Tethered (J + P series)

  Tethered

  Book One of the J+P series

  by: D.A. Roach

  Copyright© 2013

  D.A. Roach

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  Special thanks to all of those who encouraged me to write again after reading my first published work.

  I dedicate the book to my husband, who is my real life Jared.

  Special thanks to my editors for putting up with my mistakes.

  Cover art courtesy of fotolia.com

  Edited by: B. Galles, M. Galles, and L. Peil

  If you, or someone you know is injuring yourself or cutting, please recognize this as a cry for help. Please consider talking to a professional to uncover what is behind the self-harm. Counseling with or without medication can be beneficial and help heal those emotional wounds and teach you to cope with stressful situations. You are not alone.

  www.lifesigns.org.uk a great website on Self Injury Guidance

  Below is some information from LifeSIGNS website.:

  Short Definition of self-injury

  Self-injury is a coping mechanism. An individual harms their physical self to deal with emotional pain, or to break feelings of numbness by arousing sensation

  Long Definition of self-injury

  Self-injury is any deliberate, non suicidal behaviour that inflicts physical harm on your body and is aimed at relieving emotional distress. Physical pain is often easier to deal with than emotional pain, because it causes 'real' feelings. Injuries can prove to an individual that their emotional pain is real and valid. Self-injurious behaviour may calm or awaken a person. Yet self-injury only provides temporary relief, it does not deal with the underlying issues. Self-injury can become a natural response to the stresses of day to day life and can escalate in frequency and severity.

  Chapter 1

  September

  College was an interesting ecosystem of its own. You could exist on campus without a car. There were many dorms to pick from in which to live, and all included a dining hall. There was a library, a few convenience stores, pizza places, McDonald's, and a Subway. Our college was fairly large – 30,000 students at the least. A large student population was one of my prerequisites for picking a college, the other was that it needed to be out of state. I wanted my chance to start anew, make new friends, a new reputation – I needed to be far away from the people I grew up with for the past 18 years. I was tired of hearing them go on and on about how they loved high school, because frankly, I didn't. And don't get me started on middle school. I think the only reason high school was slightly better than middle school was because there were some kids from other areas attending it. Here, in this different state, with a student body so large – I could disappear, I could shine, or I could reinvent myself.

  Growing up I had always managed to make and keep one really close friend. That's all I needed. I could fade in and out of any clique but I never wanted to be a part of any of them. Here at college we were all like lost souls, dropped off by our parents, alone, and a bit scared. You couldn't help but bond with the people you were living with. They became your family. You ate together, studied together, cried together, partied together, and lived together. Yeah, the dorm rooms were tiny and very unattractive, the walls were just begging for posters to adorn them. It was here at the dorm that I made not one new friend, but rather found my new family, 13 of the most unlikely friends. I could not believe that I would find so many people in one space to befriend. They were so different from one another, but they were the perfect balance of personalities. Maybe we were just desperate and scared so we saw the good in each other. Maybe it was luck. Nonetheless, it was the most friends I had ever had at any one moment in my life.

  The first friend I met ended up being my best friend. Jen was my girl. She lived right across the hall from me and we first met when I moved in. My parents had already said their goodbyes and left, leaving me to unpacking and decorating. After an hour or so, I heard my across-the-hall neighbor and her family talking about checking out the dining hall. My stomach grumbled upon hearing that. She peeked in my room. “Hi, I’m Jen, your new neighbor. Wanna’ come eat with us?”

  “Um, Hi. I’m Perry and I'm starved! I would love to eat with you, just let me find my dining pass” I replied. I began looking through my folders, but everything was so disorganized. Where the heck was it?! “Umm, why don't you go on down and I will meet you there.” I suggested. The panic I felt apparently did not go unnoticed.

  “It's OK, can we help you find something?” Jen's older sister asked.

  “My dining pass.” Jen's sister appeared next to me looking at the papers on my desk.

  “Here it is.” she stated with a smile. Relief. I would not have to eat McDonald's or Cheezits the rest of my college career.

  At dinner, I learned that Jen must have had the same idea about college as me. She told me it was her chance to start over, to be different from the shy girl who struggled with friends growing up. Here she wanted to “shine like a star”. She was funny and charismatic; it was hard to picture her as shy. She seemed like she could sit down with a bunch of strangers, find something in common with all of them, and have them all laughing their heads off by the end of it.

  The first month I spent most of my time figuring out how to navigate campus, get to classes on time, and bonding with Jen. By the end of our first month, Jen began to branch out and meet some of the other girls on our floor. Thankfully she was outgoing enough to draw them toward her, and then I would get to meet them and befriend them just by hanging out with Jen. I wasn't bonding with my roommate too well. She seemed to gravitate toward boys and was only interested in dating and partying.

  October

  “Are we on the list for Friday?” Jen asked Lauren.

  Lauren would wander in and out of our circle of friends. She was cool with everyone but she also was pledging a sorority and hung with her friends in there. She always included us on the party lists and she was genuine and nice to everyone.

  “I don't know, I am meeting Mason tonight to study for Organic Chemistry, I'll make sure he puts us on. How many are going with us?” she asked. “You know they prefer more girls than guys at their parties.” Lauren was a natural beauty which made her popular with the boys. She and Mason met in their Chemistry class at the first of the year. Apparently, they had a chemistry between each other brewing because from that first day, his world revolved around her. Lauren was more casual about their relationship and just enjoyed the fun ways Mason tried to woo her. They made a cute couple. We liked Mason because he was our connection to frat parties. Without Mason listing us as guests on the house's party list, we would be destined to watch whatever lame movies were airing at the Union for our Friday night fun.

  I looked at my watch and saw it was almost 4:30PM. I needed to get my laundry from the machines before dinner. “Hey Mags, are you and Lauren going down for dinner soon?” I asked. Maggie and Lauren were friends from back home and roommates.

  “Yeah, we were going to meet Jen down there at 5:15PM, want us to wait for you?” Mags replied.

  “Yeah, I need to get my laundry but I will come back here when I am done. Thanks. See ya'.” I wondered if Maggie and Lauren's friendship would survive rooming with each other. I had heard of many friendships being torn apart from rooming with a close friend. It seemed better to get a stranger for a roommate and keep your best-friend separate so you could complain to them about how sucky your roommate was. Mag
gie was cute and sweet; I doubt it was even possible for her to piss anyone off, so maybe they would last.

  I stopped at my room and crept in to grab my laundry basket. My roommate's name was Gabby. She was the poster child for the phrase “Up all night and sleep all day”. The room was pitch black (thanks to the blackout shades) and I was trying to be careful not to wake her. Gabby was pursuing the same degree as me, but I was pretty sure she was not going to succeed. She rarely slept in our room. She would leave around dinner time and return around 11AM the next day, crawl in her bed, and say “Goodnight” to me. I am not sure I ever even saw her attend class. Despite that, Gabby was a great roommate. She did her own thing, was rarely home, was respectful of my things, and was fairly neat and clean. What she chose to do in her free time was her own business.

  I grabbed the bin and took the stairs two at a time. I wandered through the basement halls to the laundry room. It was not very big and the machines would fill up at nighttime. I took my load out and headed back upstairs to fold. Jen knocked on the door, and I exited the room to chat, careful not to wake Gabby.

  “Dude, is she sleeping again?! I can NOT believe it. You should go dump a big bucket of water on her!” she giggled. My partner in crime, always plotting. “Listen, I met these two guys today and they live on the guys' side of the dorm. They are cute and smart. Wanna' ask them if they can tutor us in something?”

  “Aww come on Jen! I'd be happy to go with you, but I don't need to be tutored, and I can't fake being ignorant.” I said.

  “Good enough. If I see them in the dining hall I will see if we can come to their room tonight.”

  I wasn't feeling up to flirting. BUT I said I wanted to start anew. Why not dunk my feet in the water? I told Jen I needed five more minutes then we could grab Mags and Lauren for dinner.

  In the dining hall Jen winked at me and said “Gotta' go talk to someone!” Oh boy, she would be the death of me. There is no way she was shy in high school. Big. Fat. Liar. She walked over to this table of guys. The two she spoke with were cute, not drop dead gorgeous, but easy on the eyes. One had brown hair and brown eyes, the other had blond hair and blue eyes. They were both wearing soccer clothes and their physiques indicated some time running drills on a field. I guess I should be bold and brave and give them a try.

  She returned to our table with a huge grin on her face. “We are on for a tutoring session at 7:00PM.” I looked over at the table where the boys sat and caught the eyes of the brown haired guy. My cheeks flushed and I looked down immediately. Oh man, Jen, Jen, Jen.

  I ate my dinner and ignored the boys and almost told Jen she would have to go it alone for the tutoring session. She tapped my shoe with hers to get my attention (apparently she could now read my thoughts) and reassured me it would be fun.

  Chapter 2

  6:50PM, nerves were making my stomach feel unsettled. I took a quick glance in my dorm room mirror. I was dressed casual in my jeans and t-shirt, but I put a little mascara on and a smear of lip gloss. Jen knocked on the door five minutes later to collect me. She had changed shirts and was grinning ear to ear. “Let's go pretend to be dumb bimbos and get tutored by some cuties.”

  “This better not suck.” was all I could think to say. I really wanted to tear loose from her, bolt the door, and hide in my room. Did dating have to be this much work?

  She led us through the basement halls, past the laundry room and straight to the lower level guys’ wing. The boys’ wing smelled different than the girls’. Sweaty socks, strong spiced deodorant, and pepperoni pizza vs. floral scents, baby powder, and hair spray. Jen stopped at the fifth door on the left and knocked. The brown haired one, Ian, peeked out and welcomed us in. Their room was stark. The blackout blinds were pulled shut, there were no sheets or blankets on the mattress, 2 empty pizza boxes sat in the corner, and they had no posters on the wall. “Hey how's it going?” Ian asked. The blond, Tim, nodded at us in salutation. I smiled back. Ian told us to sit on the bed (since dorm rooms did not have much room for extra seats). We opened our math books and began talking about anything and everything except math. I was glad Jen was so effervescent; she could carry the whole conversation on her own. I noticed Ian sneak out at one point, probably to use the bathroom. Jen struggled conversing with Tim since he was shyer than Ian.

  Ian opened the door and behind him were two other guys that I had not seen before. “Hey, this is Greg and Jared. They live across the hall from us.”

  They looked a lot different from Ian and Tim. Greg and Jared had shaggier hair, jeans ripped at the knees, and concert t-shirts. “Hey, wanna' come see our fish?”

  “Fish? Do you have a fish tank or something?” Jen asked as she rose to her feet. I found myself following behind her.

  Jared and Greg's room looked vastly different from Ian and Tim's. They had their beds lofted and beneath Greg's side were two ugly upholstered rocking chairs that he probably stole from his grandma's house. Beneath Jared's side was a TV and stereo system. They were playing a rare song from one of my favorite bands (I could bet that no one in my hometown even knew about that band, let alone this rare song). I looked around their room and they had posters of 3 of my other favorite bands. My heart was beginning to quicken. I could not believe that I had found two people that liked the same music as me. Music had always been an important part of my life. Anytime there was a radio or stereo nearby me, it would be on with me singing the lyrics and dancing. I decided to try and wow them with some unique facts about the bands they seemed to know.

  “Hey did you know the lead singer of Winterstitch was in a car wreck this past spring and they are only going to do acoustic sessions in small venues till he is fully recovered?” I asked. They both turned toward me with a look of intrigue. I wanted them to know I had a common interest. I was not a superficial fan; I loved music and knew my bands well.

  “No, I hadn't heard that. I'll have to see if they are doing gigs at any local clubs soon.” Greg said. I just smiled; content that I had impressed them with this little tidbit.

  Just then, Jen saw a large fish decoration on their loft and had begun making wise cracks about it. “So this is the fish you wanted us to see? Where the heck did you get that, what is it? A swordfish? It's HUGE.” They were laughing with her. Jen was a charmer.

  “We stole it from the props department from our high school.” Jared confessed proudly.

  “Naughty boys! I wish I was a fly on the wall to watch the two of you running around the school with that massive fish.” she teased and turned to head back to Ian and Tim's room. I found it hard to want to leave this room though. There was a connection here between these boys and myself. I couldn't believe it.

  “I'll join you in a minute Jen.” I lingered with them a few minutes longer and talked about music and college majors. Jen and I said goodbye to Greg and Jared and teasingly thanked Ian and Tim for the tutoring session.

  “Well, what did you think?” she was already prying me for my opinion and we were barely out of earshot. I shot her a dirty look that said “not yet....” Once we passed the old and hard working laundry machines I safely said “They were cute. But I actually really liked their neighbors. What did you think?”

  Jen said “I liked Ian and Tim better. Wanna' do it again next week?” Ugh. I wasn't sure I could keep up with Miss Social Butterfly.

  “We'll see. Thanks for arranging it Jen. Have a good night.”

  I unlocked my door and saw I had the room to myself again. I stayed up way too late watching videos on MTV and attempting to conquer homework before sleep over took me.

  Chapter 3

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! I was startled out of my slumber and looked at the clock. 11:00AM. “Hold on.” I managed to say before descending the loft. Mags was at the door, looking perky as though she has been up and busy for several hours. “Hey Mags, what's up?”

  “We were gonna' eat lunch in a half hour, wanna' join us?”

  “Sure, I think I can get ready by then.” I knew I needed to get my act
together and start my day. “I'll come find you after I get cleaned up.” I shut the door and grabbed some comfortable but cute clothes and my shower caddy. I dreaded college bathrooms. I wished my family had enough money to allow me a private room with a private bath. But no luck. I worked fast to minimize my time in the shower. Today was a big day. Studying till 6PM, pre-party/transform into babes in Mags’ and Lauren's room, 8PM head to the frat for the big party.

  As we headed to the dining hall I realized I hadn't picked up my mail from yesterday. “Hey, I have a package and will meet you inside after I grab it.” I departed from the group and headed down the stairs. At the base of the stairs was a room marked “Radio Station” with a sign on the door that read, “Time slots available, call Steve at x35600”. My brother had worked for this very radio station when he roomed here years ago. He used to call home and tell me how he scored interviews with all these bands because he worked for the station. I was so jealous of him at the time. The funny thing was that only this dorm could hear this station, no one else on campus or in town. I am pretty sure when he would tell the bands he wanted an interview for the radio station, they had no idea that the most listeners that would hear the interview was limited to the thousand residents that lived in our dorm. Maybe I should call and see about a time slot.