The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C

Chapter 1 - Rion

Rion Burke's ex-boyfriend Tate Sullivan was an asshole. A totally gorgeous asshole who could charm the pants off the most raging of lesbians, and who was the best fuck she'd ever had. Rion added "no more hot guys" to her mental notes-to-self list. Apparently, they clouded her judgment way too much.   

It wasn't the fact that he smoked pot, or even that he sold the stinky shit out of the back of his car,[B1]  that bothered her. It was the time he'd left five fucking pounds of it in the trunk and then told her the car was okay for her to drive to the store to pick up munchies. On top of that, he'd been too fucking stoned to remember - or care - that there was a police checkpoint on the back road they almost always took on their quest for munchies.

Rion had only smoked one joint in her life, about five minutes before the stink of it made her want to vomit and she swore her lips would never touch that shit again. Not that that fact mattered when the police officer pulled[B2]  the Wal-Mart bag full of zippered sandwich bags full of the greenish-brownish curling dried leaves, took in her tattoos, nose piercing, and bleached hair with a sweeping gaze, and decided Rion needed to be in handcuffs, right then and there. Most likely, her trademark glare and the low growly voice that only came out in moments of extreme stress didn't help her argument that she was a totally sober kid just heading out to pick up Cool Ranch Doritos and microwave pizzas for her friends.

It wasn't the look that Mom gave her from across the Indiana minimum security women's correctional facility metal table that bothered her. Mom's 3rd DUI in as many months had erased any room she might have had to criticize Rion.

No, what bothered her was the judge telling her that she was lucky she was only getting a ten thousand dollar fine and losing her federal college funding, plus spending hundreds of hours in community service. That killed her. Hearing the bullshit from her court-appointed lawyer about how lucky she was for an eighteen-year-old offender with such a sizeable stash found on her person didn't help a bit.

Ten thousand dollars and a lingering promise that she'd graduate college was all that was left between her and Dad after he died of cancer two years ago, and Tate Sullivan had ripped that away from her before she even saw it coming.

Rion should have known shit would just go downhill from there, especially with Mom's history of alcohol issues. With one parent dead and the other in the slammer, Rion's last year and a half of high school were pretty well fucked over before they even started.

Luckily, the staff of the group home where she'd been living turned out to be good for something. At the last minute, Rion's exit counselor had dug up an unclaimed private scholarship for foster kids going to college to major in fine arts. So Rion had made it to Indiana Northern University, where she hoped to make her love of music into a career and ride out the State's support for foster kids just a little bit longer.

She stood outside Harrison, Suite 17C, after a long and snarling battle with the admissions office to convince them that, even though her name sounded like "Ryan," she was not, in fact, a guy, and did not have to sign up for the selective service to complete her admission. Though the prospect of Army service was fearsome, it had nothing on the group home she'd just escaped from. She'd seen enough of how disgusting guys' personal hygiene could be after living there for the last six months.

A used duffle bag and a cheap backpack held all the important stuff she had to her name. Every item in her parents' house, which Rion was seriously considering selling off, held too many painful memories for her to lug them to the dorm room. The one and only upside to having only a suitcase, a purse, and a laptop bag to unpack was that she could skip move-in day and all the dumbassed roommate introduction bullshit. Just as she'd hoped, Rion arrived to an empty three-person suite. Evidently her roommates were out participating in what looked like a combo meet-market and extracurriculars clusterfuck on the quad.