Bad Rep (Bad Rep #1)(90)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

“You made me feel like the slut everyone else has accused me of being. You came here and immediately assumed I was f**king Eli. You didn’t ask me what was going on. Your mind went straight to that conclusion.” Jordan’s eyes cleared a bit and he looked contrite.

“Maysie…” He breathed out but I wouldn’t let him finish his thought.

“This thing we have is ridiculous. Why in the world did we think we could start a relationship built on lies? Trust, which is so fundamental, is something we never had a chance to really build with each other. And I think it might be too late.”

The anger left Jordan’s face entirely. I watched as two tears slid down his face. Oh god, I didn’t know if I could handle Jordan crying. His hands were clenched at his side, as though he were fighting with himself to not touch me.

“You’re right, baby. We began out of something ugly. But what we became was something beautiful. I just wish I could make you see that.” His voice broke and he took a deep breath. My throat closed up and I had to rein in my own tears otherwise I’d be sobbing like a child.

“But you only want to see the ugly, Maysie. And I can’t change that. I wish just for once you would care more about what you think than what everyone else thinks. Why does the opinion of every other jackass on campus matter more than how you and I feel?” He reached up and wiped away his tears with the heel of his palm. Then he scrubbed his hand over his face. “This was a mistake. I’ve got to get out of here.” He stumbled backwards and wrenched open the bathroom door.

I followed him out of the bathroom. “Wait, Jordan. Please,” I begged, hurrying after him. Jordan came up short and turned to face me again.

“No, Maysie. You were right. We can’t save this. This is broken and it can’t be fixed. We’ve spent way too much time making each other feel like shit. This has to end now,” he said sadly.

I saw Riley get up off of her knees, where she had been scrubbing the blood from the carpet. Damn it, the tears were streaming down my face now. “I’m so sorry, Jordan. I never meant to hurt you. I…”I trailed off, not sure what else I could say. Because this had become something so messed up that I didn’t know what I could do to change it.

Jordan’s face crumpled and he reached for me, crushing me against his chest and burying his face in my neck. “My god, Maysie. I just wish I didn’t love you damn much,” he cried brokenly, his face pressed against my skin. I had brought him to this. How could I have done this to someone I love? Here he was despairing over the fact that he loved me. That his love was in fact destroying him. My insecurities, my fears, were getting in the way of something wonderful. I hated myself for it.

He should have stayed with Olivia. He would have been better off.

Then he pulled himself backwards, almost violently, and stumbled away from me. “Goodbye, Maysie,” he said softly, his eyes clinging to my face. Then he turned to Riley. “I’m sorry about the mess,” he said. Riley waved off his comment, clearly uncomfortable with what she had just witnessed.

And then he turned and walked out the door and out of my life. For good this time. Because I knew without a doubt that Jordan Levitt was done. There would be no begging or pleading for me to come back to him. What we had was over.

I stood there, stock still, unable to move. “You stupid, stupid, idiot,” Riley muttered before resuming her task. I had nothing to say. So I ran back down the hall to my bedroom and slammed the door. Throwing myself on my bed, I burrowed under the covers, never wanting to get up again.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Picking yourself up after hitting rock bottom is a daunting task. One that I wasn’t entirely sure I was capable of. After my relationship with Jordan tanked so miserably, I was stuck in this strange holding pattern. Caught in the vicious cycle of avoidance and denial, I tried to sleep my life away, refusing to get up for class and only rarely to eat.

After two weeks of this, Gracie, Vivian and Riley held an intervention. They each informed me that if I didn’t snap out of it, they would personally call my parents and send me home with a one way bus ticket.

That had done it. I may have been clinically depressed but hell if I’d be depressed at home. Heck, I’d probably off myself just to get out of seeing my parent’s wonderful disapproval. So I sucked it up for my friends’ sake and slowly rejoined the land of the living.

It was rough. It took time. But gradually I started reintegrating myself back into society. It was early November already. School would be breaking for Thanksgiving soon and then after that our month long winter holiday. I was planning to go home with Riley for Thanksgiving, not that my parents seemed to be bothered that I wouldn’t be heading to South Carolina for the holidays.

I started to find things to look forward to again. I got my act together and started working my tail off in my classes. I think I spent more time in the library than anywhere else for the next few weeks. I stopped hiding out in my apartment. I stopped hiding all together.

Sure, the looks hadn’t stopped. I still heard the whispers but I was working really hard on not letting them drive me any more insane than they already had. Living in a fish bowl was uncomfortable but that was the price you pay for notoriety.

The Chi Delta girls continued to treat me as though I had the plague. And I knew for a fact that they were the biggest culprits in keeping the rumors circulating. I would have thought that after being disgracefully kicked out of my sorority and ending things with the resident heartthrob himself, it would have cooled things a bit. But Olivia and Milla still threw daggers whenever they could.

Trying to be the bigger person was quickly getting on my nerves. Whiny, pathetic Maysie had to take a hike. Because bad ass, low bullshit tolerance, Maysie was back in force. It sucked that it took losing Jordan for me to realize that life was too short to worry so much about what everyone else thought. That what I thought was what truly mattered. But it was a lesson better learned now than not at all.

So I was taking my life back. One nasty look at a time.

Up first, the pretentious duo in my Shakespeare and Chaucer class, aka Cyndy and Aimee. We continued to have to work in our assigned groups for class assignments and they still treated me like I was something they scrapped off the bottom of their shoes. Their looks of disgust and pointed glares, while before would have made me want to curl into a ball, now just pissed me off.

Charlie had at least stopped his outright leering. But it did little to alleviate the awkwardness within the group. One afternoon we were working on a group essay that had to be completed by the end of class. I was writing down ideas the others were tossing around when Cyndy clicked her tongue in annoyance.