Beg You to Trust Me (Lindon U #2)(2)
Hungover.
Confused.
I remember the reality of my night out and feel itchy. Dirty. My mouth feels dry as cotton and I just want to go back to the dorms and take a long, hot shower.
We won’t let you out of our sight.
But where are they now?
I swallow, stuttering through the nerves rising up my throat. “I-I…”
Unable to form proper words, I shake my head and dart toward the door. I don’t know where I’m going since it was dark out when we drove here, but I don’t stop or look back either.
I walk fast, following the sidewalk and feeling the hot sun heating the pavement and burning my feet. I only get a few feet away before having to stop and empty the contents of my stomach into a bush.
When I stand up, I blink a few times to ward off the tears glazing my eyes, brush off my mouth with the back of my hand, and accept what happened last night.
I, Skylar Vivian Allen, lost my virginity at a party I didn’t even want to go to. To a man I don’t know. In a house I don’t know.
Where my friends left me.
Freshman year at Lindon University was not off to a good start.
CHAPTER TWO
SKYLAR
Three weeks later
The water pooling in the bathroom sink is dark purple and giving me a headache from the strong smell invading my nostrils.
“You should have let a professional do this,” Becca grumbles, picking up the cheap box dye I got from the corner store down the street from campus when her, Dee, and I went for a walk yesterday. She puts it back down on the wet countertop. “Now the whole suite smells.”
I hadn’t thought about that when I started applying it. The five other girls who live here, all upperclassman, have been gone since this morning, including Becca until ten minutes ago when she walked in and started gagging.
“Sorry,” I say under the running water, squeezing out my thick strands of hair and examining my palm to see how much dye is left.
She mumbles something under her breath before grabbing one of my towels and setting it beside me by the sink. “I thought you were going back to blonde.”
She and Dee had been too busy flirting with the boy behind the counter at the store to notice what he was ringing up for me.
I try talking as the dirty water runs down my face, some of it making me sputter as it gets in my mouth when I answer her. “I decided on this instead.”
This is supposed to be Coca-Cola brown since the black in my hair started fading to a mahogany purple a couple weeks ago. Becca had commented on my roots more than once and suggested on finding a salon in Bridgeport to take care of it, but I hadn’t decided on what color to do next.
And deciding things, no matter how mundane, has become important to me.
After all, every choice you make is what makes you who you are as a person. And it’s not just the decisions you’re making that shape you, but the consequences that come with them.
In my short time at Lindon, I’ve made a handful of choices that I can’t take back. Ones that I have no other option but to live with or else I’d end up letting them consume me—drowning me in murky water like the dyed liquid inches from my face.
Becca hasn’t helped make the transition from California to New York any easier with her unsolicited advice and suggestions on how I should live my life here. Even after I gave her the cold shoulder for ditching me at the football house, she still has something to say about what I do or don’t do.
She thinks I’m too quiet.
Too clingy.
Too introverted.
Not once did she bother asking me about the party. Instead, she brushed me off like I was ridiculous for bringing it up in the first place.
After realizing that the anger bubbling deep in my veins would get me nowhere, I forced myself to let it go.
For now.
Another decision I made for myself.
The thing is, you think you’re ready to handle your life when you’re eighteen. You get to choose what happens after being passed your diploma.
High school never prepares you for reality, though. It never gets you ready for the repercussions of the Domino effect that will inevitably take place.
And there always will be one.
No matter the scale.
That night at the party was mine.
Because I didn’t say no.
But I can’t remember if I said yes either…
CHAPTER THREE
SKYLAR
I scan the Latte Lounge for the group of girls I was supposed to meet ten minutes ago. Class ran over thanks to my eccentric professor who enjoys ripping apart Jane Austen a little too much. The new coffee establishment on campus is the farthest building across from where I’ve spent the last hour hearing rants on one of the most famous romance authors of the nineteenth century.
Thankfully, Lindon U isn’t a large campus. The residential dormitories, dining hall, and Student Center are on one side of the only road that cuts through campus, and the academic buildings, library, and coffee shop are on the other. All the buildings are older and rustic, and there’s pretty, spacious landscape, and newly updated paved walkways that make my home away from home for the next nine months seem cozy.
There aren’t many students sitting at the tables or waiting in line when my eyes roam around. I don’t see the girls who insisted on coming here and trying the fruit smoothies since they’re determined not to gain the freshman fifteen. I may have been worried after the horror stories told to us at orientation, but I don’t obsess over cutting carbs and counting calories or using the campus gym almost every day like them. I’d only gone with them three times before realizing that walking around campus is good enough for me, especially since I seem to chase after them so much.