Page 138 of Freshmeet
“Northeast is an honors college,” I said, my mouth spewing nonsense before my brain caught up. My parents had begged me to at least go to Washington University, but choosing the small liberal arts college had been my rebellion. I didn’t like this maniac judging my attempts at freedom.
Carter laughed, morphing into that charming asshole I’d taken to formal. “You really do love slumming it.”
My face heated, but I bit my cheek to keep from saying something that would make him stabby.
He shook his head, standing up to casually inspect the various knick-knacks and pieces of art Britta and I had decorated Frattic with. “Remember your first boyfriend, Liam?”
The boy I’d lost my virginity to senior year of high school. He never called me after that night, marking the beginning of a short list of dating attempts that ended before they ever truly began.
“Yes,” I whispered, my fingernails digging into my thighs.
His blue eyes narrowed, his smile twisting into something more menacing. “You let that bag boy fuck you on prom night. What a fucking cliché,” he scoffed.
A cold fear settled in me. “What did you do?”
“You catch on quick.” Carter grinned. “To him? Nothing. All it took was a thousand dollars, and he moved on to the next rich girl with low standards. Now, your next two boyfriends took a little more effort to get rid of.”
Brian and Sean. Brian broke up with me after he failed out of freshman year, and Sean broke up with me after he got in a car accident and transferred to a school closer to home.
“You did that?”
He nodded. “And it was worth it. I had you all to myself for a year, and then you invited me to formal. Do you have any idea how fucking happy I was?”
My heart raced. This guy was honestly delusional. He never had me. The only reason I even invited him to formal was because Olivia’s boyfriend, Michael, asked me to. Carter represented everything my parents wanted me to date, which made him totally undatable in my eyes.
Clearly, my instincts to avoid him weren’t wrong.
Carter rounded the coffee table and sat on the edge, putting him and his knife just a foot away from me. “You looked so beautiful that night.” He shut his eyes as if he were drawing up the memory. “I thought our time had finally come, but nope. I waited for you to come around, but that never happened, so I took the initiative and asked you out for Valentine’s Day.”
“And I said no,” I muttered. It hadn’t felt that serious when he asked me, but now I was seeing our entire friendship differently. The way he was always around at parties, always wanting to partner up for beer pong. He’d been playing a long game.
“That you did, which is fine, whatever. I figured it would take a while to wear you down. While I waited for you, I had to endure Emma constantly in my ear, talking shit about you. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Emma was an accident. She-she fell.”
His lips spread into a toothy, bloody grin. “I gave her a hand.”
I leaned away from him in horror.
“After that, I felt so much better. I didn’t have to hear her constant complaining, and I could focus on you again.”
At the time, I’d brushed it all off as a little crush, but now it was clear I’d been writing a lot off as basic pushy guy behavior.
“Then you met Connor.” He barked out a laugh. “My own fucking brother.”
“Wait, what?”
Carter rested his chin on his knuckles. “Don’t you see the similarities?” He batted his eyelashes. “We both take after our dad.”
Sure enough, the familiarity I’d felt meeting Connor was written all over Carter’s handsome face. Same eyes, nose, and wide smile. Of course, Carter was missing Connor’s dimples, warmth, and soul.
“Do you know how much it hurt to see you with him?” He caught my hand in his free one and squeezed until he’d cut off the blood flow to my fingers. “Imagining you whoring yourself out to that piece of shit? His cunt of a mother nearly ruined my family, and you picked him over me.” He let out a humorless laugh. “I kind of snapped on the way home from that party and found out how good it felt to sink my knife into someone.”
“My hand,” I whimpered, and he dropped it. Holding it to my chest, I subtly glanced around the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. On the side table was one of the little pepper sprays the school had given out.
If I can spray him, maybe I can get to the door.
“I’ll admit, things got a little out of control from there,” he said as he stood, creating some distance between us. “The calm from killing those townies didn’t last, so I started hooking up with Hailey, hoping to distract myself until I could dealwith Connor. Too bad she and Emma were cut from the same annoying-ass cloth.”
