Crush by Celia Loren

Author:Celia Loren [Loren, Celia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hearts Collective Publishing
Published: 2015-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

I do what she says. I should know by now. Tara Rubenstein is, after all, like weather: unavoidable, and best when submitted to without protest. In the last few days of Fuhgettaboutit, I am drawn through class registration like a puppy at its owner’s heels. Also during these waning days, I watched the SDU campus inflate itself with students—bleached blonde bimbos, hackey-sacking pseudo-jocks, and khaki-corporate types begin to roam the quad. I keep waiting for a remaining contingent of fashion outsiders and hipsters to make their way out of the woodwork, but as the days grew longer, it becomes more apparent that Tara has found the only five weirdoes at SDU and colonized them, like a new world.

“She doesn't want any AM's,” I watched my roommate yell at a frazzled registrar. “She's got an artist's temperament. What about the Core at 12:15?” Tara bullied both our ways through registration, finally handing me a schedule the both of us could live with. Holding the piece of cardstock in my hand, I felt a little sad. We had no classes together, and shared no free time. Between daily schedule conflicts and her nightly policing of the Fashion Merchandising Club, it looked like I wouldn't be seeing a whole lot of my roommate—and first real friend in the city—during the school year.

“Oh, you'll get over it,” Tara'd said, rolling her eyes at my doe-eyed proclamation. “You have a boyfriend. You're the one who's abandoning me.” She spat out the word 'boyfriend, like it was a tobacco flake on her tongue. Apparently, things weren't going so well with RA Jeff.

I’d considered her words without protest because here's the thing: the boyfriend comment was somewhat true. I've seen Chase every night this week. Thursday was mini-golf, at some place in the city that we needed to drive to—a miniature thrill, because I found I remembered the exact smell and feel of his old junk bucket LoveMobile. Friday was a B- horror movie, drinks after. Saturday we went for a run, and Sunday we went back to The Cottone Brothers' pizzeria. Each date ended about as chastely as the first two. I'm pleased that Chase is so respectful of my boundaries, but it's gotten to the point where I'm unsure which of us will break first. Every evening he's kissed me good night, with one foot on the threshold of my dorm lobby and the other in retreat, and every evening I wait for my stomach to flip. I wait for some braver version to supplant Angry Avery, someone who will tuck two fingers into the V of his shirt and tug him towards me, healed and ready to jump this hot guy's bones. Yet, still nothing. But whatever, you know? These things take time.

In the interest of recreating butterflies, I've also invited Chase to come out clubbing with Tara and the gang, but he is, apparently, “not much of a dance guy.” At the same time, he's managed to skirt any mention of his own friends.

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