Light Through the Window

by Cassandra Morphy

  Someone else had a similar thought. "Why don't we start by going around the table and saying our names," said a girl halfway between Ellie and Eric on the wall side of the table. A lot of the people there seemed to think it a good idea, and that girl started. Ellie forgot their names soon after they said them, though she did remember that the girl with the abyssal eyes was named Miranda. The name was close enough to Marissa, the name of her girlfriend. And, of course, all of the girls in that group freaked her out enough that she would have remembered anything they said. When Miranda said her name, Ellie had seen Becky flinch out of the corner of her eye. She wasn't quite sure the cause of that, though she figured that was something that might come up in a later fight between the roommates. While they had still managed to be rather cordial, especially in the room, she had no doubt that a fight was imminent.

  "These questions don't even seem that bad," Miranda said, claiming everyone's attention once again, after everyone had said their names. "They just take a little extra thought to them. Do we have the correct answers to them? Maybe I'm getting them wrong, too, because they seem rather obvious to me."

  Ellie picked one of the sheets up again, looking at the first question on the page. As she read the question, she quickly jotted down all the pertinent information from the question. It was the way her father had taught her when she was seven. At first, the answer that Red had given seemed to be the right one. But then she picked up on the more subtle points of the question. Suddenly, not only was it apparent that Red's answer was completely wrong, the correct answer practically jumped out at her.

  "Yea," she said. She was hesitant to agree with the abyssal eyed girl, but Miranda did have a point. "The questions are just a little mind bendy, but it's not that hard if you know what you're looking for. It's kind of like that kids’ joke that starts 'You're driving a bus'."

  "I don't think I know that one," Becky said. She sounded almost disappointed, like the simple fact that she had missed out on a single joke meant she missed out on so much of her childhood. Perhaps she was thinking that it would have been a joke her mother would have taught her when she was old enough.

  "You are driving a bus," Miranda said. "At the first stop, eight people get on and five get off. At the second stop, three people get on and two get off. At the third stop, everyone gets off. What color are the eyes of the bus driver."

  "Wait, what?" Becky asked. Her nose scrunched up and she leaned back in her chair, seeming to physically turn away from the question. "I don't get it."

  "Your eyes are blue," Eric said. "And you're driving the bus."

  "Oh, okay... How is that supposed to be funny?"

  "It was funny for us," Miranda said.

  "And with this question--" Ellie held up the sheet of paper she had been looking at, pointing at the first question on the sheet. Becky tried to see the question from across the table for a moment before she remembered that she was holding another copy of the test. "--It says that the ball is falling from rest in the beginning, then throws a bunch of needless information at you before asking which direction it's going and at what speed. It's going down. We just have to figure out how fast it's falling."

  "Oh," Becky said. She looked at the question again, reading it more closely, but the confused expression on her face only deepened. "Yea, no, I don't get it."

  "I don't think these... people here are ever going to get it," Miranda said. She tossed her copy of the test onto the table, letting it slide across to the center, before getting up from her chair. "As I had figured, this group was just a complete waste of time. It is so not worth that date. Sorry, Eric. Anyway, I have better places to be right now. Ellie? Are you coming?"

  "What?" Ellie asked. She was taken completely aback by Miranda addressing her. Sure, that first question was rather easy, but she wasn't quite ready to call the test easy. Besides, she still had no intention of ever joining those strange girls. "No, I-I'm good here."

  "Fine," Miranda said. "Whatever. Miranda, out." Becky flinched again when she said her name, almost as if she were in physical pain from the word. The whole group watched as Miranda headed out of the library, overly swinging her hips as she literally strutted away from them.

  "Oh, wait," said one of the students. Ellie thought that she remembered his name to be Greg, though she wasn't sure. "I get it now. Wow, it is a bit of a thinker, isn't it?"

  "I think that's the whole point of this," Ellie said. "You're so used to thinking one way, with the tests that we've had from high school where the question is just straight and obvious, even with the word problems. Here, you're supposed to think things out more thoroughly, make sure that you have everything that you actually need, and be able to determine what you don't."

  "Yea," Becky said. "There's a lot of information out there these days. It can be a little overwhelming." When she said that, her hand unconsciously expanded and then contracted the screen on her smartwatch, as if she had done that so often that it came as second nature to her. "I think he's trying to teach us to cut through all of that to find the right answer."

  "Okay," Eric said, nodding his agreement to the sentiment. "So, let's try tackling the rest of the questions, baring that in mind."

  Ellie quickly scanned the rest of the sheet, looking for the hidden answers amongst the messes that were the problems. With half of them she spotted it instantly, only needing to read the final question to confirm what her gut was telling her just from scanning them. The rest were only slightly harder, with two or more parts to the solution spread out across the entire paragraph. It only took her a few minutes to get through the entire sheet. Then she sat there, watching the others come to the same conclusions she had, just much slower.

  "Oh, yea," Becky said. "Totally easy." Ellie wasn't sure if that was supposed to be sarcasm, though she did agree with that sentiment.

  "Well, I wouldn't exactly call it easy," Eric said. "But I'm thinking this isn't going to be as hard as my brother was making it out to be. I mean, come on, it really is in there, isn't it? I almost can't wait until we get the first tests back so I can rub my grade in his face."

  "Hey, as long as it's not going to be as hard as you were saying," Maybe Greg said. "You made it sound like the tests were going to be like the LSATs or something. I mean, I don't want to be a lawyer, or a physicist for that matter. I just want to pass this class. I'll take a D over an F."

  "Yea, I think he's right," Becky said. "And here I wasted my Friday evening on this. I am so going to that meeting next week. Think it's too late to go over now?" She looked over at Ellie, as if she had expected her to want to go just as much as she obviously did.

  "I don't know," Ellie said, shrugging. Even if it was, there was no way she was going to be going to it.

  "Maybe I'll head over and see. Thanks for the test, though, Eric. Really. I'm feeling much better about this whole college thing, even if you had to scare me stupid to do it. God, can you believe how worried I was?" She started to laugh as she collected three copies of the same test, scooping them up with her bookbag. She backed away from the table slowly, as if expecting it to blow up if she jostled it.

  Soon after she left, the others followed suit, quickly grabbing a sheet or two from the dwindling collection at the center of the table before heading out of the library. Ellie was left to wonder if any of them would be interesting in another study session. Although the tests proved to be less of a threat than they had thought, they were still left with studying the actual material itself. She never found any of the topics to be all that challenging whenever she had talked them over with her father, but she knew that not everyone had a similar experience with Physics.

  "But..." Eric started, as he was left watching their large group disappear. "I mean..."

  Ellie smiled. She grabbed her bag from where she had stuck it under her chair and started to make her way around the large table. Eric looked to her as if he had expected her to leave on him as well. But, instead, she settled into a chair closer to him. She grabbed the two remai
ning sheets that were stuck in the middle of the table, but not too far away for her to reach, pulling them closer and sticking one in front of each of them.

  "Still not quite ready to call this study session over?" she asked.

  "Thanks," he said, smiling appreciatively at her. "Though we might want to find a smaller table." They looked around at the formerly crowded, now completely empty, table. The library seemed much quieter without the others there. "I think I saw some two people desks over in the other corner. It was nice and cozy, with better mood lighting to... you know." His smile took on a more mischievous tone.

  Ellie rolled her eyes at him. "I already told you. I'm gay. Nothing is going to happen between us."

  "Nothing but a whole lot of studying," he said, in an almost seductive voice, which just made both of them crack up laughing. "Come on."

  The two of them headed over to one of the smaller desks, which wasn't too dark once they found the switch for the overhanging light. They stayed there for another hour, going over everything that her father had covered during that week. It wasn't too hard, mostly material that Ellie had done back in high school, back when she went to the public school. But they both knew that the topics were going to move towards more college level items, especially given the questions that were on the sample test. Eric didn't seem as well versed in those more basic topics. Ellie knew that he was going to need a little more help to get through it than he would have liked to admit, even to himself. By the end of the evening, Ellie was almost surprised to find out that they had become actual friends.

  "Well, I think that's going to be it for me tonight," Eric said, long about eight o'clock. "I don't want to miss out on all the partying that's going on this weekend."

  "Think you got a better handle on all of this?" Ellie asked. She was prepared to stay there all night if she had to; all the better to avoid her roommate.

  "Yup, I'm solid. Thanks for all your help. Really. If I hadn't known better, I'd say you were some kind of physics genius."

  "If you didn't know better?" She was almost offended by the supposition.

  "Well, yea. What kind of physics genius would come to my study session?" He laughed as he started to collect his things. "So, I'll see you Tuesday for the next lecture? Or... I mean, you wouldn't want to come to the parties with me, would you?"

  "No," Ellie said, figuring it would be better to head back to her room and get some sleep. "I have plans. And I should probably call my girlfriend to make up for the missed video date. I had to cancel to come to this."

  "Oh. How's that going? My girlfriend actually decided to go to Stanford last minute."

  "Stanford? Last minute? Those two things don't really go together. If you get into Stanford, you kind of have to go."

  "Yea, that's what she said." He looked over at Ellie, waiting half a minute before he started to laugh.

  "What?" Ellie asked, not finding it funny at all.

  "Ah, you're no fun. Take care. Have a nice weekend and all that. Oh, and give your girlfriend my best. Tell her that she has excellent taste."

  "I think she already knows that," Ellie said, but she smiled nonetheless.

  Ellie sat back in her chair for a moment, stretching out some of the soreness in her legs before standing up. She hadn't been expecting them to be there so late, though she was thankful for the distraction and excuse to avoid the girls with the abyssal eyes. With one last glance at the clock, Ellie drew out a prolonged sigh before grabbing her stuff and heading for the door.

  As she approached the front door to the library, she was surprised to see how dark it had gotten outside. It made her pause for a moment, which saved her a lot of grief. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness outside, she could see several students standing there along the sidewalk, staring at the building as if they were afraid to come in. At first, she didn't recognize them, figuring they were some kind of tour group or a performance arts team. Then she spotted Miranda and several of the other girls with abyssal eyes. Only they weren't all girls, and the eyes on the boys looked just as dark and hollow, glistening in the light from the street lamps that lit the area. The whole lot of them were just waiting for her outside the door to the library. It was only due to her own familiarity with the campus that she knew three other ways to get out of the building and away from the group.

  Chapter Eight

  Hiding Out at Home

  Ellie decided against going back to the dorm room. The girls knew where she lived, and they were bound to have informed the rest of the group. She hadn't expected that there would be so many of them. That there would have been more than the ten or so that were in that first group. Sure, she knew that there were plenty of people on campus that had lost a parent. She knew that had something to do with the girls. But she hadn't made the connection beyond what seemed like a simple coincidence. Was there something wrong with them, with her, something about losing a parent that opened them up to... that?

  She still wasn't sure what that was. What had made it so that their eyes looked like that. More importantly, she had no idea what it was about herself that made it so she could see it. That she could see their eyes like that, but no one else seemed to be able to. Was she special? Was that why they wanted her to join their weird... cult? She wasn't even sure if that was the right word for it. All she knew was that there was something about these people, and that it scared the crap out of her.

  So, she was hiding out in her old room. She hadn't gone back to the dorm to grab anything, so she was stuck with what clothes were left behind. Most of them were clothes that barely fit her anymore. Worse, she hadn't brought her laundry home with her, so she'd be going back to a pile of dirty clothes and would need to do laundry in the dorm laundry room. Fortunately, she had gotten enough experience doing her own laundry at boarding school, so she at least knew what to expect with it. It just would have been nice to have gotten it in while she was there.

  She spent much of Saturday morning staring out her window. It was the same position she had been in for most of the summer. So, when her father passed by her door on the way down that morning, he had stopped in mid stride, doing a double take, before continuing onward. Ellie wasn't sure what was going through his mind, but she knew that he wasn't going to keep it in for long. Once he was gone, she turned back towards the window, slightly surprised to see that her backyard was as empty as it was before the distraction.

  Part of her had been expecting it to be suddenly filled with boys and girls with dark, shadowy eyes that wanted to steal her soul.

  When she came down to lunch, her father was still eating his breakfast. This was rather typical of both of them, sleeping in on Saturday and eating a late breakfast. However, Ellie hadn't been able to sleep much, often waking up from dreams of her classmates drilling holes in her eyes. She shuddered as the thoughts played through her head again, despite the brightness of the clear day.

  "I hope you're not going to make a habit of this," Dave said, as Ellie opened the door to the refrigerator.

  "A habit of what? Not sleeping till noon and eating a balanced lunch?"

  "Hiding out in that room of yours. You know, maybe college wouldn't be so bad if you just made a friend or two."

  "I actually did make a friend," she said. She came out of the fridge with the makings of a PBB&J sandwich, with the extra B being for bananas. "His name's Eric and he's in your class."

  "Eric?" he asked, pensively.

  "He sat in the back, so you probably don't remember him. You might remember his brother, though. You apparently had him last year. His name was Red."

  "Red?" he asked, still sounding confused. "Nope, sorry. Doesn't ring a bell."

  "He got a zero on the first test of 101 last year."

  "A lot of people get zeroes on that test." She paused mid scrape when he said that, almost dropping the knife in the process. "But I'm sure you'll be the first to get a hundred."

  "Do you at least grade on a curve?"

  "A curve?" he asked, though he couldn't hide the
smile on that one. "No, of course not. The real world doesn't work on a curve."

  "No, but the pretty and rich don't skate through your class either. If you're so intent on giving us a taste of the real world, maybe you should accept bribes."

  "Why? It's not like we're hurting for money. Your mother's inheritance had always been more than enough to keep us in PBB&J sandwiches."

  "Dad, it was a joke. Relax. I'm not thinking you should take bribes. I'm just trying to give you a different perspective. The world is hard enough as it is without adding onto it."

  "So, is that what chased you back to your hiding place? The world being hard on you?"

  "I wasn't hiding," she denied. "I was just..."

  "Hiding. Yea, I know. You've been hiding all summer. I just had hoped that you wouldn't feel the need to hide once school started again."

  "Well, at least I'm hiding for a completely different reason this time."

  "So, you admit that you were hiding this summer? Why?"

  "Why then or why now?"

  "Why either?"

  She took a large bite of her sandwich, trying to avoid the question completely. However, her father's eyes never left her, making it clear that she wasn't about to avoid anything. Not as long as she was staying under his roof. "I was hiding this summer because I didn't want to see my old friends," she finally admitted.

  "Why? Most people want to see their old friends from high school. Isn't that the whole point of reunions?"

  "I thought the point of reunions was to stick it in the faces of the old bullies that you're doing so much better than they are. But, no. I just... I mean, the way I left high school, it was just so..."

  "Hey," he said. He dropped his spoon back into his almost empty bowl of cereal and came over to her, wrapping her into a big hug. "I'm so sorry about all of that. I know we've never really talked about it, not in the way we probably should have."