Page 46 of Hard Rock Love
“No,” I said tightly. “I didn’t know who they were.”
“They seemed to recognize you,” Seth continued.
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m sort of infamous at this point.” I looked up to find him with his head tilted to the side, watching me. “You really haven’t heard, have you? It’s been all over campus.”
“What has?”
I inhaled a shaky breath. “Gossip about me.”
“I don’t listen to gossip,” Seth said with a hand wave. “I barely even talk to the other students. I don’t have time for chit-chat.”
“I wish everyone was more like you.”
Seth’s brows drew down into a frown.
“Are people saying things about you?” he asked.
My mouth trembled. I nodded silently.
Seth came over to the other side of the counter and put a hand on my arm. He stepped close. Close enough I could feel his body heat. I peeked up to find him looking down at me, concerned.
“You shouldn’t listen to what people say,” he said. “Most people are idiots. I should know, I’m one of them.”
I huffed out a laugh.
“You're not an idiot,” I said.
“If people are spreading lies about you, that makes them idiots,” he repeated. “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met.”
I wrapped my arms around my stomach and turned away from him.
“I guess you’re going to hear about it sooner or later,” I said.
Seth put both hands on my shoulders. His thumbs brushed the skin of my neck. He rubbed those thumbs back and forth in a soothing motion. The sensation made every nerve in my body pulse and throb.
“I want to help make you feel better, but I don’t know how,” he said.
“There’s nothing that will make this better.”
“Will it help if you talk about it?”
The last thing I wanted was for Seth to find out what horrible things people were whispering about me. It wasn’t so much that I was embarrassed about the lies. It was the kernel of true hidden inside them that hurt me the most.
But I’d been agonizing and fuming over it for months. Maybe it would help to get it out of my chest.
“When I first started college, I was focused on my studies,” I started. “I didn’t really take part in any social events. But I’d joined a study group and some of them invited me to a party. I thought, I’d been working so hard, what’s the harm of going to one party and letting loose for a night?”
Seth’s hands tightened on my shoulders. He pressed himself against my back, but didn’t say anything.
“It was the first frat party I’d ever attended. I stuck around my study group friends, but they eventually paired off and disappeared. I was sort of hanging out alone in one of the corners. And then a couple of random drunk guys started coming on to me. Despite how persistent they were, I kept on saying no. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with that kind of thing, so I shot them down again and again. They were pissed at being rejected. Really pissed. I got kind of scared, thinking they might cause a scene in the middle of the party. Eventually they went away, and I was relieved. But the next day, the rumors started. They had told people I’d slept with both of them. That I’d done it with both of them at the same time. Their fragile masculine egos couldn’t take being rejected so they made up lies.”
Seth’s fingers dug into my shoulders so hard it almost hurt. I could feel him shaking with fury.
“But that wasn’t the worst part.” My voice turned small, barely audible. “If they just slut-shamed me, that would have hurt, but I could have ignored it. I knew it wasn’t true. The worst was that…”
I swallowed, eyes stinging. This was what I didn’t want to tell Seth. This was the part that was the most embarrassing, the most humiliating.
“They said they only did it because they felt sorry for me. They said I was such a loser no one else was interested in me. They said I’d been so desperate, throwing myself at them, and they thought they’d do me a favor because I was probably desperate to lose my virginity and no one else would do it.”
