Fall break is over. I didn't see Blake at the hotel before checkout and he didn't text me back. Luckily Spencer wasn't around for the rest of the weekend either. But my mother and her spying still lumes heavily in the air. When I was little my mom used to watch Scooby Doo with me and read Nancy Drew stories. Both of these tales are about mysteries and solving them, and like a detective she has figured me out. Thanks Motherly Sherlock for making me feel guilt and shame about my young adult decisions.Growing up we were always taught to make the right decisions. But how can you know what the right ones are, if you don't sometimes experience the bad? My mom would tell me not to go to high school drinking parties, but why? After attending a few I now see why it is bad. Are we not to discover evil and hurt for ourselves so we grow on our own? I can't learn from her past mistakes if she doesn't tell me about them. I can't learn from what she did if she doesn't speak up to teach me. Did she
Who does Dante think he is? Telling me what to do. If only Blake and I thought about the window that day. If only we hadn't kissed in my hall director's bedroom. That moment of happiness has been captured on a smart phone and is now our undoing. The only way out is for me to pull my pants down and fuck Dante senseless.I've gone from virgin, to lover, to campus slut in the span of two months. If only I never applied and got accepted into Nordstrom University. My life would have been different if I skipped college altogether. Evie talked me into coming here. I should have followed my heart and worked at the local coffee shop for a year instead.Some of our other high school classmates are taking a gap year this year. A year in between high school and university to take a break from studying and discover something else. Maybe a fun job at a coffee shop for a year would have been better for me. I could just throw the towel in now and leave this place. It's settled. I'll fuck Dante. Save
I know Evie means well and I'm sure Benjamin will be able to provide us with a means to blackmail Dante. But regardless of all that, I want to see Blake again before I walk the valley of death. The valley of death is where I protect Blake and am as exposed as I can be. It's where I am naked and nothing. It's where the ugliness of my shame destroys my soul which I can no longer protect. It's where I am both predator or prey depending on whose asking. It's the place I fear most at night when the lights go out.My phone beeps and it's Dante. He's already sending me sexy outfits to buy. The slut shaming I will receive a Nordstrom University will be gut wrenching. It's as if it already happened and everyone knows. I mine as well be naked in the street with my body exposed for them to mock. That's what Dante's text has done to me. My anxiety is high and my hope wanes. Hope is the only thing getting me through this turmoil and now that's gone to.I open the text and one of the swim suits is
Thanksgiving break comes and Dante and I have agreed to fuck after Thanksgiving and before finals. I have moved off campus until Thanksgiving is over. I can't face Evie. I don't want to tell her, I've dumped Blake. She has my back, but unfortunately she hasn't found anything blackmail worthy to get me out of fucking Dante. I've been able to push his desires back, but if I am not careful he will indeed fire Blake behind my back.I've been sending Dante nude photos to keep his cravings at bay. It's like sleeping with the enemy without actually sleeping with him. It's an odd thing that the young man I met a few months ago and drew sketches for is a secret perverted douchebag. Life is a funny thing and people are not what they seem. What if the world is full of masks that we all wear? Who are we trying to impress? What is all this pretense for?It's the way of things to impress potential friends, only for your mask to fall down overtime. Your true self is exposed for the world to see. Whe
The rest of Thanksgiving break flies by and I'm back on campus. My homework has all been turned in and I somehow might manage to pass all my classes. I figure if I really sucked this semester, I can just drop out and try again online or enroll somewhere else for the following fall. It's amazing to me that the fall semester is almost over. In that time too much has happened, and my emotions are haywire.Evie and I play catch up upon my return. Her parents are getting a divorce, and her Thanksgiving was a shit show. Benjamin was her saving grace, and I'm glad he could be there for her when I couldn't be. If it weren't for Benjamin, Evie wouldn't have had anywhere to celebrate Thanksgiving. Even my own family didn't really do anything for Thanksgiving. My mom made frozen pizza and played the New York Thanksgiving day parade on her television.When you're a kid holidays are magical and the people who gather to celebrate them make the magic come alive. But as an adult I'm starting to see t
A small box sits in my side table drawer. From time to time I open the drawer and think maybe I was a fool or letting myself fall for a student. Even one so similar to Stacey. Their resemblance is uncanny at times. My love for Cora is still with me, with every inhale the sigh of my failure leaves my body when I exhale.My brother, Isaac told me to let her go. It's easier said than done. My brother's always had life easier than me. The woman he met in college is still breathing and giving him heirs. But my life has been one disaster after a curve ball, like the rinse and repeat one finds on shampoo bottles.My brother has the perfect life. I on the other hand, inherited bad luck from our father, William Oakley. My father was attached to has first wife too, but like my Stacey, she too died before her time. Her death was due to a grizzly bear attack in Yellow Stone National Park. My father doesn't like to talk about it much can't say I'd blame him. I don't like talking about Stacey's dea
Dante pulls a chair up to me. His eyes tell a story of jealous, hurt, and anger. I hand him a cup of coffee and prepare to listen to whatever story he wishes to tell. Some stories are important to listen to and if I want to not get fired I had better listen this time. I suspect that no matter what happens I will not be teaching at Nordstrom University for very long. If Dante knows about Cora and I, and what transpired between us before the break up, then my job has already been on egg shells from the beginning. I always knew this would be the case.There was always the possibility of this relationship ruining me. It was always a likelihood. I knew it right from the start, but I kissed her anyway. I could have been fired and yet I loved her anyway. I love her still. I love her as Cora Worthington and not as Stacey Oakley. I always knew she compared herself to Stacey, but I ignored it for the most part. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that to her. Perhaps I shouldn't have let our paths
After delaying Dante for as long as I can, my time to decide is upon me. It's not an easy place to be in. Do I try to be with Dante or do I confess and get kicked out of the university? I was never college material to begin with. My mother paid for tutoring all way through high school. She can deny it all she wants but I'm convinced I have a learning disability of some kind. It took me years to learn how to read and I confuse letters sometimes. Mother never got me tested for anything. I can't hold a bad decision against mom, but it didn't make studying any easier.If I were college material perhaps I would be sad at the prospect of possibly being kicked out. But right now I don't care. The pressure to study and memorize is just daunting to me. Writing papers makes my anxiety high. I think I would be better suited to something else, but what that is I'm not sure. I just want to go home and become a barista for a year or two. Having a gap year or two might have been a better choice for