First I just want to say thank you everyone for your continued fandom of this story. I know I left the last chapter off on a cliffhanger and a big twist that some of you might have not seen coming and that was planned. In fact that ending and this chapter have been in the plans since I first conceived this story in my head with many of my favorite songs that I love to listen to as inspiration. Some of the chapters names are actually song titles of songs that I felt really fit what I was writing in that chapter. The same is true for this chapter, but I also have a song I would like you to play in the background when you reach a certain point in the chapter. When you see the "&" symbol play a song called Ninelie and the version I want you to listen to is the English version that should be the top result on YouTube if type in "Ninelie English".
As a forewarning, this chapter had me reach down to some of my darker moments in life for inspiration and made this hard to write. Some of the events in this chapter will be hard for some to read and hit very close to home. Just know I have talked with several people about such things to be as accurate and respectful as possible.
As always I thank you Tigersman for being my editor and someone to bounce ideas off of and help make this story the best it can be.
And to you my loyal fans, thank you for all the love, support, hearts, comments and feedback. Even when I don't have time to write, going back and seeing your comments, especially from my fellow autistics who are happy to see a story that they can relate to, helps me try to make time even just to write a paragraph at a time to keep this story going.
Scott closed his eyes tighter as he woke up, the pounding headache he felt making him feel horrible. He placed his hand on his head, wanting the pain to go away, but he knew from previous hangovers that this pain was going to last quite a while.
"Ibuprofen and water are on the desk," Steve said as he finished putting on his shirt.
"Thanks," Scott said with a groan.
Steve shook his head at his friend. "I'm not going to keep dragging you out of every frat house that you get drunk in every weekend. At some point, you need to deal with your shit. When was the last time you saw Bernie?"
"Bernie didn't really help after Katie broke up with me and he won't help me now," Scott said while slowly getting out of his bed. "There is nothing he can do to help me."
"You only saw him twice after Katie broke up with you. Scott, you need to find something that will help you deal with what happened."
Scott finished sitting up before speaking again. "And how would you feel if Liz broke up with you all of a sudden with no good reasoning why?"
"I would deal with it, probably have more than two sessions with Bernie before outright giving up and not just dive head first into being an alcoholic."
"I'm NOT an alcoholic," Scott said defensively. "I don't drink during the week and only one day on the weekend. I function well, do my homework and do well on my tests. I do not have a drinking problem."
"Except you've gotten wasted drunk the past three weekends and twice people have called me to come pick you up."
"You could have just let me stay there. It's not like I can't walk back to the dorm in the morning, even with a raging hangover."
"Whatever," Steve said shaking his head, not wanting to keep this argument going anymore as it was a lost cause to change Scott's mind. "I'm heading to the dining halls to have breakfast with Liz. You are more than welcome to join us if you feel up to it."
"No, I think I'll just relax here and let this hangover pass. I need to write that paper for English at some point anyway."
"Alright, I'll see you later." Steve waved goodbye as he left their dorm room. A few minutes after he left Scott got up, took the ibuprofen that was left for him and drank the full glass of water. Then he laid back on his bed and tried to relax, at least as much as his throbbing headache would let him.
Truthfully, if he had to be honest with himself, he knew Steve was right. He did need to find a better way to deal with Katie breaking up with him, but nothing else made him forget about her like drinking did. During the summer he tried going on runs, playing videos that required intense focus, trying to focus on writing or drawing, anything he could just about think of to not think about Katie. Sadly everything failed as in some way or another thoughts of Katie would invade his mind.
Bernie wanted him to talk through the pain with him and try to meet up with Katie and ask her the real reason that she broke up with him for seemingly no reason. Bernie didn't believe for one second that out of the blue she would just break up with him. Scott did try that but she never returned his calls or texts. After three days of no responses, he gave up. He wanted nothing more to do with her.
The next appointment with Bernie involved him telling Scott to try again in the future, preferably before college started. Scott told him in no uncertain terms that he was done with Katie and that she could rot in hell for all he cared. Bernie tried to calmly talk Scott into trying at least one more time, but Scott exploded on him, verbally assaulting him, saying things he knew weren't true about Bernie but said them anyway. He then stormed out of the office and when he got home he told his mom that he didn't want to talk to Bernie again. Jackie saw how angry Scott was and didn't ask why. She just cancelled all further appointments Scott had with Bernie.
Scott turned to lay on his side, hoping he could get comfortable enough to fall back asleep and sleep through the hangover. However after thirty minutes he gave up and walked over to his desk and booted up his laptop. 'Might as well get started on that English paper I have due next week,' he thought to himself.
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Liz got back to her dorm room after having lunch with Steve. She was disappointed to hear that Scott got drunk again at another frat party, but sadly wasn't surprised by it anymore. She just hoped that he would take a break from drinking the next weekend as they were all getting together with their families. The last thing Scott needed to do was get drunk on Friday and not be able to join everyone.
She sat down at her desk, waking up her laptop and checking her social media accounts to see if anything worthwhile had happened throughout the night or in the morning. As she scrolled through and saw nothing Katie came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
"Morning," she greeted.
"Morning Katie."
"How was breakfast with Steve?"
"It was good and you could have joined us. Scott wasn't there."
"I know but...I don't know how either of us would react if we saw each other."
"Katie, you can't avoid each other forever. I know you broke up with a reason for reasons only you know," Katie looked away when she said that, still hadn't had told anyone the real reason, "but you can't avoid going out of our dorm room just because you might run into him."
Katie wrapped the towel and dried herself more before putting on a bra. "Liz, I know you want what is best for me, but you just don't understand."
Liz has had the same conversation with Katie several times since they moved into their dorm room together, but she knew not to push the conversation any further than this point. She wanted Katie to tell her on her own terms. Right now, Liz wanted just to let Katie know that she cared for her.
"I'm always here if you want to talk Katie. Whatever you tell me I'll won't tell anyone, not Steve or Scott."
"Thank you Liz," Katie said with a genuine smile as she pulled up a pair of panties and shorts. "You've been the friend I've needed during all of this."
Liz got up from her desk and gave Katie a tight hug. "And I will always be your friend." Liz let go of Katie and saw the she appreciated the hug. "How about you finish getting dressed and we go to the football game, just us two, no boys?"
Katie thought about it for all of a second before deciding that she shouldn't live her college life in fear of running into Scott at random places on campus. "Sounds like a lot of fun, even if our team does suck."
"Well then let me shower and get some Eastern gear on. Even if our football team sucks, we can still root them on and show a little school pride."
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Katie arrived at her English class Monday morning to go over her essay on her tablet again. She got about halfway through her reread when she heard someone else come into the classroom.
"Hey Katie," the person greeted.
"Hi Alyssa," Katie greeted back.
"Double checking to make sure what you wrote is something you want other people to read?" Alyssa asked.
Katie wished she could tell her the real traumatic event that she really wanted to write about, but she just couldn't work up the courage to open herself up like that to Alyssa or the rest of the class. "No, I'm okay with people reading this. I'm just double checking for spelling mistakes, wrong words and grammar stuff."
Alyssa sat a few desks away from Katie as the desks were arranged in a circle around the classroom. There were only twelve students in the class and the teacher liked to be able to see everyone so she had them put their desks in a circle around the classroom. Katie had admitted that she liked it because she could easily see who was talking and if they were excited about what they were talking about or just saying stuff.
Half hour later everyone else arrived including their teacher. She sat on her desk and greeted everyone. "I hope you all had a good weekend and managed to still find time to work on your essay." Everyone in some sort of fashion either said they did or didn't. "Well, whether complete or not, this is just a peer review by your fellow classmates. Just submit your document to the file sharing app and one will be sent to you at random from another classmate. Remember you won't be able to see their names and please, but kind in your corrections." Everyone nodded as one by one they all submitted their essays through their tablets and laptops.
Katie received one a few moments later and started reading through it. While reading she saw a few spelling errors and only a couple grammatical errors that she corrected. However, she did enjoy reading the essay and she definitely wished she knew who the person was that grew up in a rough neighborhood. She could understand that it would be traumatic hearing gun shots go off every few nights growing up.
Once she was done she submitted the essay back into the file sharing app and received a new essay to review. Within the first paragraph she was gripped by what the person was writing. She didn't even look for spelling or grammatical errors, even though there appeared to be none. The beginning had her wanting to read more. Then she wished she hadn't kept on reading.
She did her best not to cry, but she was overwhelmed as she kept on reading. 'This...this is what I was too damned scared to write about myself,' she thought to herself. She got to the very end and ran out of the classroom, tears streaming down her face. She ran into the stairwell and was thankful that it was empty as she sat on the stairs and bawled her eyes out into hands. A few minutes later she felt an arm around her.
