Forbidden Love
camp was
practically cost prohibitive. Over sixteen thousand dollars for the
six-week program, in fact. Trisha’s mother and father were going to
apply for financial aid, but meanwhile try to figure out a way to
gather the money.
     
    “Why don’t you do a fundraiser?” Trisha
said.
     
    “But that’s so greedy,” her mother said. “I
don’t think we could ask our neighbors to give us money like that,
for something they’d think was frivolous. They’re working class,
like us. We’ll have to find some other way.”
     
    After the conversation,
Trisha realized that her mother’s appeal to her to wait at Making Waves that summer
probably had less to do with their leaky roof than their desire to
send Lucas to this camp. Why hadn’t her mother just come out with that? Annoyance
crept up the back of Trisha’s neck like a rash, familiar but hotter
than the last time it had surfaced. She would have been more likely
to be willing to help out if her efforts benefited Lucas. God, her
mother drove her insane.
     
    “Maybe she didn’t tell you because you’re
going to have student loans when you get out of this place,” Millie
said to her frankly later on at dinner. “They didn’t bend over
backwards to save you from that burden, did they?”
     
    Trisha didn’t answer her. She chewed her
chicken and broccoli and passively let the weight of knowing the
unfairness of things descend on her shoulders. She wondered if
Rusty were thinking about her at all, or if he had gone back to his
daily routine with no memory of the compliments he had given her a
couple of nights before, and no conscience whatsoever that told him
what a prick he was.
     
    On Tuesday, Trisha perked up a little bit at
the prospect of starting her Characterization class. Even though it
had not been her first choice—she had tried to get into the Acting
Methods II course, to get departmental permission to skip one of
the prerequisites for it—she was eager to get back to the culture
she loved after a month away. As she walked toward lower campus to
the performance arts complex for the one o’clock start, she tried
to pump herself up, to cast the bitter remnants of Rusty’s smell,
taste, and voice out of her system. But straining to exile him from
her thoughts only planted him there with more force. Where was he
now? At the gym, fortifying those muscles with endless reps on the
bench press? Fingering some other girl in his bed? Sleeping, with
no skeletons to disturb his slumber? By the time Trisha had pushed
through the glass double doors of the Bernstein Building, her eyes
were burning with furious tears. She had to stop in the ladies room
to breathe and to press paper towels doused in cold water on her
eyelids.
     
    “Heeey,” Trisha heard from behind her and she
blinked the moisture away to see, in the mirror, one of her least
favorite people in the theatre department: Genevieve Chartrand.
Genevieve exuded sexuality and confidence, and never hesitated to
step in front of a fellow actor to gain attention or take on a
challenge first. She also had the most complete PINK wardrobe that
Trisha had ever seen. She didn’t know anyone except Genevieve who
would dare to wear the word SEXY in sequins across her ass.
     
    “Hi, Gen,” Trisha said. She could muster only
a monotone.
     
    “What, were you crying or something?” Gen
said, fluffing her obnoxiously long black hair. “Tough way to start
a semester. I think I’d rather die than walk into a class looking
like I just got ditched.” She reapplied her lip gloss. “Sorry, but
it’s pretty obvious.”
     
    “Yeah,” Trisha said. “Actually, I just got a
phone call that my grandfather died. But thanks for your
support.”
     
    Gen looked at her, sticky
lips open slightly. Amused by her own lie, Trisha thought she could
see the processing in that pretty little brain: I don’t care; I care kind of; no, wait—I actually
don’t.
     
    “Well,” Gen said, and shrugged, “my
grandfather is
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Consider the Lobster

David Foster Wallace

A Strange Commonplace

Gilbert Sorrentino

The Commodore

Patrick O’Brian

Sycamore Row

John Grisham