I breathed a sigh of relief. If Turner truly did just get to the door then there was no way that he could have heard anything.
“Sorry for scaring you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “But I didn’t expect you here.”
“I know,” Turner said, “But you’ve been so busy lately that I figured that this was the only way that I could see you.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Getting ready for classes and all.”
The two of us stepped into the elevator and rode it down in silence. When the door opened I gasped. Standing in front of us was Nash. He was talking to a girl and they were laughing animatedly. My stomach knotted in jealousy… A walk back to the dorms with him and this was happening to me.
I’m not going to be jealous.
I’m not going to be jealous.
I’m not going to be jealous.
Who was the girl and why was he laughing with her? Was he involved with her? No strings, no problems, I reminded myself. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. It doesn’t matter who she is or what they’re doing together.
I was jealous.
Suddenly Nash turned and our eyes met. I could hear Turner yammering on about something next to me but the words were muffled and incoherent. My gaze went into tunnel vision as Nash and I stared at each other.
“Hey, you’re Lily, right?” Nash said finally.
I furrowed my eyebrows but Nash winked secretly.
“Yeah that’s Lily,” Turner said for me. “What’s it to you?”
“It’s nothing,” Nash said smoothly. “I just remember her being with you the other night and I wanted to say hi.”
“Well you did and now you can leave,” Turner hissed.
I rolled my eyes at Turner’s anger. The other girl looked at me and I shrugged, feigning ignorance when it came to the two boys.
“Come on, Lily, let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”
“What class do you have?” Nash asked.
He stepped in front of me, blocking me from moving on with Turner.
“Introduction to Psychology. We both have it, Turner and I.”
“What a coincidence, I have it too,” Nash said and my jaw dropped.
He had to be kidding me.
“I was walking Anna over there back to the dorms and I was going to go. I guess I’ll see you there.”
“I guess so,” I muttered.
Nash stepped out of the way and let me pass which I did quickly. When Turner and I finally made it through the doors Turner growled.
“I hate that son of a bitch,” he said. “He’s so cocky and sure of himself. Did you see how he was trying to hit on you? He thinks he can have any girl he wants!”
“He’s probably not really like that,” I found myself saying. “I know you have issues with him because of your sister but I don’t think he’s some kind of Casanova. Maybe he really did care for your sister.”
“Like hell he did,” Turner muttered. “He used her just like he uses every other girl. She was a notch on his belt and that’s it.”
Turner looked at me.
“Why are you defending him? You don’t know him and you don’t know his past.”
I didn’t know why I was defending him. For all I knew Nash could have been lying.
“I just think that whatever happened in high school should stay in high school,” I finally said. “We’re in college. Don’t you want to shake off all the anger and resentment and enjoy college? Or would you rather spend the next four years cursing Nash like you have been?”
“He's a sophomore so it's only a couple of more years. But I hate him. I hate him and I want to strangle him until the life drips from his body. He hurt my sister and my family. We treated him like another son and brother. He repays us by fucking my sister. How can I get over that?”
“Maybe he loved her,” I said and closed my eyes.
Those words should have never left my mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me what you said.”
Turner grabbed my arms and turned me to him. We were face to face.
“What did you say?”
“Maybe he loved her,” I repeated. “Maybe he truly loved her and never got a chance to explain that to you.”
“Are you saying that I overreacted? That I have no right to be angry?”
“I’m not saying any of that!”
I was falling quickly off the ledge.
“I’m just saying that there might be some things you don’t know or understand. Things that, maybe, you didn’t think of back then. It’s possible, isn’t it?”
Turner paused.
“Possible, maybe,” he said. “But not probable. He’s an ass, Lily, and if you knew him as well as I do you would see that.”
Thankfully the conversation ended as we stepped into the large lecture hall.
“I’m sitting in the back, care to join me?”
“No, I do better in the front.”
“See you after class?”
“Sure,” I said.
Turner waved to me and went to the back of the lecture hall while I picked a seat dead center in the front row. Students trickled in and sat in the middle and back rows. So far, I was the only one who was sitting in the front row. I bent down in my seat, rifling through my bag for a notebook and a pen. When I sat back up, Nash was sitting right next to me, tapping a pen against the desk.
“I knew that you would be sitting here, in the front row.” Nash said.
Nervous, I turned back and saw Turner frowning at me. I shrugged helplessly. I didn’t ask him to sit next to me. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Why did it matter? Turner acted like he owned me, like we were already a couple.
I was single and I could talk to whoever I wanted.
I liked Turner when I met him. He seemed cool and fun. But the issue with Nash and the looks he gave me every time I was around him were starting to annoy me. He didn’t like Nash, that I understood, but that didn’t mean that I had to stay away from him too.
“Are you trying to piss him off?” I asked as I nodded my head towards Turner. “He thinks that you want nothing to do with me unless it has to do with sex.”
“Turner’s being a baby,” Nash said. “I’m not trying to piss him off. Sorry that he put you in the middle of us. I really wanted to come sit and talk to you.”
“Sorry,” I said, my voice low. “I didn’t know what to say and wasn’t sure that you wanted me to talk to you...”
“Why wouldn’t I want to talk to a sexy girl like you?”
Sexy?
He was hitting on me like the other night.
Why didn’t he just bother all the girls that were glaring at me from behind us while he talked to me?
“Because it was just a walk back to the dorms. What did you want me to do obsess over you like all the other girls do? I'm just not that type of person. Sorry if that's what you wanted.”
“I don’t give girls my number if I don’t want them to call.”
I looked at Nash warily. Before I could answer the professor walked in and slammed his bag on the desk.
“This is Introduction to Psychology. I don’t take any crap from any student so if you think you can sit on your butts and do nothing, leave now. The rest of you, shut the hell up.”
After an hour and twenty minutes my hand was cramped, my head throbbed, and my eyes were crossing. The notes that started off neat and orderly were now scribbled every which way in my notebook. I didn’t know where they began and where they ended.
“God, I forgot how intense professor Salmon is,” Nash muttered as we exited the lecture hall.
“You had him before?”
“Once and obviously that was a time that I chose to forget.” Nash rubbed his temples. “My head feels like it’s going to explode.”
“Join the club,” I said.
“Mines from boredom.”