At Last Read Free

Susan’s grades, which were top of her class, as well as the state of her virginity, which was by then fictitious. Not that Susan had been promiscuous. She’d had three boyfriends in college, yet only slept with one of them. But since that had happened at the beginning of senior year, Susan had been forced to lie to her mother for the rest of the scholastic year.
    Until spring break.
    On spring break, Susan reluctantly went home and spent copious amounts of time shopping, listening to and eating out with her mother and her near perfect suburban housewife friends. It had left Susan so mentally numb that on the day she drove back to school, she absently left her birth control pills lying on the nightstand beside her unmade bed.
    Liz and Kevin awaited Susan in the lobby of their dormitory, wanting to warn her that her mother was up in her room, having beaten her daughter to the college by a full hour. Kevin had been there waiting, “Like a pathetic dog,” as Liz had put it, for Susan’s return. Mrs. Rhodes barged into the room, mistaking Kevin for Liz’s boyfriend. Liz had scoffed bitterly and informed Mrs. Rhodes that Kevin was Susan’s friend, not hers.
    Mrs. Rhodes’s eyes bugged out, and she had practically thrown Kevin from the room, squawking indignantly as she slammed the door in his confused face.
    Ten minutes later, Liz escaped Mrs. Rhodes’s inquisition. She looked like she’d been through hell. But when Kevin asked, “What was that all about?” her expression lifted into a satisfied grin.
    “The old bat thought you were Susan’s boyfriend.” She snickered as she made quotation marks with her fingers. Shaking her head she continued, “What a laugh. I don’t know what has her panties in such a bunch, but I set her straight about you.”
    Kevin could recall the exact feeling of hot embarrassment those words had evoked, making his face burn with shame. “What, did you tell her I was some kind of stalker?”
    Liz let out one perfect “Ha!” and strode past Kevin, toward the elevators. “The truth would just make her freak out more.”
    “So what did you tell her?” Kevin’s eyebrows bunched with confusion.
    “Just you’re Susan’s gay friend, Kevin. And you’re dating the captain of the football team.”
    Kevin had halted in his tracks right before the elevator doors and stood staring incredulously at Liz until they slid open. She sauntered brightly into the wood paneled box, turned and smirked at him. The nastiest retorts imaginable circled in Kevin’s mind, forming a tornado funnel on the tip of his tongue, leaving him with too many things to say. Yet he said nothing.
    Liz had raised her eyebrow and grinned. “You should be thanking me. At least I saved you from a shit-load of getting bitched at.”
    And from any shred of masculine pride he had left.
    Liz rolled her eyes. “Are you getting on? Or did I hurt your sensitive little girl feelings?”
    “Fuck you,” Kevin said through gritted teeth.
    “In your dreams.” The satisfaction in her voice was maddening. “But…way to grow a pair.”
     
    ~*~
     
    “I remember her mother,” Kevin said as he gulped down his wine and motioned for Liz to pour him another. “She was crazed. I thought she was going to have a goddamn stroke over it.”
    “Feel sorry for me,” Liz said. “I was the one fielding all her phone calls every day and putting up with her every weekend for a month!” She smiled at Kevin and raised her glass. “Thank God the only male she ever found loitering around her little girl was the nerdy gay friend, or she would’ve been on our backs ’til graduation!”
    Kevin winced at her toast, yet shook off the barb and raised his own glass.
    Neither took a drink though. The tintinnabulation seemed to break the revelry of their shared memory.
    “Seriously…” Liz’s voice cracked. “What are we going to do? We can’t just leave her here--she’s a mess. And if we stay here, Mommy Dearest is going to descend like the