A girl in head-to-toe Lululemon raises her hand. “My friends on the seventh floor got an activities calendar that their RA planned out for their floor. When should we expect ours? Also, I heard each dorm tries to steal the trident in front of the dean’s office in the spring. Is that true?”
Dylan hops off the counter. “You want activities?”
The girl nods.
“What’s your name?”
“Sara. No H,” the girl says.
He claps his hands together. “Congratulations, Sara with no H. You are officially the floor five activities coordinator.”
Sara with no H is at once confused and overjoyed.
Dylan then explains that our icebreaker is to find two other people we have something in common with that isn’t a physical attribute. The moment he gives us the all clear to break the ice, I make an effort to disappear into the crowd and away from Bennett.
And then I realize that this exercise will require me to approach people. I used to never think about things like this when I was younger.Ever. But I don’t even raise my hand in class anymore, because it takes me too long to come up with the perfect answer. It’s the same way when I order food or run to the grocery store for my mom.
I’m spinning around, searching for anyone who hasn’t found their partners. Surely I can find something in common with most people. But then someone takes the hand dangling at my side and I’m pulled through the crowd by Daisy, who has Briar by the other hand.
“Found you!” says Daisy with a laugh.
“What do we have in common?” I ask.
Daisy winks. “Our names, silly! All flowers.”
“Again, clovers are a weed,” Briar says with her arms crossed.
“And aren’t briars just thorny shrubs?” I ask her.
“Wasn’t the whole purpose to break the ice with people we don’t know?”
“I’m sorry.” Daisy’s voice takes on a distinctly take-no-shit-mom quality and I find myself impressed. “Would you rather me leave you to the wolves so that you have to makeanotherfriend?”
Briar rolls her eyes but doesn’t budge.
“I tend to attract stray black cats,” Daisy whispers.
Once everyone has found a group of three, we all introduce ourselves to the rest of the students and explain what we have in common.
The trios range from heartfelt to absolutely and desperately random. Three students dub themselves the Dead Mom Club. Another three have never been to the state of Ohio. Weird, but okay. Three are lactose intolerant. Three blondes are natural brunettes—they sound traumatized. Homecoming court members. Military brats. Bennett is paired off with a girl and a guy. All of whom dislike the taste of coffee.
I try not to smile. Poor little rich boy doesn’t even enjoy the very thing his riches are sown from.
After the orientation, Daisy loops her arm through mine and I listen to her chatter about how her mom almost named her Dawn but changed her mind at the last minute, while Briar excuses herself to run some sort of errand that has to do with cheese.
When I get back to my room, Bennett is thankfully gone. I open the notebook with our rules and add two more.
No pet names.
PDA on as-needed basis only.
In the middle of the night, I wake up to pee, and when I open the door, a line of students has formed just outside Daisy and Briar’s room. They smell like varying combinations of cigarettes, weed, and booze. The door swings open and one guy ducks out. I catch a glimpse of Briar sitting just inside the door in a short folding beach chair with a mini ironing board sitting low to the ground in front of her. She wears an apron, and her hair is pulled back into a tight braid.
Maybe I’m high.
I have to rub the sleep out of my eyes to ensure I’m actually seeing this. I feel like Alice after she fell down the rabbit hole. Along the wall is a line of four students, who look to be varying degrees of drunk or high.
She glances up to see me staring as she flips a grilled cheese on the board and then presses an iron down on top of it.
