The Sinner

45

"Shut up Cory! You look hot!"

I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I guess I was wrong, we do not have the same style. I was wearing a red plaid short skirt with a ripped up black crop top. It was giving me punk vibes.

I was not comfortable in these clothes.

This was the only outfit Ryan packed. Why didn't I look at the clothes she was stuffing into the bag? That's a great question and no I don't have an answer for it.

"I think I'll just keep the top and change into my shorts," I say. Nothing against her for liking this style, it's just not for me. "It looks cute on you though."

"I guess I should have asked, I normally dress like this for parties. I wear the girly clothes to class so I don't get stared at the entire day," She explains. "It probably has something to do with me rebelling against my parents."

"Yeah maybe," I say while nodding. I take off the skirt in the dorm room that we were given for the night. And change back into my shorts. "You should wear that though. I just feel like I can't pull off that look."

"Understandable," She nods. We both pull out our makeup and use the mirrors that were hanging on each side of the wall to start to get ready. "So do you have someone to room with?"

"No," I say. "I'm still sort of deciding if I even want to come here this fall."

"Do you not want to?" She asks. I shrug.

"There's just a lot going on at home," I lie. You just want to be closer to Rafe. Shut up brain you're not helping. "I probably will end up coming here, I don't know, I tried putting it off to the last minute and didn't even attempt to think about coming to college."

"There's no specific schedule you have to follow," She says with a shrug. "Take some time off. There's no harm in that."

"Yeah," I agree. "I just feel like my dad wouldn't be too happy." She sets her brush down as she turns to look at me.

"Screw what your dad thinks Cory, or anybody else for that matter," She says. "What do you wanna do?" I've never had anyone ask me that before.

I shrug, "I don't know." I was very indecisive about a lot of things. I guess leaving Rafe was one of them. There's a part of me that has this feeling that something bad is going to happen if I leave him and go to school.

"Girl, if you let other people tell you how to live your life then it's not exactly your life anymore is it?" She says. "Take the advice from someone who had every aspect of their life controlled."

"Right," I say with a nod. "I'm sure I'll decide within the next day."

She nods, "It wouldn't have anything to do with that boyfriend of yours would it?"

"He's the one that told me to come here for orientation," I say.

"Is he telling you not to come here, to this school, you know as a student?"

"No," I say with a shake of my head. "He wants me to do what I wanna do."

She nods, "Good. Because you should do what you think is best for you not him, you know?" I nod.

"Yeah." I run my fingers through my hair as I stare at my finished makeup look. I decided that I wasn't going to do much to my hair because it was probably going to get ruined anyway. "You almost ready?"

"Yeah," She tells me. "I just have to do something with my hair it looks like a hot mess." I glance at the clock to see that it was 10:30 already.

When I opened my messages with Rafe, there was nothing from him. Not even an effort to argue with me, which was really fucking weird. He's never quiet. So I'm not sure if this was a good or bad thing. What if he was that angry with me that he was simply done with me? No, he'd never be done with me for going to a party.