The entire break up took less than ten minutes. It was witnessed by a large portion of the student body who hovered on the scene like flies over a bleeding carcass. I was not there but was told by Cammie who had a front-row seat. The ex timed it perfectly, telling Caleb right before he was supposed to meet Jessica for dinner, and then standing back to watch. Jessica found Caleb waiting for her on the steps to the cafeteria. Their exchange was a brief. Jessica in hysterics, admitted everything to Caleb, who some say punched a wall and others say threw a bench at a tree. In actuality, he walked away from her stony faced and never spoke a word to her again. Jessica left for home a day after the commotion and purportedly left all of her belongings behind. I wondered if she knew it was me—if she even thought about me after that day or if my face blurred into that place where all of the non-popular’s belonged.

I wore my guilt for a week. It was like a firm hand pressing down on the back of my neck. I hung my head in shame and lurked around the dorms like a shadow. By day eight, I was already justifying what I had done.

I was ensconced in self-love. I had taken advantage of a girl looking for someone to trust and I used her predicament for my own personal gain. I was my father’s child. I hated myself.

My father—Oliver Kaspen, no middle name, was the worst sort of bastard a woman could drop from her loins. My mother used to say that he was a carbon copy of Elvis, dark and sexy, with bedroom eyes. He had the type of mouth that said pretty thing,s but when things got thin, it would curl into a hateful grin and cut you where it hurt. But, before he would peel off the overcoat of charm he wore, and before he would tell you that the only reason he was only with you was because of the ugly brat you bore, he was all smiles and kisses and compliments. That’s how he got my mother and that’s how he got me—the ugly brat.

He only stayed for three years after my birth, before shuffling off with his duffel bag over his shoulder. Periodically, through my tweens he would ‘reconcile’ with my mom, taking up residence on the left side of her bed, before once again jockeying off to sow his wild oats elsewhere. He gambled our grocery money, swore at us when he lost it, and he never batted a guilty eye when we had nothing to eat but a box of stale saltines. My dad.

Once, when our cabinets were empty, and I was hungrily gnawing on my thumb, he disappeared with my mother’s last dollar. My five year old mind thought that he was off to find some food, but hours later, he came back smelling so strongly of philly cheese steak, it made my mouth water. Oliver Kaspen looked out for Oliver Kaspen. Ouch. That had been the straw that broke my mother’s back. She kicked him out of our crappy studio apartment with a string of swear words I had never heard before.

The feeding frenzy for Caleb began shortly after Jessica left. Girls clamored for Caleb's attention like chimps on crack.

“He’s got the banana that every girl wants,” Jim commented one afternoon as we watched a couple of blondes bob around him like loosely tethered helium balloons. Caleb was laughing at something one of them said. She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek to which he blushed and pulled back in surprise. I looked away jealous. I couldn’t take much more of this. I was mentally murdering someone new every five minutes.

My opportunity came the same day I flunked my Latin test. I had never received as much as a C in my entire educational career, so the large F circled in red and underlined twice, came as pureed brain shock. I was losing my grip. I couldn’t concentrate. Caleb had rooted himself in my mind like a parasite and he was feeding on my emotions and thoughts. Something had to be done. I was between buildings clutching my test to my chest and staring glassy eyed at a random brick in the wall when someone walked by and shoved a flyer into my hand. Normally I would have tossed it but this time, blame it on my moment of shock, I turned it over.

ZAX PARTY

Where? Where else?

When? Saturday at 10:00

Bring: Beer

When I got back to my room, I shoved the flyer in Cammie’s face.

“Let’s go to this.”

She was leaning over a poster board using liquid eyeliner to stencil in the words “Business Plan” across the top. She glanced at the flyer for the briefest of seconds and started blowing on her letters.

“Are you having some kind of midlife crisis?”

“I’m only twenty, brat; you have to be in the middle of your life to have a midlife crisis. Why aren’t you using a marker?”

“I don’t have one and I’m in no mood for jokes. This project is due tomorrow and the only thing I know about business is how to spell it.”

“Well, you don’t even know that much because you’re missing an s.”

Cammie frowned at her poster and went to work on the last s.

“I need you to come with me...”

I walked to my drawer and retrieved a box of markers.

“What are you going do at a party?”

I quelled the urge to smack her and tried to sound pleasant.

“I don’t know. Normal things that people do at parties…like…hang out.”

“You don’t drink, dance, or smoke. Sorry Olivia, nobody’s going to want to talk about politics with you, unless you’re going to a keg party at Beta Nu, and that would be so, so lame.”

“I can dance,” I said defensively, “and anyone can drink—there’s no special talent needed there.”

“Yes, but a special talent is needed for not acting like a fool when you are drinking.” She was drawing hearts on the corners of the board and making little smiling faces in the center of each one.

She was such a waste of good air.

I sighed dramatically.

“I will do your project for you—if you come with me.”

Cammie rolled over onto her back and waved her arms in the air like she was swimming the breaststroke.

“Glory hallelujah! You’ve said the magic words.”

I grunted. I would have done it for her anyway. I’d be damned it I let my roommate turn in a business plan that looked like a Valentine’s Day card.

On Saturday I got ready with the precision of a spinal surgeon. Everything had to be just right. I was going to win this battle—be it with Mad Merlot lipstick and Sexy by Victoria Secret. At ten o’clock Cammie and I were floating up the stairs of the Zax house surrounded by clouds of exhaled nicotine. My head was spinning and my dress, which was a size too small, was hugging my chest like a boa constrictor.

“It’s a good thing you look like a normal girl,” Cammie said, smiling at me in approval.

“Normal—as opposed to what?”

I was tugging at my dress trying to cover the exposed swell of my breasts, which were rising like two plump muffins, out of Cammie’s push up bra.

She smirked at me and tugged the dress back down again.

“Well, you have those for one thing,” she poked me in the chest. “You’ve been hiding them in those ugly, outdated shirts you wear. And makeup makes you look sexy—exotic even. You clean up nicely my friend.”

I hoped so.

"Are you ready O?" Cammie asked squeezing my arm. I felt a little sick actually but I took a deep breath and nodded.

"Good, because this is going to be the most interesting night of your life.”

The door opened and we stepped into a room so thick with bodies and the stench of beer, my first instinct was to step back. Cammie shoved me through the doorway and toward a table corrupted with bottles.

“A drink first,” she said handing me a red plastic cup, “then, you do what you came to do.”

Cammie splashed vodka into my cup and added a stingy dash of cranberry. I was so nervous. I took a sip too large for my mouth and spilled the concoction down the front of my dress.

“Careful, Julia Roberts. The plan is to be smooth.” Cammie eyeballed me disapprovingly and I took another sip, carefully this time. It was worse than I thought. People were sweating and touching everything, breathing their alcohol breath into each other’s faces…germs! Horniness! They were acting like animals. I suddenly felt a rush of panic. This was too hard—being someone else. There had to be another way to do it.