Hate To Love You

“Cameron’s sister.”

He laughed. “I know.” He began playing with my hand. “I heard that much, and to be honest, I wasn’t even fully aware of Cameron. I knew he wasn’t a good guy. I’d always been cautious around him, but I never really questioned it. I just had these instincts, and I followed them. Now, hearing about his sister, how they kept her away because of her problems makes me wonder how the hell I hadn’t known. But there really was nothing.” He shook his head again, sounding so dumbfounded. “Cameron never acted like he was jealous of me. I knew we competed for things, but I had no clue it bothered him. He never showed me. He never acted as if he didn’t like me. He never acted jealous, or whatever. There was no indication. Though, now that I’m thinking about it, he did date a lot of my girlfriends.”

I began to laugh.

“How could I have not paid attention?”

Because he didn’t care.

Because he had enough going on at home.

Because his attention was directed elsewhere.

Because . . . he was just being himself.

“A lot of people love you.” In not good ways, too. It must’ve been the same in high school. “I get it. Kind of.”

He nodded, frowning. “Yeah. I’m just being myself, but I don’t let any of the attention get to me. I can’t. If I do that, I’ll lose myself. Does that make sense?”

It made perfect sense. “You can let me in.”

“You’re in. You’re so far in that I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“Then I’m in, and you’re in, too.”

The corner of his mouth started to lift, and I shook my head. “Don’t make that dirty. We’re having a serious moment here.”

“Right.” The corner flattened again, and his eyes grew somber. “I meant what I said last night.” His eyes held mine captive. Everything about me was captive right now. “I love you, Kennedy.”

All the pain was swept away.

“I love you, too, Shay.”





Professional movers came the next week to move Phoebe’s stuff out of her room.

Sarah came over, and she sat in the hallway with Casey. They decided to watch the movers taking everything out, and somehow it turned into a drinking game.

The RA told Kristina that Phoebe never came back to her room. She was whisked away to a hotel with her parents, so the movers had to literally pack everything. It took four hours, but half that time was spent lingering in the hallway and flirting with Sarah. Casey was a little more reserved, but I didn’t know what was going on with her and Linde.

I knew things had fizzled out between her and Gage. He was off being a manwhore again. I asked him once what happened and he said he hadn’t been ready for a serious relationship. Casey deserved a guy who was head over heels for her, and he couldn’t give her that.

I was rooting for her and Linde.

I’d been trying to study, but hearing another shout of laughter, I decided to admit defeat.

My new sociology class was not going to be understood that day.

I closed my book, and glanced over my shoulder. Kristina’s desk was behind me, facing the wall. “I’m giving up.”

It was already close to eight at night.

She sighed, pushing back from her computer. “Me, too.”

“Oh!” Casey shouted from the hallway. “Another box. Drink.”

Kristina gestured toward the opened door. “They’re already drunk out there.”

It was obvious. Sarah had been slurring her words for the last hour.

“I’m surprised the RA hasn’t said anything.”

Kristina rolled her eyes. “She won’t. She feels so bad about Phoebe and not telling you, that I think one of us could have an orgy in the hallway and she’d look the other way.”

“True.” I winced as I remembered the times she tried to apologize in the bathroom, when I left the bathroom, anytime I walked past her room to the bathroom. I started going up the stairs and using the second floor’s bathroom.

I hadn’t paid attention to her name when we moved in, and I refused to learn it now. It was out of spite. She would only be the RA to me. Kristina knew, but Kristina was the only one of us who let her talk whenever she approached us. I always walked away, but Casey went on the attack. The RA didn’t realize who was in the stall next to her one day and asked for some toilet paper. She got it, but not after Casey launched into a lecture about sisterhood and moral ethics, and how she sucked at them. I heard one of the girls taped it, and Casey had made the RA stay there for thirty minutes before she finally got toilet paper from someone else who took pity on her.

I walked into the bathroom at one point, heard Casey, and walked out.

The whole thing was raw with me still.

The plan had been to stay with Shay for the rest of the semester, but when I heard Phoebe was for sure gone, I wanted to try to resume regular dorm living. If I spent too much time with him, I thought I would miss out on some of those normal college living memories. Plus, Kristina and Casey moved an entire dorm for me. They left their other two friends. I felt like I owed them.

Suddenly, a bunch of whistles and cheers sounded.

Casey yelled, “Everyone clear a path. The football gods have descended upon us!”

“Yeah!” Sarah burped. “En the werr hodt do!”

“And they’re hot, too?” Casey translated. “Girl, you’ve had enough.”

“NOoo.”

Kristina and I looked at the doorway.

Sarah fell over, her head and shoulders showing. She raised her arm slightly over her head, holding her drink away from someone.

“Come on.” Casey groaned, and she appeared, too. She stood, bending to grab Sarah’s water bottle. “You’re cut off, or someone will tattle to the dorm advisor. We’ll for sure get written up. Amy will have to do something, then.”

Amy.

That was the RA’s name.

I made a face, grimacing.

Casey noticed my look, cocked her head to the side. Then she got it. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Traitor.” But I didn’t mean it. I flashed her a small grin to make sure. “I’m still only calling her RA in my head.”

I gestured to the hallway. “Who’s out there?”

“Not for you, Princess. It’s the two guys who are dating the twins at the end.”

Another cringe.

Shay called me that one night at his house in front of others. He hadn’t realized it until everyone started hooting and hollering, which sounded a lot like the commotion in our dorm right now.

Casey added, “The movers are leaving. They got everything, but if they didn’t, we’re hoping to scope it out before the RA has to lock it up.” Casey wiggled her eyebrows. “If we can get an extra key, that means an extra room for us. Studying, or,” she dropped her tone, “other stuff, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t want to know what she meant.

Kristina must’ve thought the same because she asked, “Anyone hungry? We didn’t get dinner before.”