"He's a hobbit."

"Yeah. My precious, right?"

I flipped her the bird.

In early March, when the migrant birds spread their wings for home, Caleb started dating a Barbie doll. Her name was Jessica Alexander. She was a transfer student from Las Vegas, where she worked as a professional dancer in the Toni Braxton show. Her legs were endlessly long, her hair impossibly blonde, and it was widely rumored that her parents were the heirs to the Oscar Myer hotdog fortune. I stopped eating hot dogs and convinced myself that he would become bored with her, like he had with all the others. Blonde's never had much brain activity going on anyway. It was just a matter of biding my time, looking hot and being available when the right moment presented itself.

My theory crumbled when the school paper issued its February cover story. I found Jim reading a copy at the cafe where I was meeting him for a latte. Jessica's face was smiling up at me from the front page where a bold caption read, "Beauty and the Books." I s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from his hands and stared at the article with my mouth twisted in a jealous pout.

"She has the highest GPA in her major?" My stomach felt sour. "What's her major? Pre-Polka Dots?"

Jim laughed, flicked a cigarette out of its carton and struck a match all in one cool movement.

"Actually, it's Pre-Law. She's one of yours and obviously doing better than you at it."

I felt my mouth go dry.

"Why haven't I seen her in any of my cla.s.ses?" I shot back, scanning the article to see if it was true.

"Maybe she's already taken the cla.s.ses you're in. Maybe she skipped them because she's so smart." I grunted and took a swig of his coffee. This was a monkey wrench. I mean-wasn't it enough that she had her sausage money coming to her? She had to take Caleb and a stellar GPA all in one sweep? If he was going to date a smart girl, it should be me. It should be me!

He wanted me and I turned him away because prude ran thick in my veins.

I decided to befriend the enemy. Breaking into Jessica's cabbage patch of friends was the only way I was going to be able to cause trouble. She had to like me. I began an observation of Jessica's group of girlfriends that stuck to her like denture paste. They were impossibly friendly, but without the true loyalty of a Cammie. I coined them 'priends' (pretend friends). They bonded by shopping and threw the word 'like' into every sentence. "It's, like, so cool to shop with you. You, like, know my style so well." "You have, like, the best hair." "When Brad broke up with me, you were, like, sooo my support system".

Jessica lived just a few doors down from me and I began smiling at her as we pa.s.sed each other in the hallway. Gradually, I moved on to a polite 'h.e.l.lo.' Being popular, she responded gla.s.sy eyed and with a small smile that tugged automatically at the corners of her mouth. A few weeks in, she began noticing me-waving at first, then one day telling me she liked my shoes. I learned that pretty girls tend to notice other pretty girls, if only to size up their compet.i.tion. I was somewhat proud that I had drawn the eyes of such a figurine of beauty. If she was noticing me, maybe her boyfriend was too.

Our first official chat came one afternoon, as I was in the campus laundry room. I had just collected my clean clothes from the dryer when she arrived with a basket full of her dirties. Seeing this as a kind act of fate, I dumped my neatly folded load back into the washing machine and started a conversation that went something like this....

"Watch out for that machine, it destroyed my Channel pajama's last week." She looked up, eyes big, her hand poised over the open washer. Of course, I didn't have Channel pajamas, I didn't even know if Channel made pajamas, but if they did, this girl would have a set.

"Were they the new ones? With the silver embroidery on the cuffs?" Bingo. I nodded.

"How awful. I swear this school refuses to spoon out any money for, like, decent amenities."

I poured a capful of blue detergent into the machine and slammed it shut.

"Didn't you, like, move here from Vegas or something?" I asked, as I casually walked over to the soda machine and slid my coins into the slot.

Jessica nodded. "Yea, I, like, needed a change. I came here for a semester to try it out, but then I met my boyfriend and decided to stay."

"Who's your boyfriend?" I jabbed the b.u.t.ton that would give me a c.o.ke and bent at the knees to retrieve it from the bin.

Her face changed when she said his name. I hated her for it.

"Caleb Drake. He's on the basketball team. He's a really cool guy-total gentleman."

Her voice was unbelievably annoying.

"Yeah? That's hard to find, guys now days are such....." I was trying to find the right word, the kind she would use, "stupid jerks," I smiled.

Jessica nodded at me, her graceful eyebrows furrowed. I felt the denture-paste pull. She was accepting me into her "preindship."

"Literally, I'm never letting him go. I'm gonna marry this boy."

I hated it when literally was used for non-literal things. I popped the tab on my soda can and returned her grin.

Over my dead body.... literally.

Florida was wet. The forever blue sky was wearing chunky grey clouds like accessories. It had been like this for a week and I was sick of seeing umbrella's bobbing all over campus. I decided to take my textbook to the student lounge to study. I tucked a few snacks and my reading material into a bag and headed out the door scribbling a note telling Cammie to bring me dinner from the cafeteria.

I took the elevator down a floor and headed west toward the quieter of the two study lounges in my building. The room was dingy and smelled like dirty socks but it was hardly ever occupied and I kind of liked the leftover ambiance of the place. I rounded a corner and saw a familiar blonde head framed in the window. Jessica. I was about to offer my most cheery 'like h.e.l.lo' when I noticed the droopy way she was holding her shoulders. They were crying shoulders. I was very familiar with this scene. I looked around cautiously. Blondes in distress were never alone. There were usually friends, comforting, patting, rea.s.suring...

The hallway was empty. I took a step forward and stopped. Maybe they had broken up. Hope tickled my chest and I swept it away annoyed. There was no use getting ahead of myself.

"Jessica? Are you alright?" I placed a hand on her shoulder and she turned to look at me with wet doe eyes. There was a collection of soggy tissues lining the windowsill. I wondered how long she had been hiding out here.

"Hi," she said weakly, her voice hoa.r.s.e.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

She turned back to the window and dabbed at her nose. She was quiet for a long time and I shuffled my feet wondering if she had forgotten I was there. I was about to say something when she started sobbing.

"I.... sob...think...hiccup-sob...that I'm...gasp-hiccup...pregnant..."

I let the news sink in. She had toned down her crying and was mewling softly into a tissue. I evaluated my position, her position, and his position. Things were looking s.h.i.tty for all of us.

"Okay," I breathed. "Have you told him yet?"

"No."

"Does anyone know?"

She shook her head.

"My...sniff...parents would...disown me and ...I'm so scared of...gasp...losing him."

"Of course." I sounded sympathetic, and part of me actually was. A part so miniscule it made an atom look like a fist.

"What are you going to do?" I plucked the dirty tissues from the sill and tossed them in the trash.

"There's nothing I can do. I....I have an appointment on Sat.u.r.day but I need someone to take me and I don't want to tell any of my friends, you know? I'm still pretty new here. I don't want them to look at me differently." I highly doubted they would. The semester before Jessica arrived two of her closest preinds were rumored to have undergone the same procedure.

"Why don't you tell Caleb? He would understand. I mean he's halfway responsible for Pete's sake."

"Noooo," she grabbed onto my arm and looked at me with her big eyes. "I told him I was on birth control...and I meant to start taking it again, I've just been so busy-school and him... I never thought this would happen. I was so careful about everything. I have no one that I can trust."

She attached herself to me then; arms wrapped around my neck, head face-down on my shoulder. I realized with discomfort that she was hugging me, looking for some kind of consolation. I patted her back the way I would a smelly person and detached myself.

"I'll take you."

"Really?" she wiped away the wetness on her cheeks leaving scars of black mascara. "You would do that?"

"Of course. I'm removed enough from the situation. You won't have to get your friends involved, and Caleb will never have to know."

"It's on Sat.u.r.day at seven," she replied grasping me in hug that was so desperate I flinched. "Thank you so much, Olivia."

Now there was a surprise. After all the talking we did that day while tending to our clothes, she had never once asked my name, not even after I asked hers. Popular girls surmised that everyone knew who they were. Duh! Jessica Alexander. Don't you read the school paper? Jessica had no reason to know my name.

"I don't remember telling you my name," I smiled at her.

"Everyone knows your name. You're the girl Caleb missed the shot for right?" I felt the shock right down to my red painted toe nails. How could I forget my fifteen minutes of fame? My sour run with popularity? I shrank back suddenly feeling self-conscious. That had been a dark, dark time in my life.

"Don't worry, he explained to me about your...inclinations..." The word 'inclinations' rolled off of her tongue like a well sucked lifesaver. It dropped in the middle of us, shouting its scary implications at me... "that you're gay," she buffered, smiling, "any woman that turns Caleb down has to either be a lesbian or crazy. See you Sat.u.r.day."

Touche.

I shuffled back to my room in a daze, considering two options.

One. Caleb, decided the only reason I could reject him was because I was gay. Two. Caleb tells everyone I am a lesbian as revenge for blowing him off. Either way, I was going to have to air my s.e.xuality to clear things up.

Chapter Seven.

The Past I drove a somber Jessica to the clinic Sat.u.r.day morning as scheduled. The day was fittingly dreary and she stared out of the window for most of the ride, making an occasional comment about a store we pa.s.sed or a restaurant Caleb had taken her to. I was wondering if she was capable of talking about anything else other than Caleb when she pointed to a billboard for Calvin Klein and said that Caleb was so much hotter than the guy modeling the underwear. I pictured him in his boxers kicking around in the pool and suddenly got lightheaded. He was. Filthy, girlfriend impregnating, sc.u.mbag.

The clinic was posh, definitely not one of those shady, inner-city places that is tucked away in a storefront. This was where rich girls came to wipe away their indiscretions...Boca Raton style.

The waiting room was stuffed with oversized furniture and framed art. I chose a seat in the far corner and stared intensely at a macrame plant holder while Jessica spoke with the receptionist. She came to sit next to me while she filled out a mound of forms. The scratching of pen on paper was the only sound in the room. Before the nurse took her to the back, she looked over at me with saucer eyes and said...

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?"

A nerve in my eyebrow started twitching. I was simply the driver. I didn't want to be her conscience coach. If I told her 'no' we would walk right out of here, she was looking for a reason to leave, and if I told her 'yes'...well...it made me an accomplice.

I thought of Caleb. He would do the right thing and marry her if she kept the baby. They would probably be divorced within five years. Broken home, broken hearts...me without him. I swallowed hard.

"Absolutely, yes," I said nodding.

She smiled brightly and grabbed my hand.

"Thank you, Olivia." she said squeezing. I pulled my fingers gently away and tucked my hands beneath my purse.

Ohmygosh,ohmygosh,ohmygosh!

She stood to leave and I had the urge to s.n.a.t.c.h her by the hand and run for the car. What was I doing? I could change her mind! She took one step, two, and the moment for goodness pa.s.sed, kidnapping my conscience as it went. The nurse led Jessica through a set of double doors and then she was gone. I felt sick-like all the blood in my veins had turned to vinegar. What had I done? And for what? Him? Did I really plan on using this information to get what I wanted? I rocked back and forth my arms wrapped around my belly.

"Are you okay?" the receptionist asked, peering around the slab of frosted gla.s.s she sat behind.

"Something I ate," I said. She nodded like she understood and pointed me in the direction of the bathroom. I hid in the handicap stall for thirty minutes with my back pressed against the door, convincing my bruised conscience that it was all her choice and I had nothing to do with it. When enough time pa.s.sed I slipped back into the waiting room and took a seat.

I flipped through a couple of magazines and bit away at my nails. One other girl arrived during my tortured time there. She looked to be about sixteen and was escorted by her mother who was hiding behind a pair of dark gla.s.ses. The mother hurried over to the window while her daughter slouched down in a chair and began texting on her phone, her thumbs moving like fast machinery over her keypad. I pulled my eyes away. My mother would have made me keep it. I remember her telling me, "I'll be d.a.m.ned if a daughter of mine walks away from her responsibility. Do it once and you'll do it for the rest of your life." I really missed my mother. Maybe if she were alive, I wouldn't be so rotten.

A nurse approached me an hour later, bending down to say something in those hushed tones that everyone kept using. If we speak softly perhaps we won't draw attention to what is really happening here.

"Jessica is ready. You can pull your car around the back to pick her up."

I flinched. They were sending her away through the rear of the building. Sneaky, like she was bad trash. I rushed out and hopped in my car glad to be rid of the place. A nurse was standing behind Jessica's wheelchair, her hands resting lightly on her shoulders. Jessica was pale as a peeled potato. She smiled when I pulled up-a sort of relieved smile that made me uncomfortable. I jumped out of the car and hurried to open the pa.s.senger side door.

"She is to do no heavy lifting and no exercising for a week," the nurse informed me. I nodded.

"Are you okay?" I asked her as she slid from the chair into my front seat.

She nodded weakly.

I pulled away from the curb with anxiety aggravating my belly.

I had accomplished what I set out to do, and now I needed to get Jessica as far away from me as possible. She made me feel guilt, a luxury I couldn't afford while trying to steal Caleb.

I put the radio on as we eased onto the highway. Jessica spent most of the ride home gazing again out of the window. A part of me wanted to ask what she was feeling, if she was sad or relieved. But the part of me that wanted Caleb, kept my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. This was business, I reminded myself. I wasn't here to make a friend.

When the grey rooftops of the campus came into view, we both breathed a sigh of relief. I parked my car in front of the building and jumped out to open her door.

"Do you need me to help you to your room?"

She shook her head "no" and winced as I helped her from her seat. She was pale and her usually full lips looked limp and timid beneath her running nose. Not the Jessica Alexander that was featured in the school paper less than two months ago. Even her hair was dull and lifeless, hanging in greasy chunks around her face.

She hugged me before shuffling off toward the elevators. I watched her jab at the b.u.t.ton, leaning limply against the wall, hugging her arms around her torso. When the elevator finally arrived, she turned one last time to wave weakly at me before climbing in and disappearing behind the doors. I slumped against my car suddenly feeling exhausted. I decided not to go back to my room. Cammie would be there and when it came to me, she was terribly perceptive. I drove, instead, to a breakfast place a few miles away and seated myself at the bar with a newspaper someone had left discarded outside.

The cover story was on Laura Hilberson and the lack of leads in her case. The detective handling the case was speculating that Laura's disappearance might not have been an abduction and that all evidence was pointing to Laura having purposely disappeared. Her distraught parents were begging someone to come forward with information.

I wished that I had paid better attention to the girl when she shared cla.s.ses with me. Those were my pre-Caleb days, when I hadn't cared a thing about who he was dating and why. She didn't seem like the type of girl who would want to disappear. She was popular and perky, a communications major, according to the paper, who had aspirations of becoming a news anchor. I stared at the grainy picture of her and tried to imagine her sitting behind the anchor desk of the six o'clock news. Now she was on the six o'clock news. I felt sad for her, wherever she was. Something had gone terribly wrong, kidnapped or not, and now it was likely that Laura would never see her dreams come to fruition.

I thought about my own dreams as I bit into my bagel. I wanted to be an attorney and put bad people in prison. Now, I was the bad person because I was plotting and scheming for a stupid boy. I hadn't even thought about my dreams lately. It was like Caleb had rooted out my ambition and replaced it with a l.u.s.ty obsession. G.o.d, I was really going downhill. I finished up my coffee and tossed money on the counter. If this obsession was draining my ambition now, what would happen if I actually got him? Would I be so enraptured with Caleb that I would be satisfied with being his girlfriend and nothing else? That would mean following in my mother's footsteps and she had warned me against falling for a man before accomplishing my dreams.

I was halfway to convincing myself to forsake my Caleb obsession when I arrived back on campus. I parked my car in the student overflow lot and trotted toward my dorm building feeling resolved. I needed to stop this foolishness now before I ruined everything I was working for. As I climbed the stairs, I heard voices echoing from the third floor landing. I slowed when I realized that one of them was Jessica's. She was cooing, talking in that sweet, girly voice that advanced flirters used to charm men. I walked slowly trying to catch as much of what she was saying as I could.

"Not today. I have my...you know..."

I climbed the last few stairs and turned the corner. Jessica was on her tip toes with her arms wrapped around Caleb's neck. They were nose to nose and he was looking down at her adoringly. I stopped abruptly and they both turned to look at me.

"Olivia!" she said sounding embarra.s.sed. "Hi."

"Hi," I said looking at Caleb. He looked right through me-like I wasn't even there. He turned back to face Jessica. Ouch. Jessica was freshly showered with her hair wet and pulled back in a bun. She looked significantly more polished than when I had left her hours ago. It dawned on me then. Caleb must have hinted at s.e.x. Jessica, who had received strict instruction to abstain from hanky-panky for the next fourteen days, was trying to deter him with a story about her period.