Page 1 of Trading Up
O N E: College
Sarah’s POV
I chose to go to a state university where my bachelor’s degree would be completely covered by my academic scholarship. I’d been a bookworm, a nerd, a dork, whatever you wanted to call it, practically my whole life. I didn’t socialize with many other kids my age, and Mom was always shoving me into the library whenever she was tired of me. I guess, in the end, given what I’d learned about my family, it all worked out for the best.
Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends, sticking mainly to either school or work, keeping my head down because it was easier to be wallpaper than the center of attention. My parents were always there for me, don’t get me wrong, and at the time, I thought it was in every way possible. Unless Dad was on a business trip, and he was always on a business trip, always gone for weeks at a time. Those weeks he was away, onbusiness, were next to impossible to get a hold of him unless it was via email. And he was away,a lot.
So that left mainly Mom and me in the house, trying to have normal dinners with Dad missing, going to all my extracurriculars, and smiling through the questions of where Dad was from other parents. Sometimes Mom and Dad would take a vacation together, and I’d have a nanny for the week, maybe two. Dad would stay with us for a week here and there; it was usually every month, sometimes every other, and alwaysafterthe holidays. I never had a Christmas with my dad growing up. I thought that was normal for everyone. It wasn’t until high school that I found out why Dad was always gone.
I was an affair child.
My mom was the mistress.
She’d been his mistress my whole life. When I found out, I approached him when he came to stay with us next. I told him if I didn’t get a scholarship, he was to cover my tuition in return for my silence. I promised to never speak of it again, not even to my mother, who had always tried to show we were one big happy family. When he said his wife knew, and that’s why he got time with me, I wanted to laugh. I asked about my siblings, and felt something dark inside of me smiling widely as his face paled. I told him that if he did this, I wouldn’t try to get in contact with any of my half-siblings. If I did get a scholarship, he was to put the full amount for what tuition would have cost into a trust for me. That way, upon my graduation, I could do what I wanted with it. But I wanted to have it drawn up by lawyers.
“I want to make sure I get what we’ve agreed upon,” I said with a polite, tightly calculated smile. I was only sixteen at the time, but I knew I’d need money. I knew my dad needed me to keep quiet, to not ruin his perfect family man image. I wasn’t surewhenI would need the money, but I wanted to have it as soon as possible.Just in case. Especially with mom telling me that I would need to start looking into scholarships soon if I wanted to attend university. Dad had a lawyer draw up the paperwork. I asked a classmate if her mom could look at some legal paperwork for me.
We struck a deal. I did her homework for two months, and she got me a free lawyer.
I checked with my guidance counselor that I was still set to graduate at seventeen, having skipped seventh grade. I wanted to be done with school as soon as I could, so I could embark on whatever endeavors I wanted. I wanted to live mylife far away from my morally bankrupt parents! I wasn’t sure what that looked like, but I knew I wanted to spread my wings, and I’d never hurt someone the way my parents hurt Dad’s wife. I wanted to be free. Free from the delusions of my parents that we were a happy family, and Dad was just a busy traveling businessman. I wanted to be able to be my own person.
I also promised myself I’d never be someone’s mistress, nor would I be with someone who kept one.
I had enough credits when I graduated from high school, so I went into college as a junior. I was still stuck in the dorms, though. I had decided I needed a way to make money, so I got a job at one of the little eateries on campus. The one I got hired at was attached to my dorm, thankfully, making it easy to get to and from at whatever hours I got around my class schedule. I was taking twelve credit hours, so I knew I’d have time between classes and studying to get a little work in. I wanted to start saving and possibly investing in something now. I just wanted to save as much as I could this year to get an apartment next year.
The first day on the job, I met another new hire. His name was Deveraux. He introduced himself to me with a nod and a quick wave. My first thoughts were that he was…so incredibly handsome, and his name was beautiful. I mean…wow. He was like a damn statue, a work of art crafted from the darkest marble I’d ever seen. His skin was such a deep chocolate color, his lips were plump, with a defined jawline. I swallowed thickly when I saw him. He looked away from me, one hand on the back of his neck. I felt so…plain in return. I mean, I was just your average, boring-looking white girl, but him? He was tall, at least six-three, with that beautifully dark complexion, and the tightest coils in his hair. He had a fade, with a design cut intothe side, and he wore dark-wash jeans, black Forces, and a tight-fitted black V-neck shirt with a gold chain on.
I almost forgot how to breathe. Was this what the girls in high school meant when they called Jeremiah an ‘African King’?
The man stole my breath, and I knew my cheeks had to be bright red, the downside of being a pasty shade of white, becauseoutsidewasn’t really something I did. I looked at him and wanted college to be different for me. I wanted to make friends. So I decided I'd move at his pace, but something pulled me to him, like a force I couldn’t see, but could feel in my bones. He, ever so slowly over the next few months of the semester, became my first ever friend.
He was quiet, withdrawn, but respectful. It was like every word that left his mouth had been tossed around and weighed before it left his mouth. When we first became friends, he didn’t talk too much with anyone, and that was fine with me, because I wasn’t sure what to talk about. I wasn’t all that good at making friends. Notes, flash cards, study sheets? I was a pro at them. Friends? That was a whole different animal I hadn’t studied yet. I was trying, though. I would come in every shift, say hey to him at the clock, and then if we were working in the same station, offer him a choice of where to work, and thankfully, after seeing me trying to talk to people, he would switch with me, so I didn’t have to do it every time. Slowly, he would engage me in short conversations, no more than a few sentences.
Soon, he would talk to me about whatever was on his mind, and we began talking more and more at work. Or if we saw each other in the hallway before clocking in, he’d give me a nod, and I’d smile at him.
It was slow, tentative.
That was how we carried on until the Thanksgiving holiday break was upon us. It was the month I dreaded because it meant I had to go home for the long weekend, and then two weeks for winter break, and sit with my mom, try to get Dad on the line, only for her to blame the busy holiday season as to why we couldn’t talk to him, yet again.I wasn’t in the mood for the charade this year. I had just realized we’d both been silent, me stewing in my thoughts, and he seemed quieter than usual. I didn’t push, needing the space to think of ways to cope with this toxic family shit in a mentally healthy manner anyway, and was still coming up a few cards short of a full deck.
After a particularly busy shift right before classes ended for Thanksgiving break, and unfortunately, being stuck on dish duty with me one too many times this week, his phone vibrated in his pocket, and he snapped. He started throwing the clean dishes he was putting away while I scrubbed them, and they went scattering and clanging across the kitchen floor, knocking over a few other mixing bowls. I shrank back as far as my five-six frame could, startled and violently rattled from my thoughts by the loud noises echoing in through the kitchen. When he finally stopped throwing things, his chest heaving, breathing ragged, eyes wild with anger and pain as his hands fisted his hair, pulling hard. His face was twisted in anguish, and my heart broke for him. Something was hurting himvery much, something I wasn’t sure he’d told anyone, and I wanted to fix that.
Call it dumb, call it stupid, call it my bravest moment, I don’t care.
But I slowly stood up and looked as his dark eyes fixated on a bowl that was still twirling around on its edge on the floor. The sound it was making, the only sound to be heard. I shot up from my crouching position, took two massive steps forward,and wrapped my arms around his middle. From the grunt and slight sway of his body, I think I surprised him. I clung to him for dear life, burying my face in his chest, blinking back tears.
“Wh—”
“Please stop, Deveraux! I don’t know why you’re so mad or why you have all the pain in your eyes, but I’m sorry. I am terrified right now, and I just want to go back to my room to study for my exam in the morning! It’s Sarah. Please take a few breaths. I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, it’s not big enough to cause you to lose your job. Whatever it is, it’s gonna be okay.” I felt it. The shudder, so small, so fast, I thought I missed it. But I kept talking, half muffled in his shirt and chest.
“I don’t know what happened, and I’d be more than willing to talk about this if you want, but we can’t do that until we finish closing for the night, and with all that racket, Mike will probably be in here soon to reprimand us. So, how about we finish work, and then we can talk. I have a single. My roommate dropped out last month, but I mean…I could still get someone assigned, but for now, it’s just me if you want some privacy to talk?” I felt him nod, and when I looked up, his hands were covering his eyes and most of his face as he tipped it to the ceiling. I slowly pulled myself off of him, making sure he wasn’t going to freak out again.
“I’m good,” was all he said, his voice a deep baritone that felt like melted caramel drizzled on a brownie, wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire. His voice was so deep and rich, like a five-layer dark chocolate cake with a raspberry filling and butter cream frosting. He moved back from me, and I moved my arms out and started picking up the dishes he’d thrown. He helped, picking up a few of the bigger baking sheets. The mixing bowls, the pans, the baking sheets, all picked up and rewashed in lessthan an hour. Thankfully, none of the ceramic stuff was broken. That would have been a bitch to clean up.
After, we walked around campus for a little bit. It was getting chilly at night now that fall was settling in, but still, we walked over to the twenty-four-hour café, Suzie’s, for a cup of hot chocolate. Then continued our walk around campus. He opened up about coming to this school because it’s the one histhen-girlfriendhad gotten into. He told me how they wanted to stay together because they knew they were meant for more. He told me how he came here with her as high school sweethearts, and he caught her earlier that day, cheating on him with a guy off his basketball team.
“She was fucking her way through my whole fucking team. And it’s not like I could just quit, ya know? Cause I need my scholarship. My folks worked hard to help send me here. I’m not blowing it because of some fuckinhoe bagwho opens her legs for anyone,” he still sounded hurt, but I knew that was most likely him processing all of his feelings. From what he’d said, they dated all through high school, and unfortunately, now that they’d broken up, their families had gotten very close. He was on both the football and basketball teams, and she was a cheerleader for both.
I felt so bad for him.
