Uncomfortable

Chapter 2

Jace

Some girls are all drama, and this girl is 100 percent one of those girls. She’s not just drama, she’s got a touch of crazy in her too. Beautiful, but crazy. Poor Ryan. I don’t know the guy all that well; he only just pledged this year, a freshman I think.

I know where he is, though. He’s in the rec room, which is pretty much where all the freshmen hang out between classes. Part of the whole needing-to-be-seen-as-part-of-the-group thing that comes with being new to the fraternity.

I find him on the couch, gathered around one of the fifty or so martial arts video games we have. I know I’m betraying my gender here a bit, but I’ve never really seen the appeal. “Hey, Ryan, man, there’s a girl out front demanding to see you.”

He doesn’t look up from the screen. “Yeah? Is she hot?”

I roll my eyes, but he can’t see me from my place behind him, not that it would have stopped me if he could. Freshmen are so predictable. “She’s pissed.”

“Oh, that must be Krystal. She’s a bucketful of crazy.”

So I noticed. “You gonna go out there?”

“Nah, man. We broke up. She’s probably just pissed ‘cause someone probably told her I was dating a new chick. I can’t help it that the ladies love me. She needs to move on.”

Neither Ryan nor his ex-girlfriend are making a great impression on me right now, but I could see how a guy like him might bring out the crazy in a girl like her. “You should at least go talk to her so she’ll leave, man.”

“Or, I can just stay here, and she’ll get the hint and go away on her own eventually.”

That sounds like a horrible idea, leaving a crazy girl on our doorstep waiting for him. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. “Someone needs to tell her you aren’t going out there to talk to her,” I say because he can’t just leave her out there. That would be a d**k move, no matter how messy their breakup was.

“Thanks man! Just tell her I’m taking a nap or not here or something.”

What the hell? He thinks I’m volunteering to be his errand boy? I bite back the words I really want to say. “You should really go out there and send her away yourself, man.”

He still refuses to look away from the TV screen, and I’m losing patience. “Nah, I’m busy.”

Clearly, I’m going to get nowhere with him. And since she’s pitching her fit right under my bedroom window, if I ever want to get back to studying for my business law exam, I’m going to have to get this girl to leave on my own. That’s f*****g annoying, but I’m not going to make a big deal about it. I will, however, make it a point to avoid Ryan—and his crazy ex-girlfriend—as much as possible going forward.

I make my way back outside, and this Krystal girl is right where I left her, looking twice as angry as before. When I close the door behind me, her eyes narrow in suspicion.

“He’s not coming out here.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“No,” I answer. “He’s not.”

“Then I need to go in. He can’t get away with this.” Her voice is strained and cracks on the last word.

“Get away with what?”

Her eyes widen, like she’s surprised I would need to ask what the hell she’s talking about. Then her shoulders straighten. “Move out of my way. Please.” She adds that last part almost as an afterthought. Like adding please is going to magically convince me to let her in.

“Nope.” I cross my arms and widen my stance, blocking the entire doorway. I’m a big guy, and she might be five feet tall and a hundred pounds. No way is she getting by me. But she doesn’t seem deterred by our size difference.

She walks straight up to me, until we’re barely a foot apart, rises up on her tiptoes, and pokes me in the chest hard. “You should be ashamed of yourself, helping him. Are all you fraternity guys alike? Just using girls to get what you want and then treating them like garbage as soon as you’ve had your fill? You disgust me.” Her voice is quiet, and menacing, and despite her diminutive size, I’m actually a little intimidated for a moment. This girl is intense.

“Hey, I don’t know what happened, and I’m not defending the guy. But you need to leave before someone calls campus security.” I try to reason with her, but my words only seem to set her off more.

“Good! I hope someone does call them. Then he can answer to them.” Then she does her best to lean around me to shout, “You hear that, Ryan! You’re going to have to answer to campus security if you don’t get your sorry ass out here and talk to me. Ryan! I swear to God, you asshole, you’re going to pay for this!”

She’s still shouting through me—and the closed door—when a shiny blue Prius parks illegally in front of the house and a brunette woman jumps from the driver’s seat without even turning off the engine.

“Krys, let’s go. He’s not worth it,” the newcomer says, and Krystal deflates immediately, all of the fury in her small form dissipating. In a matter of seconds, she goes from high-strung and shouting to shoulders hunched and hugging herself tightly. She pins me with one last, pleading look, and her eyes are filled with unshed tears. One slips down her cheek as her friend makes it to her side and slips an arm around her.

“He’s not, Mir. But I am. I’m worth it.”

“I know you are, sweetie. We’ll find a different way to fix this. I promise.”

Krystal lets her friend lead her to the car and gets into the passenger seat. As they drive away, she looks out the window at me, and I don’t know why, but the hollowness in her expression makes me feel like I betrayed her somehow.