The Test Read online

  “Alicia, what’s wrong?”

  Her blue eyes rounded in confusion. “What?” Her shoulders relaxed as she gestured at her outfit. ‘OH, uh, because of all of this.”

  “Yes,” I nodded forgetting every beef we had since the beginning of time. Alicia Rhodes didn’t step out of the house without looking like something out of a magazine. Her nails were always manicured and her toes polished, even if she wasn't planning on displaying them. She never wore sweats, even to the gym and I didn’t even know she owned a t-shirt. Makeup was a ‘duh’ kind of thing and on the rare occasion she wore ponytails, she turned a “I don’t care today” kind of hairstyle into something glossy and chic. My best friend, easily the most coifed and stylish person I’d ever seen, looked like a mere mortal--which meant something had gone horribly wrong.

  My mind shot to Mrs. Reynolds. “Is your mom okay? Your dad? “ He was technically her step dad, but she was closer to him than the man she not-so-affectionately called the Sperm Donor.

  She shook her head. “This isn’t because of them.” Even red and swollen she managed to give me a pretty impressive eye roll. “This is because of you.”

  “Because of me?” It came out louder than I intended and in the silence just after, the library assistant rounded the corner, making sure to give me a look said, “SHH!”. I scowled at her but lowered my voice a couple of notches. “You’re saying you look like someone died because of me?”

  I hoped that the “d” word would give her some perspective but there was no such luck. She held onto her pissed off expression for dear life.

  “My mother served up a colossal dish of World’s Worst Best Friend, Daughter, and Host after the two of you left. I ate two whole pieces of quiche and a slice of chocolate cake just to get her to shut up about it, then I had to get on the treadmill for two hours because I felt so guilty.”

  “You felt guilty about that?” I said pointedly. “Not disrespecting me, my date, and threatening to get him fired?”

  “And I only got like, three hours of sleep,” she blasted on, not even acknowledging what I said. “Three hours of sleep, Cass.”

  “How tragic for you.” I turned back to my book. “Take care.”

  “Take care?” she hissed. “That’s all you have to say?”

  I let out a bitter laugh, staring up at her like she was a petulant child. “Are you being serious right now?” She opened her mouth to say something smart no doubt, but I just shooed her away with a hand. “I’ve got homework. Someone else will have to listen to the sad tale of your life.”

  “So you’re not apologizing then.”

  I started highlighting random things, trying to look busy and nonchalant instead of listening and getting angrier by the second. “I’m not the one who owes the apology.”

  She leaned in closer, a rough looking french tip nail pointing at the text page. “I thought the whole point of highlighting was to focus on the ‘highlights’--not mark up everything.”

  I readied a retort but blinked, my eyes widening in horror as I looked at what I’d done. The whole entire section glowed neon. I flipped the page and kept reading, putting aside the highlighter before I did anymore damage. “I don’t need your help studying.”

  “But you obviously need it in other areas.” She paused. “Like romance, for instance.”

  I tightened the hand in my lap to keep from screaming in frustration. When I met Alicia, I thought her stubbornness was endearing. I needed the dose of drill sergeant-ness, someone that had a goal and would not budge, would not stop, until that goal was achieved. It was clear that her current goal was to hear me say that I was wrong and she was right and there wasn’t a damn thing endearing about that. “Please just go.”

  “Not until you understand that I’m trying to be a friend here,” she insisted. She was rooted in place and I had no doubt that she wouldn’t move from that spot, but I begged her anyway.

  “Please, Alicia,” I implored, massaging my temple. “I don’t want to get into it right now.”

  “Nope.”

  The rumble of someone clearing their throat drew our attention elsewhere and we both turned our heads toward the sound. The library assistant stood a few feet away, her mousy features narrowed in displeasure as she glared at us.

  “Do I need to call campus security?”

  I looked at Alicia, then back at the woman who honestly looked like nothing would make her happier.

  “Really?” Alicia whispered heatedly. “You have to think about it?”

  “No,” I told the assistant with a placating smile. “We’ll keep it down.”

  “Good,” the woman said sternly. “This is a library.”

  We watched her saunter away, waiting until she disappeared into the stairwell before eyeballing each other.

  Neither one of us blinked, waiting for the other to back down. I half expected a tumblewood to blow across the aisle behind Alicia. I took in her puffy features, the adamant set of her jaw, her chest heaving up and down, and her nostrils flaring. I pictured Mrs. Reynolds laying on the guilt like icing on a cake and Alicia angrily stuffing food in her mouth. I saw my friend’s tennis shoes slapping the belt of the treadmill as she tried to run from her guilty conscience. I relaxed a little, realizing that maybe it needed to be said, even though I thought it was obvious. Her guilt wasn’t because she indulged. Somewhere, in the cracked wall she built that kept her from forgiving Chance(or me for letting him back in), she felt guilty for the way she acted.

  “You were rude to Chance.”

  She reared back in surprise, clearly expecting something more along the lines of ‘I’m sorry’.

  “Regardless of my history with Chance,” I said, “You were rude to him.”

  She recovered, shrugging a shoulder. “So what?”

  “You were rude,” I repeated, trying to drill the point home. “Do you know what it took for him to even agree to go to that dinner? Knowing he had to face my best friend and mother and the reminder of what a horrible person he was?”

  “Is,” she growled. “What a horrible person he is. Once a cheater and a horrible person, always a cheater and a horrible person.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “He won’t do it again. And I made the decision to forgive him.”

  “And as your friend-”

  “As my friend, my best friend,” I emphasized, “You should have asked me why I forgave him.”

  She hesitated, like she missed some step, some bullet point in the instructions. Still not admitting fault, she went to the neighboring cubicle and brought over an empty chair. She plopped down, crossed her legs, and raised her chin.

  “Alright. Why did you forgive him?”

  I closed my textbook, my fingers glossing over the sleek cover. It was brand spanking new, same as all of my textbooks. Shiny. Perfect. Just like Chance and I were.

  “When I first saw Chance, I knew he was something special. Before he even looked up and noticed I was watching him, before we even said a word to one another, I felt a stirring inside of me.”

  Alicia made a face.

  “Not in any sexual way, Perv,” I laughed. “But it was like this current. Like my body was telling me to take notice. That he was important.”

  “And then you talked and lived happily ever after,” she cut in snidely. “Oh wait, I know the ending to this story.”

  Her vitriol like sandpaper against my skin but instead of getting into another argument, I swallowed the anger. I had to get this all out and make her really, truly understand. “You’re right. I thought he hung the freaking moon. He was nothing like the guys I knew, nothing like anyone I had ever met and I didn’t see any faults. He was perfect. We were perfect. Which is why when he told me he was a Dom, I couldn’t handle it. Instead of hearing what he said, all I heard was noise. I only heard that we weren't perfect and I wasn’t enough--”

  Alicia held up a hand. “Are we veering into victim blaming territory? Because if you start talking about how his cheating was your fault--” />
  “No,” I said adamantly. “He made the choice to cheat. And it gutted me.”

  I gave her a sidelong look, remembering how vulnerable I was. How I didn’t want to get out of bed, eat, live, anything. She was there, letting me wallow, Ben and Jerry’s and all, before she gave me a kick in the butt and made me shower and finish the semester strong.

  Two months later, it was Alicia who took me out to coffee and had an ‘emergency’, leaving me with her friend and pushing me back into the dating scene.

  “Even though I met nice guys and I thought I moved on, as soon as I saw him, that shock to the system was back. I was still in love with him. I never stopped loving him. So I had a choice. I could walk away and find happiness with someone else. Or I could accept that no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. I made the choice to forgive him and trust that he was truly sorry because when I saw him in the front of British Lit for the first time, I knew.”

  “You knew what?”

  “He never stopped loving me either.”

  Her mouth twitched and she studied me like she was looking for some angle, some chip that would show I’d drunk Chance Kool Aid or was otherwise not in possession of my mental faculties.

  Finally, she leaned back in her chair, conceding but still looking at me strangely. “You really forgave him. Just like that, all is forgiven?”

  “Well there was no ‘just like that’. Honestly, before I slept with him for the first time after he came back, I was planning on blackmailing him myself.”

  “What?” Her eyes doubled in disbelief. “You were going to blackmail Chance?”

  I nodded.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t,” I smiled weakly. “But there is no such thing a truly clean slate--he can never take back what he did.” I drew a breath, looking away and trying to figure out how to reconcile what he did with my decision to give us another try. Trying to explain why I couldn’t quit him. “I don’t believe in fairytales, but I still believe in love. And I knew if I didn’t give him another try, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”

  She didn’t say anything, which told me that maybe, just maybe, she was understanding that I didn’t have amnesia or a case of stupid. Every question she threw out at me were the same ones that I asked myself. I just made the decision to stop fighting my heart.

  “Now,” I glared at her. “Ask me what it was like to have the three people I love the most so disgusted by one another that they couldn’t even be in the same room.”

  Alicia let out a sigh that stirred a couple of blond strands that escaped from her messy bun. “I get it. I was rude to your beloved.” She crossed her arms. “Still, I really did think I was being a good friend. Sometimes when people say they want you to do one thing, they really want another.”

  I swirled my coffee around a bit. “Well, I can tell you when I said I wanted you to lay off Chance, I wasn’t subliminally telling you to run him out of town.” I held out the coffee as a peace offering.

  “Unless that’s frozen and whipped cream is squished under that white lid, no thank you,” she smirked.

  I took a sip, still having a point to make. “I know you’ve got my back, no matter what. And in your own, Alicia way, you thought you were being a good friend. But a good friend isn’t always scaring wayward boyfriends onto the straight and narrow and burying bodies. Sometimes, it means supporting your friend.”

  “Even if you think they’re making a mistake?” she said stubbornly.

  “Oh are we talking about mistakes?” I gave her a sly grin. “Because I remember a certain friend’s online ‘dating’--” I made exaggerated air quotes, “--phase.”

  Red rushed to her cheeks. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I bet you don’t,” I laughed. “I’d forget situations so sketchy that you have to give me your date’s screen name, contact info, and address in case he ends up being an ax murderer.”

  “Yeah, but--”

  “And then there was last year when you collected members of the rugby team like trading cards.”

  She jutted her lip out. “Fine, I can’t give you too much flack in the matters of the heart.”

  “Or the bed,” I added with a wink. “Though I have to tell you, the things that Chance does to me in his dungeon...”

  “Dungeon?” she mouthed in horror. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You’re just messing with me...right?”

  I gave her the most solemn look I could manage. “I will never look at a cross the same way ever again.”

  “Eww,” she whined, shaking her head back and forth like she was trying to wrench the images from her mind.

  When the stairwell door swung open, we both cut our laughs to snickers, expecting the assistant to march around the bend with security in tow. Getting kicked out of the library would have been totally worth it to clear the air between the two of us. Luckily, it just ended up being another student.

  “You are different, you know” Alicia stood up, throwing her LV purse over her shoulder. “Happier than I’ve seen you in awhile. I’m definitely not at the parade throwing stage, but if Chance has something to do with that, maybe he’s not as big of a dick as I thought.”

  She still said his name like she had vomit in her mouth, but I decided to take what I could get. Baby steps.

  ****

  I hustled into room 214, relaxing when I eyed the clock on the wall. The Punctuality Gods must have decided to give me a break because I had three minutes to spare before I would have been late. My relief was short lived when I glanced at the desk in the front of the room. Instead of Chance’s smoky gaze shining back at me, the department assistant’s green eyes darted around nervously. Biting on her lip, she turned back to the mess of folders in her hands. She shuffled through papers with a speed that probably served her well when typing up memos but in front of the class, she just looked out of her league.

  I balanced folders, the textbook I'd almost forgot on the coffee table,and my juiced up latte as I pulled my cell from my bag. I sat in my seat with a frown on my face. There weren't any texts from Chance. Where was he? Was this some sort of weird punishment for spending the last few nights alone?

  One would think as a teacher he would have been ecstatic that I holed up and focusing on school. And he was, at least that’s what he claimed, even though I could picture him pouting when he realized it meant not seeing him outside of class for a few days.

  I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard to fight the urge to put off projects and papers in exchange for spending as much time in bed with him as possible. The past few nights when I drug myself from the library at closing time or ran out to get a coffee with so many extra shots it was dangerous, it took all I had to not steer my car downtown. Especially when the very sight of the darkened road was enough to make me tingle between my thighs.

  I had plans to suck on my pen suggestively all throughout class in hopes that he was feeling especially disciplinarian, because it had been way too long since I felt his hands on the curve of my bottom. But since the assistant was up, scrawling 'Lydia Horne' on the whiteboard, I had an inkling that it would be even longer.

  I repositioned my body, trying to give the appearance that I was paying attention but keeping my phone in my line of sight. I cradled it in my hand, only glancing down every few characters to avoid Lydia’s beady eyes.

  whats up...where r u? I hit send, waiting until I saw confirmation that it made its way from my phone to his inbox before I looked up.

  Lydia cleared her throat and the last few conversations floating around the room dimmed, but awkwardness still hung in the air like a hushed whisper.

  "I'm Lydia Horne, the English department assistant--"

  "Is Dr. Crawford okay?" The interruption came from Mia Vanwood. I glared at the back of her bleached blond head. Mia made no secret of the torch she carried for Chance, making sure she laughed the loudest at his jokes and stood entirely too close when she talked to him after class.

 
; "Oh he's, uh, perfectly fine," Lydia squeaked, wringing her hands. "I'm just covering his courses for today."

  I tried to not get too jealous at the collective sigh that rippled across the class. If circumstances were different, I'd probably swoon over him too, even though right now I was more likely to yell at him. At least he wasn't dead in a ditch, but our substitute's cryptic answer didn't do my nerves any good.

  Lydia smoothed the front of her wrinkled black dress, her voice rattling as she glanced at the papers in her hand. "F-From the notes I received from Dr. Crawford, you all are discussing the Victorian Age?"

  The class murmured in agreement and she relaxed a little, settling on one sheet of paper and putting the rest back on the desk.

  "Today we're going to talk a little about Tennyson"

  My eyes flickered to my phone and I sighed when I didn't see the notification light blinking up at me. I reached down and pulled out a notebook and a pen to scratch out some notes. I jotted the date in the corner and poised the tip on the first line of the college ruled page, grateful for a distraction from the worse case scenarios whipping around in my head. 'He's, uh, perfectly fine' could mean that he called in from the ER, but whatever happened wasn't life threatening. Did he get in an accident? Maybe he came down with a bug. Either way, why wouldn't he tell me? And why hadn't he text me back?

  “Since this is an upper level course, I’ll just hit the highlights of his background so we can focus on his work,” Lydia said, retreating to the whiteboard. She erased her name with an efficient swipe and made a couple of bullet points. “He was born in 1809 at Somersby, Lincolnshire and studied at Trinity College, Cambridge...”

  I jotted down notes half-heartedly, barely listening to what she was saying.

  I watched her scribble the infamous quote, “‘Tis better to have loved...

  I listened to Lydia’s high pitched voice recite the lines out loud and I couldn’t help but think how much better the words would have sounded in Chance’s deep, hypnotic-