Page 7 of Unloved

“Make sure he uses protection, Donaldson,” Mark laughs. “Don’t wanna raise Fredderic’s baby who’s just as retar—”

“Stop,” I snap, spine straightening. “Use that word again and I’m reporting you.”Again, I want to say. Because I have reported him already, for his use of language and slurs. But no one has done a thing about it.

The cacophony of theirooo’s grates on my ears like gunshots.

“I’m so scared,” Mark sneers.

I wait, again—and seemingly endlessly—for Tyler to notice the way Mark speaks to me. Instead of disgust or anger, he only shows mild annoyance—but not for Mark, forme.

“Just… I don’t know, take my closing meeting with him and see if you can handle it,” Rodger sighs, handing me the other file in his hands. “This is his work from the summer. Maybe you can make sense of what the hell he should do, since he has to pass to maintain his eligibility.”

Eligibility to play hockey, he means, because Matt Fredderic is a star campus wide.

The Waterfell University hockey team is one of the top in the nation, for ten-plus years running now. After making it to the Frozen Four last year, Waterfell poured even more money into the sports budget—hockey, specifically.

Posters and cutouts line our campus, displaying the gleaming faces of the players: the handsome golden boy hockey captain Rhys Koteskiy; the stoic pillar of a goalie, Bennett Reiner; and the hypnotizing, crooked playboy grin of Matthew Fredderic—affectionately nicknamed Freddy. Top goal-scorer two years in a row, instigator extraordinaire, and currently signed to play with Dallas.

All bits of information I don’tneedto know—probablyshouldn’tknow.

But once upon a time I’d severely crushed on the left winger and read every article or post about him. Embarrassingly followed his social media and saved ridiculous edits of him fans made on social media.

And yet shockingly, I had no idea he’d needed tutoring help, let alone inmydepartment.

“Did he pass Sumnter, at least?” I ask, flipping through the stack of biology tests quickly, barely holding in a wince at the harsh red markings.

“Nope.” Rodger sits back at the table, sipping on his iced black coffee that I’m tempted to steal from his grip. “But he’s gonna have Tinley this time around.”

Dr. Carmen Tinley, our College of Science and Mathematics tutoring department supervisor, as well as the woman we are all desperate to impress for a spot on her graduate cohort for advanced biomedical sciences. She takes on the three highest performing students for the spring semester of her intensive program, and there are seven of us competing for the spot.

Beyond that, there’s a part of me that idolizes her. She’s one of only two women who teach within my major, and she’s friendly with her students—different from Dr. Khabra, who is reserved and often brutal in her grading and teaching practices. Where students are scared—albeit impressed—by Khabra’s brilliance, Tinley is approachable and warm.

“C’mon, RoRo,” my maybe-boyfriend whispers into my ear, dropping his voice. “Do this for us, and I’ll let us try something off the list tonight, yeah?”

My cheeks heat.

It’s stupid now, how easily he dangles the carrot—how much he knows that I want to cross another item off my Sexy College Bucket List that has sat abandoned for years now.

I almost threw it away a few times, but the sentimentality of it—remembering how Sadie and I became friends over cheap boxed wine, writing everything I’d ever wanted to do but never said aloud onto the foam board, using her dark lipstick collection to leave kiss prints all over the white. Remembering how Tyler and I giggled under cool floral sheets as we held each other’s sweaty palms and checked off “lose my virginity” together a year ago, before he covered my body with his in my twin bed and made me feel like something precious.

Remembering how his promises to help me check off each item slowly turned to taunts and jokes.

Remembering how that list has sat, collecting dust for the last year, half empty.

Just like me.

“Off my list?” I can’t keep the wonder out of my voice.

He huffs into my neck. “Yeah, babe. Anything you want.” It’s all teasing, a little mocking, but I grin and bear it because the truth is I really, really want to try it.

“O-okay.”

“So you’re back together then?”

I shrug, feeling Sadie’s words drop like a weight into my stomach. “I mean, technically we never broke up, I guess.”

It’s just after 3 p.m. on a Thursday inside Brew Haven, the coffee shop off campus we both work at part-time, as I help Sadie close, her brothers playing games on my iPad while we clean up. She seems a little more tense than she usually does, but I know things are harder for her now that she’s meeting with the lawyer she hired to gain custody of her brothers.

“That’s bullshit,” she spits, causing Liam to burst into a fit of giggles.

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