Chapter 4 Feelings

ROMAN

The drive back into the city was quiet as fuck. I swipe my hands across my face, trying to chase away the drowsiness that comes from hours of swimming. For me, it was more a sport I had to be good at than something I did for fun.

"What's your class schedule for tomorrow?" I ask Aella.

She straightens her dress with a scoff, "Surely, you do not believe I would tell you."

"I have other ways to get it, I was just giving you a chance to tell me yourself." I say.

"I don't have any classes tomorrow, just work." She eventually responds in anger.

I don't bother responding to her lies, I knew for sure she had classes and I wonder what she hoped to achieve with those lies.

My phone vibrates from the pocket of my jeans and I take it out only to see a message from my shitty friends.

"Eyes on the road." Aella practically screams in my ears.

I look at her and notice her near panic expression and I wonder what that's all about. When I had read her files, there was no mention of anxiety disorders or panic attacks.

"Are you okay?" I ask after some time.

"Yes I am, I'm sorry I screamed at you. It's just that I lost my mom in a car accident that could easily have been avoided if the other driver had been more careful." She says in way of explanation.

I nod reassuringly, not bothering to tell her I already knew about her mom's death.

I pull to stop in front of her dorm building and she scrambles out of the car, "no goodbye kiss?"

"You wish." She says with a glare as she storms off into her building and I can't help but laugh. I've not had this much fun in days.

I make my way back to my apartment outside the school grounds. I didn't bother praying for privacy, knowing the kind of friends I had.

I park my car and get on the elevator which takes me directly to my apartment and I'm immediately hit with an oozing smell.

Damn. My apartment was ruined. It seemed my friends had thrown a party here again, after I warned them not to.

I move towards the bodies clustered on the floor and on the couch and I shake them, waking them up roughly and shoving them out of my apartment. When it's just me and my friends, I turn towards them with a full glare.

"What?" Logan asks with a smirk.

I take off my jacket angrily, "how hard is it to not throw a party at my apartment, huh?"

"You have homes, how about you do it at your own places?" I ask angrily.

"But yours is bigger." Travis says in a whiny tone.

I don't bother responding as I storm off into the room to change.

Travis snickers, "the pussy must not be as sweet as we thought."

"What the fuck did you just say?" I ask grabbing my baseball bat from the floor and moving dangerously close to him.

"Woah, woah, chill out, he's just joking." Logan says while coming in between me and Travis.

"That was no joke, he did that to rile me up." I say through gritted teeth.

"Look man, when have we not made fun of Aella?" Travis asked with a confused look on his face.

"Keep her name out of your fucking mouth!." I say with a rapidly rising temper.

"You know what?" Logan asks, "we will leave right now, and come back later when you've calmed down."

He grabs Travis on the arms and moves him out of the house not once taking his eyes off me.

After they leave I fall flat on the couch already regretting my outburst. I didn't make it a habit of mine to fall for every single girl that comes my way. Fuck.

I spring up from the couch, swearing to myself I wasn't falling for anybody.

All the time I spent watching her and digging up her history has me feeling like I know her too well, which is what has made me develop these feelings of attachment towards her.

I nod to myself again, assuring myself that it was still all a game.

I try to distract myself for a few hours by doing school work, but I eventually give up and give in to my inner urge to watch her. I pull up the camera feed I had the security guy at her dorm install in her room, and I spend the remaining hours of my day watching her do the most mundane things.

I drag my sorry ass out of the bed and call an Uber, which takes me to a bar where I fully intend to drown my feelings.

AELLA

"You sneaky bitch!" Ashley screams in my ears.

"Can you please tone it down?" I ask drily.

"No I can't." She says squealing, "you hung out with 'the Roman Montgomery' and you are telling me to tone it down?" She continues with a scoff.

A banging sound comes from the room beside us and we both pause before rushing towards the wall. We place our ears on the wall and I almost topple over with what I hear.

Apparently our next door neighbour was having wild sex with a dude named 'Travis'.

'Harder Travis' she moans.

I lean away from the wall with the speed of one set on fire, "I could've lived happily without hearing that."

"Well, not all of us are prudes like you." Ashley says with a knowing look.

"Back to my situation, what do I do about Roman?, it doesn't seem like he would be leaving me alone any time from now." I ask.

"Speaking of your problem, could that be Travis, Roman's friend?" Ashley asks with a wide eyed expression.

"Isn't he supposed to be dating Keisha?" I ask, referring to Kylie's close friend.

"Well yeah and that's obviously not Keisha he's fucking." She fills in.

I flop down on my bed with a groan, "this is exactly why I do not want to be involved with Roman."

"I mean if his friends are cheating, that doesn't mean he's the same." Ashley says in a convincing tone.

"I don't care if he's a cheating scumbag, I just want to be left alone, I don't have the time to be worrying about him, I have enough on my plate as it is." I respond.

"Uhh... Aella?" Ashley calls from her spot on her bed.

I raise my head up, "What...?"

She passes me her phone without saying a word. I glare at the device and almost slam it on the wall when I take a good look at the picture and the video which starts playing when I swipe right.

In the photo, Roman has his hands covering the breast of a girl I've never seen before and he captioned the post 'dinner'.

As for the video, it was obviously someone else who had helped him make it. Him and the same girl were dry humping the hell out of themselves.

"It feels so good to know I was right." I say drily.

"Well that's good, catastrophe successfully avoided, we need to make a toast." She says in a sad tone.

"Look, I don't know what his game plan was, but I'm not sticking around to find out." I say reassuringly.

I don't know why most of the emotions I'm feeling right now are confusing. I feel very disappointed and let down, I mean, didn't that day at the lake mean anything to him?. I guess I would never know.

"I had wished he wasn't like the stories, that he was something different or at least he was going yo try to be for you." Ashley says.

"Yeah right, get your head out of the cloud, when have those people ever settled for girls like us, we are nothing more than a quick fuck to them." I say with venom directed at the injustice of our world.

"We need to stop this pity party and go out and have some actual fun." Ashley says while nodding her head like she has come up with the best plans imaginable.

For the first time I don't I don't refute and just go with the flow, "clubbing won't be so bad."

Ashley's jaw hangs open "Holy shit, you actually agreed."

"Well yeah, it's not like I have anything too special going on for me right now." I respond.

"I though I would have to drag you out of the room by your hair kicking and screaming." Ashely says.

I get up from my bed already thinking of what to wear, "Now you're just plain exaggerating."

We dress in silence and thank God not an uncomfortable one.

"I bet Lucy is having the time of her life right now." Ashely says while locking our door, referring to our next door neighbour who was earlier having her brains banged out.

My response is interrupted by the opening of Lucy's door.

"Well well well, look who it is." Travis says with a sneer.

Ashley looks at me with a strange expression, probably wondering how I knew Travis and what my altercation was with him.

Travis shoulders past me almost knocking me to the ground, "Teasing slut."

"You know what, I think it's better if we stay in and binge watch some rom com movies till we pass out from exhaustion." Ashley says probably unnerved by the confrontation.

"Yes, let's do that." I readily agree moving back into our room and thanking the good heavens I hadn't put in much effort while dressing.