Read The Next Forever for Free Online

talking it was like my mouth was several IQ points lower than my brain—a stupid sibling that everyone hoped would marry rich.
    I know college was supposed to make me feel more confident and independent—at least that was what everyone said—but I’m pretty sure I hadn’t been here long enough for any of that to take. I also couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it would never take.
    Trevor didn’t respond, just watched me like his eyes had X-ray vision. Like seeing me naked wasn’t good enough; he wanted to see my bones, too, the particles that made up my bones.
    But I mean, how should he have responded? Golly gee , I sure hope it is fun. I love fun parties.
    He was probably too busy having a conversation in his head that was no doubt eerily similar to the one in mine, the one asking, What the hell am I doing here?
    He continued to watch me like I was a match he couldn’t light. I was disappointing him. I could tell.
    The thing is that it was good I was disappointing him. It was when I stopped that I would have to be worried.
    We walked in, the music so loud I could feel it in my throat. The kind of thumping house music they played at bars. Too loud to have a real conversation so instead you just keep drinking and end up leaving with someone so you can “talk” and end up not talking at all.
    We could not leave to talk.
    “I’m getting a beer. You want one?” Trevor asked, not stopping to hear my answer.
    I was glad. I might not have wanted one, but I definitely needed one.
    I’d already failed the alcohol test, but I also knew there was really a harder test I needed to be concerned about passing: Will I make it through the night and still be a faithful girlfriend?
    Will my panic at hearing Joe’s question make me ruin everything?
    The room was filled with the kids I would usually see on the quad, phones stuck to their hands like a compass as they walked from class to class with their backpacks on. Here they had their cup in one hand, phone in the other, standing in buzzing circles and ovals and figure eights like the room was a vein, the alcohol was blood, and they were cells.
    Where the hell did that come from? Maybe I don’t need that beer after all.
    I walked to the corner of the room and waited behind two girls in super-short skirts who were drawing what they thought would be the “coolest tattoo” on the biceps of some guy in a straw cowboy hat. It didn’t look like a tattoo; it looked like tear-stained mascara running down his arm.
    I’d never worn a skirt that short and I wondered if they had to get drunk before they could even put them on, or if they were just extra drunk now.
    I pulled out my phone, realizing I hadn’t checked it the whole walk. That it had taken so much concentration to put one foot in front of the other with Trevor and not run back to my dorm room and throw up in my trash can that I’d totally forgotten about it.
    Still no text or call from Joe, which was odd but not unheard of. I was selfishly glad. It would have made me feel guiltier than I already did, if that were possible. Though considering I couldn’t stop thinking about him that night, I doubted it.
    I started to text him but stopped. What if he said, I’m bored. I’ll come over .
    That wasn’t unheard of, either. He did need to study, but I also knew that he blew it off for me a lot. Probably more than he realized. Not that his grades showed it, but imagine how much better he would be doing in school if I hadn’t followed him here.
    If he hadn’t chosen a school we had both gotten into.
    Trevor still hadn’t returned, but luckily I knew how to hold my own at a party without looking like a total mutant. I’d been to plenty of parties in high school. Sure, college parties were supposed to be bigger and wilder but I knew the drill: grab a cup, hold it, nod or shake your head when people offered you other things depending on how cute they were or how fucked up you wanted to be. That was amended when your friends