Nerdy Little Secret Page 3

  “You recognized this as Chanel?” I point to my bag, hefting it onto the floor and sliding into the desk next to her.

  Violet-haired girl shrugs. “I like material things.”

  That makes me chuckle. “Me too. I’m Jolie.”

  “As in Angelina?” She smirks.

  I shrug. “My mom had a thing for the movie Girl, Interrupted when she was pregnant with me.”

  “So are you named after the psych ward patient, or the actress?” She still hasn’t told me her name.

  “Both, I guess. Depends on which day you catch me on,” I joke.

  The girl seems to weigh this, and then her amber eyes catch mine. “I’m Jennifer.”

  Jennifer seems too plain a name for her, but I don’t tell her that. “You a junior?”

  “Yep. Stuck in this suck-ass place since I have nothing better to do. I should have transferred out to a four-year school last year, but my parents can’t afford it. So here I am, getting another associate’s in some major I’ll never perform work in. But it sucks less than working at the mall round the clock, and that’s the deal if I want to stay under their roof. School or a job.”

  Her openness about her predicament hurts my heart, but she surprisingly doesn’t seem to mind it.

  “What’s your story, Girl Interrupted?” She rounds on me, interest flickering on her face.

  No way am I divulging what I did to get me stuck in here. “I’m a junior, and like you said, basically I’m just a girl whose life has been interrupted.”

  It’s my own fault, too, but we’re not going to get into that.

  “Are you bombing this class, too?” she asks, flipping through the secondhand textbooks we were handed on the first day.

  “Yeah, it’s so difficult. What’s with this guy? It’s like he doesn’t want us to pass his class in a … malicious way.”

  Both of our heads turn to the front of the room as our professor, a man who had to be in his sixties that insisted we call him Dennis, is setting his old leather briefcase on the desk. We had moved so quickly through cells that I nearly had whiplash and were now onto DNA. I could barely understand what he was talking about, much less study the book work we were supposed to do every week.

  “Good morning, ladies and soldiers.” Dennis gives us his usual greeting, which I find bizarre. “Who studied their genetic profile from Wednesday?”

  He’d given us a discounted membership to 23 and Me, and we were supposed to see our genetic makeup.

  It didn’t really matter for me; it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. I’m part Persian, part Italian, just like my mother and father always told me. But how wild would it be if you discovered you were supposed to be one hundred percent Israeli and you were actually Danish or something? Talk about adoption suspicions …

  A bunch of students raise their hands, and Dennis launches into the biology of DNA.

  Fully aware that I’m supposed to be soaking in as much information as I can, instead, I tune out. I can’t help it. This classroom is too warm, since the community college has the shittiest air-conditioning I’ve ever come across. Plus, I plan to have a full on study session with myself, and I’ll lock myself in the library if I have to this weekend.

  Also, I have something else on my mind.

  I’ve been thinking about sending Mick a text since I saw him in the Pub almost a week ago. I feel horrible for the way I treated him, how I basically shunned him. I hadn’t even bothered introducing him to my friends, or trying to ascertain how he’d come to be a student at Salem. It was a bitchy move, and I was a coward.

  The world I came from was all about status. The way you looked, how much money you had, the pretty things you wore or cars you drove. Being the most popular, having the hottest boyfriend, those were things that were praised in my hometown and even my household. When you grow up in that mindset, in any mindset really, it’s hard to break out of it.

  That’s a horrible thing to say, that all I’ve been molded to focus on are appearances and wealth, but it’s true. Since I’ve been in college, my mind has been opened in ways I didn’t anticipate, but I still go home to the world that made me. Conditioning is a real bitch.

  Then I met Mick, and he flipped my world upside down. He was everything I’d been told to avoid, and yet, he was the most hypnotizing guy I’d ever been around.

  If I’m being honest with myself, I want him again. So without overthinking it, I pull up a text, type his name in, and hit send.

  Jolie: Hey, hope you’re having a good time at Salem so far.

  There. That’s not overly desperate or inquiring. Maybe I should have apologized or asked him to grab lunch—

  No, shut up. Stop second guessing yourself. I’ve never doubted myself over a guy, not even with my biggest crush in high school. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and I’d been the one to invite myself to his prom. I was overly confident when it came to men, a fact I could be proud of, and was also a huge flaw.

  It made it extremely difficult to get close to someone, to let down my scary guard enough to show them the girl underneath all the pomp and circumstance.

  I get no typing bubbles, no read receipt, not anything. Even at the end of biology class, which lasts well over an hour, Mick still hasn’t returned my text.

  Nor does he almost three days later, though I keep it in my inbox, the unanswered message taunting me.

  This is the most rejection I’ve ever felt, and the feeling pricks at my chest like a hundred thorns. Well, fine, whatever. If Mick Barrett doesn’t want to talk to me, then I don’t want to talk to him.

  As if that’s not the most immature response on earth.

  5

  Mick

  “Elections for student council are happening now, people, sign up!”

  “Love to dance? Come audition for the Salem Walsh University Dance Team!”

  “Rush Alpha Omega!”

  Apparently, I didn’t get the memo that today was clubs and activities sign up day. As I walk through the main thoroughfare of campus, shouting voices and peppy pledges shout at me from every direction. Everyone wants you to sign up for their club, from Jews for Jesus to The Magic Club.

  No really, there is legitimately a kid in a blue and gold cape pulling doves out of his hat in the middle of the quad. Which kind of intrigues me, but not enough to join in and see that train wreck every week.

  I have enough to occupy my time, what with taking the hardest courses that have ever been thrown at me. Quantitative Techniques for Biological Systems, Human Anatomy, Molecular Control of Metabolism and Metabolic Disease, Topics in Cell and Regenerative Biology Stem Cell Seminar … and those are just my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes.

  That isn’t to say I don’t love it. The information is challenging, the ways of learning are innovative and so much more advanced than that of the community college I was attending. My professors are renowned in the science world, and I can feel my knowledge growing with every passing minute.

  I’ve been a student at Salem Walsh for nearly two weeks, and I’ve done little else but go to class, complete papers, and study. I was happy to do it. Remember, I’m a nerd. I take pleasure in doing school work, when my peers would rather go out and drink themselves into stupors.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pick it up as I sit on a bench in the quad, aware I only have fifteen minutes before my next course.

  “Hey.” I smile as the FaceTime call connects, showing my parents sitting in our living room back home.

  “Bud!” Mom exclaims, probably more excited that she got the video call to work rather than me being on the other end of the screen.

  “How are you guys doing?” I ask, knowing Dad is not going to say hi.

  He does this little kind of wave thing, and although I should focus on the happiness of talking to my parents, all I can do is assess his current physical state.

  “We’re good, for the most part. I cooked a chuck roast for dinner, so we’ll enjoy that. Those mockingbirds
are back at the feeder in the backyard. Dad is watching that documentary on vegetarianism you recommended.”

  Mom talks for both of them, and I smile. Even though my father is sick, she still tells me about the mundane aspects of their life. That’s my mom, the positivity squad. She’s had a hard go of it these last few years, but you’d never guess it from her attitude.

  It’s the first time, aside from working at camp this summer, that I’ve been away from my parents for an extended period of time. We were a unit, us three, and it felt weird not being with them. I’d been a big part of my father’s everyday care and attempted rehabilitation, so to not be there gives me an enormous sense of guilt and anxiety.

  It also sounds corny, but they were my closest friends. Although I had two or three friends, I would hang out with in high school, I was a homebody. I read, or built model ships, played video games … you name the dorky thing and I did it.

  “How … sc … school?” Dad asks, slurring out some words.

  I don’t miss a beat. “School is good. My classes are really challenging, which is great. I have a clinical during the second half of this year where we’re going to be doing tests with lab rats. Nothing that harms them, but just testing different foods, exercise methods. I’m excited.”

  Hands-on work was bound to be my favorite. I will revel the day I get to put on scrubs and a white coat and start hospital rotations.

  “Oh! We also had a doctor’s appointment two days ago. With that specialist who is doing the clinical trial,” Mom mentions, like it just slipped her mind.

  I smack my head, because I even forgot that they did that. I should have called two days ago to find out what happened and feel guilt burn a hole through my stomach.

  “How did it go?” Anxiety flows through me.

  Mom shrugs. “It was okay. They did all of the regular tests his neurologist usually does. But in the end, they said he unfortunately isn’t a candidate for the trial.”

  That burns. I’d been calling that office for months, trying to get Dad in for an appointment to be considered for the trial. That’s what I did in my spare time, called hospitals and doctors and every program imaginable to try to find a cure for my father.

  “Why won’t they consider him a viable candidate?” I ask, anger infused in my tone.

  “I’m not sure, they just said no.” My mom’s voice sounds indecisive.

  Annoyance ripples through my veins. “But you didn’t press them further? This really could have helped, Mom.”

  Shock flashes through her eyes. “I know that, son. I’m doing the best I can. If they say he’s not a candidate, then we’ll try to find something else.”

  “Shtahpp.” Dad tries his best to put up a curled hand, his fingers no longer able to extend themselves in a flex. “No … fighting …”

  Just those words took effort. We can both see it. His eyebrows don’t move into an angry scowl at my mother and I sending barbs back and forth, and he’s drooling a little from the corner of his mouth.

  This disease is stealing every part of him, and it’s heartbreaking to watch. I wish I could slow time down, for his sake, but speed it up. If I could get through school at a quicker pace, become the kind of doctor I’m dreaming of being, and then discover a cure …

  It’s a pipe dream. One I know people have been working on for way longer than I’ve been thinking about it or since my father has been diagnosed with ALS. But it still doesn’t make me want it any less.

  “All right, well, I have to go to class. I’ll talk to you guys later, okay?”

  Mom sighs. “Okay. Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” I say, and press the button to end the video call.

  Emotion clings to my throat, disappointment and frustration ripe on my mind.

  After we hang up, the call flashes on my phone and ends, taking me back to the screen I was previously on. It’s my text message screen, and they’re all laid out before me. Not that there are many, I barely talk to anyone on a daily basis. I had it open, about to text Martin to ask if the guys wanted me to bring them some beer back for their Friday night hangout, since they couldn’t buy it themselves.

  Typically, I wouldn’t have bought for underage kids. But they were just shy of twenty-one and only drank two beers each on Friday nights while they played video games. It was harmless, and I was grateful for pretty easy-going roommates.

  My eyes stray to the unanswered text from a number I thought would never contact me again. Jolie’s name taunts me at the top of the text, the one I didn’t reply to.

  Man, did I want to. Truly, I did. But then I remembered her look of … detachment in the Pub. The way her friends snapped her back to reality, and suddenly I wasn’t her Mick anymore.

  I was the nerdy guy she shared a few secret hook ups with at summer camp, the place no one even knew she’d gone. Or so I suspected. The look on her face, like she was trying to hide me and everything else from those people in that big booth … it took me right back to every rejection I’d had.

  It’s not like I’m not used to women friend zoning me or not seeing me as an option to date or kiss. I get it, I give off a certain vibe. I’m not the jock walking around like the world can see his penis. I’m not the sexy musician who will play the guitar naked in your bed. I’m not the bad boy who will leave you at a party but then call you the next night and profess his love. Girls want that kind of thing, and they’re lying most of the time if they say they just want a nice guy.

  I am the nice guy, and believe me, no one is banging down my door.

  The fact that Jolie had texted me that vague sentence that you’d send to an acquaintance was offending, too. She could have at least apologized, or said she’d blanked and hadn’t introduced me to her friends. Maybe she could have asked to see me, since it was a weird freaking coincidence that I’d ended up transferring to the same college she studied at.

  When she yelled my name in that dining hall, time stood still. Swear on my life, I never thought I’d see Jolie Kenner again. I’d made my peace with it, dreamed about her almost every night since we left Camp Woodwin, and pushed past the urge to text or call her. And then, there she was. As usual, she looked like something sent from heaven. My God, I knew how beautiful she was, but not seeing her in a month or so only magnified her attractiveness.

  As Jolie threw her arms around me, all I wanted to do was take her back to my dorm room. Undress her, talk to her, catch up on the things that had happened since we’d been apart.

  But her expression of near horror confirmed everything. I don’t need that drama of chasing a girl who believes she’s out of my league. I don’t need to lust after someone who is clearly more concerned with her social status than the actual character of the guy she’s sleeping with. There are far more important matters to attend to, namely the thing I’d just had to bite my tongue about on the call with my Mom and Dad.

  After shooting off the beer text to my roommates, I lock my phone and throw it back in my pocket.

  Time to do the thing I came here for; focus on my studies and graduate as soon as possible.

  6

  Jolie

  If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be spending a Saturday afternoon in the library, I’d have fallen over clutching my stomach in laughter.

  As it is, before this year, I hadn’t stepped foot in the place. My freshman and sophomore year classes, while challenging, weren’t that big of a deal. Most of them were fashion merchandising, or I could pass with a C in courses like math or science. But now, it’s As or bust, as mandated by the disciplinary board that reviewed my case.

  So, library on a weekend it is, and it has to be the Salem Walsh one. They have better textbooks, Wi-Fi, and I honestly feel strange going to the community college one.

  Plus, Salem’s is just so pretty. With its red brick and floors of quiet nooks and the musty smell of old books, it just encourages one who hates studying to want to study. I’ve also Elle Woods-ed myself; If you dress in an outfit that makes you feel
like a businesswoman, with the glasses to match, and a fierce high pony, then you’ll retain that much more information. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

  I’m just about to waltz through the machines that prevent students from stealing books from the library, when the clerk calls out.

  “I need to check you in.”

  Fuck. I did not see that coming. I didn’t even realize you had to check in to the library, but I guess it makes sense.

  My heart is racing as I walk over, and the guy asks to swipe my ID. Shit. I send up a Hail Mary prayer, hoping for the best.

  “Sorry, your ID isn’t working.” The kid sitting behind the desk hands it back to me. “You’ll have to go get it fixed before I can let you in.”

  I stutter, trying to come up with an excuse. If I ask him to run it again, it’ll be like one of those bad dreams where they cancel your credit card at some highly expensive restaurant and everyone is staring at you.

  I need to study, and I know that if I don’t get to in here, I really won’t do it. My grades, my future, depend on this one library session, as it’s all I can control right now.

  So, I lean into the desk, making sure to push my boobs together. Immediately, his eyes are drawn down, and I flutter my lashes as I start talking.

  “Ugh, it’s just so annoying. This thing has been on the fritz for weeks, and every time I get it fixed, the swipe strip deactivates again. I reallyyy have to study for this biology exam I have. Could you maybe … swipe it again?”

  His eyes flick back up to mine, and his tongue is lolling halfway out of his mouth. He scans the library, trying to see who might be looking at us, and then swivels in his chair to look behind him.