"I'm sorry. He's a freakin' rabid dog. What did he do this time?"

"He had been drinking again, and I guess his roommate said something about it. A couple of wrong words and they were throwing blows at one another." Dalton rolled his eyes but continued on. "Allen got moved out of the room, closer to the duty hut. They should have moved him right next door, but there were no rooms available. I got stuck helping him move."

I couldn't help but laugh at the contortion of his face.

"Sorry to laugh at you, but I really couldn't imagine having to do that. You shouldn't be so nice, Dalton. Your reputation is preceding you."

The door opened and in strolled Angelica. She avoided my gaze, instead briskly walking past both Dalton and me while quietly muttering, "Hi."

"Hi," we answered back simultaneously.

Her behavior had me stumped. The day before, she was proudly and quite potently threatening to derail whatever it was she thought Alex and I had. Today, she couldn’t even bring herself to look at me. Something was definitely up.

"I'm going to the gym, and then to study," she said, throwing a new t-shirt on over her head.

Dalton and I exchange curious glances, but neither of us said a word.

"Bye," Angelica called out before slowly shutting the door.

"Well, that was strange," I said, breaking the awkward silence that Angelica had cast over the room. "She usually has nothing but venom for me."

"Don't sweat it. Relish it. Now get your binder out so we can study. We have more tests coming up this week."

I reluctantly stood, then moved over to my wall locker, pulling my binder out and thrusting it on my bed. The last thing I wanted to do right now was study because even in my binder, Alex and his sex oozing voice spilled out from deep inside of it.

Monday morning came much too soon. My relaxing day with Dalton and the absence of Angelica made Sunday one of my favorite days thus far. She seemed so dejected when she walked into the room, and if I actually liked her, I probably would have cared. All I knew was that her subdued demeanor oddly put me at ease, and whatever had taken her to that point was very welcomed.

Inside the classroom, I couldn't help but feel uneasy as Newsome stood behind Alex, scanning on the room and landing on me a few times. Maybe it was the fact that Alex and I had escalated our flirtations-- going all the way, but I had a sickening feeling that he knew, and it was sending my mind in all sorts of crazy directions. As far as I was aware, he didn't know about us, but my guilty conscience couldn't be sure. Intense heat suffocated me as he looked out at me, his eyes narrowing as if he was trying to steal information from my soul.

"…so your tests are coming back to you. A passing score is seventy-two percent, a C, which is average. We are Marines. We are exceptional, and anything but average, so if you find yourself down in this range, fix your shit."

Alex's voice shook me from my trance. Jensen took the liberty of passing back the tests, slapping a seventy-four percent down in front of me. Shame and embarrassment hit me as I looked from my paper up to the front of the room where Alex stood, glaring at me. He softly licked his lips, turning his head slightly to the side in a consequential manner, his eyes filling with lustful disappointment.

I couldn't take it. I turned away from him. After the test, I felt like I hadn't performed well. Something about the feel of it all, his eyes boring into me all while I took the exam, had shaken my core, utterly distracting me.

"Open your binders to the chapter on cryptographic codes and pay attention. You will have another test at the end of the week, and those of you that scored average will need to redeem yourselves to my satisfaction."

My eyes shot to Alex as he spoke, seemingly as if I were the only person he was speaking to, his statement filled with sexual innuendo.

My focus was gone. There was nothing that he said that didn’t feel like a direct threat to me, with sexual connotation thickly laced through it. All of the codes in the binder read like a foreign language with no way of deciphering them. As soon as Alex spoke, explicit thoughts caressed my mind. I’d finally had enough, so I excused myself to go to the restroom.

I rushed into the stall, locked the door and allowed my head to rest against the side wall. This just wasn't me. I wasn't this girl. Alex had gotten into me, figuratively and literally, and turned me upside down, shaking away the girl I once was and replacing me with some wanton creature that was unfamiliar even to me. My thoughts, my dreams, my desires all zeroed in on him and the feel of it all ripped through me, placing me on a steep ledge that left me dangling from the edge, on the verge of falling off and crashing down. As ominous as it was, like a train wreck happening before my eyes, I couldn't pull myself away from it.

I doused a bit of water on my face and dabbed it away with a paper towel before mentally bitch slapping myself to get it together. I walked into the classroom, feeling slightly better than I had before.

After staring at codes for what felt like forever, we were finally excused for lunch. I scurried out of the classroom, hoping to avoid Newsome who I swore was still peering at me every chance he got. Or maybe it was my overactive imagination that had me believing that. Either way, it made me wholly uncomfortable, and I needed a reprieve from it.

I spotted Dalton and made my way over to him.

"Hey. How did do on your test?" His smile was brighter than the blistering sun.

"Ehhh… not so good. I'm average," I joked. "What about you?"

His smile faded. "I was top scorer in my class. Ninety-eight percent."

Guilt seemed to overcome him, almost as if he shouldn't be sharing his good news when I had none to report back in return.

"Congrats, Dalton. And wipe that look off your face. I'll be fine. Just have to buckle down, that's all."

Lane and Hutchins walked over, inviting us out to Subway for lunch. Immediate thoughts of Saturday scraped my mind, taking me back to my pick-up spot as Alex waited for me and looked on from the distance.

"Yeah, I'm starving. Let's go."

We walked to Subway. Lane and Hutchins detailed their test scores and what it was that still had room to work on. I didn’t feel the need to throw around my paltry seventy-four. Compared to their eighties and nineties, I was ponderously pulling up the rear.

Subway was a crowded mess. I guess it was better than a run to the greasy burger joint on base, but it was so packed that it left barely any standing room, let alone anywhere to sit.

This time when the urge to go the restroom hit, I really had to use it. I gave Dalton my order before trying to navigate through the throngs of people, finally getting to the restroom where another crowd awaited me.

As I stood in line, making small talk with another female Marine, a buzz went off in my pocket. I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my cammie pants, fully expecting to find a question from Dalton.

Alex: A 74%? You're better than average. I would know. J I thought about punishing you like Saturday, but you enjoyed that too much.

The innuendo encrypted in his text made my heart race. I looked around at the other females who stood around me, hoping none of them had noticed my flushed skin as I stood staring and grinning at the words on my phone screen.

Me: Just a little bit. So what's the alternative?