"Liz!" I cried as I rushed to her side to help her up.
"Oh my God, you don't even know how to walk, do you?" Violet said as she passed us on the campus sidewalk. She was alone today, her sidekicks elsewhere as she made her way through the snow to class.
"Shut up, Metzler," Liz muttered as she brushed the snow from herself and stood up slowly. I could see that she'd cut the palms of her hands as she'd fallen on the concrete, so I brushed them off and offered her a tissue to wipe away the blood.
"Articulate this morning, too," Violet said, rolling her eyes. Then with a mean grin, added, "Maybe you should rethink following in the footsteps of your family, Baker."
"You bitch!" Liz hissed as she moved toward Violet. I grabbed her arm and stopped her from getting too close.
"Violet, move on," I said, waving my hand as if shooing away a bad dog. "Go on!"
Laughing loudly, Violet turned and strutted down the sidewalk on her way to class. I turned and looked at Liz and found her standing with her bleeding palms up and tears running down her cheeks.
"Liz! Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?" I asked, worried that something was terribly wrong.
"That bitch is too mean to live," Liz sniffed as she wiped her nose with the bloody tissue. I handed her another one and she gratefully accepted it. "I hate Violet Metzler."
"I know, darling," I said. "We all do."
Liz flashed me a grateful grin as I motioned to her that we needed to get to class, but I wondered why Violet had chosen to go for the throat this time. I knew she and Liz didn't like each other, but to aim so low and invoke Liz's troubled family was low even by Violet's standards.
"Liz," I wondered out loud. "Have you done anything to really piss Violet off lately?"
"You mean besides simply being alive?" Liz asked with a grimace. "Not that I can think of."
"Hmmm, I wonder why she's being so mean," I said.
"No idea." Liz shrugged. "She seems to have just been born that way."
"No one is inherently evil," I scolded gently.
"Don't bet on that," Liz said as she pulled open the door to the building and winced as her hand made contact with the metal door handle. "You haven't met most of my family."
We stopped in the bathroom to clean up Liz's hands before we took the practice exam. She'd ripped off several layers of skin when she'd fallen, and I did my best to clean it up without hurting her, but she inhaled sharply as I applied soap and gently scrubbed away the dirt and debris.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, fine. It just stings," she said, biting her lip as she ran her hands under the faucet to wash away the soap.
We were late for class and received a stern look from Professor Jackson as we grabbed our exams and sat down. I tried hard to focus on the exam, but the whole time I was answering questions, a part of my brain was back at my apartment with Cam feeling all of the wonderful ways in which his touch made my body come alive. Halfway through the exam, Liz elbowed me and then pointed to the papers on my desk. Having a crush on Cam Connor was not going to be good for my grades.
"What the hell was going on in there?" Liz demanded as we gathered our things and got ready to head to the lab.
"Nothing, why?" I replied.
"You look like a love struck school girl." She grinned. "Cam Connor is going to ruin your GPA if you aren't careful."
"The thought crossed my mind, thank you very much," I said primly. "I've got it under control."
"Yeah, sure you do." Liz laughed. "Just like Violet has her meanness under control. It's snake handling, my friend."
I looked at Liz, wide eyed, not believing that she'd said that, but her roaring laughter pushed away any shocked outrage I was feeling, and we both laughed until we were holding our sides. Our laughter continued as we entered the lab and prepared for the lesson, earning us nasty looks from Violet and her posse.
"Why is she so nasty to you, Liz?" I whispered as the lab assistant instructed us, yet again, on the necessity of proper slide handling techniques.
"I don't know, she's got a bug up her ass," Liz murmured, making me laugh and earning us a stern look from the lab assistant.
Meanwhile, across the room, Violet, Jessica, and Lydia all stared with rapt attention at Robert, the lab assistant, who could really only be described as tall, dark, and handsome. He was attentive to everyone in the class and always cheerfully answered questions, so most of the girls in the class had a crush on him; everyone, except Liz. She treated him as if he were part of the furniture, functional and necessary, but of little real interest.