When the Heart Falls(17)

Put your hands on the table. I need to know you do not carry any lethal weapons. A laugh escapes my lips as I continue writing.

Jenifer turns her music down. "What are you giggling about?"

"Nothing. Just working on my book." The words are flowing easier than before.

"How's it going?" she asks.

"I'm nearly done with rewriting the beginning." Okay, maybe not entirely the truth, strictly speaking, but I'm at least getting somewhere with this scene, which is more than I could say before.

"You seem happier when you write, you know," Jenifer says, tapping her foot to the beat of her music. "When you were tutoring me in French, you never looked this happy."

I look up from my computer. "I didn't?"

She shakes her head. "You were good at it, obviously. You're like an idiot savant with languages."

"Um, thanks. I think."

"You know what I mean." She stands and starts swaying to a new song that comes on. "You're a genius. But, you gotta do what you love, what makes you happy. That's most important."

"My parents and advisor don't agree with you," I tell her. "They think I should change my major to Languages and Literature. Do people ever tell you that? That you should change from acting to something more practical?"

She wiggles her hips. "Sure. All the time."

"How do you handle it?" I ask.

"I don't. What they think doesn't matter. I'm gonna be a famous actress, bitch." She holds up her hands like a gangster in an old movie. "And one day all those naysayers will be begging for my autograph."

That draws a brief chuckle out of me. "You really think so?"

"Yeah. I do."

I tap the space key over and over. "What if you audition somewhere, and your acting's great, but they don't like you?"

She shrugs, as if the answer is obvious. "I'll audition somewhere else."

"What if they don't like you either?"

"I'll make them." Jenifer says this with a seriousness I rarely see in my bubbly friend.

"So you don't think I should change my major?"

"Hell, no. Do what you love," she says. "Nothing else matters."

"What if I'm not good at it?"

"Then practice."

"What if people still don't like my writing?"

"Then go find other people." Jenifer sits back on her bed.

"What if they don't like my writing either?"

"Then—"

"Then make them," I finish, smiling at my friend.

Jenifer smiles back at me. "Exactly." She fans herself with her magazine. "Is it hot in here, or is it just me?"

I hadn't noticed before, but my body does feel quite warm. Jenifer lays down, her face pasty and sweaty.

I get up to open the window, breathing in the night air as I look over the lights of the campus. There's a large clock on one of the dorms, its tower sticking straight up into the sky, with the moon hanging just above it. A full moon, bright and glowing, looking as if it's been dipped in powdered sugar then pushed into the sky so hard that some of the sugar sprinkled off, forming a soft white halo around it. When the moon blurs, I realize it's me, that I'm dizzy and feeling weak.

Jenifer moans from her bed. "I think I'm sick."

I try to turn, but my stomach flips like a dying fish inside of me, and I bend over. "What?"

"I must have eaten something bad."

"I ate the same thing, and I'm fine. I'm sure it's nothing." My stomach doesn't agree, and when it flips again, panic takes over. "Oh shit. Run. Run to the bathroom, now."

Jenifer pulls herself off the bed, and we both hobble out of our room and down the hall, stomachs cramping as we fight the food poisoning. "That damn Italian and his dessert-in-a-bag," I say. "I knew it tasted a bit sour."

I push open the bathroom door and hear one of the showers running, a familiar pair of boots and cowboy hat propped on the bench. "Oh crap," I whisper. "This is co-ed. Cade's in here. What are we going to do?" The room steams up, choking me on the heat. I have to get to a bathroom, but I've already embarrassed myself beyond redemption in front of Cade. This. This would be beyond horrifying. I'd rather implode from my own shit than take the world's biggest dump with the sexy Texas Cowboy listening in.

Jenifer, despite being slumped over in pain, peeks around my shoulder to try to get a look at Cade.

I smack her. "Stop spying."

She licks her lips. "I can't. I know it's bad, but it feels so good."

"Gross. Okay, I can't take it anymore. I'm going in."

"No. No, you're not." Jenifer grabs my arm. "You do not go to the bathroom beside a hot man like that."

"We don't have a choice." Oh God. I can't hold it in any longer. I'm going to die. Die.

Jenifer groans. "We can find a different bathroom, maybe on another floor."

"No time," I say as another cramp grips me.

"Winter?" Cade's voice travels through the steam. "Winter, is that you?"

Of course. Of course this is how my life is. I open my mouth to respond, and can't. Instead, I run into the stall, pull my pants down and… Oh God.