“Hey. Carter’s meeting me for food,” he says, slinging a canvas bag over his shoulder. “You should come.”
I’m… speechless.
He’s been coming to my house since I was a kid. All those years, yet he’s never once invited me anywhere.
“You don’t have to,” he adds, misreading my silence. “Just figured since you’re here.”
“Sure,” I say as casually as I can. I should act like the kind of person who gets invited to places all the time and doesn’t think twice about it. That’s who I can be on the outside, especially around someone as cool as Dorien.
Inside, it’s like someone is moving furniture into a room that’s been empty forever.
We walk in silence across campus. Dorien seems perfectly comfortable not speaking, while my heart is jackhammering in my throat. I’m not used to silence since Mom and June are always talking loudly about something.
To distract myself from my awkward feelings, I let my eyes wander. The late afternoon light does something to Alaria thatI’ve never gotten used to. The stone buildings go from gray to gold in the space of an hour, the ivy on the older halls catching the sun so the walls look alive. The cobblestone paths throw long shadows from the gothic spires, and the shadows are better than the buildings themselves, stretched and distorted, turning the architecture loose. We pass through a courtyard where a fountain is running, the water bright on the side facing the sun and nearly black on the other. A few students sit on benches reading or talking, lit from one direction, and I notice the way the light picks favorites even here, landing fully on some people and leaving others at the edges.
Carter is waiting at a table outside the dining hall, sitting the way Carter sits: sprawled, legs extended, taking up the space of two people with the ease of someone who’s never once questioned whether he’s allowed to be wherever he is.
He’s wearing a Hargrove swimming hoodie and joggers. On Carter, it looks cool because he’s so fit.
“Hey, little man,” he says, grinning when he sees me.
I frown because he’s always calling me that. “I’m only an inch shorter than you.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re little to me.” He kicks a chair out with his foot, angling it toward me. “Sit.”
I sit even though I don’t like being ordered around. But I want to have aura, especially in front of Dorien.
Carter leaves to get food from the campus grill. Dorien and I sit in more silence, but again, he’s not bothered at all, pulling out his phone to mindlessly scroll. I figure this is normal, so I pull out my sketch book and start drawing a bird hanging around a trash bin.
Carter returns with burgers and fries. Me and Dorien have regular burgers; Carter’s is wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun. We sit at the outdoor table and just eat. The late afternoon light stretches long shadows across the brick path.
Carter starts telling a story about his kinesiology professor, a guy named Dr. Aldrin. “So he’s demonstrating a hamstring stretch, right, and he’s looking around the room for someone to demonstrate on, and everybody is avoiding eye contact.” Carter puts his burger down and mimes staring at a desk. “Every single person suddenly very interested in their notes.”
“As they should be,” Dorien says.
“But Aldrin doesn’t care. He picks this girl in the front row, just taps her shoulder and goes, ‘You. Stand up.’ And she does. He positions her leg on this table and starts pushing her forward into the stretch. Her face is just...” Carter scrunches his expression into something between agony and disbelief, and Dorien lets out a short laugh through his nose. “But he pushes her forward more and her stomach is kind of squished and—” He cuts off to laugh hard at his own story, without giving us the punchline.
Dorien exchanges a look with me and I smirk.
“Uh-huh,” Dorien says. “Do we get to hear the rest?”
Carter is laughing so hard he has to wipe his eyes. He forces the rest out between gasps. “Bro… the teacher put her in this awkward stretch… and she farted. Like, really long and loud.”
Dorien and I laugh. I can’t imagine how embarrassing that was for the woman.
“I’m guessing the teacher will give her an A for ruining her social life?” Dorien asks.
Carter is laughing too hard to speak, so he just shrugs. He continues to laugh and Dorien gives me another side glance.
“He’s stupidly into fart humor,” he tells me.
Carter is finally calming down enough to speak. “I don’t know why you guys don’t find that funnier. It was fucking hilarious. She’s a cheerleader too, and she just rips one out in front of everyone.”
“Guess we had to be there,” Dorien says.
I laugh, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this.
At some point Dorien mentions a commissioned piece he’s been asked to do, a decorative bowl, and the way he says “decorative bowl” sounds like someone describing dog poop they found on their lawn. Carter tells him to just take the money and be happy for the extra cash. Dorien says he’d rather eat cement.
