ENEMIES(6)

Boom, boom, boom!

They turned on music. Loud bass pounded through the floorboards. I could almost hear them rattling, so I rolled over and did what any girl in my place would do. I muffled a scream into my pillow. It was a full-body scream, too. Even my toes got into it, twitching. I needed sleep. Like bad. Like I would get sick if I went too many nights in a row without a full eight hours, and let’s not get into why I wasn’t getting my sleep. That tied into the whole reason I came to Texas, but I know people would say they could survive off four hours a night. Yes. I could, too, but not five nights in a row. I was on night six.

I. Needed. My. Sleep.

But really, what was I actually going to do? I was the interloper here. I’d have to endure, and I did. Until four in the morning. And even after that, the music was lowered but it was still a soft beat until finally, I drifted off to sleep. I swear, I went to sleep dreaming about Stone throwing his football down on my head each time, and it corresponded with the techno music blaring through my alarm clock.

My alarm clock.

It was going off.

And waking, realizing that particular dream had been a nasty one, I sat up and I was in pain. A supersonic nap would be needed later on. Pronto. Stat. Don’t get me started. I was feeling a bit punchy here.

After showering and dressing, the phone started in. It was Gail. Again.

This time I accepted and knew this would take a while. I sat down. I needed to preserve my energy here.

“Hi, Gail.”

“Sweetie!” Her voice was loud, and she was forcing a Southern accent. I didn’t know why. She wasn’t Southern. Never had been. “How ahr y’all?”

This was Gail. I didn’t need to reply.

She was already onto the next question. “How waas your drive? I hoped you took it easy. That’s a long way to drive by yourself. Your father left to have coffee with the men in town. You know how it is. He loves that coffee time. And how are y’all feahling today? Excited? Your classes start todaaay. Have you gotten in touch with Stone yet? He’s a big deal down there. I’m sure he’d be happy to show you the ropes, show y’all some places, maybe the best places to eat. You know.”

One, Stone was a big deal everywhere in this state.

Two, he wouldn’t be happy to show me the ropes. He loathed me more than I hated him, and that said a lot.

And three, I had a fealing my dad was sitting right next to her. He loathed going to get coffee with the men in town as much as Stone and I despised each other.

But, there was an upside to my relationship with Gail. I barely had to speak. It was mostly a one-sided dynamic, and to prove this, Gail kept right on chatting. She would exhaust herself, do both parts of our conversation so it went how she wanted it to go, and once she was happy she’d end the call.

Which is what she was doing right now.

“Stone is such a sweet boy.”

He was an arrogant prick.

“And you know, that family. They fell on hard times, too.”

His family was rich, and because he could, his dad fired mine shortly after turning their grocery store into a franchise.

“And Barb, she just looks so amazing. Her skin was glowing. She looks like she has trimmed down, too.”

Barb was haggard looking.

Stone’s mom was skinny because she smoked and drank champagne every day. Once every couple days, she’d throw in a piece of chicken, maybe a salad with that. And I knew this because we’d been their neighbors until we were forced to sell the house, and once upon a time, Stone and I had been great friends. I’d been at their house a lot growing up. All that changed once we hit puberty, of course, but Barb just kept getting skinnier and more gaunt-looking.

And people talked.

I mean, not Gail (in this circumstance.) She was almost the anti-gossiper here. She was literally spewing the opposite of what was true, but if she wanted to believe all of this, who was I to correct her? This was what she was choosing to think. So be it.

And by the end, after she was losing speed, I only murmured, “Sounds good, Gail. I should get going.”

“Oh. Okay. Have a great day, suh-weedie! Your father and I are thinking about you today. Call tonight. Let us know how Stone is when you see him.”

I wouldn’t do any of that, and she knew that. My dad knew it. And she would call tomorrow, repeating all the same until she would’ve convinced herself that I had reached out to Stone, that he and I were friends again, and she would go on thinking how amazing I was doing in Texas.





Chapter Three





“You need a bigger meal plan.”

The lady behind the desk wasn’t getting it. Red-rimmed glasses. Just as red-rimmed lips, pursed together in a slight scowl, I could tell she’d already had her fill of new students, and it was only nine in the morning.

I pushed the paper back. “That’s all I can afford.”

Her eyes snapped back to mine, but there was no flicker of emotion. She pushed the paper right back. “You’re a junior and you have off-campus housing. That’s all fine, but since it’s your first semester, you still have to abide by incoming freshman guidelines. You need to do either the meal plan above what you picked or the next one up. You cannot pick the option where you get one meal on campus a month.”

“I live off-campus.”

“I’m aware. It’s in your file. You also were accepted late, and because of that, you’ve been put in the incoming freshman program. A daily meal plan is your only option.”