When Jules rounded the corner, nearing the frat house, she could already feel the rumble of music and the noisiness of people in the air. It was getting darker and darker outside, the sun down at the horizon, and other houses were quieting down, gradually turning off their indoor lights.
But the frat house was loud and bright. All rooms were lit, visible from the outside. People were comimg in and out. Mostly guys, Jules noted, but with the occasional girl. Maybe not too good of a sign. But perhaps Jules should stick around to make sure that the girls who were here would not get violated in anyway. Jules felt pretty comfortable about striking a punch against any trangressive man. Afterall, she did work out a lot and was built a lot stronger than most people, man or woman.
By the time Jules entered the frat house, there were no signs of Kehi. Nor was there any sign of Knox. There was, however, a large group of guys chugging beer from a keg in the living room on her left. They were taking turns spinning each other upside down, forcing alcohol down each other's throats. Disgusting.
There was a girl among them. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and innocent-looking. She was peering about uncertainly as if she did not want to be here. Her cheeks were red, and she had a nervous look on her face.
There was a man there, a tight arm over the raven-haired girl who looked like she was trying to pull away kindly but was trapped in his arms. That guy did not look sober at all.
Jules sighed and walked on over to her. She took a deep breath and then exclaimed with all of her girly might, "OH. EM. GEE. GIRL!"
The dark-haired girl was caught by surprise, her cheeks turning slightly pinker than they already were. her eyes bulging out of their sockets in slight fear.
"I haven't seen you in ages! How have you been?! Oh my God! We have to catch up!"
The girl's eyes lit up, as if Jules were her saving grace. The guy holding her loosened his grip and eyed Jules suspiciously.
"Who's that?" he asked, frowning.
"Oh my God! It's Cassie! She's only my best friend from elementary school! Oh, my God!" the girl went on in that same overly-enthusiastic voice as Jules.
"We have so much to talk about, girl! Come here!"
Jules pulled the dark-haired girl away from the sour-faced guy (rather hard, mind you. It was as if he were trying to keep her hostage) and dragged her away from the scene without looking back. They finally reached the kitchen, where Jules turned right and immediately opened the door to the basement.
"Thank you for that," said the girl when Jules closed the basement door behind them. It was a lot quieter now, but some guys were clearly playing some game together downstairs as they could hear laughter and chatter resonating from the room.
"Yeah, no worries. You did not look like you wanted to be there," Jules said.
"I honestly didn't know how I could leave. He just kept holding me and it was hard to pull away. Honestly, I was getting a little scared," her voice almost cracked as the reality of it set in. Then, she blinked as if refusing to think about what could have happened, and said, "But anyway. I'm Paola."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Jules."
"Jules," Paola repeated, but mostly to herself. "I like that name."
"Thank you," Jules said with a smile that tugged at her eyes. "Who was that guy, anyway?"
"Some guy from my program. He invited me over. I don't know why I even came. I didn't expect there to be so many... boys, here."
Jules laughed. "Yeah, it's pretty terrible. I'm only here for a bit. I'm supposed to meet my friend. We're going to dip and go for chili dogs."
Paola's eyes lit up at the mention of hot dogs, but she simply said, "Oh, that's great. That's nice."
"You should tag along. Meet my friend, Kehi. He's one of the rare decent guys around here. And he's single, if that interests you."
A smirk grew on Paola's face, and she said, "Perhaps. We'll see. I'm a bit shaken by that other guy. So maybe I won't jump into anything too real just yet. But good to know for future reference."
"Future reference? You're saying you do wanna hang with us, then?" Jules queried.
"Yeah, you know what? I'd love to. Anything beats this stinky place," Paola said with a chuckle. Jules laughed at that remark.
"It is pretty smelly, huh?" Jules agreed cheerily.
"HA! STRIPPING TIME!" a voice boomed from down the stairs and Jules realized she was just standing at the top of the stairs with Paola this whole time.
Curious, both of them traipsed down. Another voice grew as they approached the commotion. "No, no, no. I still have my watch."
The basement had a washer and dryer, clothing racks, and piles of boxes to the side. The guys were sitting at two couches which had a long coffee table at the middle where all their bets were.
"God, you're such a pussy, man. I wanna see men!" The first guy went on. The other guys laughed at that comment.
Of course, Knox was there. And he was laughing along at his friends' nonesense. He had his shirt off and a drink by his side. It was clear that the guys were playing poker as there were the poker chips, but also strip poker, as there were items of clothing along with money and jewelry at the center. Jules didn't really know the difference.
"Oh, hey! It's Jules!" Knox exclaimed. He immediately got to his feet, exposing his upper body under the light.
It was clear that Knox worked out, although that much was obvious based on the fact that he played for the soccer team. But he had the abs and the body of a man who worked out even outside of soccer practice.
Forcing her eyes on Knox's face, Jules said, "Hey, Knox. How's it going?"
"It's good, yeah, just playing with the boys," he said. He reached for his shirt, but one of his friends stopped him.
"Ahem. We aren't done with the game, lover boy," said the guy who was particularly interested in seeing men stripping just earlier.
"So, that's Andrew," Knox said, gesturing at him. Andrew had unkempt black hair and a goofy grin on his face.
"That's Logan," Knox indicated the guy who was betting his watch. He had dirty blonde hair and all of his clothes on.
"That's Jayden," Knox went on to another guy who had brown hair and looked particularly uncomfortable with being seen in boxers. Jules gave him the dignity of not looking at him.
"And that's Prince," Knox said, pointing at a curly-haired guy who also had his shirt off.
"Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," Andrew said in a mocking sing-songy voice.
"You're so racist," Prince said with a laugh. He was a light-skinned Black guy. Andrew, on the other hand, was Asian.
"Just how you like me," Andrew said, kissing the air at at Prince.
Prince laughed with his hands covering his eyes.
"Oh, uh, this is Paola," Jules said when she realized Knox was waiting for her to speak. "Paola, this is Knox."
"Right, nice to meet you," Paola said uncomfortably. She peered around, as if looking at Knox would curse her into oblivion.
Knox laughed awkwardly. "Yeah. We've met."
Paola's eyebrows raised for a moment before she said, "Met is a bit of an understatement, but yeah."
"Ah," Jules said simply. So, was this one of the girls Knox had slept with and never called back?
Knox laughed awkwardly.
"Knox, what are you betting, this round?" Andrew called before Knox could say anything to redeem himself.
"Uh, right. Yeah. You guys can have a seat, if you want," Knox said. He went back to the couch and grabbed his cards, looking over at them with an unreadable expression on his face.
"I'm good. I think I'm gonna go, uh, vomit. I mean, head out," Paola said, clearly meaning to say vomit.
"Uh, I'll go with you," Jules said. "Bye, Knox."
But Paola was already leaving. Jules trailed after her. The girls went up the stairs, and when the basement door opened, they were drowning into the noise of the party once again.
That is, until Paola went over to the backdoor and stepped outside. Jules followed suit. When she shut the door behind her, she immediately asked, "What was that?"
Paola shut her eyes for a moment and shook her head in displeasure. "Just the one guy I did not want to see ever again."
"God. What did he do?" Jules asked, her chest tightening in morbid anticipation.
"I don't know. I mean, nothing, I guess. But that's the problem. We had a wonderful night together, and I thought we had something, and then, nothing. He never called, never answered any of my texts, and ugh." Paola covered her eyes with her hands as if she really could not believe this evening. "I mean, I should have known. He said he wasn't interested in anything serious, and I still slept with him, like an idiot."
"Paola. That's not your fault," Jules said automatically, reaching over to comfort the girl.
"Yeah, whatever. I never should have come here — not that I knew that other guy was going to bring me here. Mind you, I recognized this place, seeing as it's where Knox and I, well, you know, slept together, and I still decided to stay, again, like an idiot."
"Come on, you're not an idiot," Jules said.
"We should trash his room. I remember where it is too. We should go up there and trash it," Paola said with newfound interest in going back in.
Before Jules could even wrap her head around what Paola had just said, the latter stormed back into the house, leaving Jules to tail after her inside.
"Wait, I don't think—" but Paola was already exiting the kitchen and making her way up the stairs.
Narrowly avoiding the elbow of a particularly tall guy who was just standing in the kitchen with his friends, Jules ran after Paola who was hurrying up the stairs.
"Paola, wait," Jules called after the raven-haired girl, but she was already down the hall and entering Knox's room.
Thankfully, by the time Jules arrived, Paola hadn't started with the trashing. Jules still had a moment to convince her to—
Paola immediately started pulling books out the dark bookshelves and unceremoniously throwing them behind her on the floor.
"Paola! Stop! You're damaging the books!" Jules said, coming to the rescue of the poor books, trying to flatten the pages that were folded upon striking the floor. Paola spun around with a glint of annoyance in her eyes.
"Who cares?" she exasperated. "I thought you were a girl's girl."
"I — I am. I just hate seeing books getting destroyed," Jules clarified.
Paola rolled her eyes and scoffed before storming over to Knox's desk and shoving absolutely everything off the desk and onto the floor. Jules' history textbook included, the very one she had lent to Knox for the weekend. Pencils and pens scattered all over the floor, and the lamp, which was plugged into the wall, was now hanging by a wire in front of the desk.
"Hey!" Jules exclaimed. She hurriedly reached for her precious 200$ textbook and hugged it.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Paola cried out. "Stop protecting his stupid things, God."
"I — Look, this one's mine. He was just borrowing it," Jules insisted. "Trash his bed or whatever, I don't care — just leave the books out of it."
Paola clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes again before pulling the covers and sheets off of Knox's bed, the pillows falling onto the floor with them. Jules winced, but didn't dare say anything against it. She watched with shock as Paola pulled open the window and started throwing the pillows outside.
"Paola, isn't that a bit much?" Jules said uncertainly.
"Jules, respectfully, shut up right now. You don't understand," she said simply. She was about to grab some books to throw them out the window too, but then, she made eye contact with Jules and ultimately decided against it, remembering how much Jules seemed to care for books for some ungodly reason.
"Well, please, enlighten me. Tell me what happened. It's more than him just ghosting you, isn't it?"
"I was in love, Jules! I loved him! Did you see the way he looked at me down there? As if I were nothing. As if nothing had happened between us. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"
Jules' heart dropped in compassion and reached over to hug Paola, not really knowing what else she could do. Paola shrugged Jules' hands off of her.
"Don't bother. It's whatever. I'm over him, anyway."
Jules opened her mouth to say something, anything, something nice, anything nice, but Paola spoke faster. "I need some air."
And without another word, the raven-haired girl stomped out of Knox's now-trashed room and disappeared from view as she turned the hallway.
Jules eyes widened as she looked around the room. What a mess.
"What are you doing?" Jules nearly had a heart attack, until she realized it was Kehi leaning on the doorframe.
"It wasn't me," Jules said, but Kehi raised an eyebrow at her.
"I told you, didn't I? I told you he would hurt your feelings," Kehi said in a sing-songy I-told-you-so voice. "Although... I never knew you were the type to trash a guy's room after he breaks your heart. Kinda hardcore, Jules. I like it."