“In her room, I think,” says Ava, making no effort to lower her voice. “God, she issofucking weird.”
Kinsley snorts. “I know. I don’t think she’s made a single friend at Stratus. How pathetic is that?”
“Oh my god, I forgot to tell you. You know Alexis? Alexis Cane?”
I wince at the name, pressing closer to the door.
“Oh, yeah,” Kinsley says. “She has, like, thebestwardrobe. I bet her family’s loaded.”
“For sure. Well, apparently, her and Ivy used to befriends.”
Alexis Cane is not only one of the few girls at Stratus who went to my high school, but she’s also the last person I’d prefer to run into on campus. It’s not surprising that she knows my roommates. They share similar obsessions to boys and booze, and I wish they’d focus on all that rather than gossiping about me.
“Are you serious?Friends?What happened?”
I step away from the door and collapse back onto my bed. I don’t want to hear whatever Ava’s about to say. My friendship with Alexis ended on the worst of terms, but before that I never showed her any intentional unkindness. The opposite, in fact. I gifted her earrings sophomore year (when Lizzie and Farah forgot her birthday altogether), and she wore them constantly. Gold hoops adorned with delicate butterflies. She loved butterflies. Still does, probably.
But afterthat night, things were never the same. Alexis demanded an explanation, but when I couldn’t give her one, our friendship went up in flames. Farah and Lizzie had my back,but I dropped them. I closed off. I pushed them away. I just…couldn’t be around anyone.
I have to use the bathroom, but I stay put, waiting out the clanking liquor bottles, loud music, and increasingly drunken laughter. My dormmates don’t talk about me again, but I don’t leave my room until the front door slams and silence descends. Only then do I do my business, make a cup of instant ramen for dinner, and return to the solace of my bed.
Turning on my side, I scroll absently through social media, pausing only when I come across one of Mom’s recent posts.
It’s a photo of her and Noah, the youngest of my older brothers, taken at Scott’s college graduation four years ago. In the image, she’s got her arm wrapped around my much taller brother, broad smiles stretching both their younger faces. I have no idea whereIwas when this picture was taken—the bathroom, maybe—but the sliver of blurry finger in the top right corner signals Dad’s handy work.
Sitting up a bit straighter, I read the caption.
I can’t believe my baby boy is a semester away from graduating COLLEGE. Words cannot convey how proud I am of him for sticking it out and continuing to pursue his education, even when times were tough. It’s the same perseverance he exhibited as a child, a young boy always striving for the home run and the biggest trophy. You’ll have your degree soon, Noah! And then you can take on the world the way I always knew you would, with light, compassion, and steel-hearted resolve.
Ugh.
I shut off my phone screen, my chest growing tight at Mom’sOde to Noah. What really gets me, though, are those “toughtimes” she’s referring to. At the start of his junior year, my brother quit his college baseball team out of nowhere.Fifteen years of travel games and championships, and then suddenly, it was over.
He started partying so much that his grades dropped, and Mom and Dad just couldn’t wrap their heads around it. They were so worriedabout their precious baby boy that they had a literal “intervention.” My other brother Scott was there. Scott’s girlfriend Olive was there. Noah’s high school baseball coach was there.
They left me at home.
Shutting off the light, I make myself comfortable beneath the covers and wonder what exactly I’d have to do for Mom to write a post like that about me. Cure cancer, probably. End world hunger or win a Nobel Prize.
The only thing I can do is try not to piss her off further, which means using a credit on a throwaway class is out of the question. I decide once and for all to stay in Public Speaking, knowing full well I’m going to regret it.
Oh man, am I going to regret it.
TWO
Sure enough,I regret my stupid decision as soon as I step back into the classroom the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, add/drop is over, and I’m stuck here.
Early again, I take my seat in the corner of the empty room and glance at the desk to my right. I tell myself that there’s no way Wes will show up late again and be relegated to the back. The seats aren’t assigned, after all, and he seems like a person who craves the attention of the middle row at the very least. I decide not to obsess over it, slumping in my chair and staring out the window at the gloomy sky, ignoring the students filtering in.
I’m continuing to mind my own business and tune out the world when I hear it. The sound of a too big body testing the limits of the mechanical structure of the desk to my right. My spine stiffens as I realize what this means.
“Hey,” Wes says, speaking in his voice’s normal timbre since class hasn’t started. My heart rate spikes, and I have no other choice than to look at him.
I start with his feet and work my way up. White sneakers. Dark-wash jeans. Navy sweatshirt with the Stratus mascot on the front. I don’t see a jacket, even though it’s below freezing outside, but maybe that imposing body of his runs hot the waymine always runs cold. I shiver in my sweater, my gaze finally making its way to his (annoyingly) handsome face and eyes too bright for irises so dark.
Ding ding ding.
There go those warning bells again, turning my stomach sour.
