1
I’d truly thought if there ever came a time where I’d be forced to sit outside the Barnett University dean’s office, it would be for something more interesting. Found drunk and spread eagle in front of the chairman’s house came to mind. So did accidentally setting something aflame or even something as stupid as toilet-papering one of the last remaining fraternities on University Row.
I kneaded the sharp, pointed end of my crystal hanging in the center of my chest. Even if I didn’t want the graciously gifted talisman of deceit from one of my coven members—who, once again, was trying to intrude on my life—I needed to suck up as many good vibes as I could. I hadn’t planned on being here, sitting outside the dean’s office like some overachiever or delinquent, but it wasn’t as if I hadn’t volunteered myself. The student life events coordinator transferred me here. This was my final step to see my closely organized plans come to life.
Though I already knew what they were going to tell me. It wasn’t as if they were going to say yes to an on-campus Samhain celebration on the full moon. Something that only happened every twenty years.
Absolutely not!I could basically hear one of the old administration lady’s voices ringing in my ears.We define ourselves with puritan pride, achievement, and greatness being within every student’s grasp. What kind of liberal arts campus do you think we are?
The type that let in witches to begin with. That kind.
The heel of my black boot clicked as I bounced my knee up and down to the tick of the old wooden grandfather clock sitting across the room, proudly displayed in contrast to the slick marble floor.
They were absolutely going to say no.
Then where would I be?
Figuring out your life—that’s what, a little, dark fury in my head whispered haughtily. Perhaps it was a goddess herself. If so, I could only imagine her wise advice also included laughing at me. I was so full of fodder for her amusement from the fact that I was being badgered by not only my coven, but now also the registrar. They sent me more than a few reminders to pick a major. Instead, I spent my time debating which name for the possible party I was throwing sounded less cringeworthy.
Fall Fest? Or Halloween Extravaganza Spectacular?
My life had reached its peak, as low as it was, and now was promptly going down the drain.
I gripped my pendant harder before glancing back up at the clock a second time.
I got here way too early.
So had the guy next to me by the looks of it. Long lashes shadowed his light eyes, which were zoning out at the wall opposite us. Blinking, his gaze flickered, catching my glance. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I responded slowly.
“I’m Ryan, by the way.” He gave an easy smile. Perfectly straight white teeth flashed.
I tipped my chin back in acknowledgment, but nothing else. I knew who he was. I didn’t try to commit his name to memory, but it was hard not to know the star football player on BU’s consistently losing team when everyone acted like he was America’s golden child.
It was also hard to forget the guy who made fun of you at first-year orientation. He’d had a lot more strawberry-blond-colored hair at the time. I remembered how it dipped over his ears and struck an even darker shade when coated in sweat after whatever practice he had been at prior. Yet he still had the audacity to call me the weird one who looked like I was coming to steal their souls.
The riffs got a few laughs from his friends while I stood off to the side, trying to hide the way my lip curled back in repulsion. I had yet to find my friend from then on, Vadika, until later in the evening. Looping her arm around mine in the middle of the menial social gathering over plastic cups of lemonade and soda, she’d proclaimed easily that I would be her best friend—with the condition that she was allowed to squat in my dorm room when she didn’t want to commute home to and from campus on the weekends, though it never happened often.
It was a codependent sort of relationship, but we survived the past few years together. Vadika made me do things on campus that weren’t just essays and counting down the minutes until my weekly coven meeting in town ever since she had made it her mission to have the full college experience. I … well, she assured me I did something besides bring interesting conversation and being able to tow her back to my dorm bathroom after trying purple jungle juice at a party down the row, where people—like the jock next to me—were a constant sight.
Only now, compared to usual, the renowned Ryan Gardner was much more put together. His hair fell over the crown of his head in a cropped swoop, and his jawline was shaved, squared off, and defined from the young first-year who had situated me as the butt of a joke. I wondered what he thought of me now.
In the past three years, my hair had been chopped, styled, and dyed. My wardrobe, thanks to Vadika, turned from the clearance rack specials my dad often tried to help me pick out to a much more bohemian fusion of clothes.
“Less scary, more dark feminine divinity,” Vadika had described it, often with a flourish.
“What kind of rock is that?”
I turned back to face Ryan. His eyes trailed between my face and where I clutched at the carved pendant.
I twisted it for a better view, poised between fingertips. “It’s labradorite.”
“Oh.” Ryan nodded, as if he were stupid not to have realized and knew exactly what it was for instead of, more likely, that he couldn’t care less. “Cool.”
I gave him a single nod.Very.
“Does it mean anything?”
