I knocked twice on our dorm door, making sure it was nice and loud so that my dimwitted brother could pulls his pants up or get the girl dressed—whatever awkward state he’d gotten himself into and had no shame about sharing in the spoils.
“Who is it?” West was fumbling around probably wiping up the blood.
This was my chance to get him back for once.
Steeling my posture, I conjured my most feminine voice. “Strippergram.”
It didn’t come out as sultry as I would’ve liked.
“Strippergram? Is that where a grandma strips? Eew.”
Some guys around me had become audience to our little fraternal exchange and weren’t being very quiet about it.
“No, it’s like a birthday song, but from a stripper.”
That high pitched mimic hurt my throat.
“It’s not my birthday.”
Now the whole hall had come out to witness West’s stupidity and my lack of thespian skills. Any other time, my brother would’ve thrown open the door and ravished whatever girl was at the door before she crossed the threshold.
When I wanted him to react, he gave me shit.
“It’s a congratulations on your grades.”
There, that should’ve worked. I didn’t know why I was carrying on this shenanigan so long. Tired of standing there, waiting for him to answer, I slumped down onto the floor.
“Midterms are next week. Come back then.”
He finally opened the door and I fell, back first, into the opening, my legs flailing into the air.
“You do a shitty girl impression. Anyway, I could see the tips of your shoes under the door.”
He could figure that out, but couldn’t figure out a steady way to pick his boxers up from the floor after he showered.
I swear, Mama dropped him.
“Just shut up.” I pushed off the floor and walked into the room, listening to the drowning snickers from the hallway dissipate.
“Stockton called. He said he had something to talk to you about.”
“I’ll call him later.”
West sat across from me, on his messy side of the room, wearing only jeans and a baseball cap. There were books opened everywhere.
“Were you studying?”
He scrambled to close all the books and replace the top on the highlighter. “Yeah, I study. Isn’t that what we’re here for?”
Wait, West knew we were here to study? That was news to me. I truly thought my little brother had come here to party and screw—those were the only things I’d ever seen him do lately.
“Yeah. It’s just usually…”
“I know. Usually I’m acting like a Daniel Tosh version of a man-whore.”
Actually, that was a perfect description.
“What do you know about Tate Halloway?” I tried to act nonchalant about the whole thing, toeing my shoes off and then peeling my socks down, stuffing them into the discarded shoes, all while looking anywhere but at West. The pompous jerk was going to read way too much into my question—I knew he was.
“The question is—what do you know?”
I walked into the bathroom and proceeded to brush my teeth—my mouth tasted like how hospitals smelled, like green beans soaked in bleach and encased in pungent rubber tubing. I was simultaneously ignoring his questions and thinking up an excuse for asking him about her.
“I saw her today—she’s different.”
He scoffed. “What, you thought at twenty she could still be wearing pink overalls and have that curly red hair out to kingdom come in frizz? What I do know is, she’s fine as a mutha—got curves for days and that ass…”
I came out of the bathroom to survey his face. Sometimes you couldn’t tell with West. One minute he’d be climbing up the wacky tree and the next he’d be as serious as a funeral.
This time, judging by the smirk on his face and the gyrating dance he was performing in the middle of the room, I could tell that his words were only to goad me.
“Shut up, Pest.” Pest was a name Stock and I called him when he got out of hand. “I mean as a person, what do you know about her?”
He shrugged. “Nothin.’ I could put my feelers out on her though.”
My expression must’ve shown my disgust for his using feelers and referring to Tate in the same sentence. “I mean, I could ask around. See what’s up with your girl.”
“She’s not my girl. I don’t do girlfriends anymore. They can’t be trusted and you know it.”
That I knew, there were only three examples of girls that didn’t lie and cheat. One was my mother, one was my sister and the other was Cami.
West began to gather his books into his backpack after throwing on a Hurley t-shirt. I smiled at him checking himself out in the mirror. He’d been doing that since we were kids, refusing to go anywhere without the proper grooming.
“Call Stockton. Use Tate for the spank bank. But mostly importantly, get some sleep, old man. You look like hell. I’m going to study. Tonight? Pizza and Call of Duty?”
“Yeah, see you then.”
I waited for him to be long gone before calling Stockton.
“Hey, Bridger!”
Cami answered the phone instead of Stock, but I could hear him in the background, talking to Willa about something.
“Hey, how are y’all?”
She sounded like she was moving around the house. “We are fine. Oh, here, Stock is making grabby hands towards the phone.”
As he took the phone, Stockton cleared his throat. “Hey, Bridger. What’s up? West said he didn’t know where you were.”
There were two roads I could’ve taken at that point. One, I could’ve told Stockton to blow it up his ass, I was a grown man and West didn’t have to know where I was every single second of the day. Or two, and that was the road I knew I’d take down deep in my heart, I could tell Stock where I was to ease his mind.
“I took Tate to the hospital.”
“Who is Tate?” Cami squealed from somewhere near their phone, listening in.
“Tate Halloway, you remember her, Stockton?”
For a few minutes after that, I had to endure Stock giving Cami a very fast-talking version of what he knew of Tate, which was basically the same as everyone else. Poor girl, got picked on a lot (mostly by me), big red hair, freckles for days, and cute as a button.
She was anything but those things now. Tate was smart and sassy. She had moxie and spunk—all those energetic words. She was lively, with a hint of mischief pulling at her curls.
But the best thing for me was to keep my head down, keep on the course and leave the redhead to bounce through her life without me.
I wouldn’t be able to take the heartbreak as deep as the one I knew she’d cause.
After explaining about Tate’s supposed food poisoning, we talked for a few more minutes and solidified my plans to come home for Thanksgiving break, bringing my bratty brother with me. There was never really a question as to whether or not I would go home—I missed my family, what was left of it.
~~