Birthday Girl:Take that back.
Levi:Never
Birthday Girl:Levi…
Levi:Yes…ooey, gooey marshmallow of a bday girl?
He heard her groan through the wall, and he laughed. How was it that on a random rainy Monday in September, sitting in his bed doing nothing than texting, Levi felt…happy?
His phone buzzed in his hand.
Birthday Girl:Also, if you were anyone other than you, it would be hot that you used the correct “you’re”
Levi:Wait… What? YOU think that I’m hot? ME, your roommate. Hot. (plz take note of yet a second correct “your”)
Birthday Girl:I think no such thing. I said that IT was hot. The correct usage. Proper grammar is hot regardless of user.
Light flickered in Levi’s otherwise dark room. A few seconds later, a distant crash of thunder announced what he guessed was a storm after all.
Levi:Guess your student’s mom was right
Three dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.
Birthday Girl:But there’s a chance it could miss us, right?
Another flicker of light with the thunder closer behind said otherwise. He checked the weather app on his phone and saw the storm was moving pretty fast in Summertown’s direction. It would likely hit them within minutes but last less than an hour before it headed to its next destination.
Levi:Don’t think so
This time the thunder came less than a second after lightning lit up Levi’s room, followed by a scream.
Before he knew what he was doing, Levi was out of bed and bolting for Haddie’s door. With his hand on the doorknob, he stopped short of barging inside.
“Haddie? Are you okay?”
“My window!” Haddie called. “Something hit it, and I think it cracked!”
A lightning-thunder combo crashed so loudly that the floor shook beneath Levi’s bare feet, and Haddie yelped again.
“I’m coming in!” he warned, and when she didn’t protest, he threw open her door as lightning illuminated the shape of a human curled into a ball beneath Haddie’s bedding.
He flipped on her light to confirm a long, jagged crack in the window’s upper pane of glass.
“I’ll be right back,” he assured her and then quickly padded into the kitchen to retrieve a roll of duct tape from the junk drawer. When he returned, Haddie still hadn’t moved. “Hey. Haddie,” he said softly. “I’m just going to climb on the bed to tape up your window, okay?”
He saw movement beneath the blanket resembling a nod. So he tore off a long piece of tape, held it between his teeth, and crawled across the mattress to the window where he pressed the tape along the seam of the break.
“Shit!” he hissed when an unexpected raised portion of the seam sliced through the tape and the pad of his finger on the other side.
“What happened?” Haddie asked, poking her eyes and nose out from the top of the blanket.
Levi expected paper-cut-level trauma, so when he saw the blood trickling from the gash, he swore again.
“Oh my god!” Haddie cried, scrambling out from her tangle of blanket and sheet and grabbing him by the wrist of his injured hand. “Come on,” she told him, and gave him a forceful tug. Levi complied, scooting to the edge of the bed and hopping off as Haddie led him to the bathroom.
“Sit,” she ordered, pointing at the toilet.
Levi lowered the lid and did as he was told.
