The other woman
Tamara's POV
“Out of my way!”
I turned just in time to see a coursemate brush past me and Elena on roller skates still yelling as he ran through.
Elena shook her head and adjusted her bag strap.
“Raving mad”
I chuckled and brushed back the strands of hair that were getting into my eyes.
“Whose class do we have this morning?”
Elena asked
“Professor Bondo's”
“On minerals and resources?”
“Mineral resources, specifically granite”, I said with a small laugh.
“Elena…
“Let me be Tamara”.
I looked at her black wavy hair and the black eyeliner that made her eyes stand out.
She blinked, looking all gothic and in black.
“What are you doing after class?”
I smiled shyly, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I have plans”.
******************
I crossed the main quadrangle with my earbuds in, head down, walking in the way I'd learned to move through spaces that weren't really mine. People passed. Nobody looked at me twice. That was the point.
To my left, the hockey rink glowed under floodlights. To my right, Ashford Pack kids sprawled across the steps of the student center, loud and easy, they were in their environment.
I walked between them like a ghost who'd forgotten she wasn't visible or invisible — I don't know, anything could work! English is not my strong suit.
It was safer that way, I told myself. I had been telling myself that for years.
"You're doing it again."
I yanked out an earbud. Paul fell into step beside me, tall and warm, that easy smile already curving his mouth.
"Doing what?"
"Watching everyone like you're not also here."
I snorted. "Profound, Wills."
He bumped my shoulder. "I try."
I chuckled.
We walked together for a minute. It was easy with Paul, it had been since freshman year, when he'd sat next to me in Intro to Geology and asked if I'd done the reading.
Nobody did the reading, I'd said. He'd laughed, and something in my chest had loosened.
I'd warmed up to him instantly and he was a good friend as well as a great quarterback player.
I still looked at him and saw a friend. Warm, steady and familiar. Like furniture you forget you love until someone suggests moving it.
Yeah that feeling.
He was watching me now with an expression I didn't know how to name.
"What?"
"Nothing." He looked away too fast. "You heading to the rink?"
Small errand, I thought. A willing errand I wasn't even comfortable telling my friend about.
I knew how he'd react to it.
"Lucas needs his glove back. Left it in the library."
Paul's jaw shifted. Just slightly. "He could pick it up himself."
"He's at practice."
"He's always at practice."
I didn't answer. I couldn't explain why I wanted to be the one to return it. Why I'd held that glove in my bag all afternoon, fingers brushing the worn leather like it meant something.
Paul stopped at the path fork. "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
He hesitated. Then he touched my elbow briefly with a big smile and walked toward the dorms.
I went the other way.
The corridor behind the rink was empty and silent. Exactly the kind of place Lucas had been finding me for months.
Sometimes I thought about the privacy and secrecy and most times I preferred it. Lucas was one of the most popular people on campus. Being with him in public took a lot from the both of us.
And like he always said we were not ready for it. I wasn't ready for it.
I guess he was right.
He was already there, leaning against the wall like he'd been waiting. His hair was damp from the shower. His eyes found mine before I said a word.
"You came."
"You left this." I held out the glove.
He didn't take it. He just looked at me with that private expression nobody else got to see except me, the hot steamy one that made me believe the public distance meant nothing.
"Tamara."
He called my name in this low seductive tone of his that always sent fluid rushing to my thighs.
He stepped forward, hands finding my waist, and the glove slipped from my fingers. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the way his thumb traced my hipbone through my jeans.
"I've been thinking about you all day," he said against my ear.
Don't, I thought. Don't believe it.
I don't know why I was suddenly fighting it, I shook my head and melted into him.
I believed it.
He kissed me softly then deeper, until I couldn't remember why I'd ever told myself to be careful. The corridor faded away. The world faded away. There was only Lucas and the way he made me feel chosen.
His hands found their way into my hair, down my face, to my breasts and then have it a gentle squeeze.
A moan escaped my lips.
“Just as you like it”, he said against my lips with a chuckle.
"I have to go," I whispered my entire body melting like gooey chocolate.
"Soon."
He kissed me again his fingers crawling under my skirt. I let him.
*********
I walked home feeling warm and like I was floating. The kind of stupid-happy that made me almost laugh at myself.
I cut through the side path behind the athletics building, it was a shorter route, I took it all the time.
That's when I heard his voice.
He was laughing, low and easy. This private version of him I always saw; unguarded, comfortable, real.
I rounded the corner.
I stopped breathing.
Lucas. His hands were tangled in blonde hair. His mouth on someone else's mouth.
Kissing her like this wasn't his first time or even new to him.
I stood there, my legs shaking slightly and my head spinning with both shock and confusion.
She pulled back just enough to smile.
It was Mara Rivers, sharp and beautiful, the girl who smiled at him and waved at every game.
Mara Rivers, the sassy cocky bitch.
He kissed her again like he'd done it a thousand times.
I stood there in the dark, and something inside me cracked clean in two.
This, I realized. This is also private.
I just wasn't supposed to see it.
A sob escaped my lips and they turned immediately, startled.
