The Devastation You Reap by Tracy Lorraine

1

Macie

"What the—" I start as the guy my roommate was with storms from the room, slamming the door in his wake.

If I had any idea she was in here with a guy I never would have barged in. But I was convinced her screams were in fear not out of pleasure.

"Oh, pfft," Charlie scoffs as she scrambles naked from her bed and grabs her robe to cover up. "Get that judgemental look off your face, Mace."

"This?" I ask, pointing at what I can only assume is my pale face. "This isn't judgment. This is shock," I state, recalling the image I walked in on.

No one ever needs to see their roommate on all fours getting spanked by… by…

"Who even was that?"

"Leon Dunn," she says, like all of this is no big deal.

I know his name, of course I do, but in my quest to stay as far away as possible from the football team, I'd not really studied the faces of our beloved kings.

"I didn't think you were interested in a football player," I say. Up until now, it's one of the things we've bonded over since starting at MKU last year and finding ourselves as roommates.

"I know but he was there and clearly up for it so I thought, why not find out what all the fuss is about. You know?"

No, I don't know. But I don't tell her that.

My need to stay as far away as possible from them means that I've never even considered breaking my one fundamental rule about who I spend time with.

"It wasn't worth it," she says, walking into her adjoining bathroom. "Pretty sure he couldn't even get it up."

My stomach turns over at her words as I vividly remember him not having that issue when he pressed his body against mine and not so subtly suggested I join the party.

My knees give out and I fall down onto Charlie's bed. That is until I glance at the crumpled sheets and I jump up as if it's on fire as I think about what—or what didn't—go down right there only moments ago.

I'm still staring at her bed when Charlie emerges, laughing at me.

"You're such a prude, Mace. You should have taken him up on the offer. It might have helped dirty you up a little."

"I'm not a prude." I cross my arms as I turn to her, immediately irritated by the raised brow she gives me. "What? I'm not."

"Sure, sure. I forgot you kissed someone the summer before senior year."

My cheeks burn with embarrassment as I regret ever admitting my lack of experience with boys. It's not entirely my fault. Up until my time at college, I’ve only attended all-girls schools, which means the majority of my time was spent with said girls, and the only boys I've ever really been around were football players who I wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

"I'm waiting for the right guy. There's nothing wrong with that."

"I agree. There's not. But you need to loosen up a little. Kiss a few frogs before you find your prince."

I stare at her as she brushes her hair. She probably still smells like that douchebag and isn’t even bothering to wash him off.

"If the frogs are like him, I'll pass, thanks."

"Your loss. He was kinky as hell."

"Yeah, I heard," I mutter, backing up to the door.

"You know," she mutters, holding my eyes in her mirror. "The quiet ones are always the dirtiest. I bet there's a kinky little freak under those cardigans you wear all the time, Mace."

"Whatever, I'm going back to bed."

Closing her door behind me, I make my way back to my room next door, wishing—and not for the first time—that I was on the other side of the dorm with two bathrooms between our rooms like Nathan and Jace have.

"She still alive?" Nathan calls from his room as I pass his door.

Looking up, I find him lounging on his bed in only a pair of shorts reading a book.

When I first started here in our co-ed dorm, the sight of a male chest used to make me blush like a nun in a sex shop, but after a few months, I've almost become desensitized by both Nathan and Jace. Almost.

But seeing them shirtless and having him pressed against me only minutes ago are two completely different things.

A wave of heat rushes through me as I remember just how harsh his grip on my throat was, and how every inch of his solid body felt pressed up against me.

"You okay?" he asks, lowering his book to his chest.

"Huh, what?"

It's not until his eyes drop to my neck that I realize that my fingers are lightly brushing the skin where he touched me.

"Y-yeah, sorry. I just…" I look behind me at Charlie's door, my head spinning, the blood that's pumping through my veins suddenly feels too hot.

"Jesus, what did you see?"

"Oh… um… n-nothing."

"Sure, well… if you wanna talk about it—"

"You mean gossip?" I correct him.

Leon would’ve had to storm past Nathan's room to get out so I can only assume that he already knows who was behind the blood-curdling screams of our roommate that dragged me out of my own bed.

"Me?" he asks, pulling the best innocent face that he can muster. "Never."

"Riiight. I'm going to bed."

"Sure, see you in the morning."

I nod, but my body doesn't actually move straight away, my head is still firmly back in Charlie's room and hella confused by everything.

"You sure you're okay?" Nathan asks again.

When I look up again, I find he's now sitting on his bed, concern etched onto his face.

"Yeah, really. I'm just tired. Night," I say, forcing my legs to move so I don't stand there looking any weirder than I’ve already been.

I know I'm the odd one out amongst my roommates. That was abundantly clear the first day I moved in. I knew I'd lived a sheltered life, it's one of the reasons I decided to live on campus instead of getting myself a place to hide in. I wanted to experience this. I wanted to have friends, to party, to just be… normal.

It's the first time in my life where I'm not being controlled by someone else and I want to embrace it. Even if it does make me feel like a fish out of water most days.

The drinking, the partying, the easy sex.

Maybe Charlie is right, maybe I am just a prude.

But I don't think I am because… I want it all.

I want to experience all the things she does. I want to know how it feels. I just… don't want to do it with some random guy I'm probably never going to see again. Or worse, a member of the football team who'll leave here and brag to the rest of his guys about how he broke the innocent prep school virgin.

I close my door behind me and lean back, my head tipping to the ceiling, my eyes squeezing closed as I remember how he felt. How his tall, hard body felt pressed up against mine. How his wicked words rocked me to my core and made me feel things I never have before.

I tell myself that it was the shock, the fear of the evil glint in his eyes as he stared at me. But… I don't think it was that.

Pushing from the door, I force myself to put the whole situation out of my head. I shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. I know that all of this is my fault because I panicked that Charlie was actually in trouble. In hindsight, the fact that Nathan and Jace hadn't bothered to do anything about it should have told me that nothing was really wrong. But I've never been one to sit back and think when I decide something isn't right.

I learned that from my past. From my regrets.

I lie in bed, staring at the shadows on my ceiling and force my mind away from memories of other times in my life where I've done something similar and regretted it almost instantly.

As mortifying as tonight has been, what I've been through in the past was a million times worse. I'd take walking in on Charlie any day of the week over that.

* * *

I wake with a start and immediately kick the sheets off my burning body. My skin is covered in a layer of sweat and my heart is racing from the dream I was in the middle of. A dream that had no right being inside my head. He has no right being in my head.

I lie there with my eyes squeezed tight, willing the lingering image of him standing before me, one hand around my throat as the other one slipped down my body.

My skin erupts in goose bumps as a shiver of fear races down my spine.

I gasp, sitting up, my eyes scanning my room as if someone's here. As if I'm being watched.

But it's empty.

I fall back on an exhale and laugh at myself.

Stop being paranoid, Macie.

With a groan, I put everything behind me and head for a shower, needing to forget everything about the night before and get focused on a new week of classes.

"Good morning," I sing, finding both Nathan and Jace in our kitchen when I emerge.

"Morning," Nathan says with a smile while Jace nods in my direction looking a little worse for wear. "Didn't think you were meant to party during the season."

"Shut up," he grumbles, rubbing at his temples.

"Suck it up, man," Nathan says. "Coach will be waiting for us."

"Can't you just tell him I'm sick?"

Nathan stares at Jace, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "No. I can't. I told you not to do those shots."

"Ugh," he complains, looking between the two of us. "You prep school kids are a pain in my ass," he grumbles, dumping his coffee mug in the sink and disappearing toward his room.

"I didn't even hear him come in last night," I say to Nathan as I head for the coffee maker.

"That's because he's only just appeared."

"Jesus."

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Mace," he jokes.

We might have gone to very different prep schools, but the things we've experienced, the loneliness, the abandonment, they're one in the same and after only a few days of living here together we discovered that we had more in common than we first thought. Much like Charlie and Jace with their need to spend every day battling with a hangover.

"Right, let's go, asshole," Jace states, marching through the kitchen still looking like death.

"Later, Mace." Nathan winks before swiping his bag from the door and disappearing.

I'm almost done with my breakfast and ready to head to the library before my first class of the day when Charlie finally emerges from her room.

"Ugh," she moans the second she looks at me dressed and ready for the day.

I've always been a morning person, whereas Charlie is the ultimate night owl.

She shuffles toward me, her dyed red hair resembling a bird's nest on her head despite the fact she was brushing it when I left her last night, her makeup is smeared all over her face and I can smell the stench of alcohol permeating from her skin from all the way over here.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"I went back out."

My head rears back in shock.

"What?" she asks, plodding toward the coffee maker and slamming her hand down on it until it starts working. "You ruined all my fun last night. I had to go and find some more."

"Oh, yeah. Of course. Sorry about that."

"Nah," she says, waving me off. "Best thing that could have happened. Leon Dunn can go fuck himself. I found a much better playmate who could get the job properly done."

"Great. I'm glad," I deadpan as I rinse my plate off. "I'm heading out."

"Already, it's like…"

"Eight."

"Exactly."

"You've got class in an hour."

"I know, I know." She holds her hands up in defense. "I'll be there, Mom."

"Good. But shower first. No one’s gonna wanna sit next to you smelling like that."

"Bitch," she squeals as I make my way down to my room to grab my books.

She's still in the kitchen hugging a mug of coffee when I return.

"You coming out for drinks tonight?"

I stare at her, wondering why she's even bothering to ask me.

"Oh come on, Mace. It’s freshman year, you seriously can't be boring the whole time. You need to let your hair down at some point."

"I do. Just not on a Monday night. You know I volunteer tonight."

"Yeah, until like nine. Come after."

"Not happening."

"Fine. Be like that. But you'll never lose those V plates hanging out with kids at the community center."

"Who says I want to?" I shoot over my shoulder as I leave our dorm.

"Prude."

"Slut."

I'm still laughing as I jog down the stairs.

Charlie and I might be the most unlikely of friends, but somehow she's wiggled her way into my life. She might spend most of her time giving me shit about my life choices, much like I do hers. But all of it is lighthearted, and I'm pretty sure I'd miss it—miss her—now if anything was to happen.

She's the type of girl I stayed the hell away from in high school. She was the popular one. The cheerleader. The ones who hated me equally as much as I hated them. But opposites attract and now I can't imagine my life without her, even if she causes more drama than I probably need in my life.

I spend a little over thirty minutes in the library finding all the books I need for my next assignment before heading to class.

I breathe in the scent of the clean auditorium as I step inside and find my seat at the front along with a few other keen students before pulling everything out that I need and rereading my notes from our last class so I'm ready for today’s lecture. And finally, thoughts of last night, my dream this morning, completely disappear in favor of focusing on my future.