Prerequisites For Love (Sample Chapters Only)

Chapter 1-0

Shivers scorch my veins and settle into a freezing sweat as I walk through the front doors of the Delta Psi fraternity house. I climb the stairs to Brad's second-floor room. It's still too early for the groans and grunts of the rest of the guys waking. I heard the party went on until 4:00 a.m. Brad knows I usually wake early, but he never does. The hot shivers battle with each other as I stand before his door, ready to knock. I have no idea why my boyfriend has summoned me so early in the morning to his room. I quietly knock.

He opens the door immediately. "Hey, K."

Brad is already dressed in khaki pants and a navy polo emphasizing the dark blue of his eyes. He is one of those guys on campus who only has to smile, and girls drop their panties. He knows it too, but he's never acted on it. After almost three years together, I've never had a reason to doubt him.

I walk inside and close the door—something I've done so many times before, but why does it feel so different this time?

"Have a seat," he says in a formal voice, extending his muscular arm toward his bed.

I obediently do what he says. My wobbly legs don't protest.

"Brad, you're scaring me. What's this all about?"

He leans his back on the wall opposite the bed, as far as possible from me. He's never been a touchy person. I can count on the fingers of one hand when he has hugged me in the last three years. But that's who he is. He's never been one of those lovey-dovey guys. He's always treated me right, though.

"Is this about last night?" I press him. Last night he and my best friend took me out to the local dance club for my twentieth birthday.

"Last night?" His eyebrows shoot up, and he seems to have stopped breathing.

"I'm sorry I had to leave without you and Stacy, but while I was waiting for you to finish the game of pool, a guy spilled his beer on me. I just couldn't take the smell of it and took an Uber back home."

I assumed everything was okay. I texted Brad about it last night, although he never texted me back. Shoot. I thought it was no big deal.

Brad's eyes soften, the blue glimmer as familiar as my own hands. "No, it's not about that."

I press my lips together tightly. Will he come out with it already?

Brad glances away from me. His shoulders are slumped. His dirty blond hair is sticking up in several directions, and I can imagine him running his hands through it.

"I'm breaking up with you, K," he whispers harshly.

My stomach drops. As a sharp pain cuts through my chest, I grab the soft bedsheets.

"Why?" is all I manage to say while trying to steady my breaths.

When he finally looks at me, he says, "We're already getting really busy at school. I'm a pre-med major and won't have time for a relationship." He swallows hard.

"This is bullshit." His eyes pierce me at my choice of words. "You were just as busy in high school, but that didn't stop you from dating me." A dull pain forms in my chest.

Brad has a short fuse, and I know he'll tell me what this is all about.

"Don't you think it's weird that we don't fight anymore? It's always awkward silence between us," he blurts out.

"Seriously?"

I didn't see this coming. Yesterday, Brad and I drove together to the mall to pick up Stacy, and I welcomed the silence in the car. As soon as Stacy sat in the back seat, we had to turn up the radio because her favorite jam was playing. Then last month, we drove to visit his parents. During the two-hour slow drive to LA, I enjoyed looking out the window. But now I understand better why Brad was in a bad mood, fidgeting in his seat and grabbing the steering wheel tightly. I thought he was annoyed at the horrible LA traffic, but I guess I didn't interpret the signs correctly.