She Runs Away (The Sheridan Hall Series Book 2) Read online

  She Runs Away

  Jessica Calla

  Published by BookFish Books LLC.

  Copyright © 2016 Jessica Calla

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Published in 2016 by BookFish

  Books LLC. P.O. Box 274

  Salem, VA 24153

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Calla, Jessica--First edition.

  She Runs Away / Jessica Calla ISBN 978-0-9975283-4-3 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-9975283-3-6 (e-book)

  Cover Image: © iStock

  Cover Design: Anita B. Carroll www.race-point.com

  Interior Design: Erin Rhew

  Printed in the United States of America www.bookfishbooks.com

  Chapter One

  Megan

  Swarms of single co-eds circle New Jersey University’s mid-campus gym on the worst holiday of the year. My stomach churns as I study the results of my matchmaking experiment. Once. Twice. The numbers don’t change. This can’t be right.

  “Excuse me? Miss?” I yell over the chatter to a Matchmaker Assistant. As she walks by, I grab hold of her bright red shirt and yank her back. The Carly pin on her name tag stabs my palm.

  “Gah!” I pull my hand away and shake it. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Ben mingling with the crowd. I squat behind a table and grab Carly again, pulling her down with me.

  “Hey!” She scowls and squats next to me, twisting out of my death grip. “What is your problem?”

  “I need your help,” I whisper-shout over the murmur of the crowd.

  Carly’s eyes widen when she notices the number pinned to my chest. I quickly rip it off. “It’s you!”

  I shake my head. “No, no, no. Not me. Nothing’s me.” She jolts up and scans the crowd, but I stretch to yank her back down. Damn Amazon woman.

  “Hey, Chris!” she yells across the room, waving her arms and gesturing down to me. “It’s the one who matched ninety-five percent!”

  I groan, defeated, and stand. A guy in a red shirt, presumably Chris, looks our way, his face showing the same excitement as Carly’s. Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale. As Chris weaves his way through the group, I take a second to search the loud, crowded gym. No Ben.

  Chris studies me like I’m a shiny new car. “We’ve never had anyone as close as ninety-five percent! Our record was seventy.”

  Other participants milling the area gawk. Great. “Yeah, okay. Can you keep it down, please? I hate to tell you this, but this guy you matched me with?” I wave my results at them and lower my voice. “Um, he already dumped me. Your game is flawed.”

  I slump when Ben reenters the gym, holding his results and studying random women’s chests. It’s only a matter of time before he figures out I’m the one he’s looking for. Or worse, Carly and Chris see he’s my match and crown us King and Queen of the Matchmaking Universe or something. I’m such a dummy. I should have never done this. Stupid Rodrigo. It’s all his fault. When I get back to the dorm, I’m going to kick him in the shins.

  The day we completed our questionnaires for the Annual Campus Matchmaking Experiment, or “ACME” for short, Ben, Rod, and I were sitting in the lounge, hammered, while our respective roommates had sex in our dorm rooms. The three of us were sick of finding ourselves in that situation since the basement residents of Sheridan Hall had coupled off. Maggie and Winston, Chase and Juliet, Rocco and Pooja. Rodrigo declared we should be “getting some too,” so we grabbed our laptops and, on a drunken whim, joined the fun.

  Rodrigo chickened out a few days later, but Ben and I kicked our competitive streaks into high gear and stayed in the experiment. Frankly, I really wanted to have sex with someone—anyone—and since my judgment in the Guy Department had been off for quite some time, I figured I’d let the psych students have the honor of making my next bad decision for me. At least I’d have someone to blame when it all blew up.

  Today—dumb, stupid Valentine’s Day—is ACME “Results Day,” a chaotic hunt to match the number of your true soul mate, as determined by the ACME Matchmakers, to the number pinned on someone’s chest. Ben and I braved the cold and walked to the gym together to meet our matches, with not-so-high hopes, and I’d almost turned around seeing the pathetic showing of desperate singles. I kept marching on because I was too proud to wuss out with Ben as a witness.

  Once in the warmth of the gym, I wished Ben good luck, and we separated. He went to the male side of the room and I to the female side to gather our results and discover our scientifically determined match made in heaven—or at least cyberspace.

  I knew Ben’s number was sixty-nine because we had been joking about it ever since he was issued it randomly, maturely calling him “Mr. Sixty-Nine.” I’d refused to tell him my number, which in hindsight was a brilliant move. According to ACME, I was female number one hundred forty-seven, who matched ninety-five percent to male number sixty-nine. Ugh. My second place match was nowhere near Ben at forty-five percent.

  Carly grabs my shoulders, bringing me back to reality. “You’ve got to find sixty-nine!”

  I shake my head and wave my results again, as if the action will erase the numbers on the paper. “There’s no way this is a correct calculation. I have a history with sixty-nine, and I’m certain he’s not into me.”

  “Hmm, that’s odd.” Chris flips through the paperwork attached to his clipboard. “One of you must have lied on your questionnaire. When asked if you want someone who shares your qualities or someone with opposite qualities, you both said share—”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And you answered the majority of questions almost identically. I know because I personally compared them. I thought the calculation was incorrect, so I looked at the actual survey. You had less than five questions that weren’t substantially identical.”

  I grab the clipboard from Chris’s hands. Besides my ACME number, I have no idea what the rest of the data means. “How can that be? He’s a guy.”

  “We don’t count the gender question in the calculation—”

  “I realize that.” I hand him his clipboard. “I’m not an idiot.”

  Carly gestures toward the crowd. “With a match like that, you’re an idiot if you pass up this guy. Do you want me to find him for you? I could look around.”

  “No!” I yell then take a deep breath. “I’m not interested. I assume when you said this process was confidential you meant it?”

  “Yes, of course. But—”

  I hold up my hand to stop her. “So I expect you will keep this conversation and my identity to yourselves”

  Chris waves his clipboard. “But this is amazing. If it works out with you two, it could change the entire matchmaking process. Maybe you want to consider giving sixty-nine another try? In the name of love?” He raises his eyebrows, awaiting my answer.

  I scoff at the sexual innuendo of his statement, but neither matchmaker seems amused as they wait for my response. Carly looks like she might die if I say no, but I shake my head and say it anyway. “Nope. Thanks though.” Chris and Carly watch as I crinkle my number and my results and head for the closest exit.

  I scurry out of the gym into the cold afternoon, drop
ping my ACME paper in the trash. If Ben’s answers matched mine, I now know Ben has had three sexual partners, lost his virginity to someone famous at sixteen, and thinks an ideal Sunday is watching football and eating chili. He also believes sex should not happen before the third date, his favorite food is “cake,” and he must have listed the same three wishes as I did: world peace, the Mustangs to win the Championship, and more wishes.

  And that doesn’t even put a dent in the questionnaire. Of course, I already knew a lot of this stuff about Ben. We’d spent some quality time together since we both moved into the dorm early—him for football practice and me because of my dad’s schedule. He was the first person I met at NJU and my first floormate at Sheridan Hall.

  As I walk to Sheridan, I think back on the first week of school and cringe.

  I liked Ben the moment I met him. He’s one of those people who’s impossible not to like, even taking hormones out of the equation. With hormones in the equation, forget it. He’s unintentionally charming, effortlessly nice, and damn beautiful to look at.

  My dad has a strict “no football player” rule, which I can’t help but break on a regular basis. I’ve been in locker rooms, he says. So have I, and… wow. I grew up around football and love the game, so naturally I find football players attractive. Their big bodies and physical toughness get my juices flowing every time. That first day in Sheridan, when Ben poked his sweaty head into my messy, unpacked dorm room on his way back from practice, I knew I was doomed.

  All Ben had to do was smile, and my insides melted at the sight of his broad shoulders, his wall of a chest, the general bulkiness of his body, and the football pants. Ah, the football pants. I wanted to curl into a ball and let him tuck me into his side and carry me over the goal line. And he has this brown hair—the kind that’s all messy and unstyled like he doesn’t care about it, but it ends up looking amazing anyway. His eyes are the color of milk chocolate, and they’re big, like a puppy dog. Sigh.

  A few days after we’d moved in, I asked him out even though I had a feeling that my gorgeous floormate, Juliet, his best friend throughout high school, was into him as more than a friend. I asked him out even though I knew I could never compete with his “Jules.” I asked him out even though he told me his relationship with her was “complicated.” Then, after he accepted and we went on our date, I asked him into my room because I didn’t care about any of that when he was standing at the door, looming over me, his brown curls covering his thick neck, his warm eyes inches from mine, and his big chest dwarfing my small-framed shoulders. But as soon as it started, it ended. He’d rushed out as we were about to have sex and, the next day, told me he felt he owed it to Juliet to give a relationship a try.

  I hated him, then I didn’t hate him, then we became friends, then the hell of November came, but still, I never let him affect me that way again.

  Technically, he didn’t lie to me, and I take full responsibility for letting him into my room. Still, once I did, I didn’t expect he’d run away so quickly—right into the arms of Juliet.

  I take a deep breath and the cool air clears my lungs as I approach the dorm. I’ll never understand some girls. Girls like Juliet, who seem to have it all, yet don’t know what they want or how to handle anything. She’d had a crush on Ben all through high school, then here, when she finally got him, she dumped him for his roommate, Chase.

  Besides the fact that my father is a retired National Football Organization Hall of Famer, I try to live a simple, drama-free life. Even after the horribleness of November and the shooting at our dorm, I prefer to fly under the radar. Nobody knows who my dad is. Nobody knows about my personal history, and that’s the way I like it.

  I played sucker to Ben once and was thrown head first into his drama. No way will I do it again. A drama-free life includes me not hooking up with my floormate. Especially one who already dumped me. I need to move on from him, no matter how perfectly matched we may be.

  As I open the door to Sheridan, I focus on one thought: Ben can never find out I’m his match. Ever.

  Ben

  I search the gym, feeling like a creeper as I look at each girl’s chest for number one-forty-seven. I make a mental note to email the psych department and recommend a different body part to pin the ladies’ numbers to. Especially since some of these women have no problem with cleavage, despite the freezing New Jersey temperatures outside.

  Tired from endlessly wandering around the gym, I sit at one of the folding tables and wait, hoping she shows up and finds me. After an hour of playing on my phone, I’m the last participant in the room. Number one-forty-seven is nowhere to be found.

  Even Megan abandoned me. On the walk over, I thought about ditching this whole stupid experiment and asking Megan to have dinner with me instead. She would have rejected me, and I couldn’t blame her.

  In hindsight, running out on her like a freak after our one date was the worst move ever. But back then, something about being away at college with a new girl overwhelmed me. From day one, Meg and I were perfect together. Becoming friends with her was simple, and our attraction was obvious. There were no games, no awkwardness. We liked the same things, we talked, we laughed.

  But it was too easy. I’d convinced myself that it was wrong to be so comfortable with someone so soon. With Meg, I stopped missing home, and that scared me. So I’d bolted, leaving the beautiful girl alone in her room, practically naked and completely confused.

  I’m about to text her when a matchmaker assistant holding a clipboard in one hand and a Dr. Pepper in the other approaches. His nametag reads Chris. “Hey! You’re our last holdout. What happened to your match?” He slurps his soda as he studies my chest. I’d taken off my number.

  “She never showed.”

  He shakes his head slowly and grimaces. “Ah, that sucks the process didn’t work for you.” He glances at his clipboard then back at me. His eyes widen, like everyone else’s on campus when they realize who I am. “Hey, you’re from Sheridan right?”

  I nod.

  “How’s your shoulder? Man, that was really courageous, what you did. I’m sorry about your friend.”

  I struggle with people who show me sympathy, even genuine sympathy like Chris. It’s worse when they call me “courageous.” I did nothing to warrant the title. Reliving that November day over and over—the day Frank died, the day I couldn’t save him—makes me want to shut down and hide, so I change the subject. “About the match…”

  Chris clears his throat, seeming to get the hint. “Sometimes matchmaking works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s science that relies on fate.”

  “Fate hasn’t been my friend lately.” I rub my beard, my new habit. Feeling the roughness under my palm calms me. “We were matched at ninety-five percent.”

  Chris spits out his soda, luckily in the opposite direction from me. “That was you?” He flips through his clipboard again. “Number sixty-nine?”

  “That was me.”

  “We’ve never had that high of a match since we started ACME five years ago. You’re half of a record.”

  “Can you tell me who the other half is? Number one-forty-seven?”

  His shoulders slump. “I can’t, dude. It would undermine the entire process.”

  “How am I going to find her?”

  “I don’t know.” He slaps me on the back. “Sorry, man,” he says. “You’ll have to leave it all up to fate.” Then he walks away.

  When Chris leaves, I’m alone in the gym, so I officially give up and head back to the dorm.

  Couples swarm campus, probably on their way out for Valentine’s night. They’re all dressed in red and smiling, arm in arm. I cram my fists into my coat and shove my way past all the happiness, not making eye contact, jealous I didn’t meet my match. At least I’d be occupied tonight—dinner, coffee, drinks, sex, whatever. Instead, I’m traipsing through the snowy, freezing campus alone. Fate sucks.

  I shake the snow off of my head and my pitiful attitude along with it. It’s a blessin
g I’m alive. The words echo through my mind in my mom’s voice. It’s been my mantra since November. When I get to Sheridan, I dig out my swipe card and slam it against the pad, waiting for the door to click open.

  Inside, it’s warm and quiet as I jog down the staircase and into the basement. Megan steps out of room three. She’s dressed in all black, from her puffy coat to her boots. Her blonde hair and blue eyes are the only spots of color on her.

  I move toward her. “Hey!”

  She jumps, grabs her chest, and her keys fall to the floor. “Jesus, Ben! You scared me.”

  I pick up the keys and shake them at her. “You left me.” I scowl, acting more pissed than I am.

  She grabs them out of my hand and flips through them. “I couldn’t find you. I… I thought you ran off with your match.”

  I lean against the life-sized portrait of Megan across from room three. Over the holiday break, my roommate, Chase, an art major, covered the walls with a mural portraying each of us in vibrant colors, happy like we used to be before November. He’d even painted Frank looking down at us from the hallway ceiling. It’s an amazing display of his talent and our camaraderie since the horribleness of November.

  “My dream girl was a no show, Sweet Meg. Do you believe I matched with someone ninety-five percent?”

  Her eyes dart to mine, and she raises her eyebrows. “That seems awfully high.” Her voice squeaks, and she drops her keys again.

  I hold my hand out in an offer to help her. Why is she so edgy? “Want me to show you how keys and door locks work?” I chuckle as she bends to retrieve them, and then I try to grab them away again.

  She jerks them out of my reach. “Ha. You’re funny. I’m feeling a little scattered today. Dumb Valentine’s Day.”

  “How’d it go for you at ACME? Did you meet your match?”

  “Oh, yeah, um, I’m going to meet him now.” She successfully inserts the key into her doorknob and locks up. “Just a bit nervous.”

  I’m curious about Megan’s match, but she doesn’t offer. And she’s blushing like mad. It’s none of my business anyway.