Chlorine

Sleepover with Anita wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Initially, Anita asked to watch chick-flick together with Alice. Meanwhile Alice tried to apply nail coats on her toes, Anita was commenting how hot the actor was in the movie, and then Anita started to dig up about Gustav and how hot he was. Anita thought Alice had a crush on Gustav, while Alice tried her hard not to spill any emotion in there. Alice knew it wasn’t a good idea to tell her sister about her new feeling on the junior frat boy who has a dimple when he smiled and jaw structure that could cut deep.

It wasn’t like Alice didn’t trust Anita, but it reminded Alice when they were still in high school. Alice remembered how awful her one-sided love to Anthony Sparks, he was a sophomore when Alice was a freshman. Alice only could admire him from afar and she would tell Anita how gorgeous Anthony was. Anita always encouraged Alice to tell Anthony about her feelings, made a move to him, and give it a try but Alice was a coward when it came to telling boys how she’s feeling. She was awkward whenever she’s around the boy she liked.

The sky was falling down when Alice saw Anthony on her porch, he said he’d be joined the dinner with her parents that night. It wasn’t just ordinary dinner, but a dinner where Anita introduced Anthony as her boyfriend to the parents. It made Alice sick to the pit of her stomach and asked how could Anita do this to her.

Alice was furious to Anita when Anita tried to explain things to her younger sister. She came clean that Anita liked Anthony long before Alice liked him, she didn’t want to tell Alice about this because she knew it would crush her. Anita explained that she tried to play cupid between Alice and Anthony but it didn’t work and Alice didn’t take the chance, so Anita took it, turned out Anthony liked Anita.

Alice didn’t speak to Anita for a week, she was disappointed and beyond upset. As the days passed, Alice finally forgave Anita and slowly let go her feelings for Anthony because she saw how happy Anita with Anthony together. Alice’s feelings for Anthony was just a crush, she didn’t want her temporary feelings to get in the way to her sisterhood.

Alice should have known that it didn’t stop at Anthony Sparks. It also happened to Marcus Underwood, Simon Sutter, Graham Leyman and the last was Alex Gregory. Anita eventually would date every single guy who Alice had a crush on. Anita always had her way to know who Alice had a crush on, whether because Alice accidentally told her, Alice’s friends who told Anita, or Anita found a guy name on Alice’s doodle book. Alice and Anita would get into the same phase when Anthony Sparks happened, Alice would ignore Anita’s presence, avoid her, and in the end Alice would forgive Anita for it because as much as she liked the guys, she loved her sister more.

Since Alex Gregory, Alice was well-adjusted with Anita’s hobby on dating Alice’s crush. Alice learned how to hide her feelings toward certain guys from Anita and she realized that Anita and Alice shared the same type of love interest. Sometimes, Alice hoped she could be more like Anita when it came to guys, especially guys who she liked because Alice was rigid and not smooth, unlike Anita.

When Anita had enough convincing Alice about her feelings toward Gustav, she animatedly talked about Logan, her newfound boy toy. Alice tried not to ignore Anita about it as she couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous because Alice wanted to have a guy who wanted her as much as Logan wanted Anita.

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Alice just walked out from her drawing class when she saw Amelia walked with Teddy as they intertwined their fingers together. As Alice passed them by, it was Teddy who noticed Alice and made Amelia turned her head to Alice. Amelia greeted Alice with the secret handshake of Beta Theta Chi and hugged her.

“Hey dear, I heard about Ryder. How’s he doing?” Amelia questioned with apology tone as Alice returned her hug. When Ryder’s name popped out, Alice sighed as her mood turned down.

“I think he’s doing fine aside he keeps bitching about his bike. I have to pay all the damage for his bike.” Alice rubbed the bridge of her nose and turned to Teddy, “how’s his bike? Is it still at Omicron?”

“Yep, safe and sound.” Teddy nodded and smiled at Alice.

“Oh Alice, as long as he’s doing fine you don’t need to worry about the bike. It’s okay” Amelia approached Alice and wrapped an arm around Alice’s shoulder with assuring gesture.

“No, it’s not, Ams, you don’t get it. I gotta work my ass off to get money for Ryder’s bike and his physical therapy. Have you seen his bike? I bet it needs a grand to fix it.” Alice complained irritated as all of a sudden her cellphone rang off and popped up a new message on its screen.

‘Canteen now. –RC’, it said.

Groaning was the only response she did. “It’s Ryder. Today I gotta face his bitching mode once again. What a lovely day.” She continued sarcastically as she heard Teddy laughed lightly.

“Ryder isn’t that bad. He’s just being himself. If I were him I would do worse because you destroy my bike. But, trust me he’ll get better.” Teddy spoke jokingly but Alice just glared at Teddy because Teddy didn’t know how it felt to be around Ryder. Ryder’s mouth was awful and annoyed the hell out of Alice. “For the bike, I have a friend in mechanical engineering, he said he could help with the mess and it won’t cost as much as garages in the city. He’ll help you.” Teddy added.

For a brief moment Alice’s eyes twinkled and she felt relief washed over her body because that means the bike wouldn’t cost as much as she expected. She’ll just need to save up money and get a job at some fast food restaurants or coffee shop.

“That’s great, babe! See, Alice? You’ll do fine.” Amelia said as she hugged Teddy.

“Thank you so much, Teddy.” Alice grinned at Teddy and for the first time she felt lucky that she got into a Greek house. If it wasn’t because she got into Beta and knew Amelia, she wouldn’t have met Teddy and Teddy wouldn’t ask his friend. So much chain-reaction. Teddy winked at Alice and replied with low ‘you’re welcome’, Alice saw the same look Teddy gave to her the first time they met, what Alice would call ‘typical frat boys’ annoying smirk’.

“Well guys, I’m gonna go to see Ryder. Thanks for everything.” Alice walked past the lovebirds and hurried to the canteen. She didn’t need further bitching for being too long.

“I’ll see you at Beta tonight!” was the last thing Alice heard from Amelia when she jogged away.

The canteen was an enormous place to fit every student from every major to dine in so it was kind of difficult to find a pig-headed blonde guy with sour face. Apparently it wasn’t that crucial to find him. Ryder was seated near the windows as Alice caught the sight of Ryder’s artificial platinum hair, he was sitting with a guy with spectacles. When Alice came closer to them, Ryder’s face rose and stared at Alice expressionless.

“What do you want?” Alice started as she on the vacant seat next to Ryder. On the table, Alice noticed that there were two trays of lunch while the other guy seemingly didn’t have a lunch.

“Hey Joe, I’ll return this to your room tonight. I promise. But can you leave us for a bit?” Ryder ignored Alice and talked to the guy who named Joe as he pointed a notebook to him with his right hand. Joe nodded and got off from his seat, he patted Ryder’s back and gave a low ‘get well soon’ to him before he walked away from the table.

“Eat.” Ryder said pointing the second tray on the table to Alice.

“I’m not hungry,” she stated. “What do you want, Ryder?”

“I bought you that with my money, so be grateful and eat.” he answered and put an emphasize on ‘my money’ making Alice to look at him in disdain. Alice murmured incoherent complaints and pulled in the tray so she could start to dig in.

Ryder smiled crookedly when he saw Alice ate, he opened the notebook he borrowed from Joe and read it. “So, what’s your major?” he asked when Alice was chewing on her sandwich.

“Architecture.” She responded nonchalantly.

“I’m in Agriculture. Junior. Greek house?” Ryder asked again while he read the notebook not taking a glance to Alice.

“I’m in Beta.”

“Do you live at the house or the dorm?”

“I’ve paid a dorm room for this semester.”

“Where are you from?” he kept going and struggled to flip the page with his right hand.

“North from here.”

“Where?”

“What’s with the twenty questions?” Alice’s sandwich had gone to her stomach, she was sipping her apple juice that tasted weird.

Ryder’s head perked up and stared at Alice, “I’m just trying to get to know you.”

“Why? And what’s with the free food?”

Ryder rolled his eyes and put down the notebook, “Is being nice a crime?”

“Seriously, what do you want, Ryder? You don’t ask me to show up just for nothing.” Alice expressed and she put a challenging look with a serious tone.

Ryder deadpanned, didn’t say anything back, he just peered at Alice with stolid face. When Alice stared back, she noticed that Ryder had a piercing scar beneath his thin mouth and both of his ears had holes means he used to pierce it with some stretched piercing or something. This guy must have troubled adolescent, Alice thought.

Ryder sighed and cleared his throat, he bowed his head and leaned in to Alice. “This is embarrassing,” he whispered.

“What?” She frowned at him with a peering look.

“I need your help, you see I’m a leftie and can’t use my hand.” He kept whispering while Alice found it stupid, what was he ashamed of? He was in accident, true, and Alice caused it. So what if he couldn’t use his left hand? Alice didn’t answer just gave him a look. “Can you please help me write down my notes from here?” he pushed the notebook he’d been reading to Alice as she saw the notebook was the property of Joe Wright, the previous guy.

“Oh.” Was the only this she said and quietly took Joe’s notebook, Ryder gave her a new notebook with Ryder’s name on it. She felt bad for it, Ryder probably hadn’t taken any notes from his class because of his condition.

“Sorry, I really need your help. I asked my friends to do it, but I don’t trust them. They will just say yes without really doing it, besides they have their own assignment.” Ryder explained as Alice just nodded, she understood the circumstance and practicing to write with minor hand would be laborious.

Alice began to rewrite what’s on Joe’s notebook into Ryder’s notebook. “So, what are you gonna do when there’s quiz?” she asked.

“Getting some excuses or struggling, I guess. The professors will know. I’ll survive.” He shrugged off his shoulder and sipped his latte without touching his food. Alice nodded and continued to write down all of the notes. There wasn’t a lot to write down anyway, it’s just one page with full of notes and it just took five minutes to write them all.

When Alice finished she gave the notebooks back to Ryder and watched him just played with his pasta fagioli soup. “Aren’t you gonna eat that?” she asked and suddenly she realized she just asked something stupid that probably could lead into something she didn’t want to do.

“This is actually the embarrassing part,” Ryder groaned, Alice could see his cheeks turned red. “Can you spoon-feed me?”

“WHAT?” Alice’s eyes jumped out from their casket as her scream was loud enough to make people around her turned their head to her. “You’re joking, right?” Alice scoffed and shook her head.

“I know it’s too much to ask, but I’ve tried. Last night I made a mess with my dinner, I couldn’t eat my spaghetti and all I could eat was only sandwich, hell, I even couldn’t prepare a sandwich by myself.” He tried to explain with lowered tone.

“Using minor hand isn’t that tough when you’re eating. You’re just being dramatic. I won’t do that.”

“I’m not lying, I’ve tried last night and it’s pretty troublesome. Please, Allison.” He begged in hushed sound frustrated.

“It’s Alice. No, I’m not doing it. I’m not your girlfriend, not even your friend. Ask your girlfriend or Gustav to do that. I’m done here.” Alice’s seat scrapped back as she got up, abruptly Ryder took her hand.

“I’m sorry Alice. Please, I’m begging you. Do you think if I have a girlfriend I’ll ask you to do it? And how do you think it looks when Gustav’s spoon-feeding me?”

“How do you think it looks when I am spoon-feeding you? I don’t want people to think I’m your new flavor of the week!” Alice objected as she emphasized on ‘I am’.

“I’ll tell them that you are my friend, you’re just trying to help me. Please, Alice, help me out. I’m only asking you to do that for lunch. I don’t want to eat only bread for the rest of my recovery. Please, only lunch, not more. Once my left hand gets better, I won’t bother you anymore, I promise. Please?” Ryder clutched her arm hesitantly, eyes beamed with hope yet he tried hopelessly.

Alice threw an annoyed look at Ryder, she couldn’t believe that he would ask her to do that. They barely knew each other, she even didn’t like him to be her friend! He’s infuriating! Their first encounter was bad and Alice knew she wouldn’t get along with him and now he asked the most impossible thing to do. What was he? A baby? Now all of a sudden Alice had to babysit him during his recovery? She paid for medical treatment, bike, and physical therapy, yes she’s responsible for all of that, but babysitting him? Spoon-feeding him? He’s such a hindrance!

Alice groaned when she lost the debate with her conscious, Ryder plead and begged to her like it was the last thing he could do to manage it. He wouldn’t beg if he could eat by himself, Alice felt guilty and beat herself because if only there’s no accident she wouldn’t need to deal with this, with Ryder Cooke the Drama King.

She let out a frustration exhale, “fine! Only lunch, no more and you’ll tell your friends and people that I’m just doing you a favor!” Alice pulled his tray and picked a scoop of the pasta fagioli soup and delivered it to Ryder’s mouth.

“Thanks,” he smiled pleasantly as he chewed the pasta. Alice murmured some incoherent nag as she kept feeding Ryder. She did it really quickly and hoped the pasta would be finished soon. She had enough with Ryder today, all she wanted was going back to her dorm.

“Just letting you know, tomorrow I’m having my PT session. They said I’m gonna need one to three sessions per week for two months.” Ryder explained while chewing and then sipping his latte.

Alice was stunned when she heard about the session. Three session per week for two months? It means she needed to pay around 400-ish bucks each week and not including paying for Ryder’s bike. What to do? She even hadn’t got a job to make the money. Alice wanted to cry, she hated that she had to be in such situation.

“You’re alright?” Ryder asked when he saw Alice was spacing out.

“Yeah. Ok, I’ll pay for your PT tomorrow. Umm, listen, about your bike, it’s still in Omicron’s. Teddy has a friend who’s in mechanical engineering and he’s able to fix your bike with low cost. What I’m saying here, do you mind if I’m focused on paying your PT first? I have to find a job to pay for it and maybe it could pay for your PT only, not your bike. I won’t bail, I’m really sorry, I’ll fix your bike later after I could manage with my financial here. How about that?” Alice went on with a tight facial expression. She needed to be responsible for Ryder yet she hadn’t be able to make an income.

“Alright.” Was all Ryder response. He looked adamant and didn’t complain of any circumstances that Alice offered. She felt the remedy inside her chest she couldn’t help but exhaled longingly as if a heavy rock was just being removed from her shoulders. She smiled at Ryder and fed him the last spoon of his pasta fagioli.

For the first time, Alice found Ryder showed his pearly smiles at him and it looked genuine. The smile illuminated his strong face and animated his pale crystallized eyes. Teddy was right, when she got civil with Ryder, it wasn’t all that bad. Just as Alice thought before, Ryder was attractive but not when he opened his fussy mouth, but when he’s being normal and civil, he was a charming person with that infamous smile.

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