and before I knew it, we were making out every night in the back of Billy’s car. He changed me, and I didn’t realise at the time it was for the worse.
With him, I was in the popular crowd again, and with that came a sense of euphoria I hadn’t felt since my pop left. The feeling of acceptance overrode any niggling doubts I may have had over whether Billy was the right boy for me. Not only did I get access to his social circle, he also had money, and he liked to buy me things—snacks, dinner, even clothes.
“The way you look reflects on me, sweetheart. I want you to look good,” he told me one evening before we went to a party.
“Are you sure this top suits me?” I turned back and forth in front of the mirror. “It’s awful tight.” I gave the skirt another tug down. It didn’t cover much.
“It makes your tits look awesome. I want everyone else to know what’s mine.”
I kept the outfit on. I was seventeen, all right?
Mom saw the warning signs I’d missed. “It’s better to have your own style,” she told me. “Wear what’s comfortable.”
“I’ll wear whatever I want,” I snapped back, because like any teenager, I hated being lectured.
Oh, if only I’d listened.
When the opportunity came to follow Billy to college, I jumped at it. The day our acceptance letters for Brown arrived, we threw a party so wild I woke up on the kitchen floor, minus my underwear and my dignity. Even that didn’t bring me to my senses.
Billy won a football scholarship, and mine was in math. At first, I loved college. As a natural bookworm, studying was fun for me, and surrounded by like-minded people, my knowledge grew. Plus there were the perks of dating a football player.
For the first year, I lived in the dorms while Billy moved into a frat house, but I spent more time in his room than I did in my own. My roommate was nice enough, but we had nothing in common. Life was good, and I thought we’d stay in that arrangement for the whole of college, but a misunderstanding with a goat and a professor’s car led to Billy getting kicked out of Sigma Kappa Phi.
“Assholes,” he said as he shoved his belongings into a suitcase. “They were too tame for me, anyway.”
At first, I snuck him into my room, but the girl I shared with soon got annoyed with him hogging the bathroom. The hair. It was always the hair. He wore it slicked back, stiff with so much gel it felt crispy when you touched it. Plastic. Billy was a Ken doll but without the charisma—I saw that now.
“Maybe we could get a place of our own,” nineteen-year-old me suggested, blinded by what I thought was love.
“Already sorted. Pop’s buying me an apartment. We can move in next week.”
Why wasn’t I surprised? Mr. Cooper thought the sun shone out of his only son’s ass. He was wrong, though. It was the fires of hell glimmering through.
But back then, I’d still had my sunglasses on, and within seconds, I was mentally decorating the living room.
“Ooh, our own place! I can’t wait.”
Mistakes? My life was full of them.
CHAPTER 5
AFTER THREE MONTHS in Richmond, I was keeping my head above water, albeit with a bit of kicking and the odd splutter. My chequebook balanced to the cent, and I was considering writing a cookbook called 50 Ways to Jazz Up Your Ramen Noodles. Apart from the lack of money and missing Missy terribly, my new life surpassed the old. My boss at the café let me take home leftovers on the two days I worked, and so far, Michelle had only asked me to clean at hotels where the managers treated me okay. I was on first-name terms with the librarian, and I’d even found time to catch up for coffee with Sylvia on a couple of occasions.
Tomorrow I only had work in the morning, and in the afternoon, I planned to take a long walk in the park if the weather was good. I was contemplating whether I could afford an ice cream when the landlady popped out of her door.
“I need a word with you.”
“If it’s about the hamster, I’ve already told you I don’t have one.”
“I know. It was mice. I got the exterminator in.”
Well, wonders would never cease—she’d admitted she’d gotten something wrong. Although ick, mice.