Page 5 of Heartless Prince

I shrugged. “I just don’t know why else these guys are all ditching me. It always seems to go well, so it’s almost like someone is paying them to ghost me. But maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I really suck.”

“No, you’re great. They’re all just assholes,” Willa said.

“Maybe they get pissed that you don’t sleep with them?” Greer added.

I let out a frustrated sigh. “But I want to! I just figure I should wait until at least a third or fourth date so I know we’re really connecting. Is this really what the world is like now? You get ditched if you don’t immediately jump into bed with them?”

“Um. Yeah, pretty much.” Greer pressed her lips together in a thin line.

“No, don’t tell her that!” Mellie tossed a balled-up napkin at her. “There are some nice guys out there. You’ll find one eventually,” she added soothingly, turning her attention back to me.

“I hope so. Anyway, what’s on everyone’s schedule today?” I asked, trying to change the subject to something less gloomy.

“Back-to-back accounting and economics lectures,” Mellie said.

“Same,” Willa chimed in. “That’ll be fun….”

“I have to hand my article in and do some research for an assignment. What about you, Tatum?” Greer asked.

I glanced at the clock at the far end of the dining hall. “I have a media class in an hour. Before that, I’m gonna go back to my room and have a serious Google session. I really need to come up with an idea for a paper for Professor Halliwell’s class.”

“Is that your sociology class?” Greer asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. The paper’s due at the end of the trimester and it’s worth sixty percent of my entire grade for the class. It's a really cool subject, but there’s so much stuff to pick from. I can’t decide.”

“Maybe we can help?” Mellie said. “I hear Halliwell is super tough.”

“Yup. Someone told me she’s never given anyone an A. Ever.”

“Jeez. Okay, so what’s the assignment subject?”

“Urban legends.”

“Ooh!” Greer said, clasping her hands together in front of her. “That sounds like fun.”

“It is. We have to pick one legend and look at where it originated, how it’s transmitted, why it persists, what its purpose within our society is, what that says about our culture, and so on. It’s really interesting, and if we write about something local, we get extra credit. I was thinking about the killer in the back seat legend, because someone told me that started here. But I don’t know. I think a few people are already doing that, and I want to stand out.”

Willa rolled her eyes. “Please don’t do the back seat one. That’s so played out. Besides, I’m pretty sure it originated in Indiana. I saw a movie about it.”

“Oh, really? Crap.” I slumped back in my seat.

“I have an idea, though,” she went on. “What about the Roden Strangler? That’s definitely a Connecticut thing.”

My eyes widened. “Yes! Oh my god, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“The Roden Strangler?” Greer looked confused.

“You haven’t heard about that?”

“Nope. Born and bred out-of-state, remember?”

“Oh, right, duh. It’s an old urban legend here. I think it originated around the sixties or seventies. Basically, it claims that the rate of young missing women is higher in New Marwick than anywhere else in the state. Especially around the Roden campus. I don’t think it’s actually true. We probably have the same amount of missing girls as anywhere else. But anyway, I guess someone decided to started a rumor that there was a crazy guy going around strangling all these women who disappeared, and it’s persisted ever since then.”

“Yeah, so now people around here will sometimes say stuff like, ‘careful, don’t walk home alone at night or the Roden Strangler will get you’,” Mellie said.

“Right. Did anyone actually ever get strangled?” Greer asked, her forehead wrinkled quizzically.

“No.” Mellie frowned. “At least I don’t think so. There’s no proof suggesting it happened, because out of all the young women who’ve gone missing around this area, none of them have ever been found.”

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