In Hell
After my encounter with Zac in the study room, I decided I might just never go back to the library again. It was a drastic response, yes, but it seemed necessary. Between him and Taylor, I didn’t want to even think about what might happen the next time I set foot on the second floor of Edmon Low library.
Instead, I started spending late nights in the lounge next to Dr. Marley’s office. I had a key, since the literary magazine met there a couple afternoons a month, and Dr. Marley didn’t mind. The campus security officers didn’t come through to lock the building up until midnight, but rarely did I stay that late anyway. Sometimes, though, I did. I just didn’t want to deal with anyone, Hanson or otherwise, and so staying locked up in a creepy, otherwise empty lecture hall seemed like a good way to accomplish that goal.
It really did get creepy that late, though, and I usually ended up practically sprinting back to the dorm once the scariness started to get to me. On one such late night, I was surprised to hear voices when I unlocked and opened the suite door. Well, one voice, I realized. As I stepped inside, I saw that Molly was sitting curled up on the couch with her phone to her ear and a huge smile on her face.
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” she said, then giggled. I didn’t even want to know.
I cleared my throat to alert her to my presence, since she was so wrapped up in her phone conversation that she hadn’t seemed to notice me at all.
She jumped several inches clear of her seat and her face turned bright red. “Umm, I’ve gotta go. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll talk to you later. Text you before I go to bed; I promise.”
I just stared at her as she ended the call, my hands on my hips in silent judgment. Molly looked blankly up at me, like what I had just witnessed wasn’t unusual at all and she didn’t have anything to explain. Of course, she really didn’t. It had all been too obvious the day that I had seen her and Parker together. She was dating her TA; it was clear. That was why she wouldn’t admit who her secret boyfriend was.
“Well?” I finally asked. “How is the boytoy?”
“He’s not my–” Molly began, then cut herself off and giggled. “Okay, I was talking to the guy I’ve been seeing. You caught me.”
“I most certainly did,” I replied, plopping down onto the couch next to her. “Want to tell me who he was or do I just have to guess?”
Molly buried her head in her hands, but I could still see that her cheeks were bright red. “I have a feeling you could make a pretty damn good guess.”
“I think I could too,” I said. “Starts with a P and ends with an arker?”
She groaned. “Were we really that obvious?”
“Blatantly,” I replied.
She groaned again, the sound muffled only slightly since her face was still covered by her hands. “What am I gonna do, Georgie? He could lose his scholarship. It’s so stupid! It’ll be perfectly fine next semester, but just because he could see my grades or whatever, it’s some sort of academic dishonesty thing.”
“It kinda is, though,” I replied, trying to be as gentle as possible. “I mean, think about it. Some professors let their TAs do the grading; if I were Zac’s TA and he was getting a bad grade, I’d wanna know. And since we already know I have no scruples, at least where Hanson brothers are concerned, I’d probably feel compelled to change his grade or at least let him know in advance so he could try to do better. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students. I’m not saying Parker would do any of that; I don’t even know the guy. But it doesn’t look good.”
“Trust me, I’ve thought about how it looks,” Molly said. “Plus, he’s twenty five. That doesn’t look so great either, does it?”
“Do you really think I’m in any position to judge, given the things I’ve done with not one, but two, Hanson brothers?” I asked, attempting to smile or at least smirk, but even my poor attempt at humor was just that—poor. It wasn’t funny at all.
Molly finally looked up at me. “How do you deal with it? Don’t you feel guilty? I’m not trying to judge you, I swear. Because I’m not in much of a position to either, but I swear, this is tearing me apart. How are you even still sane?”
“At this point, I’m not so sure that I am,” I replied. “I mean, what sane woman has sex with Taylor at all, let alone after realizing she might finally have a chance with Zac? Seriously, what was I thinking? Now Zac won’t even talk to me, except to insult me. Taylor swears it’s somehow proof that he loves me too, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like he does. Feels a lot more like hate.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to mention what had happened in the library. How could I even explain that? It certainly didn’t make me look any better, nor did it shed any light on how Zac actually felt about me.
“Maybe he doesn’t know how to express what he’s really thinking or feeling,” Molly suggested. “But if he didn’t have feelings for you, why would he be so upset?”
“Because I’m supposed to be his friend, yet I keep going behind his back and sleeping with his brother?” I offered. “Why are we still talking about me? This is about you and your boyfriend.”
Molly’s face turned bright read again. “Shh. Don’t say the b word. He’s just… this guy I’ve been seeing. Somehow that sounds better. I don’t know. It all sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Mol. I think we’ve both just made a big mess of this semester. Do you think if we wish hard enough, we can start it over?”
She stared at me. “But I really like him. I just… I just know we’re in deep shit if anyone finds out. That’s all. And what about you? Are you telling me you really wanna go back to living in a world where you haven’t had sex with Zac?”
“If that was a world where I didn’t feel like he had just used me as part of some weird pissing contest with his brother, then yes. I would.”
I didn’t like to admit that, but I couldn’t take it back. Based on the look on her face, I’m not so sure that was the answer Molly was expecting. She stared at me for a moment, then sighed. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I need to get some sleep. Maybe things will magically look better in the morning, huh?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I replied, but I highly doubted it.
Still, I gave Molly a smile and a reassuring hug before heading off to my bedroom. Zac still wouldn’t be speaking to me—at least not civilly–in the morning, I was sure, so I didn’t see how things could possibly look better.
But I had no other option but to face tomorrow the best that I could.
With that thought in mind, I headed to my bathroom, which I was glad to have all to myself now, to brush my teeth and wash off my makeup. I left my hair up in a messy bun when I was finished so that it wouldn’t try to strangle me in my sleep, a valid fear for someone with such long, crazy hair as I had. With that done, I padded to my bedroom and changed into a pair of My Little Pony pajama pants and an old t-shirt from my high school. I had no one to impress and no chance of running into Taylor or Zac, so I really didn’t care how much of a slob I looked. What did it matter anymore?
As I settled into bed, I thought about my conversation with Molly.
I hated talking about my situation over and over, but it was still news to her, I supposed. It just didn’t accomplish anything to think or talk about it. Zac hated me. That much was clear. Even if he did have feelings for me, they seemed way more sexual than emotional. And whatever they were, they clearly weren’t enough for him to overlook what I had done, and I didn’t blame him for that. I understood that, and if I had been sober enough to think things through properly, I would have realized it soon enough to stop myself from sleeping with Taylor again. But I wasn’t, and now I just had to live with the consequences. What else could I do?
Then there was Molly’s situation… it was bad, but she was making it out to be so much worse than it needed to be. After all, she had a boyfriend who she clearly liked, maybe even loved, and he clearly had strong feelings for her, too. They were happy. Sure, they were also scared of being discovered, and that was definitely a real fear, but I envied them anyway.
Why couldn’t I have something good like that? Why did I have to screw everything up and lose the one chance I had at maybe having an actual relationship?
Who was I kidding? There was no chance of ever having a relationship with Zac. It was hopeless. Whatever he felt for me… it wasn’t like that. And if it was, I had screwed it all up over and over again.
I groaned and smashed my face against my pillow, hoping to muffle the sound. Or suffocate myself. Putting myself out of my misery sounded like a great idea right then. That was a bit of an exaggeration, of course, but not much. The more I thought about how stupid I was and how much I had fucked up everything, the more tears gathered in my eyes and began to spill over. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d cried myself to sleep, but I was sure it had been over Zac, too.
The worst part about crying yourself to sleep, I decided, was that it was really a misnomer. You don’t fall asleep like that. You lay awake, torturing yourself with thoughts of the reason you’re crying, and the more you cry, the more physically uncomfortable—and awake—you become. By the time I finally started to feel sleepy, I’d gone through half a box of tissues and my head felt like it weighed a ton.
I did, however, finally begin to fall asleep, but it wasn’t an easy, restful sort of sleep. I tossed and turned, drifting off for a few seconds or minutes before jolting back to consciousness completely confused. It was terrible.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, I practically passed out, but it wasn’t destined to last.
Loud, giggly voices woke me first, quickly following by what sounded like fifty fists banging on my door. I leaped out of bed, wondering what in the world could be happening. I feared the worst, even though I had no clue what that could be, and my heart was pounding as I opened my door… revealing a gaggle of giggling Tri Deltas.
“What fresh hell is this?” I croaked out, blinking my sleepy eyes at them, hoping that once my vision came into focus, I would see that my initial impression was wrong. No such luck.
“Surprise!” Bella cried out, wiggling her way to the front of the group and grabbing my arm. You’re invited to a Come As You Are party at the Delta Delta Delta House!”
As she drug me out of my room, my fuzzy toe socks not creating any traction to stop my movement, I groaned. “Why do I get the feeling this isn’t the sort of invitation I can decline?”
“Of course it isn’t!” A bleach blonde I didn’t know giggled, shoving me along. “Who turns down a Tri Delta party?”
My initial impression had been right, I decided. I had cried myself to sleep, and woken up in hell.