Chapter 1
I push open the heavy double doors of the humanities building at Lawson Community College. It’s a beautiful spring day outside and the sun shines and birds sing and everything seems perfect as you look around campus. But what no one can see is the nausea stirring around in my stomach, threatening to turn this morning’s Lucky Charms cereal into a colorful, partially-digested pile of puke on the ground.
I really thought the anxiety over taking my last final exam of the semester would have been worse in the morning, not directly after the test. Technically I’m a free woman for the entire summer now—no more exams! No more essays! No more waking up early for class, for an entire three and a half months. But I’m still sick.
Because I’m pretty sure I failed that exam.
My best friend Bayleigh has spent the last year caring for her newborn son and whining to me about how jealous she is that I get to go to college and she has to wait a couple of years until her baby is old enough to be trusted with a sitter. She is so freaking delusional if she thinks college will be fun. Sure, movies make it out to be a non-stop drunken festival of sex and parties, but living with your parents and taking four classes a week at the local community college isn’t much different than high school. I’ve had exactly two semesters of experience now, and college isn’t anything like the movies. I haven’t had sex, gotten drunk, or gone to a party once since I started. Even though it’s higher education and it’s supposed to launch my adulthood into a fulfilling career of responsible adult-ing, I’d rather go to the dentist every day than go back to another class.
Well….maybe it’s not that bad. And I probably should have studied more for my history final instead of spending most of my nights talking to Park on the phone or hanging out with him on his sporadic visits. Lately the visits have been getting shorter and farther apart. I know I have no right to be upset about it because it’s pretty much my fault that Park barely visits anymore.
After a few months of what witnesses would call “dating”, I told the gorgeous boy from California that I wasn’t going to be his long distance girlfriend. He was startled, shocked and hurt, in exactly that order. I probably shouldn’t have dropped the I don’t want to be your girlfriend bomb on him while we were in the middle of a heavy make out session, but a girl’s got to do what it takes to keep her emotional sanity in check.
And sleeping with that boy would have shattered my sanity.
He is far too hot and far too famous for a small town girl like me to get involved with, but it was nice while it lasted. Despite his constant claims that he wanted to do these drastic things that men at his age of twenty one never think of—things like “settle down” and “commit to just one girl”, I knew in my heart that trusting a boy like Nolan Park was just about the stupidest thing I could do. Far stupider than taking a history exam without studying.
So he had accepted my rejection as gracefully as a guy with a raging boner can accept a rejection, and we had parted ways, agreeing to be friends. Then...I accidentally made out with him the next five times he visited Lawson.
Bayleigh calls it the grey area in our friendship. The Friends With Benefits area. She swears that when two people have a connection as strong as the one I have with Park, good things will happen in the universe that will make us come together in the end. But seriously, what does that woman know, anyway? She randomly met a guy on her summer break and he ended up being her soulmate—her perfect match in every way. They got married last summer and are in the process of living happily ever after.
So of course she would say silly things like that. She actually believes them. That kind of fairy tale just doesn’t happen for me. Even after I called things off with him, Park and I stayed friends at his
I push open the heavy double doors of the humanities building at Lawson Community College. It’s a beautiful spring day outside and the sun shines and birds sing and everything seems perfect as you look around campus. But what no one can see is the nausea stirring around in my stomach, threatening to turn this morning’s Lucky Charms cereal into a colorful, partially-digested pile of puke on the ground.
I really thought the anxiety over taking my last final exam of the semester would have been worse in the morning, not directly after the test. Technically I’m a free woman for the entire summer now—no more exams! No more essays! No more waking up early for class, for an entire three and a half months. But I’m still sick.
Because I’m pretty sure I failed that exam.
My best friend Bayleigh has spent the last year caring for her newborn son and whining to me about how jealous she is that I get to go to college and she has to wait a couple of years until her baby is old enough to be trusted with a sitter. She is so freaking delusional if she thinks college will be fun. Sure, movies make it out to be a non-stop drunken festival of sex and parties, but living with your parents and taking four classes a week at the local community college isn’t much different than high school. I’ve had exactly two semesters of experience now, and college isn’t anything like the movies. I haven’t had sex, gotten drunk, or gone to a party once since I started. Even though it’s higher education and it’s supposed to launch my adulthood into a fulfilling career of responsible adult-ing, I’d rather go to the dentist every day than go back to another class.
Well….maybe it’s not that bad. And I probably should have studied more for my history final instead of spending most of my nights talking to Park on the phone or hanging out with him on his sporadic visits. Lately the visits have been getting shorter and farther apart. I know I have no right to be upset about it because it’s pretty much my fault that Park barely visits anymore.
After a few months of what witnesses would call “dating”, I told the gorgeous boy from California that I wasn’t going to be his long distance girlfriend. He was startled, shocked and hurt, in exactly that order. I probably shouldn’t have dropped the I don’t want to be your girlfriend bomb on him while we were in the middle of a heavy make out session, but a girl’s got to do what it takes to keep her emotional sanity in check.
And sleeping with that boy would have shattered my sanity.
He is far too hot and far too famous for a small town girl like me to get involved with, but it was nice while it lasted. Despite his constant claims that he wanted to do these drastic things that men at his age of twenty one never think of—things like “settle down” and “commit to just one girl”, I knew in my heart that trusting a boy like Nolan Park was just about the stupidest thing I could do. Far stupider than taking a history exam without studying.
So he had accepted my rejection as gracefully as a guy with a raging boner can accept a rejection, and we had parted ways, agreeing to be friends. Then...I accidentally made out with him the next five times he visited Lawson.
Bayleigh calls it the grey area in our friendship. The Friends With Benefits area. She swears that when two people have a connection as strong as the one I have with Park, good things will happen in the universe that will make us come together in the end. But seriously, what does that woman know, anyway? She randomly met a guy on her summer break and he ended up being her soulmate—her perfect match in every way. They got married last summer and are in the process of living happily ever after.
So of course she would say silly things like that. She actually believes them. That kind of fairy tale just doesn’t happen for me. Even after I called things off with him, Park and I stayed friends at his
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