SWNOVELS Weak Side : Chapter 2
After going through the five stages of grief, acceptance finally made itself known, just like the pit in my stomach.
“You are welcome to live off campus, Claire. But unfortunately, this is something that cannot be fixed right now.”
“What do you mean it can’t be fixed? She’s been going to this school for three years. How do you just randomly screw up her name?”
I scrolled back to my email and held back another defeated laugh as I read the information given.
Name: Bryant Claire (Partial Scholarship – Performing Arts/Dance)
Major: Art of Dance
Minor: English
Dorm: Dorothy Hall, Room 213
“Tay, it is what it is,” I said, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans.
The admissions officer gave me a tired smile, obviously feeling bad. “Is there any way you could live off campus? Or maybe stay with a friend? Just until someone drops out and we have room for you in another dorm?” She eyed Taytum, probably indicating that I should stay with her, which wouldn’t be possible, considering she lived in a sorority house.
I shook my head and stood up, pulling on Taytum’s arm so she would come with me. Dizziness made the room spin, and sweat started to trickle at my hairline. Panic was starting to creep in, and I didn’t have time to deal with it.
“I’m so sorry, Claire. I’ll keep looking for an opening, okay?”
I nodded, knowing that the admissions officer was likely too busy with her normal job duties to continue looking to solve my problem. The second Taytum and I were out of her office, I breathed in the fresh air and began to compartmentalize the last hour and moved onto the next order of business.
“I’ve gotta get to work,” I said, walking toward my car.
“Whoa. That’s it? You’re just accepting this?”
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” I answered simply. “You heard her. There aren’t any openings, and you and I both know I cannot afford to live off campus. Everything is taken by now anyway unless I want to rent a room from some creep that wants to peep at me through a hole in the wall. School starts in less than a week. I don’t have time for this.”
It wasn’t like I was out of touch with coping with difficult things in my life or unaccepting of things that made me uncomfortable. It was how I was raised. Nothing came easy to a Bryant—my mother’s words, not mine—but they still rang true.
Taytum’s mood was agitated at best. Her arms crossed over her chest as she stomped beside me to my car. “This is such bullshit. How do they just fuck up your name and put you in a male’s dorm?”
Stealing the extra hair tie off Taytum’s wrist, I pulled my hair into a high pony and stripped out of my jacket before throwing on my work t-shirt with the words The Bex plastered across my boobs. I reached into my backseat and grabbed another box as Taytum continued to rant and rave before she pulled on my arm at the entrance to the dorms.
“What about Chad?”
“What about him? Why isn’t he helping me move my boxes?” I grimaced internally, hating that I had to explain his behavior all the time. “He was supposed to. He isn’t answering his phone.”
“No, no. Why don’t you move in with him? Doesn’t he have some fancy apartment over on Bex Street?”
I clenched my teeth together, feeling my cheeks ripen. Even though Taytum had been my friend since freshman year when we were paired together in the yearly performing arts show for the duo contemporary dance, I still felt like the smallest pebble beneath our shoes, making excuses for my four-year boyfriend.
“Oh, we talked about it already.”
“And?” Her eyebrows raised as she waited for my answer.
I shrugged. “He said he wanted to focus on his senior project.”
“His senior project?” she questioned, making my thoughts spiral right along with hers. “What’s it called? How to create some stupid fucking equation on how to be a douche to your girlfriend?”
I laughed out loud and shook my head. “Yeah, something like that.”
The door opened, and I stepped inside, resting my backside against it. “Look, I’ve gotta get my shit in here and then head to work. We have a meeting tomorrow for this year’s show and auditions, right? I’ll see you then?”
“Yes, but this conversation is not over.” She backed away slowly before glancing at me one more time and smiling. “I hope your new roomie is hot as fuck so Chad regrets”—she raised her hands and used air quotes—“focusing on his senior project.”
I laughed and let the door shut, ignoring the burn that came with just about every interaction with my boyfriend and any conversation about him. Compartmentalize, Claire.
“Right, don’t have time for this,” I said aloud, moving past a group of girls bouncing back and forth from their rooms, showing off their cute girly twinkle lights and comparing their schedules.
The walk to my dorm felt like three million years instead of the thirty seconds it actually took. Every male that was standing aimlessly on the second floor suddenly smelled the aroma of a female. Heads swung and their faces were a mix of smirks and confusion. One even rolled his eyes as the muscles along his temples flickered back and forth, as if I were doing something wrong by unlocking the door to my new dorm.
As soon as I shut the door behind me, I gulped up the air of the small room and shook my shoulders out as I placed another one of my boxes on the floor. This was a disaster. I could already feel Chad’s jealous rage against my skin, and he didn’t even know the situation yet. And yes, I could ask him—yet again—if we could move in together, but what did that say about our relationship if he only agreed because he was jealous that I was living in a room with another male? Pity was something that pricked my skin like a thousand bee stings, and I didn’t take it well.
Walking over to the small sink, I splashed water on my face and glanced at my expression in the mirror, seeing the forfeit written all over it. My high cheekbones were flushed with frustration, and little chestnut-colored tendrils hung around my face, showing me just how much of a mess I truly was. My light-blue eyes were defeated, and the dark bags underneath were a reminder that I needed more sleep than I was getting. But with being back at Bexley U, studying, keeping up with my performing arts scholarship—which was something I quite literally couldn’t afford to lose—working, and helping my mom pay the bills back home, sleep was about to be one of the last things on my list.
I sighed before turning around and resting against the sink, staring at the opposite side of the room. Like any normal girl in her early twenties, I dreaded the fact that I was about to be living with a male. I’d never lived with a male. My father? Nonexistent. Mom’s boyfriends over the years? Never lasted more than a few months. I’d stayed the night with Chad over the years, but Chad wasn’t your typical college-aged boy. He was clean, tidy, and very type-A. I was on the athletic floor, and if the giant gloves that were airing out on top of his desk that had a distinctive scent to them had anything to say about him, I’d say my new roomie was a hockey player.
Great. A big ol’ jock.
To be fair, his side of the room wasn’t really messy. That could mean he just got here like the rest of us, or maybe he wasn’t as bad as I was making him out to be. His bed was lumpy, the covers laying oddly. But other than that, things were in their rightful place.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I nodded to myself in acceptance, turned to the mirror, and began messing with my hair before my shift. But just as quickly as I put my back to my new roommate’s bed, I jumped at the high-pitched shriek and spun back around.
“Get out!”
Stunned, frozen, and a bit pissed off, I slapped my hands over my eyes, and I took back every rational thought I had in accepting the predicament I had just found myself in.
“What the hell!” I screeched, putting my back to the girl.
Excuse me. The naked girl.
“Get out right now, you… You… You…slut!”
Did she just call me a slut? I wasn’t sure if it was the realization that my life was a joke or if it was because I was so incredibly thrown off by the set of boobs in my face, but all of a sudden, a laugh bubbled up from deep within my stomach, and I continuously laughed until the door to the dorm opened up. The light from the hallway filtered in, illuminating me, along with the Playboy wannabe, to an audience full of smirking guys—one of whom was likely my new roommate.
He wasn’t even fully in the room yet, and I was already sweating in my spot. He was tall and had broad shoulders and a jawline that belonged in a magazine. He called over his shoulder, his voice smooth but still lingering with an edge of humor. “Why are you all acting like you want to fuck me?”
The very second he turned the rest of the way into the room, my stomach dipped so swiftly that I couldn’t even pretend that it didn’t happen. His light-green eyes full of mirth settled on me, and I had to blink past my loss of words. A pocket formed in between his eyebrows a moment later as confusion took over, and silence stretched around us until his gaze shifted over to the naked girl in his bed.
“Out.” His strong arms crossed over his damp, gray t-shirt, and he suddenly seemed taller with the air of authority that surrounded him with his single demand—as if he were used to getting his way.
“I was here first!” Naked Barbie pushed her boobs out, trying to gain his attention. Which worked. Typical. “And I came prepared.” Her voice resembled a whiny child’s, but I was pretty sure she was trying to be arousing.
I laughed again before turning away. I silently cursed the luck I seemed to have in every situation I found myself in. “Is this a joke?”
“How did you two get in here?” The jock walked over to the girl and covered her up with his blanket. “Where are your clothes? Get dressed. And get out.”
“What?” She pouted. “You want me to get dressed?!”
“I want you…”—he glanced at me, running his gaze down my body quickly, which had me straightening my shoulders, as if I needed to prove something to him—“puck bunnies to get the hell out of my room. How did you even find out where I was rooming? Was it Rusty? I’m going to fucking kill him.”
My arms flew down by my sides, and I stepped forward, inserting my refusal to be grouped into the same category as the naked girl in his bed. “I am not a puck bunny!” I shouted.
His green eyes swung back over to me, and he looked at me the same way Chad looked at me when I talked about opening my own dance studio one day—which, by the way, he found completely baffling.
“Then, who are you? And why are you in my room?” He looked back at Barbie and nearly growled, “Get dressed.”
My stern voice grew soft as I tried to lessen the blow that had nearly knocked me down an hour prior when I realized the situation I was in. “I’m Claire. Your new roommate.”