Love Me For Me Read online

  “Now, tell me what a Doric column is, and why I should care about it.”

  I watched as her eyes scanned the book—she was apparently absorbed in her task, my refusal forgotten.

  My fingers found their way into the lock of hair that hung loose from my ponytail. I worried the strands as I studied Kaylee through the flaxen curtain.

  I knew that she truly wasn’t mad at me for not wanting to go to some party with her. Yet, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d disappointed her somehow.

  Hell, I’d disappointed myself. I wished that I could go, that I could wade into the thick of tipsy bodies, let go and just have fun.

  I couldn’t. There was no use ruminating on that fact. Swallowing hard, I tugged at her textbook and danced my fingers over the illustration that she was looking at. I’d studied it the semester before.

  “Okay. Let’s get to work.”

  ***

  It was after ten when Kaylee and I made our way back to our shoe box of a dorm room. We’d studied until the library closed, or rather, Kaylee had freaked out over her impending exam, and I had helped her cram.

  “I’m going to grab a shower.” Quickly stripping, she tied her robe at the waist, slid her feet into her rubber flip flops and grabbed her towel and shower caddy.

  I nodded as she left, envying her confidence. I didn’t have a bad figure, now that I’d started to take care of myself again, but I’d never be confident enough to strut down the hall of the dorm in nothing but my robe. I refused to even change in front of Kaylee, unless I had no choice. Even then I made sure to keep my upper arms covered.

  Huffing out a breath, I stretched out on the plain navy spread of my bed and opened The Portrait of a Lady, highlighter in hand. Now that Kaylee felt she was set for her exam, maybe I could get some of my own work done.

  At my elbow, my phone vibrated. I reached for it absently, my eyebrows raising when I saw that not only was a call incoming, but I’d missed one somewhere in the last half hour.

  My heart sank when I saw who it was. I considered ignoring it, but I knew that she’d just call back.

  “Hi, Felicity.” Rolling onto my back, I tugged the elastic out of my hair and spread the entire length of it up and over my face. I could see nothing but pale gold, the thick strands blocking out the world.

  “Serena Jane, why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

  I stifled a sigh. For my mom, there was no excuse to not answer her call. If I told her the truth—that I simply hadn’t noticed it ring—she wouldn’t believe me and I’d be on the receiving end of a lecture about lying.

  “And when are you going to get over this phase of calling me by my first name? It’s not respectful.”

  “Sorry.” I didn’t have anything to be sorry for, but it was best to simply say the words so that things could go on.

  As for calling her by her first name, I knew that it would never change. I’d started years earlier, when I’d tried to tell her something, something important, and she hadn’t wanted to hear it.

  In my mind, she’d lost the right to the title.

  Felicity took the apology as her due and began to tell me about all of the things that she felt I should know and that I didn’t care about. The neighbours had planted a crab apple tree. One of my high school teachers had moved to another school. Bob, her husband, had volunteered to coach the mixed teen softball league, and wasn’t that great?

  I sat up at the latter, my fingers snarling painfully in my hair as I brushed it away from my skin.

  “Why is he doing that? He plays in his own league. Isn’t that enough?” I cried out. My heart gave one large, painful thump before settling in a staccato rhythm.

  On the other end of the line Felicity sniffed, and I knew that she didn’t appreciate being interrupted.

  “The former coach quit without notice. There was an article in the paper, about how the team wouldn’t be able to participate in the league if someone didn’t step in. Bob’s so busy, but he has a good heart, and he couldn’t resist.”

  Helping out wasn’t what he couldn’t resist, and I knew it. Grinding my teeth together, I felt my free hand clench into a tense fist, my nails scoring my skin.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” My voice sounded surprisingly calm, but it was a calm that I didn’t feel. Inside I was raging, screaming silently though no one could hear.

  The silence was short, but thick with tension.

  “Serena, I don’t want to hear this.” Felicity’s voice was sharp, and the conviction in it was like a knife slicing through my skin. “You’ve always had a problem with Bob, but he’s never been anything but kind to you. He forgave you when you made up that horrific story about him in high school, and I can’t tell you how hurt he was over that.”

  I didn’t reply. We’d gone over this more times that I could count. I no longer tried to convince her of my side of it, but neither would I retract what I knew to be true.

  “It’s time to let it go,” she said, anger coloring her words crimson.

  I felt like I should cry, but all of my tears had been shed long ago. When my lip trembled I bit into it, hard enough that I could taste the salty copper of blood.

  “I’m hanging up now,” I bit out. Felicity’s exasperated sigh was the last thing I heard as I hung up. Tossing the phone onto my pillows, I swung my legs over the side of the bed, planted my feet on the floor, and stared silently at the wall beside Kaylee’s bed.

  None of this was anything new, but that didn’t mean it affected me any less.

  I stayed like that for a long moment, trying to lock down my emotions. I’d had years of practice, and so when I finally stood and exchanged my jeans, my flannel shirt and tank for the shorts and oversized T-shirt that I slept in, I felt as though I was made of stone.

  Heavy. Cold.

  Shivering, I slid beneath the covers of my bed, plugging my phone into the charger on my tiny bedside table. The clock readout before it went to sleep told me that it wasn’t yet eleven, but battling with my mother always drained me.

  The room was dim when Kaylee came back from her shower. I could smell the strawberry and champagne body wash that she used and could see tendrils of steam rising from her skin as she slipped into her own pajamas.

  I lay silent, pretending to be asleep until she climbed into her own bed. I waited until her breathing told me that she was close to falling asleep, timing my words so that she wouldn’t make a big deal out of them, wouldn’t demand an explanation.

  “Are you still going to that frat party tomorrow night?” My whisper was loud in the silent room. She murmured a sleepy affirmative.

  I felt my pulse skitter. Once I said it, she’d never let me renege. But the feelings that my unnamed American Lit study partner had aroused in me, and Felicity’s own words, had startled a need for change into me.

  My mother was right. It was time to let go, but not in the way she meant.

  “I’ll go with you.” I wasn’t sure that Kaylee even heard me, but that didn’t really matter.

  I knew that I’d said it. And I wanted to follow through.

  Chapter Two

  I taught yoga in the Student Union building, one hour sessions, three times a week. It didn’t pay much, but it added enough to my scholarship funds that I could buy lunch occasionally and not stress about it.

  Some days the class was packed, and those were the days I liked the least. I was getting paid to do something I loved, true, but having all of those expectant eyes on me, looking to me to lead the way, intimidated me to no end.

  I was barely capable of running my own life. I wasn’t someone to be followed.

  Friday afternoons tended to be smaller, and I was glad of that as I ran from my last class to the room where the yoga session was held. Kaylee was ecstatic about my decision to attend what she called ‘my first real college party,’ but I was tied in knots.

  A roomful of people staring at me would send me over the edge, so I was relieved to find just one student wai
ting outside the locked door.

  “Hi, Maddy.” I smiled, a real one, as I pulled the key out of my jeans pocket. The student waiting for me was a friend of Kaylee’s who showed up at least once a week. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a braid, which let me see the tattoos peeking out the neckline of her shirt.

  Her ink reminded me of his, so seemingly uncharacteristic.

  And, if I had to admit it, on him it was sexy as hell. Not that it mattered, because he hadn’t even told me his name.

  Maddy was already dressed for class, so I used the jury rigged change room—a curtain stretched across a corner— to slip from my jeans into yoga pants and a loose, long-sleeved grey T-shirt. When I emerged Maddy was still the only one there.

  “Looks like it’s just us.” This suited me just fine, but when I smiled at the other woman she simply nodded, her movement jerky.

  “Right. Well. Let’s do this shit,” Maddy said abruptly.

  I froze, slightly taken aback at her abruptness as she dropped down to the neon green mat she’d already laid out in the centre of the room. When she looked back up at me I pretended I hadn’t been staring and slowly knelt onto my own mat, which was a utilitarian blue and looked dull next to Maddy’s vivid neon flowers.

  “All right. The theme of today’s class is core strength. This refers to both the physical and emotional parts of our being.” Sitting back on my heels, I widened my knees and bent until my forehead touched the mat, stretching my arms out above my head. I inhaled, then slowly let the air out, trying to let the stress and nerves out with it.

  “When you’re ready, we’ll take it into child’s pose.”

  The nerves wouldn’t go.

  I needed them to.

  “Since it’s just the two of us, and I know you can handle it, I’m going to push things today. Okay?” I lifted my head just long enough to look at Maddy and catch her terse nod. We moved in synchronization into downward facing dog, warming our muscles, and I caught another look that seemed off from her.

  I shook it off. I was probably imagining it. Heaven knew I was in a weird head space. I’d spent the last week obsessing about some stranger whose name I didn’t even know, and that night I was going to try to be a normal college student, something I wasn’t sure I believed was possible.

  I took Maddy through a few more basic yoga postures, ones that I knew she could handle and that were second nature to me. My problems were starting to recede, but I needed more. I need my body to ache, my muscles to quiver, my entire being to be focused on what I was doing and nothing else.

  “Let’s try the crow pose,” I suggested. I heard Maddy suck in a breath, but deliberately didn’t look at her. The crow pose was a difficult arm balance, one I was pretty sure she’d never tried before, but I thought she could handle it.

  “Whenever you’re ready.” Dropping to a squat, I leaned forward slowly, pressing my palms flat to the floor. Inhaling deeply, I moved my weight to rest on my hands, slowly lifting my legs off the ground while keeping the squatting position.

  My body trembled, but I held, and I felt a surge of triumph as I did. It had taken me a long time to become strong enough to hold postures like this, a long time to overcome the extra weight and lack of wellbeing with which I had deliberately surrounded myself in my teens.

  Being able to do this on command now was a triumph, one that I never took for granted.

  I held the posture until my body shook, sneaking glances at my student along the way. She was in the posture, but looked like she was about to wobble out of control.

  Lowering myself back to my feet, I stood and made my way to her. I pressed a hand to the base of her spine and to the flat of her belly, my intention to guide her positioning, something that was common enough in a yoga class.

  Though she said nothing, her body jerked in what seemed to be irritation, landing her back on her knees. I might have been imagining it, but I thought I saw a flicker of hostility in her eyes, followed by uncertainty.

  I was taken aback, and leaned away, holding up my hands.

  “Sorry.” I wasn’t going to protest—I of all people was sensitive to other people’s aversion to being touched. “I was just trying to help you position your spine. It will help you into the posture, and from there you can work on your breathing.”

  Maddy looked up, looked right at me for a moment, and there was that hint of hostility again, but with it was a healthy dose of curiosity. I thought it was strange, given that Maddy was usually so friendly and that we normally had a good rapport, but still wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  After an uneasy moment in which we simply stared at one another, she nodded jerkily, as if she had made up her mind about something.

  “All right.” Her voice was still tight, but she nodded, assenting to my touch. “Again.”

  I let her move into the posture, and only when she seemed somewhat sturdy did I adjust. Gratification washed over me when a grim smile creased her lips and her breath began to calm.

  I moved back to my own mat, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand. I lay down and relaxed into corpse pose, the way that every class ended. I heard the movement when Maddy did the same, and again when she rose and began to gather her things.

  I took longer, not sure what to make of her behaviour during class. When I finally rose and began to roll up my own mat, I found her standing at the door, a long black pea coat over her yoga gear, her hands stuffed into her pockets.

  “Thanks.” That was all she said before she left the room, and I found myself staring after her, puzzled, as I chugged from my water bottle.

  Something was on her mind, and though I couldn’t have been sure, instinct told me it had something to do with me. I frowned as my mind instantly tried to take me back to the time when I had acted out in, what I now knew, was a plea for my mother to sit up and see what the hell was going on in my world.

  Trying to hold on to the peace from my workout, I shook it off, then grabbed my own coat, a faded denim one that Kaylee threatened to burn at regular intervals.

  Whatever was going on with Maddy, it was her problem and probably had nothing to do with me anyway. I might have been forced to learn survival lessons at far too young an age, but they would serve me well now.

  Take care of myself. In the end, that was really all I could do.

  ***

  “Ohmigod.” I stood at the edge of the Deke house grounds with Kaylee, my feet frozen in place as I stared at the scene before me.

  The house was yellow, and was guarded by two stone lions, one of whom was missing an ear. Okay, that was fine. I could handle that. A table was set up along the stone walkway, and two guys in their letters, guys cute enough that I could already see Kaylee sizing them up, were taking cover charge. The fact that only the men were charged—the girls got in for free—was somewhat unnerving, but still... I thought I could handle it.

  The crush of people on the front porch, most of whom were holding red plastic cups, talking, laughing, was more worrisome.

  What would I do if a person pressed against me in the crowd? If a stray hand brushed me where I didn’t want it? Would I scream? Would I freeze up?

  Closing my eyes, I ground my teeth together while counting down from ten in my head. When I opened them again, I found Kaylee’s caramel eyes, outlined in vivid blue liner, assessing me empathetically.

  “Serena, it’s just a party, okay?” Her voice was gentle, but I could see from the press of her lips together that she was trying to give me some tough love. “Just... just try to relax a bit, okay?”

  I bit back the retort that was at the end of my tongue. Easy for her, I wanted to say. Easy for her, when she had no idea what lurked in my past.

  But she had a point. If I wanted to break free of these chains that bound me, I needed to do it wholeheartedly.

  “All right.” Finally I nodded, just the slightest jerk of my head. “Let’s get this over with.” A breeze raised the chill bumps on my arms, and I hugged them to my chest, missing t
he warmth of my flannel shirt.

  I’d flatly refused the little purple dress that Kaylee had pulled from her closet and tried to get me into. She’d shrugged and put it on herself. She’d watched critically as I’d added mascara and a nude lip gloss, then pronounced myself ready.

  I’d protested when she’d tried to tug my flannel shirt from my torso. After I’d all but stomped my foot, she’d rolled her eyes and allowed me to keep the jeans and the ribbed black tank top, but had pulled a sheer, cropped cardigan from her closet. Since I deliberately hid my upper arms at all times, I’d waited until her back was turned, then had slid off the flannel and put on the cardigan. She’d squealed with delight and added a matching pair of hoop earrings, claiming the turquoise made my eyes “pop.”

  Now, as we walked up to the house, I felt naked all over again, with the eyes of frat boys assessing Kaylee and myself—mostly Kaylee.

  “Don’t sound too excited.” My roommate’s voice was dry, and she arched an eyebrow at me. I bit my lip in return. I knew I was being a spoilsport. I just didn’t know how to act any differently.

  Trying to make a joke of it, I scowled overdramatically. “I’m supposed to be excited? Isn’t this just an elaborate mating ritual in disguise?” I gestured with my head to the couple that occupied the sagging, faded red couch on the porch. She was straddling his lap, his hand was up her skirt, and they ground their pelvises together while slobbering wetly.

  Kaylee grinned. “Totally. That’s why we’re here.” Then, like a steamboat that I was chained to, she pulled me through the door and into the crowd so quickly that I didn’t even have time to panic.

  She didn’t stop until we were at a table manned by more guys in Greek letters. They were ladling something neon red that smelled vaguely like fruit into those red plastic cups that everyone had.

  “We’ll get you a drink. One of these and you’ll relax.” Kaylee shouted over the music, raising her hands in the air and doing a little shimmy. One of the frat boys hooted, and she winked at him saucily.