— Savannah —

It was Friday and I couldn't believe that I was actually getting ready for class. The other day, when I told Lilly that I partied with Brad, she was mortified. I felt bad, she said that he was being a creep on move-in day, but I had grown so accustomed to the douchebags from Beverly Hills that it didn't seem quite as alarming to me as it did to her. Besides, it wasn't like I slept with him or anything—I wouldn't go near him with a ten foot pole. All we did was drink and party, to me it was just some harmless fun.

Lilly told me she didn't feel the same way and asked me to stay away from him. It gave me the feeling that Lilly grew up very sheltered. I suppose that was an odd assumption for someone from Beverly Hills to make, it would be easier to assume that someone from a privileged background, like me, would have been more sheltered. In reality though, most of the kids where I came from weren't paid attention to and as a consequence, they went rogue. Someone like Lilly, who was loved and cared for, was probably protected from the Brad's of the world. If anything, Brad was like a little raccoon—he was unpleasant, dangerous if you got too close, but otherwise relatively harmless. In Beverly, I had met my fair share of grizzly bears. They were powerful creatures, the type to come up behind you and sink their claws into your skin, they had the ability to tear you into tiny little pieces until you barely felt human anymore.

Lilly walked in as I was putting on mascara in my new vanity mirror, it was a large square, taking up most of my desk, with bright lightbulbs framing the edges. It gave me the perfect lighting for doing my makeup.

"Hey," I greeted her as I closed my tube of mascara and pulled out my blush. I patted my brush into the red powder and began fluffing it over my cheeks, angling my right and then left side towards the mirror to get a better look. I flipped it shut and turned to her. "Didn't you have a morning class? I thought we were meeting for our class in the lecture theatre."

"I had a small gap in my schedule and figured I'd meet you here to make sure you actually showed up." She was still standing in the doorway with one foot propping the door open. "You ready? We gotta go before we're late."

I fixed my hair in the mirror before grabbing my oversized Birkin bag and joining Lilly, walking out the door to attend my first class in years.

_______

"That was fucking dreadful." I said to Lilly as I slumped my Birkin over my desk chair in our room. "I can't believe I just listened to a balding man talk for two hours and I don't even have a clue what he said!" I plopped myself onto my bed and kicked off my shoes, watching Lilly unzip her bag and unpack its contents onto her desk. She opened her chunky laptop before sitting in her chair and thumping open a textbook.

"Don't worry," she said, "I'll help you study. I'm doing some right now if you want to do it together."

"Study!" I exclaimed, throwing myself backwards so that I was laying on my bed with my legs dangling. "It's a Friday, we just sat through a two hour lecture, and you're telling me you want to study?"

She turned slightly to face me, staring at me blankly. "Yes." She turned back to her textbook.

"Lilly, normal students party on Friday nights." I checked my phone, I had one unopened text from Brad. I couldn't remember exchanging our numbers and I didn't really want to, I assumed I must have given it to him when I was drunk.

"I am a normal person." Lilly assured me from her spot at her desk. I listened to her talk while opening Brad's notification. "I'm just a normal person who needs to study."

Brad's message appeared on my screen, it said: Hall party tonight. Third floor. That was it, nothing else. Maybe his number would be of use to me after all.

"Okay. Well there's a hall party tonight on the third floor, you want to come?"

Instead of answering my question, Lilly threw an eraser at me and it landed on my stomach.

"Hey!" I sat up and threw it back; it smacked the wall and darted across the room. "First scissors, now erasers. What's with you using school supplies as weapons?"

Lilly giggled as she took a highlighter to her textbook and began filling the pages with colours. "I told you, I'm studying."

"Okay, fine!" I got up and sat at my vanity mirror to change my makeup for the party. "Study away. Anything to keep you from turning to knives."

"Who knows. Maybe if you burst in at 4AM again tonight I'll have a knife this time."

I brought a makeup wipe to my face and rubbed it on my eye. I could see Lilly's reflection behind me in the mirror—she was actually studying. "Okay, noted. Be quiet when coming home past midnight. Roommate is not afraid to use knives."

When we stopped laughing, we left each other to finish doing our own versions of work at our desks.

_________

I was climbing the stairs to the hall party when a familiar scent filled my nose, it was skunk-like and musty, and I realized that someone was smoking in the stairwell. I turned the corner and a girl with burgundy hair was leaning against the wall with a joint hanging from her pouty lips, she lifted it from her mouth and blew out a cloud of smoke.

"Sick outfit." She said, looking me up and down.

I was wearing a leather mini-skirt that barely covered my ass, a scarlet tube top, and black platform heels. I knew I was probably overdressed, but I liked to look my best. On nights out I always picked my outfits based on the three B's—bum, belly, and boobs. Legs too, obviously.

I thanked her and returned the favour by complimenting her coloured hair. She pushed herself off the wall and walked towards me as she inhaled from her joint again, the smoke blowing in my face. "Here." She said, nudging it towards me. "You seem like a badass, walking in here dressed like that for a hall party. I need a badass friend and the best friendships always start over a joint."

I took the joint between my fingertips, signalling the beginning of our friendship, and the smoke tickled my lungs as inhaled for a few seconds before releasing it through my nostrils. She watched me curiously as I passed it back.

"I don't know if it's badass to wear nice clothes." I answered when the smoke cleared.

She took a large inhale and let the joint slip from her fingertips, I watched it fall onto the concrete steps before she stomped it out with her combat boot. "My name's Ivy. Third floor. You?"

"Second floor. You can call me Sav."

There was something about partying at Eastbridge that made me want to go by the name Sav, it was shorter, cooler, easier for people to remember when they woke up hungover the next morning.

Ivy approached the door to the third floor and pulled it open, her chunky boots clunking on the floor. It was clear that she had a different style than me, she looked a little tom-boyish in her big cargo pants and tiny top that exposed her stomach, but I could appreciate good style even when it was different than mine.

"My door's open, I'm hosting," she told me from the doorway where the light was brighter, bringing my attention to her jewelry. I admired her nose rings, the hoops beneath her curly hair, and the stacks of rings on her manicured fingers. "You coming?" She asked.

I gave her a nod and followed her out the door. The air in the hallway was thick, laced with body odours, marijuana, and cheap beer. We passed a room that was dark except for the party lights, with an overflow of students getting pushed out the doorway. As we continued down the hall, the loud music faded into a mere thump at the back of my ears. The following rooms were less crowded, more brightly lit, with groups of students huddling together to mingle.

It was my first hall party, but I had heard they were popular at Eastbridge. They had an open-door policy, students used it as a way to meet other residents in their building and anyone interested would open their door as a party host.

Ivy stopped at the end of the hall and motioned to her room from the doorway. It was dimly lit with funky lamps and candles, shining different hues of blue and pink onto clouds of marijuana smoke. I was surprised to see that she only had one bed and a teal couch that looked like it was from the seventies, students were sprawled across both pieces of furniture and melty music played in the background. Beneath her couch was a patterned rug that reminded me of a sunset.

"Want a drink?" Ivy asked as she walked into the room and approached a mini fridge. "I've got beer." She passed me a glass bottle, it was cold against my palm. I raised it to my mouth and popped the cap off with my teeth, granting me a few whistles from some guys on the couch. I took a swig.

"No roommate?"

Ivy adjusted her septum ring, twisting it to the side. "Not for me, I requested a single. I'd feel bad smoking in my room if I had a roommate."

I acknowledged her response with a hum and watched her open the drawer to her desk. She pulled out a multicoloured tab, laying it on her tongue before retreating it into her mouth. I had never tried anything stronger than marijuana, but I partied enough to know that she had just taken a hit of acid. I scanned the room. Everyone looked high, there was a group of five squeezed onto the bed, two of them were making out, and everyone around the couch was staring into outer-space.

"We should check out the fun room," she told me. I understood what she meant without her having to explain, the fun room was the one with the loud music, the party lights, the crowd of people leaking out the door.

"I need more drinks for that." I answered. Ivy responded quickly, pulling a bottle of what looked like tequila off her desk. She opened another drawer, scattered about were a bunch of shot glasses. She took them out one by one and lined three up on the desk, the golden substance trickling into the glasses before she picked one up and slammed it down.

"I'll only be needing one, the rest are for you."

I grinned before tipping my beer bottle to the sky and chugging the rest, setting it down to pound back the first shot and then the second.

Thirty minutes later, in the fun room, Ivy and I were sticky with sweat from dancing in the crowd of people. I could tell she was high now, and I felt like I could use some more booze, so I reached into my purse for my flask of whiskey and took a big gulp. When I twisted it shut and went to set it in my handbag, I felt my phone buzz against my fingertips. I signalled to Ivy that I was stepping out and walked into the hallway, checking my phone to see that I was getting a call from No Caller ID. My head was fuzzy and it took three attempts before I successfully slid my finger across the screen to accept the call. I pressed the speaker into one ear and plugged the other with my spare hand.

"Hello?"

The line was silent, but I could hear someone breathing.

"Hello?" I drew out the last syllable and my heart fluttered, I was growing suspicious.

A deep bone-chilling laugh filled my ear. I was pretty sure I recognized it. I hoped I was wrong.

"Thought you could skip town and I wouldn't notice?" The deep, raspy voice muttered. It was him. I was sure of it now, the mere sound of his voice threatened my mind with flashbacks.

I leaned against the wall to stabilize myself, trying to quiet my breathing as much as possible—I refused to let him hear me panic.

"You can't run from me Anna. Mark my words, I will find you."

I felt my lip quiver, my breathing was short and rugged. I slid down to the floor and struggled to hang up with my sweaty hands. When it finally worked, I lifted my knees to my chest and rested my head, a single tear escaping my eye. I squeezed my eyes shut, images from my past speeding through my mind faster than I could handle, making me feel sick.

"Brownie?"

I raised my head, quickly wiping the tear from my cheek.

"Fuck off, Brad."

He sat beside me. "Hey, I thought we had a good time."

"We danced when I was drunk. That's it." I dug into my leather handbag to switch my phone out for my flask. Glad that it was mostly full, I twisted it open and chugged, the substance burning the whole way down.

"Damn," he commented from beside me. I was about to get up when he reached out and wiped my cheek with his thumb. "Makeup's running babe, you good? You look like you need an upper."

"An upper?"

"You party like that and you don't know what an upper is? You know, coke, ecstasy—also known as my little friend Molly." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mini compartment container, inside were pills and a plastic bag filled with white powder.

Despite partying every day of the week, I never experimented with drugs. I saw what they did to the troubled kids in Beverly Hills—not that I wasn't troubled, I just preferred to stick to alcohol, smoking, and bad decisions. Taking harder drugs always seemed like taking it too far, but staring at them that night felt like I was staring at the solution to all my problems. That pit in my stomach never went away. I was always worried that my past would catch up with me, but the pit expanded ten-fold after that phone call. It was confirmed. He knew I was running from him.

I stared at the drugs in his hand. "Which one will help me forget?"

He plucked a tiny round pill from the container, holding it between his index finger and thumb. I reached my hand out.

"Nah-uh-uh." He said, wagging another finger in front of my face. "Allow me." He placed his free hand under my chin and parted my lips with his thumb. He tipped my head back and pushed the pill between my lips, handing me his beer.

I lifted his drink to my mouth and swallowed.