In Ruins Read online

A few girls giggle. I roll my eyes.

  “Now, every professor is different, but almost all of us at least take attendance. Some will dock grades for unexcused absences, and while I don’t necessarily subscribe to that policy, I do grade on class participation, and it’s difficult to excel if you’re not actually here to participate.”

  More giggles.

  This is going to be a long fucking semester.

  “There will be a few unannounced quizzes to confirm you’re all keeping up with the assigned reading, and of course a mid-term. Those quizzes, mid-term, and your aforementioned participation will make up half of your grade.”

  Carl’s long, delicate fingers flit over her screen, and I wonder what the hell she needs to write down. This isn’t exactly rocket science, right? Participation, quizzes, and a test. Pretty standard stuff, and no different than high school really.

  “In lieu of a final exam, you will all be presenting a project, which I will discuss in more detail in the coming weeks. That project will determine the other half of your grade.”

  My gaze, along with those of the rest of the class, shoots to Zayne, who smiles wryly. Clearly he was expecting a reaction. Half our fucking grade decided on one single project?

  “Now don’t panic. You’ll have almost the entire semester to work on it, but you’re right to take it seriously.”

  Yeah, no kidding, dick.

  He continues on about his goals for the class, but I’m too busy trying to follow his advice and not panic. I’m a fairly good student, but the stakes are high and the pressure is on. Being a college athlete may attract the hottest girls, or get you into the best parties, but there are limits to the special treatment, at least at this school.

  We’re all required to maintain a 2.8 minimum GPA to keep our place on the team, and if we fail to do that for even one semester, we’re automatically benched. Two semesters and we’re off the team. But even getting benched would make me ineligible for my scholarship, and there’s no way my mom could afford the sixty-thousand-dollar private university price tag.

  I feel foolish that it’s only really hitting me now. It’s not that I didn’t know the stakes before, but I guess I never really considered they could be an issue for me. A 2.8 isn’t exactly reaching for the stars, and I just assumed that as long as I didn’t fuck up in some significant way, I wouldn’t have trouble landing the grades I needed.

  Even now there’s no real reason to think otherwise. I just need to nail this stupid project, and I’ll be fine. Which is all the more reason not to let myself get distracted by old ghosts that don’t have the decency to just fucking disappear.

  * * *

  I tell the guys I’ll see them later and leave the gym ten minutes early so I can get to the Communications building on time. I admit that walking into my first Tuesday morning class to find my lying ex staring back at me really put me off my game. But two days later, the surprises are off the table, and I’ve got my calm and confidence back.

  I’m not looking forward to starting off yet another day with this shit, but it is what it is, and I’ve had no choice but to accept that for the next three months, Tuesday and Thursday mornings are going to blow.

  I glance at my watch and see that I’ve made good time, so I slow my walk through the quad. Obviously I don’t want to be late, but I have no intention of arriving even a single minute early, either. My purpose is to show up, learn some shit, and rush out to my next class. Not make small talk with the other students, or even so much as fucking eye contact with one in particular. Because Carl is the type to make friends with everyone, and the last thing I want is to add yet more mutual friends to the already practically incestuous group we have back home.

  I linger in front of the building, not heading inside until there are just under two minutes left before class, and everyone is already seated when I saunter in like I don’t have a care in the world.

  “Mr. Green, take a seat. We’re just about to begin,” Zayne says, and I do. I don’t even glance Carl’s way.

  Zayne begins his lecture and I mostly manage to keep my focus, taking notes when necessary.

  He talks about old-school marketing—he actually uses this term in a blatant attempt to resonate with us undergrads—versus newer campaigns.

  He lectures on and on, and I continue to take notes, even trying to participate once or twice. I’m sorely aware that at least part of my grade depends on it, and as arrogant and pretentious as I still find the guy, I know I need to do better than my one-word answers if I want credit for participation.

  I do notice the dark-haired girl next to Carl staring at me, and it’s a little off-putting. The lacrosse team is practically worshipped at this school, and I expected to get a certain amount of attention as a starter, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon. Our regular season doesn’t start until mid-winter, and while it’s true we’re also supposedly famous for our parties at the house, the first one isn’t even until this weekend.

  I catch the brunette staring again, and she blushes and returns her attention to Zayne, who’s still talking. But he only seems to make her blush deepen. I want to roll my eyes. Instead I fix them on my iPad, and try to keep my interest in the lecture. I can participate next week.

  “…and the question a lot of these companies grapple with is the farthest reach versus the fastest reach.”

  “What’s the difference?” some guy asks.

  “Indeed,” Zayne says. “What is the difference? Does it pay to reach a greater audience more slowly, or a smaller, perhaps more targeted audience, more quickly?”

  And then I hear her soft, familiar voice. “More targeted,” Carl murmurs, and all eyes turn to her.

  “Elaborate…” Zayne encourages her, and she shrugs.

  “Well, mediums like television and billboards are expensive and broad, right? You’re spending a ton of money, much of which is reaching people who will never buy your product. But things like social media campaigns can be really cheap. And you can reach people just based on friends liking or sharing, or whatever. I’m more likely to buy something my friend bought than someone random, right?”

  “Well said, Carleigh,” Zayne praises, and smiles, and it makes my stomach roll. I’m Mr. Green, but she’s Carleigh.

  He continues on about viral campaigns and how they don’t even need to feature an actual product to be effective, but I can’t stop thinking about the way he smiled at Carl. Suddenly I stop thinking of him as a professor trying to relate to his students, and I see him as something else. As a twenty-three-year-old good-looking guy whose eyes stray way too often to a hot-as-fuck eighteen-year-old girl. And the fact that she’s smart—that she continues to participate and make what he describes as keen observations—surely isn’t making her any less appealing to him.

  This time I don’t rush out when Zayne dismisses us. Instead, I stay seated, watching intently as he looks at Carl just a second too long as she heads out the door.

  * * *

  Tonight we’re throwing the first party of the year at the lacrosse house, and I’m supposed to help set up, but I’m distracted as fuck. I keep picturing the way Zayne watched Carl’s ass as she left class yesterday; and whether it’s jealousy or protectiveness that keeps me from letting it go, the fact remains that I have no business with either.

  I force the thought from my mind and go make sure the kegs are tapped and the punch is mixed, ignoring a bad joke by one of the second stringers about mixing in something extra to “make the girls better company.” Fucking asshat. I kick him off of punch duty and decide to keep an eye on him.

  A few hours later the house is alive with bodies and music, slurring words and staggering steps.

  I can’t help but wonder if Carl will have the nerve to show up at a party at the house I live in, knowing she wouldn’t hesitate if it were anywhere else.

  “Hi, Tucker.” Some girl bats her eyelashes at me and smiles suggestively.

  “I know you?” I ask, the slight gruffness in my drawl hinting
that I’m drunker than I realized.

  Her smile grows. “Ben told me you’re the new starting defender.”

  I find Ben across the room, and he holds up his beer in a gesture of cheers—like he’s giving me a gift. Like I need his fucking help to pick up a girl.

  I’m probably the only guy in the house who hasn’t bagged anyone since school started just over a week ago, but that isn’t because I haven’t had the opportunity. And for fuck’s sake, it’s only been a goddamn week.

  I make myself check out the girl in front of me, but she does nothing for me. She’s cute, sure, but I just can’t get myself interested.

  And then I zero in on Carl. She’s across the room with that same girl she was at the bar with, and I guess that the two are roommates. I can’t believe she had the gall to show up here. She at least has the decency to look nervous, and her eyes dart around anxiously as she clings to her beer.

  “Hello?”

  I realize that this girl has been talking to me for the last minute and I haven’t registered a word. “Huh?”

  “You know her?”

  Shit. She’s followed my line of sight, and I pry my gaze away. “Who?” I play dumb.

  The girl—a very unnatural redhead wearing way too much makeup—rolls her eyes. She shakes her cup. “Want to get me another beer?”

  Not really. My gaze meanders back to Carl, and this time she’s spotted me. She stares at me first with fear, and then with something that looks suspiciously like jealousy when she takes in Red. Interesting. “Sure,” I lie, and then follow Red back to the kitchen.

  First Carl has the balls to show up at my house, and then she thinks she has a right to be jealous that I’m talking to a girl? Especially when she so clearly reminded me she’s single the last time we spoke. Sure, I’m the one that ended us, but she’s the one who lied from our first fucking kiss. From even before then. Carl’s been lying since we were fucking kids.

  * * *

  Everyone in my seventh-grade art class is hard at work on their Father’s Day cards, and though Mrs. Finch suggested I make a card for my mother instead, I don’t see the point. I gave her one on Mother’s Day.

  I don’t know why this week has sucked even more than usual. My father is no more or less dead just because Sunday is some arbitrary holiday invented by big corporations to drive consumerism. Or at least that’s what my father used to say. Though he still happily participated, acting thrilled by the ridiculous macaroni picture frames and other hideous art projects I made him when I was little. When he was still himself.

  I try to remember what I got him last year, and it makes me incredibly sad that I can’t. Things were already bad by then. He was already sick, and he didn’t want to barbecue or see family or go to the beach. We just stayed home, and I know I got him something, I just can’t remember what.

  The funny thing is I can remember the things I didn’t get him. The things I considered before deciding against them. I remember thinking there was no point in getting him a tie, since he was in no condition to work, or the Omaha steaks we got him a year or two before, because he was in no mood to grill. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember what the hell I got him for his last Father’s Day on this earth.

  It’s then that I notice Carleigh isn’t making a card either. She’s doodling her name over and over, but she isn’t making anything. Her long yellow hair is pulled back in a braid, and her eyelashes make shadows on her cheeks, fluttering every now and then like butterfly wings. She looks sad, and I go over to sit next to her without even thinking about it.

  She looks up and smiles at me. I like her smile. I like that it shows in her eyes as well as on her mouth. It’s real. Like her. She always says what she’s thinking and does what she wants, and I like that, too. No matter how much I tease her, she always just takes it like a champ and dishes it right back. She never gets mad or cries—not even when we were little. I don’t think I’d do it if she did. I don’t want to see her cry.

  “You’re not making a card?” I ask her.

  Carleigh shrugs. “No point. My dad’s not going to be here for Father’s Day anyway.” Her dad works a lot, and he’s never really around. I honestly don’t even remember what the guy looks like, if I’ve ever actually met him.

  Everyone goes over to the glitter station to decorate the front of their cards, but Carleigh stays back with me.

  “I’m sorry, you know. About your dad,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say automatically.

  “I thought he was getting better,” she murmurs. “You know, that he came home from the hospital and all…”

  “Yeah. We hoped. But then…” I don’t finish my sentence. She already knows how it ends.

  “That really sucks,” Carleigh says.

  I blink at her for a second, a little surprised. Everyone always says things like “at least he’s in a better place,” and “he’s with God now,” and all that. But Carleigh’s not one to bullshit. And she’s right. It really does suck.

  “I’m sorry your dad’s never around,” I tell her. “I’m sure he would be if he could.”

  She smiles sadly. “No. He wouldn’t.” But she’s not looking for me to reassure her. She’s just stating a fact.

  And what do I know? If Carleigh was my family I’d want to be around her all the time.

  “Hey, do you want to hang out Sunday?” she asks suddenly. “We could go see a movie or something?”

  A movie.

  And then I remember what I got my father for his last Father’s Day. A DVD boxed set of all the Rocky movies—his all-time favorites. I want to thank Carleigh for helping me remember, because right now, it feels like the most important thing in the world that I did, but all I tell her is that, yes, I want to go to the movies with her, and suddenly this week doesn’t feel quite as shitty.

  Chapter Five

  Carleigh

  Last Year

  The summer weeks drift by, long and lazy. Tucker has been in East Hampton for the past couple of weeks with Cap’s and Dave’s families. He’s sent me a few texts but I’ve successfully ignored or blown him off. So successfully that he’s stopped texting. Tina is deep into her fledgling relationship with Andy, and though I don’t begrudge her her happiness, it does leave me a little lonely.

  My mother is away on her usual August tour of the Côte d’Azur, currently holed up in a villa in the south of France, and frankly, it’s a relief to not have her commenting on everything I do, everything I wear. I’ve spent a lot of time with Billy, which makes me happy, but more and more he wants to be with his friends. Typical twelve-year-old. And I’m the makeshift mother at seventeen, watching my favorite little boy need me less and less.

  I’ve been reading a lot, lazing by the pool, and I’ve gone out a few times with some of the other girls. They flirt, and hook up, and I feign interest, all the while telling myself the reason I can’t get Tucker out of my head is because of the sex.

  And maybe it is. I’ve heard enough stories to know mine was not a typical first time. Tina lost it to a senior our sophomore year, a guy she’d been dating about six months, and she says it took her another six months before she ever had an orgasm from him.

  Maybe I just need to do it again. To find out if I’m playing it up in my head, or if Tucker really is that good. If he’s not, maybe I can let go of this borderline obsession, and if he is, then at least I’ll know for sure that it’s sex-induced. Purely biological, and maybe excusable?

  I ran into Cap at Bagel Boys this morning, so I know they’re back, and that they’ll most definitely be at Andy’s tonight.

  I text Billy to check in, and he tells me he’s going to stay over at Kyle’s, so I text Kyle’s mom to make sure it’s okay. Really I just want to make sure that those are actually his plans. I know the tricks, I’m only seventeen after all, and, sadly, it doesn’t take all that much effort to be a better parent to Billy than my mother ever was to me. Kyle’s mom texts me back that she’s happy to have him, and I lie bac
k on my poolside chaise and relax.

  * * *

  Andy’s party is packed. Besides partying and hooking up, it looks like Tucker spent his weeks in the Hamptons getting a deep brown tan. It makes his blond hair look blonder and his green eyes shimmer like sea glass in the evening light. And it makes me wonder what those T-shirt-covered muscles my fingers recall with aching detail look like in their darker tone.

  It isn’t long before Tucker obliges me, when he, Cap, and Andy, strip down to their underwear and jump into the lake. I sit back against the enormous weeping willow and watch their drunken escapades, trying to be nothing other than amused as Tucker tries to convince girl after girl to go skinny-dipping. Maybe it’s his ridiculous Tucker tone, but I find myself laughing at him. That is, until he notices, and makes his way over to me.

  “Something funny, Princess?” He arches a playful brow.

  “Just the lengths you’ll go to get any random girl naked,” I tease.

  Tucker smirks. “Not any girl, Princess. Not you. Not here. You’re for my eyes only.”

  I swallow thickly. “Is that so?” I challenge.

  Tucker nods, staring intently down at me, as if waiting for what I’ll say next. But he should know by now there’s only one way I respond to a dare—even a vaguely implied one. His eyes only? Please.

  I stand up. “So I shouldn’t go for a swim, then?”

  Tucker shakes his head. “Fuck no. Not here.”

  “Hmm…but the water does look so inviting…” It doesn’t. I have no desire whatsoever to go swimming right now.

  “Carl.” His tone is suddenly censuring, and I’m surprised by the way his features drain of mirth. But his reaction only eggs me on.

  “Teen!” I shout, getting her attention from where she sits on the dock, feet in the water, being splashed by Andy. “Why should these guys have all the fun?”

  I grab the hem of my tank top and peel it up over my head. Tina is immediately on board. She hops to her feet and starts stripping. We won’t skinny-dip, of course, but our bras and underwear cover as much if not more than a bikini, and God do I love the shock on Tucker’s face right now.