College Life: Freshman Year

11

Normani's POV

"You should be a model," I tell her.

"Please," Lauren says sarcastically.

"I'm serious. You look so gorgeous in all these pictures and your body is so…perfect," I tell her as I snap one more.

"These pictures better not get out, Normani," she says as she pulls me down next to her.

"What kind of fiancé do you take me for? I'm not going to let anybody look at naked pictures of you."

Lauren smiles at me. "I love that word… fiancé. It's so beautiful. I can't believe this is really happening. You and I are getting married."

"It's surreal, isn't it?" I say as I brush a strand of her beautiful hair behind her ear.

Lauren and I have been engaged for almost 24 hours now and about 15 of those hours have been spent making love to each other. I can't get enough of her. I look at the beautiful girl…no, the beautiful woman lying naked next to me and I can't believe I'm fortunate enough to be spending the rest of my life with her.

I'm about to kiss her when my phone starts ringing. I'm surprised to see that it's my mother calling. Her and I haven't spoken to each other in over a month.

"Normani, honey!"

"Yes?"

"Do you have a moment?"

"Actually, mother, I was in the middle of—"

"I'm sure it can wait. Listen, you are flying home first thing tomorrow. I want to spend the weekend of your birthday with you and your sister."

"Fly to Boston?" my voice becomes higher pitched. I can't help but feel a little excited.

"No, honey. You're flying to New York."

Fly to New York where she lives with my step-father that prick? No, thank you. "Actually, mother, Choie and some of the other girls are having a birthday party for me this weekend and it would be rude to cancel. Plus, I was hoping to spend my birthday with Lauren. Her and I are engaged now."

"Oh, that cute green-eyed girl? I always hoped you'd marry her. This gives us more of a reason to celebrate this weekend! My daughter is getting married!"

I roll my eyes. "Fine, I'll see you tomorrow."

I hop back into bed with Lauren and she holds me close to her.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just hate my mother and my step-father more than words can possibly say. I have to fly to New York tomorrow morning to spend the weekend with them."

"But, your birthday party is this weekend."

"I know. And this is how I picture the weekend…my mother is going to drink until she passes out, my prick step-father Carlos is going to leave so he can see his 18 year old mistress, and Naturi is going to be having sex with her girlfriend Karen. Happy birthday, Normani. Happy fucking birthday."

Lauren kisses my cheek. "Maybe it won't be so bad. If they leave you alone at night, you can call me. You said you've always wondered what phone sex would be like with me, well, here is our opportunity."

I giggle. "Lauren, I was hoping for real sex."

"We're going to have plenty of time for that, Mrs. Jauregui," she says before gently kissing my lips. My sweet Lauren.

As she drifts off to sleep, I think of how much I've kept her in the dark about my family life. My parents got divorced when I was 5 because of my mother's infidelity and alcoholism, but I didn't mind. My twin sister Naturi and I were always daddy's little girls so he fought to make sure he had sole custody of us. We had the perfect childhood. Although he had a high-pressure job, my daddy would always make time for Naturi and me. We'd build forts in the living room, go to Red Sox games, tell ghost stories, and he would be sitting in the front row at all of our ballet recitals. As Naturi and I became teenagers, he still showed us that same unconditional love even though he knew nothing about how to raise two teenage girls. When he'd take us shopping, he'd always complain about the length of the skirts we wanted and told us we were giving our prospective boyfriends or girlfriends the wrong idea. Yes, my daddy was that accepting of whatever our sexual preference may turn out to be and we loved him dearly for it, even though we didn't really know what sex was at 14.

When we were in our freshman year of high school, Daddy was killed in a car accident. Naturi and I haven't been the same since then. Our mother forced us to move in with her and her new husband Carlos who we both hate with every fiber of our being. For our first three years of high school, we lived with them in a house in Boston, which was only four miles from the house we lived in with Daddy, but Carlos's job transferred him to New York the summer before our senior year and that is when all Hell broke loose. Naturi and I were miserable and we hated being surrounded by all the snobby kids at our new school.

Carlos and my mother rarely paid attention to us and Naturi and I learned to live with that. In Boston, we had our friends and we mainly spent our time with them, but in New York we had nobody. I used that to my advantage by focusing all my attention on school. I took as many AP class as I could and I got A's in all of them. Naturi, on the other hand, became promiscuous. She began to have sex with as many random girls as she could. When I asked her why, she told me she was desperate to feel something, anything, and this made her feel alive. We lived up to the dichotomy. I was the virgin, she was the whore.

After we graduated from high school, Naturi left to Philadelphia with a girl named Karen. She said she couldn't handle Carlos anymore. I had no idea what she meant by that until he started to focus his attentions on me. Carlos likes his women young, barely legal to be exact. Whenever I'm over there, he never takes his eyes off of me and he comments on how I'm becoming a very attractive young woman. When he hugs me, he always holds the embrace for a little too long. He's never touched me in an inappropriate manner, but Naturi said she caught him jerking off to a picture of me in a bikini last time she was over there. When she told me that, I started crying. I've never felt so dirty and used in my life.

…and this is the man I'm going to be facing tomorrow. Lauren will never know about any of this.