I smiled as the two embraced and Covee waved goodbye to me. Yara started walking with me, talking about last night and the reactions on social media. I nodded, not completely able to focus on her words because my mind still lingered on the conversation before.
Weston. The name sounded so familiar and it was bugging me that I couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t ask Yara because she seemed more than ready to move on from the topic. Her whole demeanor changed, voice lighter now we’d left the conversation behind.
So, I simply nodded and responded to her comments in a timely manner. In the back of my mind, I made a note to settle for the next best thing to ask Yara about the name: an Internet search.
Chapter 9
Myex,Tyler,cheatedon me multiple times with three different people in our “friend” group. I learned about it the day before our two-year anniversary.
I didn’t want to believe it at first, but the fates seemed to align when I found out I needed to get tested for an STI. My test turned out negative and seemed to be the only good news that year.
As to be expected, since then, I’ve not only been wary of guys but large friend groups. I wanted to have a healthy outlook on new people but I had rules. The main one was: no secrets.
Large groups could keep harmful secrets. And Dakota’s group of friends were already giving me red flags. I’d experience enough harm to last me a lifetime, which was why I had to make the unfortunate decision to put my flirtation with Dakota to an end.
From this point on, I’d have to proceed with caution in the friendship area as well. Everything I found out about this Weston guy and the players involved last year seemed suspicious. None of the articles I found went into too much detail. But I gathered enough information to understand someone was hiding something.
New Emmy couldn’t do suspicious. I was here to have fun, not go down the same road and get my heart broken by people I thought I could trust. New Emmy also stuck to her word, which was why I sat in the back of a bright classroom full of the new recruiters for the campus’s emergency team.
There were only six of us waiting for some sort of leader to arrive and tell us what we needed to do. We sat spread out, all uninterested in mingling with one another. The air smelled like disinfectant and rubber, so that added to the sterile feel of the space.
The group looked like an odd mix of people. In a desk closest to the door, a skinny guy with locs whittled at some chunk of wood that looked like a decent replica of a Dodge Charger. I only knew that because of a recent marathon ofFast & Furious.
A girl with French braids and a Chanel handbag scrolled through her phone. Her back was to me so I could see her like every other photo of some blonde chick’s Instagram. I watched for a second as she liked, unliked, and then, ultimately liked again several photos. I didn’t understand the logic, no matter how much my brain tried to come up with an excuse for her.
Straight across from me sat a guy almost as large as me. He chuckled under his breath as he munched on sour cream chips and watched videos on his phone.
The door to the room finally opened, five minutes after we were supposed to start. In walked the guy I would have to not get too comfortable with now that I decided to keep even more distance.
If Dakota looked even ten percent less attractive, then maybe ending our flirty relationship would have been easier. Now that he stood before us with his incredibly wholesome smile, I would have to coach myself into resisting the urge to learn everything about him.
Yara had come into the room too. She held onto a clipboard and a stack of folded t-shirts. When she scanned the space, her eyes fell on me, and she gave me a welcoming grin.
“Glad you all could make it to this semester’s first training class for the emergency team.” Yara sounded like a proper professor and even wrote her name on the board along with Dakota’s.
“We’re going to be your first line of contact for any training needs and concerns,” she explained.
French Braid girl raised her hand. “This is a class? I thought we could start clocking in hours… Does this class count as volunteer hours?”
Dakota gave her an apologetic smile said, “We can’t sign off on volunteer hours unless they’re actually in the field.”
“The field?” Mr. Whittler snorted. “You making this sound hella serious, my dude.”
Yara frowned. “This is hella serious, my dude. We are the front line of getting students to and from where they need to be after hours. Do you know the rate of sexual assault and campus violence has risen in the past six years? But the number of police reports has decreased. Very serious.”
Whittler held up his hand. “My bad, lady. Didn’t mean any offense.”
Yara looked annoyed, staring at the guy with her mouth agape. Dakota jumped in before she could snap again. I pulled out a pencil, writing down Yara’s facts to check for myself later. What she said might have sparked an idea.
“This is a perfect place to start,” Dakota said and reached out his hand for Yara’s marker. He wrote, ‘serious?’ on the board in large, bold letters.
“Most nights this job is pretty fun,” he started. “Driving around campus in the dark has its appeal and can feel low effort at times. But we have to keep in mind this is still an important thing we’re doing. Just because we don’t see stuff go down doesn’t mean the work’s any less serious and unnecessary. You could prevent something by being present. We don’t know the impact of us being out there.”
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” I said in a low voice, mostly to myself as I wrote down a few more notes. Yes, I did have an idea. Something that could work for my Film Documentary class.
“Right.” Dakota surprised me by pointing my way. “Perfect mindset, and exactly what I was saying in fewer words. Thank you, Emmy.”
I gave an awkward wave when the others turned their gazes towards me for a moment. Eventually, their focus went back to the now relaxed Yara. As she offered a detailed rundown of our agenda, I tried my best not to look at Dakota. If I was going to avoid a web, the first step would be not showing any interest in the spider. Unfortunately, my eyes kept trailing towards him. I blamed it on the way he held himself.
