There weren’t any stupid cliques in college. Not, at least, in that incestuous way of high school. Sure, you could find one, create one, but there were too many students to even notice those groups. I loved being one of thousands, not one of a hundred. Because I could start fresh, be myself without being told that being myself wasn’t good enough.
But now I’ve grown weary of school. My brain is tired. I don’t want to spend another night writing papers or cramming for exams until my eyes blur. I don’t know if it’s normal to be twenty-one and burnt out, but that’s how I feel. I just want it all to be over. And I still have a year left.
Of course, that fact brings its own brand of issues, as in what the fuck am I going to do once I’m out? I majored in European History because it interests me, not because I wanted to be a historian. The truth is, I don’t know what I want to “be.” Oh, I have a list of life wants: happiness, security, excitement, and making enough money that I can travel whenever I want. But shouldn’t I have an idea of how I’m going to live my life? Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to go?
I just don’t know. It’s been plaguing me of late. What to do? What to do?
And because the question brings a sick lurch of fear into my gut whenever I linger on it for too long, I try to ignore it.
I’m trying now, trying to study, trying to not think about the rest of my life. Only I end up staring off into space, my pen tapping against my class notes as I sit in the Student Union dining hall.
Students come and go around me, a constant chatter of voices punctuated by random bursts of laughter. I don’t even know what I’m looking at when a familiar—and not appreciated—sensation steals over my skin, prickling it.
Don’t react, I tell myself. Don’t do it.
I turn my head anyway. And immediately spot him. Baylor.
How does my body know? Why does it instantly perk up when he’s near? It’s like I have internal Drew Baylor radar. I ought to be studied by the NSA or something. At the very least have my head examined. Because this has to stop.
My only consolation is that he’s looking at me too. Maybe before I even noticed him, because our gazes instantly clash. A buzz goes through my body, a low, warm hum that has my lower belly clenching.
Maybe it is a simple matter of fascination that he keeps looking at me. And even though I know I’m not a toad, I can’t help but wonder why. Why stare at me when he’s surrounded by girls who are, by anyone’s standards, gorgeous. God, he’s probably thinking the same thing: she keeps looking at me. Only he’s probably not wondering why. Everyone looks at Baylor.
They’re looking now. He’s at the far side of the hall with a hulking group of football players, and all heads are turned his way. I’ve always thought Baylor was big and tall, but one of the guys next to him looks like he eats screaming villagers for breakfast. A linebacker, if I had to guess. He even has a beard, full and bushy. Hagrid’s younger brother maybe.
The guys are laughing, talking to other friends who come up to see them. A group of girls head straight for them as if they’ve been waiting. And their arrival is greeted with appreciation.
But not by Baylor. He’s still watching me, his expression almost grim and so intent that my heartbeat speeds up. I want to look away. I ought to, but I just stare back like an idiot.
“Do you know Drew Baylor?”
The question jumps out at me, loud and in my ear, and my pen clatters to the table.
“Jesus, Iris,” I say as my best friend slips into my side of the both. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I can see how you’d be distracted.” Her dark eyes shine with an evil light that I know means trouble. “What with you eye-fucking Battle Baylor and all.”
My face is likely pink because it burns. “I’m not ‘eye-fucking’ anyone.” It’s a mumble. And there is absolutely no way I’m looking back at Baylor now, even though I’m dying to.