Part 1 (1/2)
Hard Knox.
The Outsider Chronicles.
by Nicole Williams.
WHY DID IT feel like the first quarter of a person's life was spent fulfilling one necessary evil after another? Evils like pureed peas from a gla.s.s jar-sourpuss second-grade teachers who seemed like they'd rather eradicate students than educate them, p.u.b.erty in all its awkward, insecure glory, drinking too much cheap tequila at a party and dancing on a table for half of one's graduating cla.s.s to witness . . . right before stumbling off of said table. Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped trying to fight it and accepted that necessary evils were simply a part of growing up. There were no shortcuts to becoming a well-rounded, tried-by-fire, productive member of society.
I was sure that when I left high school in the rearview, I'd left the necessary-evil part of my life as well. After packing up my family's vintage minivan-which was just a gentle way of saying it had been one of the first ones off of the a.s.sembly line-full of cardboard boxes and lofty dreams, I chugged down hundreds of miles of interstate in search of a higher state of being. Surely life at one of the more prestigious universities in the country had to come standard with enlightenment, maturity, and most importantly, no more necessary evils. I'd done my time mucking through the refuse of humanity's downsides-I was ready to enjoy the fruits of my labors and patience.
G.o.d, I couldn't have been more wrong. It had taken me all of half a day of traipsing up and down the stairs and halls of my dorm at Sinclair University to realize the only higher state on this campus was what was being realized on the lawn by the students smoking a substance that wasn't legal in this state yet. It took me another twenty-four hours to accept it.
Accepted that college was the apex of necessary evils. During the first month of my freshman year, I started a countdown to graduation-one of those paper chain things elementary kiddos put together to count down the days to Christmas. By the time I was done, I'd stapled together close to 1,500 loops of multi-colored construction paper. I hung it around the ceiling of my dorm room, although it had to overlap close to four times.
Thankfully, my freshman roomie was chill with the countdown-to-graduation chain and the rest of my ”quirks,” and thankfully again, she agreed to be my cellmate for our soph.o.m.ore year. If it hadn't been for the campus's policy that all undercla.s.smen had to live on campus if they weren't local students, Harlow and I would have moved into an apartment as far away from Sinclair as we could get. But no, another year of purgatory was on the docket for us.
I'd ripped off 169 loops as of today, and I had 471 to go. I was just about to whip out a back handspring-or not-when my phone buzzed inside my purse.
I answered my phone in my best Lolita voice. ”I told you that was a one-time deal. No repeat business. I'm strictly a one-night stand kind of girl.”
”Then have you got any friends of a like mind?” the caller replied, managing to keep her voice even.
”I might know someone. My roommate is a total floozy. We're talking no standards. If you've got something that swings or even barely bounces between your legs, you're in business. Let me give you her number.”
”And Jake has the audacity to say you're a bad influence on me.” Harlow giggled her little pixie laugh.
Her giggle wasn't where her pixie-ness ended though. The girl could have been Tinkerbell's great-granddaughter. She was so d.a.m.n cute that I'd had to refrain from pinching her cheeks our entire freshman year.
”Jake is an ocean and half a dozen time zones away. Not to mention smack in the middle of hostile territory. What he doesn't know he doesn't know.”
Jake was Harlow's boyfriend. They'd met last year at some frozen yogurt place, and the rest was history. Those two were so sickeningly in love that I couldn't spend more than ten minutes around them without feeling nauseous. While Harlow might have had Tinkerbell's DNA running through her veins, Jake had the market cornered on Captain America. When he put on his Air Force digs . . . Well, you can imagine the attention he drew from the female crowd.
”Actually . . . that's kind of why I'm calling . . .” Harlow's tone gave away her expression. I knew her forehead was lined, she was chewing on her bottom lip, and her head was c.o.c.ked to the side. Yet still impossibly adorable.
”The suspense is killing me, Harlow.” I stopped on the sidewalk and waited. I could already hear the general hedonism I was heading toward.
”Jake might have sort of gotten an unexpected leave . . .”
”And Jake might kind of, sort of be with you right this very moment?” It wasn't a guess. I could tell from the exuberance she was trying to mask.
She laughed, which was too much of a squeal for me to take that early on a Friday evening.
”Oh, he's definitely here,” she said around a sigh.
If I stayed on the phone any longer, my ears would need to be bleached out. ”I take it I'm to infer that means you won't be my wingman into the very bowels of h.e.l.l tonight?”
”And miss out on all the fun? Please.” She tsked. ”I promised I'd be your Goose, and my promise is gold. I might just be a few minutes late . . .”
”Or a few hours!” Jake shouted in the background, followed by another squeal-sigh from Harlow.
I made a disgusted grunt before shuddering. ”I'm letting you off the hook tonight. Enjoy your boyfriend. And whatever he's doing to make you sound like an understudy for a p.o.r.n-star.”
”I can hear your jealousy, Charlie.”
Leaning into one of the streetlights, I exhaled, accepting that my night had just gone from sure-to-blow to contender-for-the-worst-night-in-history. ”You mistake my jealousy for good old-fas.h.i.+oned cynicism.”
”Good thing I happen to love your cynical, snarky, grumpy self,” Harlow said, followed by a few second pause. I was certain I didn't want to know what was happening on her end of the call. She continued, ”Really, though. Why don't you wait for us so we can all go to this thing together? You know, the whole strength-in-numbers thing?”
”Did you miss that I gave you a free pa.s.s to bail on your friend? Stay with Jake. Snuggle, give each other pedicures, and do whatever else you two freaks do together. Give him my love.”
A couple of girls pa.s.sed me, probably heading to the same place I was judging by the way they were dressed . . . although they were blurry-eyed and stumbling before they'd even pa.s.sed through the party doors. I withheld my eye-roll. Or not.
”I can't do that to you, Charlie. I know how much you loathe those kinds of things.”
”Loathe is a kind word to describe it, but it's my a.s.signment, not yours. Why should we both suffer through a night of keg-stands and vomit-slicked dance floors? Besides, I like my Jake-and-Harlow in small doses, and definitely not on a reunion night. Stay where you are, do what you're going to do . . . just keep off my bed. There's bad voodoo surrounding it that I'd hate to rub off on you two's mojo.”
”I've mentioned that I love you, right?”
”Yeah, yeah. I love you too. Traitor,” I grumbled, shoving off of the pole and continuing on my way. Stalling wouldn't change the fact that I was spending a night inside my own personal h.e.l.l-also known as a sorority house.
”You're not wearing the condom skirt tonight are you?” Harlow asked, biting on her lip again from the sounds of it.
I glanced down just to make sure. Nope, nothing but a pair of well-loved jeans. ”I should wear the condom skirt to every one of these things. You saw it when the night was over. There were only, like, five of the couple hundred left. Think of all of the unwanted pregnancies that skirt single-handedly prevented that night.”
Harlow exhaled. ”And you're not wearing the On the Prowl for my Next Baby Daddy s.h.i.+rt?”
That got a laugh out of me. ”G.o.d, I love that s.h.i.+rt. Talk about a surefire way to keep the boys and their come-ons at bay . . .” I had to glance down to remember which tee I'd slid into to ensure the guys kept their distance. Ah, cla.s.sic. No Daddy Issues or Low Self-Esteem Here.
”Do I want to know which one you're wearing tonight?” Harlow sounded like she was almost wincing.
”Probably not, but come on, I'm working tonight. On a.s.signment. How am I supposed to observe and doc.u.ment my findings if I have to swat off half-drunk guys looking to score all night?”
”You do realize you tend to wear those friendly s.h.i.+rts a good portion of the time, right? Even when you're not working on an article? And don't get me started on those c.o.ke-bottle gla.s.ses you wear . . .”
”They're hip.” I adjusted them higher on my nose.
”They're hideous.”
”They're man repellant.”
”Well, I can't argue with you there,” she muttered. ”Just promise me you won't make so many guys cry at this party.”
A smile formed at those memories. I didn't relish the idea of reducing the so-called stronger s.e.x to tears, but those who wouldn't take a hint from the first five nos were not given a sixth. Instead, my fist, knee, or up-turned drink did the talking. ”I promise not to make all of the guys cry.”
”Did you ever think for one non-crazy moment that if you turned off your raging feminist agenda, you might discover a few decent guys out there? You know, the ones who don't have six-six-six stamped on their hearts as you're so convinced they all do.”
At the precise moment, a trio of ”potentially decent guys” stumbled by me. They didn't just reek of alcohol-they smelled like they'd been marinating it for the past decade.