Free Crushed by Dawn Rae Miller Page A

the loudest — the one I care about most — is the cry echoing around my brain, struggling to break free.
    She’s messing with me. Coming to my room, sitting on my lap. Pretending she cares. Well you know what, Calista? There are plenty of girls in the world. Girls who would love to spend a day or two with me. Nice girls. Hot girls. Maybe even Ellie Jacobs.
    I can’t do this. Whatever Calista wants, I need to stop it. I’m Fletch Colson. Not some lovesick idiot.
    In my mind, Brady’s telling me to take deep, cleansing breaths. Repeating the New Age crap he picked up from his mom’s yogi. 
    I listen, breathing in deeply and forcing air in and out of my lungs. Again. And again.
    It doesn’t help.
    Night presses in on all sides, and now that I’ve stopped running, a chill runs over my skin.
     I don't want to go back to my room, not yet. But I can’t stay here, either. So I jog back up the path to the deserted Beach and down the lower campus stairs. It must be after curfew, but I don’t care if anyone sees me. It’s only a demerit, nothing I can get expelled for, not even with my current detention schedule.
    Brady and Reid’s dorm is the only one-story building in this dorm cluster. I run around the outside looking for a clue as to which is theirs. I’ve been over a bunch of times, but always through the hallway. 
    Since the windows are identical, I peek in a few, skipping the ones with curtains. On the fifth try, I find it, and as luck would have it, one of them left the window cracked open — probably to sneak someone in. I shove it wider and wiggle through. 
    Brady’s stretched diagonally across his twin bed with his leg bent over the side, foot on the floor. Classic pass out pose. Wonder what he was doing tonight. 
    Reid’s not here. Must be with Paige.
    “Brady.” I kick his leg. “Wake up.”
    He startles. “What you doing?”
    “I’m bored. Let’s do something.”
    “Did you bring the keys to my new car?” 
    “No. And you won’t be getting them anytime soon.”
    He squints at the clock. “Jesus, Fletch. It’s one in the morning. Go back to bed.”
    It’s only ten-thirty, and he’s completely wasted.
    Brady’s snore fills the room before his head hits the pillow. When he’s like this, he’ll sleep through anything. Reid once told me how he and Paige screwed while Brady slept. I know, for a fact, Brady didn’t hear them because he would have given me a play-by-play complete with sound effects. 
    Bored, I search the room for the bottles of liquor I know he has hidden. 
    I find the stashed vodka behind the dresser and liberate it. Since there aren’t any cups, I drink straight from the bottle as I flip through the video games scattered across the floor. I select the most violent one, and sink into Reid’s gaming chair. 
    I match every kill with a swig from the bottle.
    I kill a lot of stuff.
    A swift kick to my ass jars me awake. 
    “Whatchya doing here?” Alex stares down at me.
    I rub my throbbing backside and realize my head hurts a hell of a lot more. 
    “Couldn’t sleep. What are you doing here?” Even in my semi-intoxicated state, I know Alex shouldn’t be here. His room is in another dorm, on upper campus, near mine.
    Alex tilts his head as if trying to decide whether or not to tell me. There’s a little bruising around his nose, but nothing else. My fists left little mark on him.
    This sucks. Just the two of us, in a room alone…this isn’t good.
    “He went out to skate,” Alex mumbles as he rummages through Brady’s closet. “I’m looking for his stash.”
    “I think I drank it all.”
    Alex eyes the empty bottle next to me and shrugs. “It was crap anyway. I need to get some real Russian vodka for us.”
    We stare at each other for a long minute before I stand up. Big mistake. The room spins like an out-of-control merry-go-round. 
    “I need some breakfast, or I’m gonna puke.”
    “It’s lunch time.” He’s digging through Reid’s drawer now.