Page 5 of A Perfect World
Crushing the cigarette with the toe of my unlaced Doc Marten boot, I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Don’t tell me you launched another toaster out a window without me,” he warned. I snorted, shaking my head. The fancy new dorms were the only ones on campus with solo rooms, so I stormed the Housing Office and swapped into one with a carefully placed thought. New keys in hand, I'd walked through the door to my new dorm only to get mauled with aggressive licks from a golden retriever. Seconds later, some pretty rich boy started arguing with the dog.
“Buddy, you can’t just throw yourself at every good looking guy. It’s unacceptable!”Buddy barked and whined in response, which incited Jack to rant about etiquette before finally introducing himself.
“I didn’t throw anything out a window yet,” I sighed, resting my head on the wall and massaging my aching eye sockets.
“I was gonna say, fuck you and your whole ancestry if you did fun shit without me.” Flicking my arm, “You still rolling?”
“Unfortunately, not.”
A growl in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. Ditching the smoke spot, I aimed for the cafeteria with Jack rambling beside me, “...tree branches clogging the toilet. Like did Eric really think we wouldn’t know it was him? He was the one who climbed the thing.”
Jack was the frat brother from hell. The only reason he rushed a fraternity in the first place was his dad, thegreatRoss Kilgalon, who loved to remind his only son that he was president of one back in the day and those connections gave him a leg up in society and business. Jack’s solution to his father’s incessant nagging was to join the “outcast” frat. The DIK house was off campus- by house, it was actually a strip of off campus townhomes with Greek letters nailed over the door beside a very phallic inspired piece of graffiti art. None of them expected an attractive, former prep-school kid to rush, but little did they know, they landed an atomic bomb of chaos.
“You were the one thattoldhim to climb the tree,” I countered.
Jack scoffed, “He’s the dipshit that listened.”
Yanking on the heavy doors to the cafeteria, a blast of AC enveloped us, followed by a thick tang of burnt Chinese food, disinfectant and stagnant water.
“You never told me where you went last night,” Jack said, bumping me with his shoulder.
“Honestly, I don’t remember.”
It wasn’t a total lie, I really didn’t remember how I got in his twin sister’s bed.
Miranda was the complete opposite of her twin. Where Jack was easy-going, Miranda was uptight. Jack was a music major while Miranda was pre-med. Jack didn’t give a shit about Greek life, whereas Miranda lived and breathed it. Never one to leave the house without a full face of flawless makeup and a designer handbag, she was the crowned jewel of the school. And I had her on her knees while I fucked her mouth.
At least Dad got that part right: I was toxic.
“Yea, I believe it, you stole some of Marty’s X again, didn’t you? I told you that guy has a tainted stash, who knows what he laced it with,” Jack ranted. I didn’t bother explaining myself as we ordered food and chose a table. Each bite of semi-stale bread, lunch meat and cheese made vomit surge up my throat. No matter how hard the comedown or hangover, I always went full throttle, devouring any and every drug in my grasp to numb the raging beast crawling under my skin. Being sober brought on an avalanche of shit I had no desire to address.
My phone vibrated, rattling the table. Jack paused his chewing. “You gonna answer that?” he asked around a mouthful of bread.
I definitely wasn’t.
“It’s just my mom,” I lied. Mom knew better than to text me- she’d call fifteen times until I answered, then yell at me for ditching another mandated counseling session. It only took a precisely placed thought to avoid my therapist's report, but that involvedshowing up. Therapy was pointless when I couldn’t tell the truth anyway- the truth that no one would believe. On the off chance they did, I’d end up locked in some government lab, poked, prodded and tested.
Nope. I’d rather die, thanks.
“Ay, Space Cadet, come back to base.”
I blinked Jack into focus, his hand waving obnoxiously in front of my face. Tsking, he rocked his chair back on two legs.
“Sorry, still kinda fucked up,” I mumbled. He rolled his eyes, crumbling his sandwich wrapper and shooting it like a basketball towards the trash can. It bounced off the rim and plopped on the floor. He ignored it and snapped at me impatiently.
“Fine, fine, go sleep it off and stay the fuck away from Marty’s stash, it’s always a bad idea.”
While Jack made a valid point, Iwouldn’tstay away from Marty’s stash. Our dear dealer roomie had a mind as complicated as a toddler. With the amount of shrooms that kid did, it surprised me that he even had thoughts left in his head. Spotting a member of DIK, Jack jogged off to plot something while I was left with a raging headache.
I made it all the way back to my dorm before realizing I’d left my lighter at the smoking spot. The gnawing migraine begged me to face plant my shitty mattress, but an irrational attachment to a Zippo Jack gave me had my feet dragging me back to the elevator. I jabbed the button, slouching in the corner until the metal box reached the first floor.
The door slid open-
Air vacuumed out of my lungs, compressing them into two useless sacks while sirens screeched so loud that everything drained to a roar of static.
Ethereal beauty unlike anything worthy of this wasted floating rock stood with bow lips parted and silvery hair in a high ponytail. Plucked from an angelic fantasy, my demon reared his head with dark intent to shred every ounce of innocence from her and drag her into my depravity.
