Kind of a scary story

 Kelsy didn't remember there being a real boyfriend. It was just an excuse, actually. It was better to say there was. She couldn't help it, but damn if Hal didn't show up at every turn with that toothy grin of his and that haunting laugh. 

"Well, where is he?" He asked again at the dining hall on an early Saturday morning.

"Oh, he likes to sleep in, you know," she faked a big smile and wished someone would just step in and tell Hal to fuck off, but there wasn't a chance of that happening since there was only an old dude who was checking IDs and a couple of Freshman girls who were more giddy than Hal. Kelsy felt her smile slipping. Why couldn't she tell him NO?

She wanted to say she hated all this attention, but they'd somehow sneaked off from the boyfriend and went to Rocky Horror Picture Show that was playing at the commons, and they'd stayed up most of the night drinking coffee at Denny's.

"Are you sure you two are really together?" Hal wanted to know. His blank look made her nervous.

"Yes." She blurted and told him she needed to eat her eggs before they got cold. She smashed a piece a toast in her mouth and almost choked.

"You know, he's got another girlfriend," he told her.

Kelsy found her throat closing in as she choked. She might die right here, but he pushed a straw in a glass of chocolate milk he was drinking.

She winced hard as she drank. Now she had his germs. She coughed a bit more to catch her breath. There were tears in her eyes.

"Where? Where did you see him?"  Kelsey turned serious, wondering who was the biggest liar, her or Hal.

"Oh, you wouldn't want to know, but I'm pretty sure they were doing it."

"Doing it?" Kelsey was a doe facing the biggest headlights of her life.

"You know," he grinned from ear to ear. "The walls are thin in the dorm."

"Oh." She could only imagine. Sometimes she thought she heard cats fighting outside, but - "Let's not talk about it." She sipped more of his chocolate milk as she stared at her lukewarm coffee.

"We could go a place only we know," he told her.

Hal was making her hot under the collar. She wasn't sure whether to believe anything he said, especially about the boyfriend she didn't really have. Although she wondered who he thought her boyfriend was, since she never exactly told him.

"I don't know."

"You know, I'd do anything for you," that was when he mentioned how he'd slashed her boyfriend's tires.

"What?" She couldn't believe Hal would do something like that. 

"Do you want me to take care of him for you?"

"Oh god," Kelsy said under her breath. That's when he showed her all the selfies of them together from the places they'd been. 

He took their trays to the trash bin. 

Kelsy felt herself wanting to run, but from what? Hal was his happy self when he returned. He took her hand and said, "Let's go back to my place. We don't have to hide anymore."

A shiver ran through Kelsy. What had she started? How could one lie lead to this? OK, maybe it was several. Maybe. She winced, wondering what he'd do if he did find out. She kept her cool, but her feet were dragging as they neared his old dorm. 

"I don't know if I should," she shrugged as if they might see him. However, she wasn't sure what he looked like.

"Yes, let's do it, we have nothing to be sorry about, Ok?" He looked back at her with that lopsided grin of his. 

Kelsy sighed as her hand began to sweat in his. She didn't like it. She just wanted this to stop, but she couldn't find a way to say NO, either. They headed inside, and she knew it was wrong. It had to be. She shouldn't be here at the boys' dorm on a Saturday morning. But there was no one in his room. It was his place. No, their place. A shrine of pictures of her was on the wall above his desk. Was he a psycho or majoring in criminology?