Bianca

I’d hated him before, and after the way he spoke to me at breakfast, I hated him even more. He always had a way of making me feel insignificant. Yes, I didn’t normally dress in a minidress like I did last night, but I did it because Dad asked me to.

This was why whenever Alessandro came to Two Sheets, I made a point to never serve him. I always made sure Erika did the deed. She was more tolerant than I was, always managing to serve everyone, including jocks like Alessandro, with a smile on her face. He would swarm in with his gold card and buy drinks for anyone who gave him any attention. I hated the way he did it, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. 

He was loaded, and he wanted everyone to know it. I knew some guys on campus were probably as well off as he was, but they didn’t flaunt it like he did with his Rolex, Gucci clothes, and every other designer item under the sun. He made it known everything on him was worth more than I had in my closet and then some. 

I needed to stay as far away from the Russos as possible. Carlo did make me feel special, but in the string of fifteen minutes, Alessandro had managed to make me feel cheap, as if he didn’t mean anything that he said in the text he sent last night. 

“I hate him!” I screamed once I was safely in my dorm and away from any onlookers. 

He had a point, though—Dad was drunk again. I’d swept it under the rug last night, but today was even worse, especially at this hour of the morning. But if Alessandro was so concerned, he should have been trying to help him, not humiliate him. Then again, it wasn’t in his blood to show any type of kindness.

“Hey, what’s up?” Erika said, concerned with my sudden outburst. 

I shook my head. “You don’t want to know. You really don’t.”

She looked at me with concern, her blue eyes becoming dull. “Let me guess—your dad? By the way, does he drive an old beat-up blue Omega?”

I skipped over the question about the car, answering the first. “Even worse—Alessandro and my dad.”

“What, the hot baseball player you always avoid at Two Sheets?”

I winced. “Yes!”

She laughed, sitting on her bed and patting for me to join her. “Mhm. You have the hots for the guy, and judging by the way he looks at you, I’d say the feeling’s mutual.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. You should’ve heard the way he spoke to me, as if I’m a piece of trash or something.”

I did have to say, though, that when Alessandro was talking about my clothes, I had to wonder how he knew what I wore on a daily basis.

She laughed. “I think you’ll find he speaks to everyone like that. Unlike Carlo, who’s a hopeless flirt.”

I looked down at my hands, which I was wringing in my lap.

“Hey, did I say something wrong?”

“It’s just… I thought I was special. Carlo was flirting with me yesterday. He made me feel like I was hot for the first time in my life, and then Alessandro said something nasty about the ‘real me’ compared to last night. Fucking asshole!”

“Calm down. I wish I came home last night and saw you all dressed up. You should have taken a photo.” Erika sighed as she stroked my hair. “The reason no guy has made you feel hot is because you’ve never let them get close enough. You always push them away, especially after Ben broke up with you. That was when you really changed.”

“Not true,” I asserted, pulling back to look at her better. “Besides, how am I supposed to feel when one minute Ben is telling me he has no time for a relationship and the next he’s hooking up with what’s her face?”

She smiled. “You know her name very well. It’s Cristina. And I told you to ignore Ben, he’s a jerk.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Nevermind,” she said, jumping off the bed. She moved to the mirror, admiring herself as if she were getting ready to leave. “Look, you don’t have to be all defensive about it. I get it.”

I sighed, deciding to change the subject. I was tired of talking about Dad, how I’d changed since Ben moved on, and Alessandro.

“You meeting Hank?”

Erika and Hank were childhood sweethearts who talked about getting married the day after graduation. They belonged together, a perfect couple. They spent time with each other, with their friends, and they respected each other’s decisions. What more could a girl ask for in a relationship? 

She laughed. “How did you guess?”

“Just the way you’re looking in the mirror right now, as if he’s smiling back at you,” I said as I stood up, thinking I needed to get moving too. “I’m going to go to the library.” I needed to study, and I couldn’t concentrate in this room.

“If you want to chill later, let me know. I think Hank’s hanging with the guys later.”

“Sure thing.” I nodded, then remembered something she said earlier. “Why did you ask about Dad’s car?”

“Nothing,” she said, waving it off. “Security saw some guy sleeping in it on campus and told him to leave. It’s not his car, is it?”

“No,” I lied.

“Good. Catch ya later.”

Dad was sleeping in his car. This was really getting out of hand. I really needed to call Nan and Uncle Floyd, but I’d forgotten after the incident with Alessandro.

Right. I would get to the library, sort out this paper, finish my shift, and then call them instead of hanging out with Erika, maybe see what we could do about Dad. 

I sighed as I gathered my notebooks and my laptop. It surprised a lot of people that I liked to write things out by hand before I typed them, but it’d been my only option until recently. I wasn’t brought up with iPads, laptops, and phones like a lot of the students in my class. No, I got my first phone when I came to college, and my laptop shortly afterwards.

Besides, I liked writing by hand, because it meant I didn’t spend all day just looking at a screen. 

As I made my way to the library, I thought about the guys. Part of me liked the idea of Carlo being into me so I could have some company besides Erika. She not only had a boyfriend, but a ton of other friends, too. At times I felt like the pity friend, even if she never treated me that way. 

I needed to make a change in my life. Alessandro and Erika were right. I hid behind my clothes. I’d made out Ben was the perfect man for me, but he’d never rocked my boat. And the most humiliating part about being dumped by him was that I’d believed the lie he told me.

I knew I needed to spend some serious time working on this paper… but maybe I could find a little time to change before my shift. Wear something other than sweats to work. 

Ha, Alessandro—what do you think about that?