I rip my hand away from Dominic’s and run into the girls’ locker room.
“Jessica, come back!” I hear his voice echoing behind me.
I turn on the shower and sit on the cold tile floor, letting the hot water warm me. I wrap my arms around my bent knees and let my head hang over them. My tears meet up with the running water that’s flowing around me. I watch as the water swirls before it hits the big metal holes of the floor drain. It hesitates, like it doesn’t want to go down that dark hole. I know exactly how it feels.

Every time something good happens in my life, I hesitate, thinking it can’t be real. Knowing it won’t last. And then it doesn’t, and I end up right back down that dark hole. Why do I let her get to me this way? Why does she have this power over me? I’m not her. I was the freaking valedictorian. I got a full-ride scholarship to a prestigious private college. I’m not going to get knocked up from a one-night stand and spend the rest of my life drugging myself until I end up dead on the bathroom floor.
I remember the day a boy came to my house looking for me. He was in my class and was just bringing me a book I left at school. But my mother assumed he was there for sex. She was so determined to prevent any possibility of an accidental pregnancy that she put me on the pill the second I got my period. I was 13 for crying out loud! I hadn’t even kissed a boy! Even if I did get pregnant, which I would never allow to happen, I would still never end up like her. What kind of person starts drugging herself with hard liquor and prescription pills as soon as she has a baby? And then keeps it up, getting more addicted every year?
Only a sick, selfish, horrible human being who lacks any kind of compassion for the tiny, helpless person who never wanted to be born into those conditions. Steam from the shower engulfs me as I sit there on the floor. My tears have slowed, but rage is still seething inside me. I hate her. I hate her so much. But I can’t let her words keep controlling me like this. She’s taken too much from me already. She can’t take the rest of my life away. I stand up slowly and turned the shower off. I dry off and put my shorts and tank top back on, shivering from the air conditioning. My wet hair makes me even colder, but I’m too tired to dry it. When I get back outside, I hear a voice behind me.
“Hey.” Dominic speaks soft and low.
I stop and feel his hand gently slip into mine. Every cell in my body wants to run, but for some unexplained reason I turn to him, keeping my head down. He steps up right in front of me, then releases my hand and wraps his arms around me without saying a word. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, still smelling the chlorine on our skin. My arms remain at my sides as I bury my head in his chest and listen to his heart beat. It’s beating fast, probably because he was scared shitless to approach me again. It slows as we stand there in complete silence. I savor how it feels to be this close to someone, because I’m not sure if I’ll let him, or anyone, ever be this close again.
Eventually, I pull away from him, but his arms remain around my waist. I kept my head down, too embarrassed to face him.

“I’m sorry for how I reacted in there.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have pushed it. I didn’t mean for that to happen, Jessica. That wasn’t my intention when I invited you to swim with me.”
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Because of what just happened?”

“No. It just won’t work.”
“You don’t like me that way, right?”
Don’t like him that way? Is he serious? If he only knew how much I liked him that way. My outburst must have really freaked him out for him to think that.
“I just can’t be in a relationship right now. I need to focus on school.”
He lets go of me, but takes hold of both my hands as they lie at my sides.
“Then I’ll just be your friend. Everyone needs friends, right?” I looked up at him.
“I don’t know. I’m not a very good friend. You might want to choose someone else.”
He smiles. “Nope. I’m choosing you. Only you can help me polish off one of those Boxcar sundaes. Other girls would take one bite and leave the rest. And only you know that I secretly like cartoons. Don’t you dare tell anyone that, by the way.”
The comment makes me laugh, which doesn’t seem possible after how I felt just minutes ago.
“And someday, even if we’re the best of friends, I’m going to beat your ass on that track.”
“You’re never going to beat me. You’ll always be at least a lap behind.”
“Then I’ll just keep chasing you until you let me catch up.” He waits for me to look at him. “What do you think? Can we be friends?”
I want so badly to be more than friends with him, but if that’s all my broken soul can handle, I’ll take it. I don’t want this boy out of my life.
“I guess. But I’m not going to treat you any differently. It’s not like I’m gonna be nice to you all of a sudden.”
“No, of course not.”
“We should go. We’ve got orientation first thing in the morning.”
He lets go of one of my hands, but keeps hold of the other as we walk back up the hill. The campus is much busier now. Almost everyone has moved in. People and cars fill the area outside our residence hall. I jump when someone blasts their car radio as I walk by. Dominic watches me, probably rethinking the friend agreement with someone as crazy as me.
“I don’t like loud noises,” I explain. “Especially when they come out of nowhere.”
“You can’t really get away from noise on a college campus, Jessica.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I like it.”
He stops before we reach the door to our residence hall. “I almost forgot. You haven’t eaten all day. Dry your hair and we’ll go out.”
“That’s okay. It’s too late to eat.”
“It’s not even 8. You need to eat something. Chips and soda aren’t enough.”
I don’t have much of an appetite, but my stomach does feel empty. “There’s a taco place just down the road from here. Let’s go there.”
“That shitty stand?”
“Yeah. I ate there the other day. It was good.”
“No way. Everyone who eats there gets sick. We call it Taco Hell.”
“I didn’t get sick. I felt fine.”
“I can’t take you to Taco Hell. Anywhere else but there.” He pauses to think. “How about The Burger Hut? It’s fast and cheap.”
“Sounds good to me.”
When we get inside, I spot Harper in the hallway coming out of the bathroom. She’s in her pink bathrobe walking with her head down.
“Hi, Harper. This is—”
She puts her hand up, briefly glancing up to see it’s me. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I can’t talk now. I’m so sick. I think it’s from that food we ate the other day.”
“The tacos?” I ask cautiously.
“Oh, God. Please don’t say that word.” She turns and runs back to the bathroom. Dominic gives me the I-told-you-so-look.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’ll never go there again.”
“I’m going upstairs to change quick. I’ll be right back.”