On The Floor (Second Story) Read online

  I set my stuff on the desk and go sit on the end of the bed cross-legged facing him. “It was okay.”

  “Okay?” he asks concerned.

  “Well, the guy was a total ass. He…”

  He interrupts me. “What did he do to you?” he asks with a hard look on his face. Whoa.

  “Calm down, Jake. He just said some really inappropriate things to me, so I put him in his place and left.”

  “Oh. Sorry he was such an ass. Continue,” he says gesturing with his hand for me to go on.

  “Whatever. It’s not like I was into him or anything. After that Jenna broke up with her ‘boyfriend’ of one night and we left early. But I had a fun time with Jenna before the guys got there and after we left. Then I talked to my sister for like an hour about her new crush. So, some bad and some good.” I smile at him.

  “Sorry about the bad. Happy for you about the good,” he says smiling.

  “How about you? How was your night?”

  “It was fun. I love getting together with the guys, but my night is definitely better now.” He looks down and then looks back up at me with a big grin on his face. He must be done with this friends garbage. Finally.

  “I agree. The night is definitely getting better.”

  We stare at each other for an eternity. At least it feels like an eternity. I could get lost in his eyes.

  “So, planning party?” he says breaking his gaze and getting up to get my laptop and notebook from the desk.

  We start to plan a few of the activities: the open mic nights, a trip to the organ pavilion at Balboa Park, and a trip to an art show in LA that is happening in two weeks. Only about ten of the freshmen from the floor are going since they have to pay some out of pocket. We all decided to make a weekend of it and we are going to stay in a hotel Saturday night and come back late on Sunday.

  By the time we are done dividing up all of the planning responsibilities, it's one in the morning.

  “Thanks for helping with the planning, Jake,” I say to him as I start to get up to leave.

  “No problem.” He pauses. “So you’re going to go?”

  “Um, yeah, I mean it’s one in the morning.”

  “If you want stay, I thought we could talk a little and get to know each other better. We know the basics about each other, but I want to know more about you. And I hope you want to know more about me.” He looks so sexy sitting on his bed and asking me to stay with him.

  “What do you want to know?” I ask sitting back down and smiling.

  “Do you want to do like a question thing? I ask something, then you ask. Like back and forth?”

  “Sure. Who goes first?” I smile big. I’m really excited to learn more about Jake.

  “I will. What is your middle name?”

  “Anabelle.” My mom’s middle name.

  “Rachel Anabelle Harris. That’s pretty.” He smiles. “Your turn.”

  “What is your middle name?”

  “Don’t have one,” he says smiling at me.

  “What! Yes you do!”

  “Nope. My grandparents couldn’t decide on a name other than Jacob. They wanted to keep it simple.”

  “Oh.” His grandparents named him?

  “Ok, favorite color?”

  “Red. What’s yours?”

  “White. Favorite food?”

  “Chocolate. Anything chocolate. You?”

  “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  “Simple. I feel like you’re a pretty simple guy, Jake.”

  “Eh…” he says nodding from side to side, as though he's contemplating what I just said. “Simple enough. Favorite movie?”

  “Ugh. I hate this question. I can never decide. How about I tell you my favorite genre?”

  “Sure.” He smiles at my scrunched up face. “Wait! Let me guess. Horror?” he jokes.

  “Ha ha ha. Very funny. I do like a good horror movie if I have someone to grab on to when I start freaking out, but my favorite genre is the stereotypical rom com. I wish I was less predictable. You?”

  “I just loooove romantic comedies!” He starts fanning his face and laughing.

  “Stop making fun! Seriously, favorite genre?”

  “Fine,” he laughs. “Although I do love a good romantic comedy, I prefer movies heavier on the comedy. Or action and suspense. Favorite restaurant?”

  The questions go on like this for about ten more rounds back and forth. I'm having a lot of fun with the light conversation and banter between us.

  “Sport? I played soccer in high school. I also like watching football every now and then. Your turn,” I say after responding to one of his questions.

  “I also played soccer in high school and the first two years of college, then things got really busy with the band and I decided I would rather play on stage than on the field. I’m also a huge Broncos fan. That is the one thing my dad and I agree on.” He pauses. “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

  “What?” Where did that question come from?

  “From what I can tell you’re pretty cool. I thought I might find out that you were one of those shallow annoying girls, but you’re not. And I don’t want to creep you out, but you must know how attractive you are. Do you not want a relationship, or…?” He seems nervous to ask me the question.

  “Um. Well, it’s not that I’m avoiding a relationship and it’s not like I haven’t had boyfriends. I just…” I decide to tell him the truth, just not the whole truth. “I’ve had a lot of stuff going on in my life since my senior year of high school. I’ve just been really busy with… things. Life gets in the way, you know? And to be honest, most of the guys I have dated didn’t want to put in the effort to deal with… everything that I was dealing with. They just didn't care enough to try. And then when one of the guys I was seeing made the effort, there was no attraction there. No spark. That relationship didn’t last long.”

  “What happened your senior year?”

  “Nope, you asked your question. Now it’s my turn. And I don’t think I would answer that one anyway.” I like this question game. It just helped me avoid answering the question I really didn't want to answer. I smile at him and ask my next question. “This is kind of a prompt, not an actual question.” I want to ask him why he doesn’t do the relationships, but he seemed so sad when he was talking to me last night. Plus he already told me. “I’m not good enough…”

  So instead, I say, “Tell me about your family.” Maybe this will give me some insight.

  He smirks at me. “Even though it’s not an actual question, I will respond to your prompt.” He looks me in the eyes and smiles. “As you know, I grew up near here with my grandparents. I am an only child. My grandma is a kindergarten teacher and my grandpa worked construction until he retired a few years ago. We grew up in a small house. My mom left me with them when I was born and we haven’t heard from her since. My dad lives in Denver. That’s about it.” He says all this so normally. I almost think I misheard him when he spoke about his parents. But even though his voice is neutral, when I look into his eyes I see that coldness that I saw last night.

  “Your grandma is a teacher?” I ask trying to get him talking about his grandparents again. He had love in his eyes when he talked about them.

  “Yep. She has had the same classroom at the same school teaching Kindergarten since, well, forever. It was her first teaching job. She was actually my Kindergarten teacher. She is an amazing woman,” he says smiling.

  “And your grandpa?” I ask hoping to keep the happiness in his expression.

  “He’s a hard ass, but he’s also the most honorable man I will ever know. He was actually the one to teach me how to play guitar.” His smile has gone from forced to full blown since he started talking about his grandparents.

  “They sound like wonderful people,” I say smiling at him.

  “They are. Now, what about your family?” he asks me.

  “I grew up with my parents about an hour north of here. I have an older brother, Chad, an
d a younger sister, Monica. Chad is in the Navy and is stationed in Coronado. Monica is a freshman in high school. My dad is a carpenter. He makes one of a kind pieces of furniture. Monica still lives with him in the house I grew up in.”

  “And your mom?”

  I suck in a breath. Mom. It still hurts to think about her. I miss her every day.

  I should have known he would ask. Why did I have to bring up family?

  “You ok?” He sounds concerned.

  I take a deep breath and let it out. This is the part when most guys leave. My situation is better than it was a year ago, but they don’t want to get involved in the mess that is my life. So I do what I always do when I talk (or think) about my mom. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and picture the beach. One, two, three. I open my eyes and let the breath out. Thinking of the beach always reminds me of the beautiful life my mom led before she died. It keeps the sadness at bay. It helps me numb the pain.

  “Rachel? You okay?”

  “Um, I’m fine. It’s just… my mom… she passed away from a brain tumor my senior year of high school. I don’t really like to talk about it. We were really close. Our whole family was. I just miss her.”

  “So that’s what happened your senior year?” He looks worried.

  “Yeah. It was a lot to handle for everyone in my family. She was the glue that held everyone together. After she died, I had to change my college plans. I was supposed to go to Juilliard. I wanted to perform for a living. Be a pianist. I had a scholarship and everything. Life just got in the way and led me down a different road.”

  Silence.

  I continue. “But I think I ended up where I was supposed to be. I gave piano lessons while I was in high school to help me pay for my car. I absolutely loved it. I took a semester off before I started community college and I spent that time teaching piano. I love performing, but I love teaching more.” I smile.

  “Why didn’t you go to Juilliard? You still could have gone to school there, right? Like postpone your admission or something?” he asks.

  “I just had… family commitments. There was a lot going on. I’d rather not go into it,” I say, my smile slipping.

  “So, next question.” He looks at me with a very serious expression. “Favorite sexual position?” A smile starts to grow on his face and I can tell he is trying to make me laugh and take us out of the more serious conversation.

  After all, I think we both came here tonight looking to find each other’s answer to this exact question.

  I give him a sad smile. Thinking about all the stuff that happened after Mom died, the stuff that is still going on, has taken the sexy right out of me. “I think I’m just going to head to bed. It’s after two. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. See you later.” I get off the bed to leave.

  He stands up as well and follows me to the door. We face each other, both looking at the floor. He puts both of his hands on my upper arms and slides them down until he is holding my hands.

  “Rachel?” I look up and our eyes meet. “This is not how I wanted this night to end,” he says with a smile, even though I can see the disappointment on his face.

  “Yeah, me neither,” I respond, trying to smile back.

  “I’m sorry about your mom. If you ever want to talk to me about anything, I would love to hear about her. About your family. About anything you want to talk about.” His smile turns sad as I look back down and nod my head.

  “Thanks, Jake.”

  With that, I walk out the door and over to my room. I open my door and lie down in my bed. I start to think about my mom and all the guilt I have for leaving home to come here and I start to cry. There is so much I don’t like thinking about. If Dad is okay. How Monica is doing now that it is just to two of them.

  I don’t end my night with Jake like I wanted.

  My night ends with me alone in my bed, full of sadness and guilt.

  To escape these feelings, I close my eyes and go to the beach.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  ***

  Thursday has been dragging on. I can’t seem to catch a break.

  I woke up late and spilled my coffee on my pants as I was rushing out of the door to class. I forgot I had a quiz in my history class and I didn’t have anything to contribute to a graded discussion in ethics. Then some guy on a bike ran over my foot.

  Now it’s lunchtime and I realize I forgot my wallet so I can’t even buy anything at the commons.

  Jenna offered to buy me something, but with the way my day is going I’d probably get food poisoning. I know my day could be a hell of a lot worse and I shouldn’t let the little things get me down, but sometimes a lot of little things all going wrong totally sucks. I decide to skip my math class and head back to the dorms. I just want to curl up in my bed with a good book to read a book of my choosing, not something required for classes. I need some me time.

  As soon as I get to my floor, I head to the bathroom before going to my room. Jake is standing outside of the entrance to the bathroom just staring at the door. He has on basketball shorts, running shoes, and no shirt. His body is glistening and sweat is beading on his back. There is a towel thrown over his right shoulder covering part of the tattoo there, but he has his left hand in his sweat dampened hair and I can see the writing on his ribcage. I notice the quote written there is in another language. Then I look at his face. Shit. He looks worried and terrified.

  What did I just walk into? I should have known with the day I am having.

  “What happened?” I ask him, my voice loud and full of worry. I start imagining all of the scenes that could be waiting for me in the bathroom. What is he doing just standing there? Is someone hurt?

  “Someone is in there crying,” he says still staring at the door.

  “Are they hurt?” I’m starting to get scared.

  “No. Sounds more like sad crying.”

  “What happened?” I ask, my voice still full of concern.

  “I have no idea! I just walked into the bathroom to take a shower after my run and I heard this wailing type crying thing. She has quieted down a lot, but she still sounds like she’s crying, right?” He looks so worried. I listen closely and I can hear quiet crying in the silence.

  “What did she say when you asked her what was wrong?”

  “I didn’t even say anything to her. I just stood there for a minute and then turned around and walked out. I was standing here for like five minutes when you came up. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want her to be embarrassed that somebody heard her.”

  “Okay, well, I’m going to go ask her what’s wrong. Wait out here and don’t let anyone else in the bathroom. Do you at least know who is in there?” I can’t believe this day.

  “Um. No idea. Sorry.” I can tell he is embarrassed by the way he handled this situation and he is very thankful that I happened to show up.

  I walk into the bathroom and the sobs have quieted to sniffles. I walk up to the stall door and start knocking lightly. I hear some movement and a big breath. “It’s occupied,” responds a quiet voice. She has a southern accent and I realize it’s Heather, one of the drama majors.

  “Heather? It’s Rachel. Is everything alright?”

  A sob followed by more sniffles. “Um, I don’t know!” she wails followed by more crying.

  “I’m going to be in my room. Whenever you are ready, come and talk to me.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she says quietly.

  I walk out of the bathroom and see Jake at the door. I look at him and the concern is written all over his face. We start walking toward our rooms. “She’ll be out in a few minutes. Just hang out in your room until you see her come into my room, then you can go shower. I want her to have a few minutes alone to get herself together.”

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “No idea. But she’s coming to talk to me. Wish me luck. I’ve dealt with everything from somebody waxing half an eyebrow off, to a girl’s thirty
year-old ex-boyfriend stalker. Life of an RA.”

  “What?!” He looks legitimately surprised with the stuff I've dealt with.

  I laugh. “Don’t look so worried. It’s not so bad most of the time. Mostly break-ups. See you later!” I smile at him as he walks into his room.

  Heather ends up coming to my room with a pregnancy test she was too scared to take. I open the box and shove it to the back of my top desk drawer. (I don’t want anyone seeing that in the garbage can.) I hand her the test and she slips it in her jacket sleeve. We walk back to the bathroom and I stand outside while she takes the test. We head back to my room and wait a few minutes for the results.

  It comes back negative and she is so relieved she jumps up and hugs me. We talk and I find out that she was having unprotected sex. “Remember this feeling, Heather. Get on the pill or something and use a condom every time. You don’t want to feel like this again, right?”

  “No. Fucking. Way.” She shakes her head. “My mom won’t let me get birth control because she thinks it will make me have sex and she doesn’t want me having sex. Her plan isn’t working and my boyfriend ran out of condoms.”

  “You’re eighteen, Heather. Go to Planned Parenthood and get on the pill yourself and carry your own condoms.” I smile at her. “And just in case you find yourself in a situation where you are out of condoms again, there are other things to do with your boyfriend other than have sex.”

  “Rachel! I don’t need sex tips!” she yells embarrassed.

  “Oh my god! No! I meant that you could go to the movies or the batting cages!” I am mortified.

  We both start laughing.

  “Thanks, Rachel!” she says as she walks out of my room.

  I sit back on my bed and hear a knock at the door.

  “Come in!”

  It’s Jake. “Hey, I just saw Heather leave. She looked happy. Everything okay?”

  “Yep. We worked it out.” I smile reassuringly.

  “What was that all about?” he asks, sitting on my desk.

  “RA/Resident confidentiality,” I say crossing my arms and smiling at him.