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―Harper knew she was far too easily swayed.
It had hardly taken any coaxing from her best friend and dorm mate Natalia for her to mumble a "fine," and nod her head meekly as phone calls were made and various college friends began to turn up for the party she had chosen to arrange mere hours before.
Harper most definitely wasn't the party girl she was made out to be. She was quite happy to lay in bed, cry over Marvel movies and curl her hands around a glass of rosé. She didn't need copious amounts of liquor accompanied by loud music and sweaty bodies to have a good time. And really, she wasn't much of a 'good times' person.
They'd been at their friend Henrie's dorm room, curled up together on the blow-up couch he'd recently bought, and it had been Natalia's idea to invite 'a few' people over, to have a few drinks and a minor party.
The reality?: Fourty sweaty bodies crammed into the tiny dormitory, trashing the place and grinding against each other, hands clasping red cups filled with shitty cheap vodka and disgustingly sour beer.
Harper didn't want to kill the party mood, but she was becoming increasingly distressed by the music, which they would probably get scolded for the next day — if not sooner — by campus staff, and made the decision to find her boyfriend and with any luck take a walk and get some space.
Her eyes scanned the room, settling on numerous drunk faces - none of which belonged to her boyfriend. Drew was nowhere to be found and she cursed him mentally for disappearing when she needed him.
She mumbled a quick, "I'll be right back." to whoever happened to hear her, before pacing out of the room and just a few doors down to her dorm. She was there only for one reason and as soon as her hands grasped the packet of cigarettes and the lighter she had come to collect, she knocked out the light and was jogging down the complex's stairs within a matter of seconds.
Nobody aside from her friends had seemed to have any idea that Harper smoked. Even with her party girl reputation, she'd always been viewed as the most composed of her friends. She'd retained this throughout her school years and it had simply never shook — Perhaps with everyone's knowledge of how cigarettes had contributed to her father's demise.
She pushed open the box as she reached the bottom of the steps, shoving open the fire door with her back as she lit a cigarette and lifted it to her lips to take a drag.
As she turned around and kicked a stone ahead of her, her eyes, however, caught sight of something she most definitely had not expected and did not want to see.
Her boyfriend. The man she had spent almost three years dating. The guy who'd helped her through everything, who'd made her feel special. The quiet, studious British transfer student she'd met in her senior year and (conforming to cliché) had fallen in love with almost instantaneously.
And yet there he was, lips harshly pressed to another girl's mouth, hands firmly on her waist and her shirt slowly raveling up her tanned skin that Harper could barely make out in the dim backlight of the fire escape.
"Having fun, babe?" she scoffed, taking another drag of the cigarette held tight between her fingers, "Might want to stop for air sometime, we wouldn't want you to die or anything, would we?"
Her remark didn't go unnoticed by the girl with whom Andrew had been making out, and she rolled her eyes as she pulled back, Harper scoffing again.
Andrew looked startled, eyes darting between the two girls as he pondered how to adequately respond to the situation at hand.
"Cheap skank," Harper grunted, stepping towards them so that she was incredibly close to Drew's panicked face, "Don't try and explain this you piece of shit. Have fucking fun."
Harper's voice was hoarse and sharp as she snapped at him, taking in one last breath from the cigarette and blowing the smoke into both of their faces before dropping it to the floor and digging her heel into it.
She didn't recognise the girl Andrew had been playing tonsil tennis with and knew that she was being harsh to slut shame a girl who was probably none the wiser to him being in a relationship. She couldn't help herself though, the anger coursing through her body overpowering any usual sense of morality.
"Later, fucking assholes."
The minute the fire door was closed behind her again, the warm indoor heating system washing over her, realisation hit Harper with what had happened. Her back pressed against the hallway wall, hands reaching up to tug at her tousled hair, a lone tear slipping down her face that she wiped away with force.
She bit her lip, mumbling, "fuck," under her breath as she tried to remain composed - having very little success. Before she knew it, her body was wracked with sobs, her makeup a mess of smudges across her face and her breathing unsteady and shaky. She had loved Drew more than she'd even realised herself, and now everything had gone to shit.
She drew in a deep breath, lips pressed tightly together now, and turned to walk back up to the steps to her dormitory to cry herself to sleep. She couldn't process what had happened - it was so damn cliche and yet so unexpected - and she felt physically sick.
Her small, 5"4 frame moved swiftly back up the stairs, hands shaking and her chest rising and falling faster than she'd thought was physically possible. Her eyes were almost entirely shut, tears still spilling as she tried to remain quiet.
As soon as she reached her floor, she sped up even further into a run. She sprinted down the hallway, the carpet hitting the soles of her feet painfully as she darted towards her room. Her eyes were still shut, hand pressed to her mouth still in surprise and moreover in disbelief.
Her free hand reached down to grasp what she had thought was the door to her dormitory, shoving it open with sudden force and slamming it again behind her. She didn't even bother turning on the light, unphased by the lighting considering her current predicament.
She stormed over to the bed in the left corner of the room, turning around and forcefully throwing herself onto the warm, cotton sheets of the bed.
She exhaled deeply, a loud and incredibly dissatisfied sigh escaping her lips as she choked out another sob. She'd planned to cry silently, and of course alone, but her misjudgment of where she'd ended up was to make this difficult.
A shift of pressure beside her on the bed startled her upright, gasping and confused.
"Boyfriend problems?"
"Who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you in my dorm room?"
"Your dorm room? This is my dorm room." The voice challenged, confidently.
"It's most definitely not."
"Dorm 63? Princess - this is my room. But considering my room mate is out at a party and I have nothing better to do, consider this your confessional - go ahead. Spill. What did the asshole do?" The voice was deep and coarse, but still somehow soft and comforting for the crying girl beside him.
"I don't think you really want to know."
"Try me, angel."
——— ―AUTHOR'S NOTE! oh my god u have NO IDEA how long this has been in my drafts and how long i've been desperate to publish it! hope u all enjoy !!!!
