Loser: A Dark College Bully Romance (Hillcrest University Book 1) Read online

  Declan crossed his arms; the movement made my eyes fall to his chest, at the slightly-wet fabric clinging across it. “You don’t get to order me around. You’re just my roommate, nothing else.”

  I could’ve told him that his dad had told me to watch out for him, but I had the feeling Declan wouldn’t like hearing that. Call me psychic. So instead I said, “Come on. It’s been almost a week. Isn’t it time for us to have our bonding moment? I thought that’s what roomies do—”

  Apparently the thought of bonding with me was the worst thought Declan could’ve had, for the expression his face wore right then stopped me.

  “Okay,” I switched tactics. “We don’t have to bond, but I do want to see you eat.” I got out of his wooden desk chair, moving closer to him to tug on his sleeve’s fabric. “We don’t have to talk. We can eat in silence.” It sounded like a boring ass dinner to me, but if that’s what got him to sit down and eat, then I’d be fine with it.

  Declan let me lead him to the pizza boxes on the floor, heaving a sigh as we sat down. I didn’t get plates; we’d eat straight out of the boxes like animals in the wild. If he really wanted to not eat with me, it would’ve been easy for him to pull away from the tiny grip I had on his sleeve, but he didn’t, so I was choosing to call it a win.

  I watched Declan open the pizza box closest to him, waiting for him to take a piece first. We sat a foot apart, and yet it felt like there was so much distance between us. After telling me about Sabrina, Declan had closed himself off. He hardly spoke to me, hardly looked at me. Honestly, it bugged the shit out of me. It would be a long year if we couldn’t get along.

  Don’t get me wrong, I knew Declan was dealing with a lot of stuff right now. The whole school hating him, and all that. I knew it could weigh even the strongest person down, but he didn’t need to take it out on me. I hated being given the cold shoulder. Hated it with a burning passion so strong I couldn’t describe it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know what kind you’d like.” I got a cheese and a pepperoni. Those were two safe bets when it came to pizza toppings. Unless he was the sort of person who thought pineapple should go on pizza…if he thought that, there was no salvaging this situation. We could never be friends. Yes, I was that vehement against pineapple on pizza.

  A muscle in his jaw clenched. “It’s fine,” he muttered, slowly taking a slice. Meanwhile I was too busy staring at his jaw, at the dark stubble on it. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and it made him look older, made his lips look extra inviting.

  Okay, don’t look there, Ash. Definitely don’t look there. Need I remind myself about the whole off-limits thing?

  I grabbed a piece out of the box in front of me, pulling my knee up to my chest as I ate. Nothing good was on TV yet. It was too early for new shows, the time of day when newscasts were on. With the pizza in one hand, I went for the remote, starting to flip the channels. Declan was off in his own world, but me? I needed some mindless entertainment while I ate, whether that mindless entertainment was watching other Hillcrest students in the union or a rerun of an old TV show, I didn’t care.

  I flipped past a news station, only catching the tail end of their story about some serial killer called the Angel Maker. Eh. America was obsessed with serial killers, and any new ones that evaded capture always made national news. Me? I couldn’t care less about them. There were too many freaks out there, too many other losers who, in my opinion, were worse. Most of humanity sucked, but maybe that was just my cynicism talking.

  I was very cynical when it came to most things.

  Eventually I found a channel with a rerun of a sitcom about a group of nerdy guys sharing an apartment. I liked this one. I could watch it over and over again without getting tired of it.

  We ate in silence for a while. I knew Declan was content in the silence, but I wasn’t. I wanted to talk, I wanted to get to know him better. If we were friends, wouldn’t that make this year go by faster? We were living together, for goodness sakes. Going on like this all year would only make it miserable for the both of us.

  “So how are your classes?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me right away, and at first I thought he was going to get up and walk away, tell me off or something, but all he did was wait a minute before saying, “Fine.”

  Fine. Huh. So interesting. You could carry a whole conversation on that.

  I said, “Mine are good too, thanks for asking. The professors call on me more I think because I don’t blend in with all the other dicks.” Ugh. Dicks? Why the hell didn’t I just call them guys? I had to go and say the word dick…

  Declan was finished with his first piece of pizza; he’d eaten the crust and all. Ew. Crust was nasty, but that was just one of my many, many opinions. I was full of them. “I thought you said we didn’t have to talk?”

  “Why is talking to me such a bad thing?” I wanted to know. I needed to know. He could go on ignoring me forever, but it made me want to pull my hair out—which was saying a lot, considering how long it took me to find a pink dye that didn’t fade after two showers.

  “Because” was all he said, which clarified absolutely nothing.

  He started to get up, but I grabbed him by the arm. My fingers wrapped around his arm, feeling the muscle underneath. I also felt him tense immediately, as if being touched so firmly by me was the worst thing ever. I…I don’t know why, but I didn’t like knowing that my touch repulsed him.

  “No,” I said, still holding onto his arm, keeping him rooted beside me. I’d dropped my half-eaten pizza slice on top of the box. I was now on my knees next to him, prepared to play tug-o-war on his arm to keep him down. “You’re going to tell me, because I can’t go a whole year like this, Declan.”

  Declan’s dark gaze was slow to meet mine. We’d never been so close before; it was the first time I noticed the small flecks of light amber speckling his brown irises. I’d always thought brown eyes were boring, but his? His I could stare into all day. His were gorgeous.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, but I was still lost in his eyes.

  So pretty. Why didn’t I realize how pretty his stare was before? And his lips…they weren’t the thin lines some guys had. A perfect balance between being thin and being full, very kissable lips. Lips that were slightly parted as he looked at me, like there was more he wanted to say but couldn’t find the right words.

  While I was lost in my own hormonal mind, my grip on his arm must’ve loosened, for he started to get up.

  “Wait,” I said, getting to my own feet. His were bare, since he just got out of the shower; mine still had high tops on. Even so, he was a good six or seven inches taller than me. Not tall by guy standards, but the perfect height for me. I wouldn’t need to stand on my tiptoes to kiss him.

  God, I should really stop thinking about kissing him. No one should open that can of worms. Besides, I was sure the moment I did anything remotely sexual with any of the guys on campus, rumors would spread like wildfire about me.

  I could handle the rumors. I didn’t care what people said, but I did figure to hold them off at least until my second week of classes.

  “Just leave me alone,” Declan said, his sorrow turning into annoyance. “I don’t need you to help me through this. I’m fine on my own.” If we would’ve been anywhere else, I was sure he would’ve stormed away after saying that, but he had nowhere else to go. The day was winding down, and he had no friends now.

  It was a good thing I had nowhere to go, too.

  “No one is fine on their own,” I told him, heartily believing it. Human beings were not meant for isolation. We liked community, liked friendship, and damn it all to hell—we liked gossiping. It’s why we did it so much. We needed each other. To be so isolated wasn’t healthy.

  “I am,” he said, arguing with me. It was the most emotion I’d ever seen on his face.

  Good. It meant we were getting somewhere.

  “Then you’re a liar,” I said, shrugging.

  Declan frowne
d at me. “I am not. You’re—” He stopped himself from saying whatever it was he wanted to say next. Something insulting about me, probably.

  But why stop there? I bet I’d heard whatever it was he was going to say before. Nothing was new to me. It wasn’t like I was popular back in high school or elementary. I was always on the fringe of the class, with my single friend, Kelsey, and that was just fine. No one outright hated me, but no one loved me, either.

  I would be the first one to admit I could be pushy, though.

  “I’m what?” I egged him on. “Whatever you’re going to say, just say it.”

  “You’re…” Declan glanced away, giving me his back. “You’re impossible.” Impossible, huh? I’d heard worse things.

  “Why am I impossible? Because I wanted to eat dinner with you? Because I wanted to get to know my roommate better?” Impossible wasn’t exactly an insult, but I didn’t feel like it fit here, in this particular situation. “Well fucking sue me.”

  No, don’t sue me. I had no money.

  Declan ran a hand through his wet hair, glancing back at me. “I don’t want to get to know you. I’m sorry, but I don’t.” Hell, he probably just wanted to get through this whole college thing and leave all these bullies behind, along with the memories he had. I couldn’t blame him for it, but I didn’t like how he took it all out on me.

  “Why?” I asked. “Am I that bad? Do I smell? I know I have a resting bitch face, but—” What Declan said next stopped me cold.

  “You remind me of her.” Five words. Five words were all it took from Declan to shut me up.

  I reminded him of Sabrina? Well, fuck. No wonder he didn’t want anything to do with me. Sabrina was his dead girlfriend, whom he clearly cared about still. If I reminded him of her, it made sense he’d want to distance himself from me.

  What was there to say?

  For the first time in a long time, a boy had made me speechless.

  Chapter Ten – Declan

  I didn’t want to say it, but she forced it out of me, just like Sabrina would’ve done.

  Sabrina was…she was everything to me, and then some. When I lost her, I lost the one thing I had in life that I enjoyed. She was it for me, even if she wandered sometimes. I didn’t mind, because I was always there, waiting for her. I would’ve waited an eternity for her, but it wasn’t enough.

  It was never enough, and she blamed me for it. In that note, which no one even let me see…

  I had no idea why my dad treated me like I was fragile. I wasn’t. Just because I wanted to shut down didn’t mean I was going to. I just needed time. It hadn’t been a year yet. How was I supposed to get over it that fast? How could everyone else move on with their lives, like it never happened?

  Oh, wait. They didn’t move on. They just took it all out on me, like it was my fault Sabrina had hung herself. While it was true we weren’t exactly together when she did it, I still loved her. I was going to take her back. I mean, I knew she had wandering eyes, but it wasn’t until the week before when I’d found out she had other wandering parts, too. More than looking, more than kissing.

  I wasn’t the one who killed her, she did that to herself, but I still wished I would’ve known what the note said. Why she blamed her actions on me. I never yelled at her, never got upset with her. I told her to figure it out, and when she did, I’d be there—because I was always confident that she’d end up with me.

  I’d grown up with her, being Sawyer’s friend. I was always at his house, always did the things kids shouldn’t do but boys always did with him and Travis, and Sabrina was always in the background. Sabrina and Sawyer were the youngest of the Salvatore children; Mrs. Salvatore had Sabrina when no one thought she could get pregnant anymore. They were it, but it wasn’t until the summer when Sabrina turned fifteen that I really started to notice her.

  And then we got to know each other very well. She was my first, my only. She was everything to me.

  Now she was dead. Now Sabrina was gone, leaving me alone, permanently.

  At least that’s what I thought. When my father had told me that Hillcrest was accepting a single female student as a trial run—someone whom he was sponsoring at Hillcrest, meaning he was paying most of their tuition—I had no idea what he meant at the time. Sure, I’d told him, I’ll room with her. Sure, I’d said, I’ll watch out for her and come to you if there are any problems.

  Of course at the time I didn’t know who the girl was, or what she looked like. When I first saw her, I instantly knew.

  Hillcrest had been debating on letting girls in for a while now. All-male colleges weren’t common anymore in the United States. Even though Hillcrest was private, it was still part of a dying breed. Finally the bigwigs realized girls could come from wealth, too.

  But I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that the trial run was this year. I knew my father had pushed for a single girl first, just to test the waters. And after I saw her, I knew precisely why she’d been chosen. Sure, her grades were good, but that wasn’t all of it.

  Minus the pink in the hair and the punk clothes, minus the skateboard, Ash was just like Sabrina. Even her eyes were similar, both a steel grey color, though Sabrina’s were more of a blue-grey, while Ash’s were like thunder clouds.

  I never asked my father about it, mostly because I already knew the answer. This whole thing was a way to get me out of my funk, back to being happy. He’d done this, chosen her, as a sort of blind date type of thing. Crossing way too many lines by doing so, in my opinion.

  You can’t just replace the dead as if they were never gone. No one could replace Sabrina, not even a pretty girl who looked a bit like her.

  Pretty. That was probably an understatement, but it was the most I let myself admit. Sitting there, eating pizza with her, I could smell her. One of her soaps must be fruity, because she smelled like strawberries.

  It was a good smell, and I hated that I noticed it. I shouldn’t have.

  Another thing I shouldn’t have done? Told Ash that she reminded me of Sabrina.

  The way Ash stared at me right now, how she gently parted her lips, her question caught on her tongue, made something inside of me twist, so I gave her my back again. I should really leave this room, go somewhere else and clear my head, but I had nowhere to go. This was it. She was it, and it sucked. I hated all of this.

  “Why do I remind you of her?” she asked quietly, and I flinched at the sound of her voice. So light, so gentle. Ash could flip a switch just like Sabrina could. Sane and insane, kind and mean; two heads on the same coin.

  “Can we not talk about it?”

  “No,” Ash said. “We have to, otherwise this year is going to seem way too long. I want to be friends, Declan. I don’t want you to ignore me all year. I’m not asking you to be my best friend, but it would be nice to have someone to talk to after class and at night. Don’t you miss having friends?”

  My old friends, Sawyer and Travis, were not exactly the kind of friends you’d want to have. Yes, I had fun growing up, but they weren’t the epitome of friendship. Honestly, I was probably better off without them, as depressing as it was.

  Still, what Ash had described, it sounded nice. Normal. Something I thought I’d never have again after losing Sabrina, something I didn’t think I deserved. After all, if Sabrina’s suicide note had blamed me, wasn’t I to blame, at least partly? Sabrina never did anything without thinking it over first.

  “I don’t know,” I said after a while. I stared hard at the white wall near my desk, refusing to look back at her. I knew I’d have to look at her eventually, but not while my mind was so caught up in thinking about Sabrina. If I kept thinking about Sabrina, if I kept comparing her and Ash together…I didn’t want to project my feelings for Sabrina onto Ash. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved someone who’d love her for her and not because she reminded him of his dead girlfriend.

  Mostly to myself, I whispered, “I don’t know if I’d be a good friend anymore.”

  “Okay, then let me rev
ise what I said,” Ash spoke, moving to my side, practically forcing me to look at her. She wore a loose t-shirt and short shorts, the kind that showed off her flawless, tan legs. Legs I shouldn’t have noticed. “Let me be your friend. Stop pushing me away. Besides that, the pressure is off you.”

  Let her in to be my friend, but don’t try to be her friend? I wasn’t sure where the line was, but maybe I could do it. Maybe. It would be nice to have someone to talk to, especially with the crap Sawyer was constantly trying to pull.

  I studied her a bit more than I should, eyeing her almost suspiciously. “Why would you want to do that?” It didn’t sound like the arrangement would benefit her at all.

  The way she looked at me right then made my heart skip a beat. Such a stupid thing to say, but it was true. Her look was intense, serious, and so ungodly beautiful. It was an expression Sabrina had often given me when she had her good days. “Because,” she said, “you need a friend, and I’m willing to be that friend, even if you’re not mine.”

  Need a friend? I didn’t think I needed a friend, not really.

  It took me a long, long time to say, “Fine.”

  A smile spread on her lips—lips that were full and red; lips that I could easily imagine devouring. “Good. Now let’s get back to the pizza…though it’s probably cold by now.” Ash returned to the pizza on the floor, sitting cross-legged. Her grey eyes lifted to me, waiting for me to go sit beside her.

  She’d already bought the pizza. It’d be a shame if it went to waste, right?

  I slowly moved beside her and grabbed another piece.

  This could be a really bad idea. Maybe the worst mistake of my sophomore year at Hillcrest. I could regret this like no other, and yet I’d agreed to it. To have her be my friend. It sounded so juvenile, and yet the notion of having someone there for me—someone who wasn’t my dad—was appealing.