by Hazel Kelly
“Now see that girl is my type,” Jordan said, nodding across the grass to the wide sidewalk.
My stomach dropped. I knew I’d see Rosie eventually, but I sure as hell hadn’t prepared myself for it to be when a teammate checked her out.
“What I wouldn’t give to have that blonde ponytail wrapped around my hand.”
I let out the breath I was holding, inappropriately relieved that he had his eye on someone else. “She’s a cheerleader,” I said, watching Nikki and Rosie laugh in front of a table whose purpose I couldn’t read through the crowd.
“I know,” Jordan said. “I’ve been aching all week at the way she looks in her spandex.”
“Way to be such a cliché,” I said, shaking my head.
“Whatever. That girl’s so hot I bet I could cook my breakfast on that ass.”
I laughed. “Her name’s Nikki.”
His eyebrows jumped up his face. “You know her?”
I nodded. “We went to high school together.”
“Fuck.”
“I’ll introduce you,” I said. “When there’s a good time.”
“Shit,” he said. “Now I have to think of something to say to her that’s not completely pathetic.”
“‘Hi’ is usually a safe bet,” I said. “If you can keep your tongue in your mouth while you say it.”
“Shut up.”
“Her friend is more my type, actually,” I said, watching Rosie tuck some auburn hair behind her ear. She’d cut it in a short bob since I’d last seen her, further framing the pretty face she failed to disguise with her thick-rimmed glasses.
“The kinky librarian type, eh?” Jordan said. “She’s probably pretty enough when she’s not next to her friend.”
She was fucking stunning, and if he couldn’t see that, I sure as hell wasn’t going to point it out any further. Her dark lips were a perfect shape, and when she smiled, her hazel eyes sparkled, tearing my attention away from her lone dimple.
“You know her too, I take it?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah. Believe it or not, she’s the only girl who’s ever rejected me.”
“Seriously?” His head pinged back and forth between me and Rosie. “She rejected you?”
“That’s right.”
He scoffed. “She’s obviously not as smart as she looks.”
“She’s smarter, actually.”
“Still her loss,” he said.
“I wish.”
He cocked his head at me. “You wish what?”
“I wish I believed that,” I said. “But I’m pretty convinced it’s my loss.”
“You hung up on her or something?”
“No,” I said, craning my neck back. “Not at all.”
“Okay, good. Because I was starting to worry about you for a second there.”
“Don’t,” I said. “I’m over it.” Over telling you any more about it anyway.
“Good. Cause you’re about to have your pick of pussy around here if all the rumors are true, so you can’t be living in the past or wasting your time on girls who are too dumb to recognize what a fucking catch you are.”
“What rumors?”
“That you might get to be the starting quarterback,” he said. “As a freshman.”
“I’m not even going to comment on that. It’s a long shot anyway, and I don’t want to jinx it.”
“Surely that would be a dream come true, though?” he asked. “You must want that.”
“Of course I want it,” I said, crushing my empty tinfoil and letting my eyes find Rosie one more time.
It just wasn’t the only thing I had my heart set on.
F L A S H B A C K
- Rosie -
I must’ve been the only teenager who ever missed junior high.
In fact, there was nothing I didn’t miss. I missed the safe little hallways and all the teachers knowing my name. I missed my friends, who’d all gone to the local public school, while I got sent to St. Mary’s because my parents met there and thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened to them.
I missed having short commutes between my classes and the fact that there wasn’t a dress code. I missed having a place to eat in the cafeteria and not being terrified of the cafeteria in general.
As far as I was concerned, high school was hell.
As a result, I did everything I could to hide behind my glasses and be as invisible as possible so I wouldn’t end up with my head in a toilet for being so different.
It’s not that I wanted to be different. There was just nothing I could do about it. The vast majority of my freshman class had come from surrounding private schools, so I was surrounded by well-established, seemingly impenetrable cliques.
The only thing I liked about the place initially was the pretty blonde I shared a locker with, and I only got to see her for fifteen minutes a day in homeroom, which left me with about three hundred and seventy-five minutes that I had to survive on my own.
The worst class of all was my science class because the teacher had set up the desks so one half of the room faced the other, meaning every single person in the class could stare at me whenever they wanted.
And there was one person whose staring bothered me most because he was the only person in the class I actually wanted to stare at.
But I couldn’t.
Because he was always watching me, always catching me watching him, and always sitting there as handsome as he was unattainable, like some sort of teenage Clark Kent. Except, unlike me, he didn’t wear geeky glasses.
Not surprisingly, the louder kids all seemed to cluster near him, while the introverts—myself included—came together on the other side of the room. Keeping to one’s own was usually a good strategy for staying out of trouble, but in this case, the arrangement only seemed to heighten the tension I felt on a daily basis.
There was one particularly tense day that I’ll never forget.
Mr. Principe, after a typical amount of fidgeting, stood up from his desk, thereby signaling to everyone that it was time to settle down. Unfortunately, as he fired up the slide projector, he realized he had the wrong slides and excused himself, imploring us not to burn the place down in his absence.
I opened my textbook and hung my head in an attempt to drown out the ruckus that erupted when he closed the door behind him. But as I was skipping to the next chapter’s review questions (in case I might get some of my homework done in class), the handsome boy got up, walked across the room, and slid in the empty desk beside me.
“Hi,” he said, propping his head up and staring at me from close range.
“Hello,” I said, fighting my desire to look into his dark blue eyes.
“It’s Rosie, right?”
I lifted my eyes towards his. “Yeah.”
He pressed his lips together.
My hands started to sweat.
“I’m Luke,” he said, as if I didn’t know.
He was by far the most handsome boy I’d ever seen, and I didn’t feel equipped to converse with someone so attractive.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.
I pushed my glasses up my nose like I might be able to hear him better if I could see him better, too. “What?”
“I was wondering if you would go out with me?”
I blinked at him like an idiot as the blurry noise of the classroom around me faded. “Excuse me?”
“Will you go out with me?”
I squinted. “Go out where?”
“No, like, be my girlfriend.”
I laughed. It was nervous laughter, but it was unmistakable. And too loud.
His face fell.
“Oh, you’re serious?”
He sat upright. “I was, yeah.”
“Oh.”
“I guess that’s a no,” he said, sliding out of the desk as Mr. Principe entered the room.
My cheeks burst into flames.
When he sat down across the room, I noticed that his cheeks were red,
too, and as his friends teased him, my stomach curled into a tight knot.
“Quiet down,” Mr. Principe said, flicking the overhead lights off so we could see the projected slides.
I watched Luke out of the corner of my eye the whole lesson.
He didn’t look at me once.
Not only that, but he didn’t speak to me for the rest of the year.
I’d never wanted a do over so bad in my life.
T H R E E
- Rosie -
My first week at college was going great.
Granted, there were a few times when I’d found myself particularly overwhelmed by the sheer number of unfamiliar faces and the new tone I detected in my teacher’s voices, a tone that said there would be no second chances, no hand-holding, and no exceptions.
But I was determined to rise to the occasion and be an adult about it. After all, isn’t that what I’d been wanting for years? A chance to make my own way, to solve my own problems, to figure out who I was when my parents weren’t constantly reminding me that I was their little girl and always would be?
Of course, I could already tell there would be a bit of a learning curve as I figured out how long it should take me to get from A to B and whether or not my roommate was a vampire.
Okay, so I didn’t think she was a vampire. She seemed perfectly nice when I met her…once. I guess it just seemed odd to me that I didn’t know where she was sleeping. Or where she was when she was awake, either.
Not that she knew my schedule, but I had managed to make it home to my bed every night so far, which is more than I could say for her.
Nikki suggested I just ask her, if it was bothering me so much. Ironically, she was having the exact opposite problem. Her Singaporean roommate spent every day at her desk, studying and sending selfies to her friends at home, so she couldn’t get any alone time at all.
Anyway, while Nikki worried about how to do the minimal amount of work and the maximum amount of partying, I was geeking out over the fact that I was finally taking a course load that I was one hundred percent excited about.
Earlier in the week, I thought my class on Jane Austen and her influence would be my favorite because of the passion my professor clearly had for the subject, but after fifteen minutes in my journalism course, I knew it was true love.
Even if my professor had done nothing but tell stories inspired by his résumé, I would’ve hung on his every word, but my excitement amounted to more than that.
His passion for journalism’s history and its global impact was so tangible that I knew I was in good hands. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was firmly on the path to achieving my dreams.
As he spoke, I remembered what a big deal I thought I was in high school, managing and editing the school newspaper like it was the most important publication in the world, but I knew that was small potatoes compared to the opportunity that lay before me.
I’d arrived in a place where real news happened, where real stories about real grown-ups were begging to be told all around me.
Unfortunately, the excitement coursing through me was replaced by terror when he dropped our first assignment on us out of nowhere.
Sure, interviewing a person of interest wasn’t exactly a groundbreaking challenge, but the pressure I felt to do a good job paralyzed me so much that when the rest of the class moved to leave, I just sat there with legs of lead, feeling completely overwhelmed.
“It’s Friday, you know,” Professor Hopkins said from the front of the room as he slid some papers in a thin leather briefcase. “In case you were wondering where everyone’s gone.”
In actual fact, I was wondering if my Jane Austen professor counted as a person of interest.
“Are you all right, Miss…”
“Rosie,” I said, but it barely squeaked out. I cleared my throat. “Rosie Bennet.”
He raised his white eyebrows. “I’m glad you enjoyed my class, but you have to leave,” he said. “Otherwise, I’m liable to start talking again, and then there’s no telling when you might escape.”
“Right, of course,” I said, closing my notebook and sliding my pen in its spiral binding. “I just- umm. About the assignment…”
He grabbed his tweed jacket off the back of his chair and slipped it on. “Yes?”
“Who exactly would you consider a person of interest?”
He leaned against the side of his desk.
I stood up and put my notebook in my bag. “I only ask because I just got here, and so far the most interesting person I’ve met is my roommate.”
“Oh?” he asked. “And why’s that?”
“Because she never comes back to the room, so I believe she may have figured out an alternative to sleep.”
He smiled. “It sounds like it might be difficult to get ahold of her.”
“Maybe you could offer another suggestion?” I asked. “I know it’s a stupid question, but I’m keen to get off to a good foot—start. The right foot. You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he said. “And there are no stupid questions, just questions best left on the cutting room floor.”
I forced a smile, grateful for his kindness since I knew full well he was the head of the journalism department and probably ridiculously strapped for time. However, I also knew that impressing him could fast track me to the extra responsibilities I was so eager to earn, so it was vital to find out exactly what he was looking for.
“And I appreciate you caring,” he said. “This is your preferred major, I take it?”
“It is,” I said. “I haven’t declared yet, but I know this is what I want to do.”
He eyed me up—not in a creepy way, just a considered one that made me feel seen and, therefore, instantly more relaxed.
“I really liked your article in The New Yorker about the importance of objective reporting, by the way.”
“You read The New Yorker?”
“When it crosses my path.”
His mouth formed a fleeting but approving pout. “The reason I’ve been so vague with the assignment is because it gives you a little room to be creative, which isn’t always allowed in journalism, as you know.”
“Right.” I slipped my backpack on. “Still, maybe you could share some people that students in the past have interviewed to get me thinking in the right direction?” Ugh. Why hadn’t I just gotten up and left with everyone else? Is that pity in his eyes?
“Most of the time, students interview people that allow them to raise awareness about something, whether that be leaders of unique student groups, students with disabilities, members of athletic teams—”
My eyes widened.
“Do you know some student athletes?” he asked. “You looked like you had an idea when I said that.”
I swallowed. “I know a few guys on the football team, but they’re only freshmen.”
“To a journalist, no one is only anything. It’s not the subject that makes the story. It’s the reporting.” He raised a finger at me. “Remember that.”
“Okay.”
“Plus, athletes are an easy bet because they always say yes.”
“They do?”
“Of course,” he said, leaning off the desk. “Their egos guarantee it.”
“I appreciate your help,” I said, determined to come up with anything else. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” he said. “It’s always refreshing when a woman’s not afraid to cover sports topics.”
“Well, that’s me all day,” I lied. “Brave is my middle name, and there’s nothing I love more than a game of pass the pigskin.”
“Have a good weekend, Miss Bennet.”
“You too,” I said, escaping into the hall. And thanks for nothing.
F O U R
- Luke -
I’d just flicked the shower on, so if I hadn’t been on my way to the fridge to return the jug of orange juice I’d been drinking, I wouldn’t have heard the knock at the door.
I swu
ng it open, expecting it to be one of my teammates.
Instead, it was Rosie. She was wearing an overall dress with leggings and combat boots, and her cheeks were almost flushed enough to match her hair.
I looked down to make sure I hadn’t taken my pants off yet before looking back at her. “Rosie,” I said, hoping she couldn’t smell me from where she was standing. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said, her eyes bouncing from my bare chest to my juice to my face again. “Is this a bad time?”
“Not at all,” I said, stepping backwards. “Come on in.” As she stepped past me, I cringed at the state of the sitting room and cursed myself for not having the good sense to keep it tidier.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she said, hugging herself like she might catch something.
I swung the door closed, chucked my juice in the fridge, and went to grab last night’s pizza boxes off the coffee table. “Please excuse the mess,” I said, picking up a trail of random clothes from the couch and floor before stacking them on the pizza boxes and shoving everything in the empty space under the sink. “My roommate’s kind of a slob.”
“My roommate’s invisible,” she said.
I gestured to the couch. “Please, have a seat.”
“Is someone in the shower?” she asked. “Because I can come back if—”
“Oh shit.” I barged into the bathroom and turned the shower off, pausing in front of the mirror for a second to make sure I didn’t have any dirt on my face or pulp in my teeth. I also decided not to bother putting my stinky shirt back on in the hope that my cut abs might distract Rosie’s eyes from our surroundings. “Did you say your roommate’s invisible?” I asked, popping back into the room.
She was perched on the edge of the couch with her hands on her knees and her backpack still on. “Yeah. I’ve only seen her once, and I have no idea where she’s sleeping.”
“Must be nice having the place all to yourself,” I said, leaning on the bathroom doorframe and thinking how much I’d like to spoil that for her, how much I’d like to—
“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.