Page 6 of The One That Ran Away
The first time I became aware of Jess’s existence was when I knocked on the last door on the third floor. Her roommate answered.
Jess leaned back in her seat. I had never seen a girl’s eyes grow so wide.
She had long hair back then. Long, straight, and desirously feminine. Her blouse put all the attention on her large breasts and generous cleavage. She had the bluest eyes I had ever seen.
I saw all of that from the doorway. I brushed off the shiver on my shoulders as a chill coming through the cracks in the emergency exit.
Jess should’ve been another face in my dorm. Maybe a friendly face, usually a pretty face, and always a face I, the dorm council leader, was expected to recognize after seeing it. Regardless, she was another face. Another sophomore I would never have a class with. We had nothing in common besides living in the same dorm.
Yet I ended up remembering her because of one fact: she and her roommate were one of the only ones to show up to the party down in the basement. She kicked my ass at DDR.
She was always looking in my direction whenever I happened to glance at her. You don’t forget a girl who does that.
***
Shannon awoke half past midnight. Decks was curled up at her feet, his tongue painting a vivid picture against his fur as he gave himself the bath of the year.Why did I have to dream about her?Shannon slowly pushed herself up. She had never changed out of her clothes. She often wondered what the point was when nobody was around to care, anyway.
Andrew often cared. He was always the first to point out that his girlfriend hadn’t changed her shirt in two days or washed her hair in three.He’s why I cut it shorter.Jess had shorter hair now. She had cut it junior year, although it was shorter now.
What are the odds…
Shannon was still hung up on that as she stumbled into her bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush. Her comb had been left on the edge of the sink earlier that day, forgotten when she was in a rush to meet a client.Surprised Decks didn’t knock it off.Shannon put it away while she brushed her teeth. It took her a few seconds to realize she had never thrown away Andrew’s toothbrush.
Andrew.
Jess.
Two sides of the same ass-eating coin.
Shannon attempted to not overanalyze it. Just because Andrew had left her and not three weeks later she bumps into Jess in her neighborhood…
“Fuck!” She tossed her toothbrush into the sink and spat out the toothpaste. While the water ran from the tap, she splashed some much-needed clarity onto her face. She also needed a shower, because sleeping in the clothes she had been wearing all day ensured that she smelled worse than Decks’s breath.
The hot water wasn’t as refreshing as Shannon hoped. Didn’t help that she found more of Andrew’s crap in the shower, each item prompting her to pull aside the curtain to dump something into the trash. The bastard didn’t deserve to take up the precious space he wouldn’t be using anymore. God knew Shannon needed the room to stew in her thoughts, like she desired to stew in the hot water.
He touched you.
She touched you.
Two sides of the same coin.
She couldn’t get that surprising image of Jess out of her head. Cropped brown hair that showed off her lovely cheekbones and the blues of her sapphire-like eyes. Red plaid that accentuated her tomboyish personality and begged every woman in the room to look in her direction. Tight, black leggings.Really tight…
Shannon hadn’t stuck around to say more than that garbled mess to come out of her mouth. She had been too shocked to say hello, let alone to a woman clearly on a date with her girlfriend.
The past wasn’t supposed to come back to bite her in the ass like that. The past didn’t matter, after all. She had done things. Believed in falsehoods. Grown and matured until she was a damn adult and no longer the idealistic go-getter of her youth.
Instead, I’m the most neurotic bitch in the room.She was good at hiding it. Clients left reviews praising her prompt arrivals, professional demeanor, and the friendly atmosphere she promoted whenever she did a custom shoot. Her friends kissed her in greeting and asked her for her expert opinion on their lives. Her family had been shocked to hear she considered getting a therapist.“Why do you need one of those? You’re not depressed!”Bullshit words from her bullshit mother.
Only three people had ever been able to see through her façade. Boyfriend Andrew, best friend Kelsey… and Jess. For some reason, Jess had been so good at reading Shannon that it threw her for a loop the first time a girl she barely knew dropped so many truths about her personality. Eerie. Bizarre. Disconcerting.
Yeah, that explained most of Shannon’s twenties.
She texted Kelsey, the only person to remain a constant in her life since college.“You won’t believe who I bumped into at the teashop…”Shannon began, although she quickly deleted the message and put her phone away. No. Back to bed she would go. Hopefully, after a night’s sleep and some much-needed rest, she would have a clear head. She could convince herself that she never saw Jess. A dream. The woman had been a dream sent from the depths of hell.
So… a nightmare.
That was somehow fitting for the woman who made Shannon doubt everything she thought was true… including her own sexuality.
