Damned if I Do Ya (Damned if I Don't)

I walked through the campus with my things in hand, observing my surroundings closely. Yes, even in college, you still have your typical clichés wandering around every corner. Not that I minded; they were bound to be around everywhere. It’s not so much of a surprise, really. It’s just that when I had originally thought about college, I expected things to be different. Better. Well, they were, but they weren’t what I was intending. Not that this was a bad thing, it was just completely different.

There was Marcie Wayland, Lydia Faulkner, Jocelyn Freeman, Michaela Levesque, and Chloe Miller for starters; they made up the acclaimed five of the twenty-seven members on the dance team. They didn’t have any sort of particular position or anything of the sort that made them any more significant than the others on the dance squad, except that they had made names for themselves. They weren’t as bad as you would expect them to be, though. The cheerleaders, though, that was another story.

Nina Caldera, head cheerleader, and her two best friends, Adriana Deluca and Tara Winze—a.k.a the campus bitches, took the title of the Terrible Three. The rest of the cheerleaders aren’t too terrible, but those three were your typical stereotyped cheerleaders. It was like they never left high school, to be honest. They ruled their old schools, and it seemed as if they were determined to rule this school, too. Of course, it wasn’t working as well as they may have liked, granted, almost every single girl hated them and ignored them completely, but as long as they believed what they wanted and didn’t annoy me, I couldn’t care less about them.

Then came Nick Connelly and Nate Walker, whom, if this was in a high school society, would be your teenage jock heartthrobs, and best friends. In college, they were just heartthrobs and best friends. After them came the group of people who liked to protest anything and everything they claimed was “complete and utter injustice”, after which is the group of kids who refuse to party. Among the student body, it seemed as if no matter where you go, there’s nothing quite different. Oh yeah.

And then there’s Jack Barakat.

Now, me (and most of the student body, if not, all) had the same questions in our head as soon as he enrolled; what was a famous, successful celebrity doing here in college?! And why was he here?! His answer would most likely resemble a “Why not?” or so it would seem. Apparently, according to my understanding, some of the members of the band he was in—All Time Low—were having a bit of family troubles back here at home, so they decided to take about year’s worth of a hiatus from the music business.

Meanwhile, since Jack probably had nothing to do, he decided that, since he had the time, and the money, why wouldn’t he go back to school anyways? My guess was that he wanted to scope out some college girls right at the scene itself. Now, I would understand if he was doing something like mentoring or something of the sort in the music department, but a student? The only reason I could ever think of him doing that instead would be so he wouldn’t get into any sort of trouble with administration about fooling around with the students. No matter, there was still one thing evident here.

Jack Barakat was a student at Towson University.

He’s only been here a few months and already, he had a fan-girl following, not that he didn’t have that before; how could he not? He was cute, funny, charming, entertaining, and seemingly lovable. However, he was also one of the biggest douche bags I’ve ever encountered in my life, and I haven’t even spoken to him one-on-one or face-to-face yet. There was a side of me hoping that I wouldn’t have to, either.

But the other side was a different story. I, like other girls, have hormones that were only controlled to a degree. I admit, that yes, there is a part of me that has a tiny crush on him. Just the fact that he was doing things I despised; having multiple one-night stands and going through girls like tissues, strangely enough, I found that oddly alluring. There was always going to be a small side of me that’s controlled by my hormones that makes me want to wish that I was the one wrapped up in his arms, I was the one with his lips on mine, and that eventually, when the time came, I was the one he’d be leading into his bedroom.

It was so sickeningly low and demeaning, not to mention illogical, it made me sick. I had more morals than that, that’s for sure; I just didn’t know where they went. Of course, there were the rare few girls that believed that he wasn’t worth their time, either, but that was only so much less than a handful of people.

This brings me to Kaysie Goldburg, Sadie Allen, Addie Walker, and Macie Greene—founders and sole members of the unofficial “I Hate Jack Barakat” club. They’re best friends and obviously come together for two reasons; one of them being the fact that they’re all vegans, and the other being that they hate Jack Barakat. The funny thing is that he’s bedded every single one of them. That’s right; he’s slept with every single last one of them. And the irony in it is that somehow, even after being around each other all the time, neither one of them have slipped up in front of each other about their little one-night stand with him.

That, in a nutshell, described the vast majority of the student population here. Among everything lied a contradiction, because it seemed as if nobody could make up their mind about anything. It was actually quite bemusing in my opinion, though I wasn’t about to observe it as if everyone was a lab rat and I was a scientist. That wasn’t going to work very well, for any of us.

I continued my stroll down campus, passing by Jayden Johnson, who, conveniently enough, was none other than my ex-boyfriend. I offered a tiny, thin-lipped smile as I passed by, before looking away. A small side of me regretted breaking up with him without giving him a reason, but it was too hard to speak about at that time. What happened in the past, I had wanted to stay in the past, though that hadn’t exactly happened. I couldn’t ever bring myself to telling him. Instead, I just dumped him for no apparent reason and never spoke much to him ever since.

I wish I could be friends with him again, but the chances of that are slim to none. I highly doubted he’d give me a second chance at any sort of relationship with him, whether it be only a friendship or more, but considering everything said and done, I honestly couldn’t blame him. Not in the slightest. I ruined it because of my inability of a valid explanation, or an explanation at all, for that matter, and no words could describe how horrible I felt about that.

Ironically enough, it seemed as if he couldn’t give a damn about it. The way he pranced his cocky-ass around, you’d think that he dumped me without a second glance. Sometimes, I wondered if he even cared or if he was ever worth my time. He shrugged our whole relationship off without another thought, and even though I knew that I was the one who had done the wrong thing, it still stung.

“Caylie!”

I turned my head, searching for the person who had said it, though I soon spotted a redhead waving frantically at me and I smiled to myself, walking over to her.

“Hey Faith, what’s up?”

Faith Holland was my best friend and roommate. We shared an apartment nearby, splitting the rent in half. She had to leave early to get a few things done before classes started, which is why we were reuniting here at the center of campus. I spotted a familiar magazine, one she knew I detested with every fiber of my being, and yet somehow, she still chose to buy and read it regardless.

“Really, Faye? Cosmopolitan magazine? Seriously? Cosmo Magazine is a fucking sex magazine!” I hissed at her loudly, doubting that anyone was paying any attention to me, even though my voice was probably loud enough for everyone to hear.

“So?!” she exclaimed in the same manner. “And besides, it’s not just a sex magazine,” she muttered under her breath defensively. I rolled my eyes; if every single issue had something sex-related mentioned on the cover, I considered it a sex magazine. Simple as that. And quite frankly, I found them annoying and pointless. I haven’t read one, nor do I plan to, especially not Cosmopolitan.

I looked away, spotting none other than Jack Barakat nearing our direction. He wasn’t coming towards us, most likely, but rather, in our general direction. Faith caught onto this and waggled her eyebrows in a suggestive manner at me. “Maybe it would do you some good to read Cosmo. You might learn a thing or two.”

Once again, I rolled my eyes and scoffed. “Please. You just want to be an expert once you get your turn to hooking up with him,” I shot back.

Another contradiction I noticed was that despite the fact that Faith read this kind of garbage and seemed genuinely interested in it, she still had managed to retain her innocence. I personally had no clue as to why she read this stuff if she wasn’t going to put it to use. Then again, I was glad that she hadn’t used any of it; we both managed to preserve our innocence, and I was hoping to keep it that way for a little while longer. Until there was someone worth our time, I suppose.

“Oh please. Come on, Cay, you know that’s not true. I just like to know this kind of information so when I need to use it, I’ll know exactly what to do. It’s really interesting, believe it or not, and it might help you out a little if you actually begin to read it. You should take a peek at it sometime,” she informed me, holding up the Cosmopolitan magazine in her hands and shaking it slightly for effect.

“Nice try. Keep dreaming.”

Faith huffed and I glanced away. It seemed we were always having this conversation. “So, how was everything out there anyways? Did you get any free food?” I asked her. She laughed at my question; our previous conversation seemed to be forgotten instantly.

“No, no free food, and if there was any, I wouldn’t give you any to start with. So don’t even go there with me. And everything was fine, I really think we’re going to go somewhere with this. It’s really important to me, Caylie. Like, I don’t even know how to tell you exactly how much this thing truly means to me.”

I smiled softly; film and photography was practically her whole life. It was always something she adored, and I was proud of her whenever she managed to accomplish a project, and it seemed that each one, along with her hopes and dreams, kept getting bigger and bigger. Her latest project was her biggest and most time-consuming one yet, though she always managed to keep everything fun and enjoyable.

“Awh.” I pouted. “Not even a peppermint?”

“Not one peppermint.”

I frowned and playfully bumped my elbow into her side. “Ouch! What was that for?”

“For being an idiot.”

Faith shrugged in my direction. “Good enough for me.”

I laughed loudly and pulled her along. “Come on, loser, classes start in a little bit, let’s get a smoothie from the kiosk before it gets crowded and shit.” Faith nodded her head rapidly. She had a sick obsession with smoothies; in fact, that was one of the first ways we bonded when we first became friends. We clicked instantly, it appeared, and it was merely another way to grow the amount of similarities in comparison to the differences we had, and trust me, we had a lot.

We hurried towards the kiosk, getting there before what we liked to call the “Before Class Smoothie Rush”. I grinned at the familiar curly brown-haired girl, her black framed glasses balanced on the bridge of her freckled nose as she handed a guy in front of us his drink. He threw some money in her direction and slipped away from the line. Faith and I stepped forward, taking a quick glance at the menu even though we ordered the same thing every single time.

“Hey Richelle, how’s business flowing lately?” I asked her as she pushed a thick, dark lock from her pale face. She smiled in our direction. We got along with her rather well; oh, the wonders of a smoothie. Such a delicious drink can bring all sorts of people together.

“Business is the same as always; just fine. Ready to order?”

Faith nodded and we quickly placed our orders, pleased at how much faster she appeared to be working for our orders. Maybe we motivated her or something, whatever it was, I was happy with it. The faster she worked, the closer I was to that fruity deliciousness, and that was all that mattered to me at the moment. Richelle handed us our drinks and we tossed some cash in her direction.

“Keep the change, Rich. People don’t tip you enough.”

A large smile lit her face as we left the stand, guzzling our smoothies down at a rapid rate. “Ah,” Faith sighed, taking another long sip out of her cup. “These seem to get better and better each time. They never get old, either.”

“Amen,” I replied.

Faith and I chatted amongst ourselves as we finished up our smoothies, tossing them in the trash before parting ways to get to class, which, unsurprisingly enough, I found to be an unappealing thought as of right now. I’m tired, and I’d much rather bury myself under my covers than go to class. But everything would turn out okay, right?

I hope so.