Shh! (8 page)

The door creaked, announcing I was no longer alone in the bathroom. Not surprising when I lived on a floor with almost a dozen people, girls
and
guys.

“Did you hear about last night?” A girl’s voice; it sounded like Ella Parry, who lived on my floor.

“No,” another girl said. I flipped my head and rubbed my wet hair with the towel, listening to their conversation.

“The noise was really loud, like she had a guy over and they were getting it on. It was about three a.m. and I was dead tired, over the screaming. You know what it’s like when you’re trying to sleep. Anyway, after about half an hour of noise I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I went to tell them to shut the hell up, and there she was …”

Strange. I didn’t remember hearing anything weird last night, but I more than likely passed out, and when I woke it certainly wasn’t three a.m, despite feeling like it. A shudder crept through me at the memory of my door standing ajar. I’d never get that drunk again.

“Come on, don’t leave me hanging. There she was … what? Spill it.”

Yeah, spill, Ella. What happened?

“There she was with her pyjamas scrunched up around her neck and her hand stuck so far inside herself, her back was arched off the bed while she moaned.”

She … what … who?
Not me. Surely, they weren’t talking about me. Dread weighed down my chest, made it hard to draw breath. They were talking about me. They had to be. I stepped back into the shower, my legs and arms shuddering. There were parts of last night I couldn’t remember, but there was no way in hell I’d do that.

“You went in her room?”

Ella scoffed. “Why would I do that? She had the door open, like she was putting on a show. And let me tell you, I wasn’t the only one watching.”

That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. I didn’t do that at all. I never touched myself. Ever. Just the idea of it felt kind of
…
wrong. I’d come home and slept all night until eleven thirty-eight this morning, with no noise, and certainly no public displays. Heck, no touching myself of any sort. Why would Ella say something so obviously wrong? Why would anyone? Why would Christian? I understood that gossip fed conversation, and people thought it made them interesting to others, but making stuff up like that was plain hurtful.

And damaging.

Hold up. My door
had
been open. How in the name of all things holy did she know about that? My gosh, it could be true. I could have actually been doing all that she said and the entire floor of students …

My legs felt like liquid. I slipped to the floor, my arms closing around my knees and drawing them into me while I shook all over. I closed my eyes, and all I could see were visions of me in compromising positions: on my bed, on my desk, on the floor. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, but the visions wouldn’t stop. It was like a waking nightmare that I couldn’t escape.

A violent shiver raked through me. I had to get out of the bathroom and get dressed. I couldn’t face those girls, though, not after Ella had seen me like that. True or not, I was more embarrassed than if I actually had been caught in the act.

I hadn’t heard a thing since I realised the girl they were talking about was me. All I heard was the thrashing of my pulse in my ears and my ragged breaths.

Sitting here would only make me catch pneumonia. I pulled the towel around me and stood up. I dried off and tugged on my yoga pants and t-shirt. Drawing the door back a slither, I peeked out into the bathroom and thank small mercies, it was empty. I gathered up my toiletries and checked again before stepping into the hallway.

It was clear too.

Then I high-tailed it down the corridor, not stopping to see if anyone heard me, and my heart didn’t slow until I was in the safety of my room with the door firmly closed. Good lord, what had I done?

****

Another Sunday spent in my room with music playing loud enough to drown out the noise from outside. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t game to venture out, but more that my mind wouldn’t stop. It was on a continual loop: Christian’s claim that I kept him up at night, all the embarrassing moments of the past few weeks, and finally Ella’s announcement that I’d been …
doing that thing.

When the knock came on my door, I rolled over and pulled my pillow onto my head. But it didn’t muffle the hissed, “It’s just me, open up.”

Groaning, I rolled off the bed and dragged myself to the door to find Molly standing behind it. She strode in and I yanked it closed before anyone could see me.

“You’re not eating again.” She dropped a tray of what looked to be tacos on my desk.

“Didn’t feel like it.”

“Bullshit.” Molly flopped onto my bed.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, bullshit you didn’t feel like eating.”

I slumped in my chair, my back to her, and started shovelling meat into the hard shell. Truth be told, I was starving.

“I’ve heard the talk, and you better not be letting it get to you.”

I spun around so fast the taco lost its stuffing all over my yoga pants. The ones I hadn’t changed out of since yesterday.

“How am I supposed to show my face down there when they’re all talking about how I put on a free porn show for the whole of block K?”

“Watch it; you’re making a taco shower.” She bugged out her eyes like she thought this was some kind of joke.

“This isn’t funny. You just don’t get it, Molly, do you? How humiliating it is to walk through that dining room knowing that every single person is laughing at me?”

She huffed. “I don’t get it? Me? Are you forgetting who you’re talking to, Miss Perfect? I’m the girl they’ve spent two years laughing at because I don’t conform to their social norms.” She waved her hands down her matching pink tracksuit that looked like it came from Kmart. “You take the hand you have, and you work it. Who gives a crap what anyone else thinks?”

“I do,” I all but shouted. “I care, because if I don’t then nothing works out.”

She shook her head. “Olivia, their dumbass gossip won’t change a single thing.”

I spun around to hide the tears that threatened to fall. It would change everything. And my humiliation level would be the least affected. Masturbating in front of the entire floor wasn’t a rumour that would be soon forgotten.

“Why would they
…
” I couldn’t finish the rest of my sentence. “Do you think I really did what they said?”

“Of course not. I think what that dirt-bag ex of yours said was enough to start this and people are running with it. You’ve always been so
…
popular, and perfect. People get jealous, and like to see those better than them fall.”

I pressed my thumbs into the corners of my eyes and took a deep breath, wishing Molly was right, that this was just a case of extreme jealousy, but my gut told me otherwise.

She continued, “They’ll forget it in a few days. Besides, not everyone is talking about you. We’re not all a bunch of gossips, you know.”

I doubted they’d ever forget.

The thing was, I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Maybe I did do those things, but if I did, it didn’t seem likely that I’d not know it. Surely I couldn’t touch myself in such a way that I moaned and didn’t realise, even if I was passed-out drunk. The sensations that came with that weren’t exactly ones to be slept through.

“So tell me.” Molly’s tone had changed to upbeat, teasing. “What happened with Logan?”

Images flared into my mind: a flash of my lips on his, him pushing me away with a gentle ‘no’, hand holding, and Logan’s fist in some guy’s face. Dear lord, I wasn’t sure what order they happened in, and if they were all related. Stupid drunken patchy memories. But I was certain I’d put the moves on and he’d rejected me.

“Not much
…
”

“Well
…
” She drew the word out like she had a secret. “That’s not what this text says.” Molly waved her phone in the air and I sprung from my chair to grab it, but she was too fast. She jumped onto my bed and held the phone above her, tipping her head back to read the glowing screen. “Twelve o-nine: Going home. Have fun with your friends.” She glanced at me and her lips twitched. “Twelve twenty-two: Logan’s perfect. Perfect smile, perfect lips, and his butt looks perfect in those jeans.”

“No way!” I jumped onto the bed and leapt for her arm, but my hand snatched only air as she dived to the floor.

“One forty-five: MOLLY! I’m in love.” She dropped her phone on my desk and held her hands over her heart. “That’s so beautiful, Olivia.”

“You’re making it up,” I hissed. “It’s all a lie to make me spill the details.”

She laughed and tossed her phone to me.

My heart fluttered like a butterfly on Red Bull as I scrolled through. Surely they weren’t real. But those texts were from my phone, at those times, and with those words. With a billion drunken typos. Holy buttercup, they were legit. Heat crept into my cheeks. Stupid alcohol couldn’t be trusted not to embarrass me. “I barely even know the guy.”

“Livia and Logan, sitting in a tree—”

I punched her in the arm. “It’s not happening. I’m not interested.”

“Sure you aren’t.” She smirked.

“I’m not. The last thing I need is a distraction. I need to buckle down and maintain my distinction average. I’ve got to raise it to a high distinction, and even if it weren’t for that, the last thing I want with these ridiculous rumours is a guy
friend
who’s heard them.”

“Sometimes we don’t know what we need.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

I watched the clock on the lecture theatre’s wall tick through the seconds. Five minutes until the lecture started and I felt as queasy as I had when I woke up on Saturday morning. Things were no better around Oxley than they had been when Christian first told that awful lie. They were worse. The rumours had spread like wildfire, and I regretted choosing a room that looked out over the courtyard. I couldn’t even open my window without being hollered at from below, nor could I look out of it without copping an eyeful of lewd gestures. The walk through Oxley to reach the path that led up to university wasn’t much better. Every guy that lived in the place thought he was funny, and every girl looked at me like I was dirty. And I felt it.

Three minutes.

The walk up this morning hadn’t been too bad. The air had been crisp and pleasant. Thankfully the arts building wasn’t clear across campus, so I didn’t have to face running into as many people who might have heard Ella’s story. The car that crawled past with people whistling from the backseat was bad enough—actual people in front of me would have been worse. I hated that people who looked at me saw that instead of the social club president, the captain of the hockey team, the Law student that I was.

Two minutes.

Would Logan even come today? Maybe I’d made things awkward between us, which really sucked, because he seemed to be one of the few genuine friends I had. But was he really a friend? My heart dipped into my stomach. That thought made me feel broken.

One minute.

To distract my wandering mind from all its anxious thoughts, I pulled my phone out and checked my inbox. There was all of one email.

The lecturer tapped his mic and started talking, but my focus was still on my inbox. The sole email was from the academic board, which was weird, because it looked like a personalized message, not one of those emailed-to-every-student ones. The subject line read: Your Student Council Campaign.

Dear Ms Dean,

We regret to inform you that your campaign to run for student body president for the student’s association has been suspended in light of recent allegations.

Keith Ramage

Academic Board

Blood stilled in my veins. Everything grew sluggish and my future flashed before me.

Campaign suspended?

Someone slid into the next seat along.

Oxley’s social committee wasn’t enough. No council position meant no exceptional extracurricular activities on my resume, and that equalled a mediocre CV. Nothing to set me apart meant no Deakin Parry Associates. I was already behind by not studying at one of the big city universities, so I needed an outstanding record to put me back in the game. No president position was bad. All of this would add up to not following in my father’s footsteps as a renowned attorney. I drew a shaky breath that rattled on the way out.

I am a failure.

A hand closed over mine.

No job meant I was a disappointment. One my parents wouldn’t want around. I’d be nothing but a small-time lawyer, relegated to settling disputes in the family law court. I could feel my future slipping away.

“Liv.”

And if that happened, where would I be?

“Olivia.” Something dug into my side and I flinched, turning to see Logan’s concerned gaze studying mine. “You okay?”

My thoughts spun. Everything felt too tight inside me, and surely I was going to throw up. I returned my focus to the front of the room. “Yeah.”

Logan leaned in and whispered, “Follow me.”

My brow tightened as Logan stood, grabbing my hand in the process. I barely had time to scoop up my tablet and bag before he lead me out of the lecture hall while Professor Monotone drawled on about who knew what.

“We can’t leave,” I hissed, but Logan kept a firm grip on my hand and ignored me. “We’ll miss the rest of class.”

“Shut up.” A girl in the back row gave us both a filthy look. “Some of us are actually trying to listen.”

With his free hand, Logan pushed the huge wooden door open and led me out into the hall. My drunken text was right; his butt did look mighty fine in jeans. Shaking that thought away, I stopped. Everything tumbled out of my bag onto the floor. Damn him for making me look like a klutz again.