"Championship point, Northman," the umpire announces on his mic.
There were a number of squeals coming from the other side of the court. I look at the large group of girls smiling and pointing to Eric as he prepared to serve.
"He's soooo hot!" I hear from that section.
I roll my eyes and cross my arms underneath my breasts, but I had to admit, I did agree with them. He had his blonde hair tied back with a bandana on top and he was wearing the Princeton colours and slogan on his tennis attire.
"Quiet please," the chair umpire says.
Eric bounces the ball a couple times, throws it in the air and hits it as hard as he can with his racket. I turn my head to his opponent who tries to return it, but he misses.
"Game, Northman," the umpire says. The crowd erupts in applause and screams. Eric raises his racket and waves to the crowd as we all get up on our feet.
"Great job Eric!" I yell out as I clap my hands proudly.
He walks to the bench without looking up at the audience any further. I watch as he puts his things away in his bag and he goes to shake the hand of his opponent as well as the umpire. Afterwards, he walks back to the locker room area.
The throng of girls were now near the exit, trying to get Eric's attention.
I watch attentively as he lets a few of them, namely the more attractive ones, hug him and whisper things into his ear.
I look on with furrowed eyebrows. I hated this feeling, jealousy. It seemed like I was in a constant battle with it ever since I started dating (but he doesn't refer to it as dating) Eric.
I had been with Eric for over a year now and boy, had it been an emotional rollercoaster since day one. I knew when I had met him that there was a coldness about him, but the more time I spent him, the more I realized how deep it ran in his blood. He would drop me like a hat and pick me up whenever he felt like it. We only spent time together whenever it suited him and his schedule. When I tried to call him, he almost never answered his phone, nor returned my messages and texts. I found myself always waiting for him to call me. Sometimes, he would call me in the middle of the night and I was up and out of bed, running downstairs to meet him to go to his place or sometimes he would stay at mine. We mostly were at his condo.
He did introduce me to his group of friends. My first meeting with them didn't go too well as they looked down on me as if I wasn't worthy of licking their thousand-dollar boots. Most of them were from New York and Florida and an equal amount of guys and girls. Maxwell and Clancy were polite to a certain extent. They worshipped Eric and always held onto to his every word. Chow was a different matter. He didn't seem to like me very much and didn't bother hiding that fact. I would look at Eric, waiting him to defend me, but he was just ignore the way Chow would treat me. I suspected that he didn't really care. Indira and Ginger were polite to me as well and showed a vague interest in me. They were fascinated with where I came from and couldn't believe how intelligent I was and that I was with Eric. Felicia, however, was another story. From the moment I met her, I knew that she wanted Eric. She let me know right away to watch my step and that Eric was hers. She had told me that she and Eric dated at school in Florida and that they were currently 'on a break.' I was quite upset after that, but Eric, of course, was indifferent to my emotions. I had to ask him if it was true and he didn't deny it. The only part that he denied was the fact that he was hers.
"I belong to no one," he said to me defiantly at the time. "I would never put any woman on a pedestal."
I had a hard time suppressing how I felt after that omission, but of course Eric kept his cool and his walls up around him. That was another thing that I was keenly aware of and had a hard time trying to come to terms with. He always kept his distance in terms of his feelings and even his private life. Though I had a deep understanding of him carnally, I still had no idea who he really was. He never talked about his family or his feelings. And he never talked about wanting to introduce me to them either. Maybe it was because I wasn't really his girlfriend, after all, he did tell me that he didn't do relationships.
I continue to watch him interacting with those girls and one of them even squeezes his ass. I could feel my blood boiling.
He finally gets away from the girls and heads back to the locker room.
I sigh out loud, grab my purse and walk down the steps. I look at the time, it was 3:40 in the afternoon. Crap! I was missing my statistics class.
Though I was still doing fairly well in school, my grades had been slipping significantly since I started seeing Eric. Like I said, we usually met up when it was convenient for him and not for me. I would skip classes just to be with him at his apartment or if he wanted to take me on an outing. I was missing deadlines for assignments, because I wasn't doing them when I was at his house and he was inside me, literally.
I had received an email from the department, warning me that I was in danger of losing my scholarship if my grades continued to drop.
I sigh again out loud and close my eyes as I continue to wait for Eric by the exit. I had come to Princeton with a mission, and that was to graduate at the top of my class and get a well-paying job on Wall Street or Boston. I was letting my own ambitions slip away because I wanted to be with Eric and I wanted him to like me as much as I liked him.
More like loved him, I think to myself. Despite how he treated me sometimes, I had fallen madly in love with him. When we were together alone, he treated me like I was the only person on the planet that mattered. He worshipped my body like a goddess and told me how impressed he was with me. The passion and desire he ignited within me was like a drug that I couldn't get enough of. I loved the way he touched me and the way I felt when he was inside me.
I notice a few of the girls, particularly the one who grabbed Eric's ass, were waiting in the lobby as well. I glare at them but they don't notice me.
I could hear them whispering loudly as he comes out of the exit.
He glances in their direction but his eyes perk up when he sees me.
"Hey, that was a great game. You deserved to win," I say positively. There was no point in bringing up the fact that I had seen some other girl grabbing his ass.
"My serve could've been better," he says with a little ire in his tone. "Listen, I'm going to the practice court to hit some balls with my hitting partner, I'll see you later."
He doesn't wait for me to respond as he walks away, down the hall.
"Pfffft," I blow out loudly as I watch him walk away.
I head back to my apartment to study. I may as well catch up on the massive pile of work that I still had to do. Spring break was coming up and I still had assignments, as well as take-home tests, and essays to write.
I look in my fridge for a snack, but there wasn't anything. I look at my banking info on my phone to check to see how much money I had left. I currently had 2.56 cents. When I started dating Eric, I had quit my job at the bar to be with him. I had to give up something, I couldn't balance my school work as well as my bartending schedule and be at Eric's beck and call at the same time. I had to drop one of them, so I dropped my job.
I had literally eaten through my savings.
I sigh out loud again as I sit back on my chair. I couldn't focus after that. I knew what was going to happen to me. Eventually, I was going to have to get another job and I was going to lose my scholarship with the massive amount of work that I still had to do, even if I managed to find the time to make it all up. I was too late.
I run my hands through my hair and lean forward. I had to give up Eric. He obviously wasn't good for me and my mental health.
But the thought of never seeing him again hits me like an arrow shooting my heart. I shed a few tears at the thought of no longer seeing his handsome face, feeling the warmth of his body and hearing the sound of his voice.
I manage to complete a few assignments during the evening when my phone suddenly rings. I look at the caller I.D., it was Eric.
"Hi," I answer cheerfully.
"What are you doing?" he asks me.
"Doing work," I respond.
"Let me up," he says to me.
"Okay," I answer. I run to the intercom to buzz him through.
A few minutes later he is in my apartment with me.
He kisses me passionately. Even though I was responding, the serious issues I was facing were still bearing down on me.
"There's something going on," he says as he breaks away from our kiss.
"Uhhhh, yeah, I mean it's nothing, really," I stammer. I breathe in deeply. "Well, it's not really nothing. I might have to leave school if things don't change."
"What do you mean?" he asks, showing a little bit of interest.
"I'm here, as you are aware of, on a scholarship. And with that, I have to maintain a certain GPA, currently I am sitting below that mark," I say. "And I don't have enough money to eat. I ran through my savings and only have a couple dollars to my name."
I hated how I was sounding right now. I sounded poor and pitiful. And I knew that Eric would find that unattractive.
He stays silent for a few minutes.
"Come live with me," he says.
"What?!" I blurt out in surprise. I didn't know that we were at that point in our 'relationship'.
"But….." I sputter out.
"No buts, you don't need to live here anymore. You can live at my place while you are here and if you are in danger of losing your scholarship, I will pay your tuition," he says in a neutral tone.
Though I could feel myself becoming ecstatic at the thought of moving in with Eric, another part of me was weary. I had always taken care of myself and Gran, I never relied on handouts, nor expected it from anyone. This was a handout and basically Eric was telling me that he was going to take care of me. I couldn't accept his offer, my pride wouldn't allow it.
"That's a kind offer Eric but….." I say, but he interjects again.
"Like I said, no buts, now I will only offer this to you once, and you can either take it or leave it, or like you say, you can go home when your scholarship runs out," he says, maintaining his cool demeanor.
I was at a loss for words. I knew he really meant what he was telling me. Eric was blunt about what he said and thought about things. He never sugarcoated anything.
Oh, to hell with my pride.
"Okay," I say quietly.
And with that, I was living with Eric a week later.
A year after that, I was now in my senior year at Princeton, still cohabitating with Eric. I had been initially happy with living him, hoping that we would become closer, but I was wrong, again. He kept his walls up around me.
We slept in the same bed, had sex often and shared the dinner table, once in awhile. I lost count at how many times I made dinner for Eric, but ended up getting stood up by him. He continued on with the same lifestyle he maintained before I moved in with him. He would come and go whenever he pleased, without ever telling me where he was going or who he was with or what he was doing. I had asked him one night after waiting up for him till 5 in the morning. I was tired and fed up with his treatment. He reiterated again that 'we weren't in a relationship and that I had no authority over him' and that if I didn't like it, then I could leave.
After that I began to learn how to suppress my feelings. It still bothered me when he would leave for days and even weeks at a time without ever calling me, but I started to become immune to it.
The one thing that got me through this difficult period was school. Despite initially falling behind on my schoolwork, I managed to maintain a high GPA and kept my scholarship. I worked my ass off for two years to finish at the top of my class.
I didn't know who else to invite to my grad but Amelia and Lafayette. I had basically dropped them as friends when Eric became my whole world., but luckily, they forgave me and we were still friendly to a certain extent.
"Congratulations Sook," Amelia says as she hugs me after the grad ceremony.
"I knew you would do it," Lafayette adds.
"Thanks guys, thanks for coming," I say as I take off my cap.
"What's in store for you after this?" Amelia asks.
"I…" I didn't know how to answer that, because I didn't know what the answer was. In the beginning I wanted to get a job in New York, but I had not applied to any companies at all. I didn't have any job offers.
Eric had also finished and had received his masters degree and even he didn't let me know on what his plans were. All I knew was that he was done here and that he would return home for good after this. That basically was going to leave me homeless. The joy that I felt at graduating washes away.
"Come to New Orleans with me," Amelia says as she takes my hands. I could tell she knew the predicament I was in.
I smile at her kindness and I could feel the tears welling up.
"Umm, that's so kind of Amelia, but…." I say.
"Holy shit," Lafayette says in a low tone as he looks behind me. Amelia looks in his direction and her eyes widen in shock.
I turn around to see what they were looking at. It was Eric walking towards me, wearing an expensive suit, and he was walking with an older woman, who was very polished, in an equally expensive looking outfit. She was wearing a black round hat and sunglasses. Her red hair was in an updo. She walked beside Eric as though she was royalty, with her hands glued together and a raised eyebrow as she looked on at everyone.
"Sookie," Eric says as he stops in front of me. "Congratulations on your achievements."
"Thanks," I blush. I glance toward Eric's mum, whom I could tell was scrutinizing me behind her dark glasses.
"This is my mother, Sophie-Anne LeClerc," Eric says. "Mother, this is Sookie Stackhouse, the woman I told you about."
"So, this is the famous Miss Stackhouse," she says with a raised eyebrow. "I have heard much about you."
I wish I could say the same thing to her.
"Oh, that's nice," I say, with my brightest fake smile. I had never felt so nervous in my entire life.
"My son tells me you are quite a remarkable young woman," she says.
"Uhhhh, thanks. Your son is more than amazing," I answer back truthfully.
"That he is," she says with a sly smile. "We are having dinner tonight in town at one of the restaurants. Since I just found out that you have been living with Eric all this time, I would like to invite you to dine with us. My husband and my daughter will be there as well."
"Oh, uhh yes I would like that," I answer hesitantly.
"I will see you tonight at 8:30," she says as she turns around and walk away. Eric gives me a look, before walking away with her.
"At least I now know where Eric gets his attitude from," I mutter under my breath.
This was going to be an interesting night.