I had to drive home—my place is on the outskirts of campus, not on it—and I might be in great shape, but I have zero desire to hoof it through the dark streets in the middle of the night.
Folding my arms behind my head, I stare up at the ceiling, head resting on a white pillowcase embroidered with my initials.
A D J
Ashley Arthur Calum Dryden-Jones.
The fifth.
Thank bloody god Mum left my middle names off the pillow; that’s some posh bullshite for a student at uni in America, but they’re the only things I had when I moved, and there seemed no sense in replacing perfectly good linens.
The furniture came with the house, and I could bring nothing but a few suitcases when I enrolled in school here, moving clear across the globe in an attempt to seek some semblance of normalcy.
Some semblance of normalcy.
Ha.
I chuckle to myself knowing the guys on my team would ride my arse for sounding like a massive wanker. None of them seem to have any grace when it comes to grammar, all sounding like goddamn simpletons most of the time.
The only indication they’ve any intelligence at all is the fact that they were accepted by and enrolled at this university to begin with.
“You think I’m ugly, eh?” I quietly repeat the words I said to the girl to myself in the dark, remembering the look on her face and the stutter in her voice.
She’s not from here, either. Some weird accent inflected her tone the same way I know it inflicts mine, hers sweet though. Except I have no way of identifying it.
I haven’t lived in the States long enough.
But she said y’all, and I think that’s a Southern thing. Then again, I could be wrong.
Brunette hair, blue eyes.
Taller than most girls, I’d sized her up before she asked me on that damn date, calculated her to be about one hundred seventy centimeters.
Not sure what that is in American. I’m shite at conversions.
And her voice…
Airy and sweet.
It doesn’t fucking matter, Jones—she thinks you’re ugly.
She was asking me out on a lark, some stupid track ritual they’ve become famous for in our circle. See, that’s the thing about athletes—we all hang out together. Eat in the same cafeteria on campus, work out in the same gym facility, use the same trainers.
Have the same friends.
Therefore it stands to reason I’d have heard about the hazing some of those blithers go through; rugby is just as bad, only I’m not a big enough cockup to participate.
Even the extreme frisbee team hazes their members, and they’re not considered an actual sport. Those idiots make each other drink beer from the frisbee, and did you know you can fit three beers on one before it spills over?
The women’s track team? They haze their freshman members by having them find the ugliest guy they can—usually at a party—and ask him on a date.
They never actually go on the date, but any unsuspecting arsehole who believes their invitation is a flipping moron who deserves to be embarrassed.
Bloody imbeciles, the entire lot of them.
That girl—whoever she is—can kiss my giant British arse. And the look on her face says she probably would have; she seemed that humiliated.
I was the one who was supposed to be humiliated, but guess what? It doesn’t work that way, sweetheart.
You have to wake up pretty goddamn early to toss one over on Ashley Jones.
Still.
It’s her wide-eyed expression I see when I close my eyes. Toss and turn throughout the night, grateful I never have to see that pretty, perfect face again.
Tuesday
I lift the water bottle to my lips and chug, hungry as a mother as I forgot breakfast—usually I toss a bar or two in my bag, but this morning I ran out the door too quick.
My stomach growls as I shift in my seat.
I barely fit in the thing. It’s made for people like…everyone else.
Normal-sized humans.
Someone grunts as they bump into me in an attempt to head down the aisle I’m blocking.
Not intentionally, that’s just how things work when you’re a hundred and eighty-seven centimeters.
Legs. Everywhere.
“Oh.”
At the sound of the gasp, I glance up.
It’s the girl from Friday night.
Georgia.
She’s startled to see me, stopping in her tracks, my knees pressed against the seat in front of me, blocking her passage and preventing her from getting down the row of seats.
We’re in a lecture hall for this class, much like an auditorium. About twenty rows look down at a miniature stage where the professor stands holding a laser pointer in one hand, her glasses in another.
She’s wiping her eyes and looks tired. Must not have gotten to bed early for the first day of the term.
Semester they call it here.
I keep forgetting.
“Are you lost?” I ask her, slightly annoyed that she’s still standing above me, staring like a deer caught in headlights.