It takes me a second to realize she means like in a sexual assault kind of way. “No,” I shake my head, but my heart is cussing me for a liar. Demanding that I not reduce what it went through. “Not like you mean, but yeah. Um, I thought it was more than it was…more than friendship. Turns out he had a girlfriend in Colorado, where he was from. And he went back to her and that was that.”
And I deleted every text and voicemail he left afterwards because I couldn’t stand the pain.
“What a dick,” Corin proclaims, and with three words she’s the best friend I’ve ever had.
I can’t help but laugh at the outrage on her face. “There’s maybe a little more to it than that. But I don’t even know all the details for certain, and it’s exhausting to think about. I just can’t believe he’shere.”
“Oh shit. Do you think he might be stalking you or something?” Her eyes widen almost impossibly. “Should we tell someone?”
Sighing, I glance up at the ceiling. “Um no, I don’t think so. I think he might have failed to apply to any other schools besides this one and UGA, where we were supposed to go together so…”
“So here you are, both of you.” She grins, an impish little smirk sneaking across her face, and I don’t like where this is going. “It’s like fate or something.”
“No.” I cut her off with a shake of my head. “Not fate.” Or maybe it is. Fate and I have never been friends.
“Fine. I don’t really believe in any of that anyway. But at the very least maybe you guys could talk, and he could explain why he went back with that other girl—”
“No.”
“Okay, well, it’s kind of a small campus and—”
“Corin.”
“Okay, okay,” she says, holding her hands up in submission. “But can I ask one more question?”
Huffing out a breath, I lean back into the white and silver pillows on my bed. “If you must.”
“Did he, I mean…is hethe one?”
“The one what?”
“You know, the one. The one who took your v-card.”
“Oh my God, no. I’m still carrying that particular card, thank you very much.” I roll my eyes up to the ceiling, wondering if that would still be true if Landen had stayed. If I’d never met Danni.
She mercifully ignores the fact that I’m probably the only virgin on campus. “Well, was he like your first kiss or something? Cause I gotta tell you, the way you ran out of there…”
She doesn’t say anything else and neither do I. The silence stretches out long and awkward between us.
Corin is from New York. She’s got tattoos all up her back. I saw them when she was changing for bed last night. And I saw the economy-sized box of condoms she had in her dresser when we unpacked. Now there’s a girl who’s lived. She is most likely not a virgin. And I’m about to tell her I’ve never even been kissed. She’s kind of high-strung—I’m almost worried she’ll die of shock and that I should keep this to myself for her safety.
“Layla?” My eyes are closed, and I’m wondering if I can pretend I’ve dozed off. I feel drained enough to make it a reality. “Layla Flaherty, roommate of mine, at the very least you are going to give me some juicy details about making out with that beautiful hunk of man meat.”
I swallow hard and give my head a small shake. “Can’t.”
“You guys never even kissed? Seriously?” I don’t have to look over to know her thin, perfectly arched eyebrows are ascending into her hairline about now. “Wow. But he looked so—”
“I’ve never been kissed. By him or anyone.” There you go—commence freak out.
Corin doesn’t disappoint. She jumps up, slamming her head into a shelf above her bed, knocking several pictures down. I glance over to see her rubbing her head and glaring at the shelf like it attacked her. And then she’s looking at me like I just told her I was raised by little green one-eyed men on planet Cyclops. “You’re like a…”
Loser?
“Unicorn,” Corin finishes, catching me off guard.
“What?”
“Layla, holy hell. You’re eighteen, gorgeous, and no guy has ever kissed you? It’s not even…I mean, it doesn’t even make logical sense. Especially since classes haven’t even started and a ridiculously hot guy looked more than ready to climb over an entire marching band to get to you.”