Rock On.”

“Shut up. What did you do?”

“I checked out some of the bars on State Street.”

“How did you get in?” I demanded.

Matt pulled out his wallet and flashed me a very passable Utah driver’s license that listed his age as twenty-one years old.

I took the wallet from him. “Utah?”

“Yeah, I figured they don’t see a lot of Utah IDs around here because of all the Mormons. Don’t drink much.”

I laughed. “Interesting theory. Where did you get this? How could you not tell me about this?”

“There’s a guy in Chadbourne selling them for seventy-five bucks,” he said, naming the so-called “honors” dorm.

“Seventy-five?” I echoed. “That’s a lot.”

“It’s worked at every place I’ve tried.”

I twisted my mouth, considering. “You got his name?”

“Email. In my room.”

“Sweet.”

The bus jerked to a halt at the Lakeshore stop, and the Drunken Chorale Singers poured into the quiet of the street, still howling the chorus of “Hooked on a Feeling.” I followed the crowd off, Matt falling in step beside me.

“So, seriously, why are you alone tonight?” he asked.

“I was with a bunch of girls from my floor, but they took off.”

“Ooh, you get in a fight?” He grinned.

“No, I was talking to this guy …” I pressed one palm against my bare stomach. Without even mentioning his name, the thought of Jeff made me feel a mixture of embarrassment and nausea.

“What about The Boyfriend?” he asked.

“Um …” I didn’t want to talk about Ben so I shifted my gaze away.

“Ah.”

I shrugged “Whatever.”

He stood back to let me precede him down the narrow stairs leading from the cafeteria parking lot to the lower elevation where our dorm was. I crossed my arms for warmth, waiting for him. He tripped on the last step and stumbled into me. I grabbed him and we staggered into a wall together. I cracked my head, hard enough to make an awful noise, but not hard enough to hurt … much.

Matt burst into laughter before he could stop himself. “Oh, ouch! Are you okay?” He cupped the back of my head.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I covered his hand with mine.

“That sounded really bad,” he said with muffled laughter.

“What’s a little brain damage among friends, right?” I tried to laugh it off, but it did smart.

He squinted at me, like he could somehow check my pupils like a doctor instead of a drunk college freshman. We were once again alone in a dark corner, nearly nose to nose. I thought he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. Ben would have kissed me. Before we were dating, I mean.

A gust of wind rounded the corner of the building and I shivered.

Matt eased back and said, “Come on. You’re freezing. Let’s go inside and I’ll give you the guy’s email address.”

It was the nice guy thing to do, and I have to admit, it frustrated the hell out of me. I wanted a guy who would do what I wanted without me having to ask. Someone who would have rescued me from the clutches of my evil frat guy and swept me off on his white horse. Or at the very least, would have seen that I was ripe for kissing, pressed up against the wall as I was. Matt was either Mr. Rogers nice, didn’t find me attractive enough to kiss, or didn’t have a romantic bone in his body.

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t going to happen. And that meant he wasn’t my type.

But he was a friend, the only thing that made chemistry bearable, and he had the goods on a fake ID connection. I didn’t need him to be my type.

We hurried across the grass to the entrance of Cole. Matt fitted his key in the door and let us in. I followed him down the hall to his room. The halls had the musty, damp smell of weekends. There was a dark patch of something wet on the mottled blue carpet outside one of the rooms we passed and I wrinkled my nose. Down the hall, someone’s stereo was throbbing bass. The frequency was low enough to rattle my chest even though it wasn’t very loud.

He unlocked his room and I followed him into the dark.

“Where’s your roommate?” I asked.

“Dunno.”

“Oh.” I sat on the missing roommate’s futon, watching Matt go through his arrival routine. He hung up his coat and tossed his keys on the dresser before powering up his computer. It was dim in the room, with only the desk lamp and one wall sconce on, but I could see that he and Chris had changed the room a bit since I’d last been in there. The futon was a new addition, for example. And there were some posters on the wall. Above his bed, Matt had mounted a large black-and-white poster of a brunet pinup from the 1940s or ’50s, I wasn’t sure. The rest of the wall was a mishmash of photos, a German and an Irish flag, and a UW pennant.

“Who’s that?” I pointed to the poster.

“Rita Hayworth,” he said. “I’m digging an escape tunnel through the wall behind it.”

I grinned at him. “Nice.”

He dropped into his desk chair and looked back at me.

“So, who were you with tonight?” he asked.

“Jessie, Geena, um … Kerry and Megan.”

“I know Jessie,” he said, for no apparent reason. I didn’t answer.

Matt logged into his email account and scrolled through the messages. “Here it is,” he murmured. “What’s your address?”

I gave it to him and he forwarded the message to me. “Thanks.”

“Let me know when you get one. We can go out.”

“Cool.” I stood up.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I think so.” I swallowed hard and tried a smile. “Probably drunk.”

“You must be building up a tolerance.” He turned to the small refrigerator and pulled out an open bottle of blue Powerade. “Want some?”

“I don’t drink anything blue,” I said.

He laughed. “Why not?”

“I make it a rule not to drink anything that’s an unnatural color.”

“Blue is natural, the sky is blue,” he said.

“You can’t drink the sky.”

He laughed again. “That’s a weird rule.”

I shrugged. “It just freaks me out.”

“You’re a weird girl, Jocelyn.”

“I just don’t like blue drinks or food.”

He took a long drink. “What about blueberries?”

“They’re not blue inside.”

“So … do you peel them?”

“Okay fine, I don’t eat electric blue food.”

He laughed again, but let the subject drop. “By the way, thanks for ditching me in lab this week. Must have been a hell of a weekend with The Boyfriend.” I’d still been wallowing when chem lab came around and skipped.

Apparently, my supply of tears was not out yet. I turned away when my eyes welled up, but I guess I wasn’t fast enough.

“Whoa, what’d I say?” Matt asked, standing.

“No, it’s nothing. I’m sorry.” I blinked hard.

“Are you sure?”

I took a few deep breaths, trying to control my voice before I spoke, but I failed miserably. “He broke up with me.”

“Oh.”

“He met someone else.”

“Oh,” was all Matt had to offer.

I covered my face with both hands.

“He’s a jerk,” Matt added after a moment.

I gave out a choked laugh, looking up at him. “Yeah, you’re right.” My eyes stung and I covered my face again, swallowing my sobs.

He put his arms around me. I melted into his embrace and tried not to get snot on his shirt.

“It’s okay, Joss,” he said into my hair.

“I’m sorry.” I tried to pull away, but he kept me close.

“Don’t. It’s okay.”

I let him hold me, rubbing my back and swaying slightly, but after a while I seemed to run out of steam. I turned my head, resting my cheek on his chest, and sighed.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to … whatever. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He loosened his arms, letting me lean back.

I wiped at my face. “God, I must look awful.”

“Not awful.” He squinted at me. “Sit down.”

We sat on his bed and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

“How long did you guys go out?”

“Since sophomore year.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I know.” I dropped my head onto his shoulder.

“So, you’ve, like, never dated anyone else, have you?”

“Pretty much not.”

He laughed quietly.

“It’s not funny,” I protested.

“It’s kind of funny,” he said.

“No, it’s not.” I swatted him in the leg. He didn’t answer, but squeezed my shoulder.

I wiped the makeup out of my eyes with the corner of one sleeve. My shirt still smelled like a frat party.

“God, do you know what I did tonight?” I sighed.

“No.”

I slumped forward and covered my head with my arms. “I tried to get a frat guy named Jeff to sleep with me,” I said to my lap.

Matt’s hand landed on my back and he drummed his fingers in thought. “I’m not sure if it’s more pathetic that you thought that was a good idea or that you actually failed to get a frat guy to sleep with you.”

I sat up. “Hey! He passed out. It wasn’t my fault.”

He grinned at me. “That’s sad.”

“Ugh, he was so nasty. Thank God he passed out!”

“Why did you want to sleep with him anyway?”

“It wasn’t him! I just … I just wanted to … I don’t know.”

“Get your boyfriend out of your system?”

“Yeah.” I felt deflated, hearing it out loud like that. “I didn’t want him to be the last person I slept with anymore.”

“Like sorbet.”

I must have looked confused because he elaborated. “You know, at a fancy restaurant, you get sorbet between courses. To cleanse your palate.”

“That’s exactly it!” I slapped his thigh with both hands.

He laughed.

“I need to ‘cleanse my palate.’ ” I made finger quotes. “Sorbet Sex.”

“There’s a problem, though,” Matt said.

“What?”

“If you have Sorbet Sex with the wrong person, you’ll just have to find another person to sleep with after that. It could go on and on … years.”

I thought about that. “Jeff definitely would have been the wrong person.”

“Good thing he passed out.”

I smiled. “Thank God for binge drinking.”

We fell quiet, looking at each other. I licked my lips, willing him to make the first move. Scoop me up and press me into his bed like a bodice-challenged romance cover girl. It would be so much easier if he just took the lead—I wouldn’t have to think. But, he didn’t. He didn’t look away though, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny smile. I didn’t know what to make of him. What I did know was that I was running out of time before the moment went from awkward to creepy.

Just get this over with. The hell with it, I thought, and leaned in. Our lips had just met when the sound of metal scraping on wood startled us and I turned to the door. The key finally sank home, and Matt’s roommate, Chris, opened the door.

“’Sup,” he mumbled.

“Hey,” Matt replied.

Chris peeled off his jacket and stepped out of his shoes before falling into bed, face-first. We watched him breathe for a while, afraid to move or speak. After a few minutes, Chris struggled on the bed until the blankets were more on top of his body than below it. A few minutes after that, he let out a loud snore.

“I should go,” I said.

Matt nodded slowly, looking at Chris’s motionless form. “Yeah. I guess so.”

Matt followed me to the door and held it open for me. I turned in the hall and looked at him in the dim light. He was too nice to ask if he could come back to my room with me, I was pretty certain. I wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to, for that matter. I knew I could do the asking, but I had no idea where Rachel might be, and I sort of felt the moment had passed. Matt and I were meant to be friends, probably. I decided to take the high road.

“Thanks for letting me freak out.”

“No problem.”

Impulsively I hugged him. “You’re a good guy.”

He gave me a look that said he thought I was crazy as clearly as the words would have.

“Good night.”

“Good night, Joss.”