Someone to Love (38 page)

“Maybe in the future.” He takes a step
forward, and I retract. “Maybe we can see where things lead.”

My heart implodes. This is it. The big kiss
off. Cruise Elton has the balls to look me straight in the eye and
offer me “someday” while hacking down any fantasy I might have had
about forever.

“Fuck off, Cruise.” I wheel my luggage past
him at breakneck speed and open the door to the icy world waiting
to comfort me with its barbed wire embrace.

Tears bubble to the surface, and I refuse to
do him the honor by letting them fall.

“Kenny, wait,” he pleads.

My feet somehow find the strength to carry me
over the threshold one last time. I glance back at him—his gorgeous
frame stains itself like a bookmark in my mind. I never want to
forget how bad falling in love can hurt—how quick the jagged
granite comes up after you dive from the cliff.

“My name is
Kendall
,” I stammer. “But
don’t worry. You won’t have to use it. I won’t be hanging around
too much longer.”

I toss my shit in the car and speed the hell
away from the Elton Bed and Breakfast where hearts are stolen and
returned mutilated on a whim.

I drive down several miles until I come upon
a sign that reads,
Now leavening Carrington. Please visit us
again!

Carrington was beautiful, but its lessons
were harsh. It watched with eager anticipation as its prized son
cut out my heart with a rusted razor for the hell of it. The world
tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I wanted the fairytale,
the fantasy of it all. I wanted to be the princess that Cruise told
me I was. I bought the lie, and my heart was thrown back in my
face. I came to Carrington with a heart of glass, and Cruise
crushed it under his heel. But today, as I leave Cruise and
Carrington behind for good, I trade that heart of glass for a heart
of stone.

No one will ever hurt me again.

I’ll make damn sure of it.

I pull off behind a row of Junipers and sob
my eyes out for the next several hours.

My maxim comes back like a haunting
refrain—love never works out in the end.

I hate that I was right.

Cruise

What the fuck just happened?

I stagger over to the door and stare at the
empty space where her car sat a moment ago. A plume of dust rises
over the hill from the direction she sped off in. I step back into
the house, panting—my heart threatening to evict itself from my
chest. I should have fought for her. I should have laid down my
pride and dropped to my knees, begged her to have me—hell, pencil
me in on Tuesdays if she wanted.

Who was that imposter? It couldn’t have been
Kenny. Maybe she’s got a twin, and she’s punking me.

Then I see it. Neatly laid out over the sofa
is the wool coat I gave her. Her boots sit on the hearth as if she
were suggesting I use them for fuel.

A hard roll of nausea cycles through me. How
could I have let this happen? Then again, how could I not? I’m
Catastrophe Cruise, and fucking up relationships seems to be my
specialty. Although it wasn’t me who cheated with Blair, and it
wasn’t me who cheated with Kenny. But I would tolerate just about
anything Kenny dished out just to be a part of her life. I’d take
the leftovers of her love on every day that ends in Y if she let
me. That’s how far I’ve drifted from the person who built his life
around ideals, when high standards and morals were the order of the
day.

The baseball bat I keep in the corner catches
my eye. I speed over and choke the shit out of it like my life
depended on it—hell, my sanity. I blow out every fucking window in
this psychotic love shack of ours—shatter them to millions of
pieces just like Kenny shattered my heart.

True to her word, Kenny doesn’t show for
class that week or the following week after that. She doesn’t
return my calls, and her mother manages to give me to the cold
shoulder each time I’ve bumped into her.

I’ve been holing up in the bowels of the bed
and breakfast, going over the books, as if I weren’t depressed
enough already. Just as I suspected, Mom has let a few bills go
unpaid, and now the creditors are breathing down our necks. I
assured her I’d take over. There’s no point in delaying the
inevitable. The only question is, how am I going to handle school
and running a fulltime business.

On Wednesday there’s a note on my desk, and
for a moment my adrenaline skyrockets.

Mandatory meeting. My office 3:30. Dr.
Barney.

For sure not the note I was hoping for. I was
looking forward to something a little more erotic in nature with a
big fat heart and a giant K gracing the bottom of the page. I’ve
been fantasizing all week how she’d sneak into my room—that this
had all been some great ploy to initiate the world’s greatest
make-up sex.

At 3:30 on the button, I stroll into Dr.
Barney’s office and try to forget about the constant ache gnawing
at me ever since Kenny rolled her suitcase out of my life. I press
out a manufactured smile and nod into the tired looking man who
holds my fellowship in his hands. I must be early because the rest
of the seats are suspiciously empty. Either that or this is a
private pow-wow. He probably wants to tell me how proud he is of
me, handling Bradshaw’s class with one hand tied behind my
scholastic back.

“Mr. Elton.” Dr. Barney raises his chin and
expertly peers down his nose at me. He’s plumped up a bit, and his
age spots have spread evenly over his face giving him a tanned
complexion. “I’m most devastated by some news that’s recently come
to my attention.”

“Shit.” I hiss it out low. “Is Bradshaw all
right?” What the hell am I saying? Obviously, Bradshaw is not all
right.

“Professor Bradshaw is in remission.” He
pulls back his lips, and his double chin quivers with anger.
“Cruise, this news involves you, and, unfortunately, not you
alone.”

He slides an enlarged photo across the table
and my blood runs cold with just one look.

It’s Kenny and me that day back in my
classroom. Her sweater dips past her bottom, her legs curve around
my back, perfectly pale. My face is buried in her neck, and I can
still feel the pleasure coursing through my veins as if I were
reliving it.

He slides another shot my way. The tower
stares back at me with its long, erect neck, the bony structure of
the globe. Then a zoomed shot. You can’t see Kenny, just my coat as
I help her into the center of the steel-caged world.

“And this.” He slips me another picture of
the tower, this time a close up of my face lost in ecstasy—Kenny’s
long mane whipping over my neck. “Well? What do you have to say for
yourself?”

I stare down at them—Kenny and I in these
compromising positions—her beautiful hair, her feathered skin,
those lips I’d die to cover with mine just one last time.

What I’d really like to say is,
can I have
these
? I’d like to spread them over my bed—lay over them naked,
frame them, replicate them, and wallpaper my new crappy room with a
dizzying pattern of who we once were—all of our adventures
surrounding me like an erotic kaleidoscope.

“Now that I’ve rendered you speechless”—he
rasps his knuckles over his desk—“I’ve one other thing to show
you.”

This time it’s a simple sheet of paper he
slides over—the revised syllabus I made just for her.

Fuck.

“How did you get this?”

“A young lady dropped them by, early this
afternoon.”

Kenny? But how would she take the pictures?
Most likely Blair and I wouldn’t put it past her to riffle through
Kenny’s things and steal what she needed. I hold up the syllabus as
exhibit A.

“Cruise, I’m sorry to have to do this, but
your brief teaching career has come to a rather ignoble demise. Not
only that, but I’ve had to report my findings to the board. We’ve
unanimously agreed—your fellowship has been revoked. You’ve been
expelled from Garrison.”

His words come to me in snatches. The room
warps in and out, and I’m ready to bang my head over the table in
the most literal fucking sense because all of my bad luck has
managed to come crashing around me at once. The funny thing is,
none of this bullshit matters.

“I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, Dr.
Barney.” I rise to my feet and take a breath.

“You don’t seem too broken up about it.”

“I’m not.” I press it out in a fit of
honesty. “I lost the most important thing in my life last week—this
is just a superficial wound in comparison.” The brevity of truth
gives me pause. “I’m sorry if I’ve insulted you.”

“She asked me to give you this.” He hands me
a small folded note.

I unravel it to find the words,
Consider
yourself played.

Friday afternoon, I manage to crawl out from
under my mother’s watchful eye and head to the gym with the
intention of tormenting every muscle in my body. I let her know I’m
taking back the bed and breakfast. I’m ratcheting up the marketing
to a whole new level and even suggested she air out those rooms
because she can damn well expect more than a few guests. I plan on
getting the financial cogs moving again. Maybe if I had more
monetary stability in my life. Maybe then…

I wish I could I say I was over Kenny—nose to
the wind, I’ll catch another bus and all that good to go bullshit,
but she branded herself over my heart, my mind. She haunts my
dreams, my waking hours. Kenny is the ghost, the one that got away.
I have a feeling I’ll be wanting her, yearning for her long into my
golden years until I take that eternal nap, and even then, I won’t
be put out of my misery.

I get a text from Pen as I stroll into the
gym.

It’s on like Donkey Kong. Alpha Sigma Phi
tonight. See U there.

My stomach does a revolution.

Alpha Sigma Phi. That’s where it all started
for Kenny and me.

Cal spots me as I walk into the weight room
and heads over with a spring in his step. I bet he’s got a blowjob
story I’m not going to believe.

“Long time no see,” he chirps.

“It’s on my calendar to beat the shit out of
you,” I say, taking a seat on the Frankensteined workout equipment.
I’m not really in the mood to confront him about what I saw that
night at Delta.

“What the hell for?” He pops a foot up on the
wheel and begins tying his shoe—his fucking
shoe
like it’s
no big deal. It makes me feel like shoving mine right up his ass.
“So, I got some news—Lauren says I passed the test.” He hikes his
brows like this should mean something.

“What test?” I down my water bottle to keep
from socking him in the nuts.

He ticks his head as though this were big
news. “The ambush hookup, the lover’s limbo—how low can you go?” He
holds his hands out like he’s about to fly away, and I wish he
would. “You know, relationship test.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Not
that I care. It’s not like I’m passing any relationship test
anytime soon.

“Lauren. She sicced that hot girlfriend of
yours on me, then watched me sweat it out. I turned her down flat,
and Lauren jumped out of the fucking closet like a psychotic P.I.
But it was cute. It means she loves me.”

My insides pinch to life. My face fills with
heat as a surge of excitement races through my veins.

“Kenny said Lauren asked her to do her a
favor,” I say it mostly to myself. “You think that was it?” My
entire body feels light as a feather, and my heart detonates in me
like a rapid-fire assault weapon.

“Probably.” He bobs his head like this were
just another conversation—as if my entire existence didn’t just
point right back to Kendall Jordan, the great love of my life. “So,
it looks like I’ll be joining you on that unfortunate walk down the
aisle, buddy.” He slaps me over the back, solid and secure, without
any notion there was something amiss with our relationship this
past week. “I nearly fell off the mattress when she asked, but who
the hell am I to let a good thing go to waste?”