The Dating Game

by Kiley Roache

  There is a wonderfully comfortable silence as we watch. The TV set hums slightly, and sounds echo from outside, so even when there is no dialogue or music it’s not silent. After a week of orientation, small talk and overzealous introductions, I find it relaxing not having to fill every second with talking.

  When the shows end at eleven, we both get ready to sleep.

  “I’m so proud of you, mijo,” my father tells me, standing outside the bathroom door in his slippers as I brush my teeth.

  I’m just getting started, I think as I shut off the light in my childhood room and climb into the twin bed I have slept in for the past seventeen years. Someday, I’ll do something to truly earn that pride.

  Just as I am about to drift off to sleep, my phone pings. It is a new alert sound, not a text, but my Warren email. I roll over and swipe open my phone. The message is from the financial aid office, congratulating me on my first week of college and sending me a number of reminders about work study and book vouchers.

  And then, halfway down the email is this line: Remember that to qualify for continued aid you must be in good academic standing, retaining a GPA of 2.75 or higher.

  I sit up in bed. Braden’s words from earlier, about getting a 2.66 if we fail, echo through my head and are interrupted by the memory of Professor Thomas saying he intends to flunk half the class.

  I click the Lock button and watch the screen turn black before setting the phone back on my nightstand. I hope that, when I wake up, I will have thought of a project that will please Professor Thomas. Everything I’ve done—everything my parents have done—depends on it.

  I barely sleep. And when I do, I dream about code.

  Chapter Five

  Sara

  Since our meeting ended sooner than I expected, I work for a while longer on homework by myself and try to soak up any inspiration I can from the HP Garage replica. I finish my CS assignment and head straight back to my dorm. It’s not like I had any other plans tonight. Or any night really.

  From a building away I can see people are already milling around the lawn outside my dorm with red cups in their hands. I smile as I walk past, but they don’t say anything to me.

  I walk inside and can hear the music as soon as I step into my hall. I’m not sure which room it’s even coming from, but the floor is practically shaking from the bass.

  As I get closer to my room, it gets louder. The door before mine is slightly ajar. I pause in front of it. Through the crack I can see that the suite is crowded. There are people sitting at the kitchenette table and piled on the couch, three on the seat and another on the arm. And even more people are standing. They’re drinking and talking and laughing and flashing smiles and tossing hair over shoulders with a wink.

  It’s not just one person playing loud music. It’s a party.

  They have the overhead lights off and shades closed, and a little disco ball on the table throws multicolored light across their trendily clothed bodies.

  I recognize Colleen McGregor, one of the residents of the room, who is also in my Intro to Rhetoric class. She is standing over the table, a drink in one hand and a cell phone in the other. A cord runs from the bottom of the phone to the disco ball.

  She is speaking rapidly to another girl, who is looking at the phone too. Probably debating the music.

  Colleen looks up from the screen and right at me. I step backward. I hadn’t realized I had been standing here for a while and was blatantly staring at this point. Crap, she’s going to think I’m so weird.

  I practically run to my door, unzipping my Longchamp as I go. I scrounge around for my keys among the Post-its and pens and lip glosses. Why aren’t there pockets in this damn thing? Who thought one giant sack was a good handbag plan?

  “Sara!”

  I turn to see Colleen standing in the hallway. She tucks the red cup in her hand behind her back. Her face is sort of shiny but her makeup is still in place, if a bit smudged around the edges. It’s her eyes that betray her drunkenness the most. Well, that and the cup she’s not hiding well.

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you done the assignment yet? The reading response thing?”

  “Oh, um, no,” I adjust my skirt. “Not yet.” The statement is both true and not: I had done most of the assignment today in the library, but I still had one question left.

  “Great!” Her eyes light up. “I haven’t even opened it yet and was worried I was, like, totally behind.” She exhales dramatically, her entire chest rising and falling. “Do you want to go to the library tomorrow, work together on it? Maybe grab Starbucks before or something?”

  I nod. “Sure. That sounds fun.”

  “Cool!” She grins, and I notice a bit of red lipstick has migrated to her teeth. “See you then.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and nod as I reach for my door handle.

  “Oh and, Sara, I almost forgot.”

  I spin around so quickly I curse myself for seeming overeager. “Yeah?”

  “Def let us know if the music bothers you. We’d be happy to turn it down.” She’s back in the room, the door slamming between us, before I can think of a reply.

  I step into my room and set my bag on the kitchenette table. I really lucked out being placed in the new building, with suite-style quads.

  The other bedroom door is closed, with sweet smoke and trance-y music radiating from the cracks around the frame. Not really my scene.

  My roommate—the one I share a bedroom with—Tiff, is sitting on our couch, the bluish light of her MacBook illuminating her round face.

  “Hey!” she says. “How’s your day been?”

  “Well,” I say, stepping forward. “My first class was—”

  She turns and pulls an earbud out of her ear. She wrinkles her nose at me. “I’m Skyping my boyfriend,” she says definitively.

  “Oh...sorry.” I pick up my bag and go into our bedroom, closing the door quietly behind me.

  I step over a hot pink bra, an empty Red Bull can and a history textbook as I make my way to my side of the room. I hang my bag on its hook and kneel on my pink shag rug as I place my loafers under my bed, in their spot between my Sperrys and black pumps.

  Movie night? I text Yaz.

  Using my step stool, I climb onto my captain’s height bed. I scroll through Instafriend while I wait for her to respond. The pictures tonight are mainly sunny skies, palm trees and backpacks, mixed in with red cups and low-cut dresses and eyes tracking just left of the camera. First week of school pictures have a little more variety in college.

  I fall back onto my bed, cuddling my stuffed dolphin toy and setting my phone on my stomach.

  Buzz. It vibrates again and I almost drop it flipping it over so quickly.

  Yaz: sorry can’t. On a date!

  My heart sinks.

  Yaz: Thought you had to work all weekend. Did you guys figure out your project?!

  I stare at the text for a second before sending a quick no worries and no luck yet and standing up. On the other side of the wall, the opening bars of “Sunday Candy” ring out. The room reacts immediately, mostly with “oohs” and “ahhs” but also with a single male vice that yells “Overplayed!” He is immediately met with boos.

  I hum along as I peel off my clothes and hang up my skirt in the wardrobe, then place my shirt and bra in my hamper.

  I pull on my pink-and-white polka-dot pajamas. They’re the old-fashioned kind that button down the front and make me feel very put together and glamorous. At least, they usually do.

  I pad across the room to the sink. There is one shower and toilet for the whole apartment, but each room has its own sink and mirror.

  I set my phone on my little shelf below the mirror, where my skin products are arranged.

  Tiff has only a toothbrush—mysteriously, no toothpaste to be seen. Is she using mine?—and a bar of so
ap, sans soap dish.

  I sigh and grab a scrunchie, then pull my hair back and turn on the faucet. I scrub my face in circular motions, staring at myself in the mirror. The glass vibrates slightly from the music next door.

  I splash water on my face, carefully apply toner, and then moisturize.

  After setting a timer for two minutes, I brush my teeth.

  “Shots, shots, shots!” they chant next door. I spit toothpaste into the sink a little too aggressively. I fix all the bottles so they are labels out and then pick up my phone and scroll to my RA’s contact.

  Me: hey can you please ask them to quiet down. Room 212.

  Greta (RA): Hi! I am not around the dorm right now, but maybe try whoever’s on call

  Awesome, even my RA has more of a life than me. I shut off the light and get under the covers, pulling my comforter around me to make a little cocoon.

  I sigh and open Snapchat. I click through the flashing images: of beer pong games and concerts downtown, of girls laughing over dinner and boys shotgunning beers at the count of one, two, three. There is even a Syllabus Week filter, so it is definitely, like, a thing. I watch grainy videos that pan around rooms like the ones next door. Girls wink at the camera and guys flip it off and everyone seems to be having a grand old time.

  An alert flashes across the top of my screen and my heart betrays me by beating a little faster.

  I have a Snapchat from Chris Miller.

  I take a deep breath and open it. It’s a selfie in a car that features only part of his face and the boys behind him in the backseat.

  Boys night the caption reads. He looks good. His eyes sort of sparkle from the flash.

  It makes me want to vomit.

  Even so, I swipe to the side to reply. I sit up and give my best “disinterested and beautiful” pose. My face looks good in the camera. A tiny bit of remaining eyeliner still darkens my eyes, and I’m glow-y from the moisturizer.

  I hover over the center button that would take the picture. Behind me, you can clearly see the stuffed animals and books on my shelf. And the clock on the top of the screen says nine-thirty.

  I exit out of the camera.

  And although I know it will just make me sad, I check anyways. And sure enough, right there in his Snap story, the boys’ night picture.

  I put in my headphones and lie back down. Since I’m already being masochistic enough...

  I open iMessage and click on his name. I scroll past the most recent stuff, the messages that were weeks apart: when do you leave for college? and happy birthday sorry this is late and how have you been?

  I go back to the good stuff. The talk every day, your mom asks who you’re texting during dinner, losing sleep staring at your phone until four, everything they say is perfect, stuff.

  We met at a party. It was my grade school best friend Claire’s seventeenth birthday. Claire and I went to different schools after eighth grade, and by the time this party rolled around, our friendship had diminished to getting Caribou Coffee every few months and our moms talking to each other about how each of us was doing. So I’m sure my invite was more out of obligation than anything.

  But I went anyway. By that point in high school, I think my parents had started to worry about the number of nights I spent in my room, making chem flash cards and streaming Grey’s Anatomy. So I wasn’t about to turn away an invite to a Real High School Party.

  It was over the summer, and one of those days that stayed hot, even after the sun went down. The warm Minnesota summer reminding us of how much we had wished for the heat all winter.

  The event was in her backyard, with twinkly lights strung overhead and country music radiating from an iHome. And vodka in a water bottle hidden behind the swing set.

  When Chris came up to me, I was sitting alone, watching the fire crackle, while most people clustered together, talking in groups of three or four.

  I had lingered near one cluster for a while, but no one stepped back to let me in, and I was too self-conscious to push forward. So I took a seat and drank the orange soda that I was too scared to spike and thought about how I should’ve just stayed home.

  “Too good for us?”

  “What?” I looked up to see a tall, skinny boy with hair that looked like he put effort into. Effort that paid off.

  “You’re sitting here all alone.” He gestured toward my bench.

  “I, um, I’m just shy.” I twisted the tab of the soda can around. It was partially true. Sure, I could speak in front of hundreds at a Model UN conference, no problem, and didn’t even blink before speaking up in class. But a party—a party with alcohol and kids who went to parties a lot... That was a bit different.

  He sat down next to me. “I can be shy sometimes too.”

  I nodded and kept my eyes on the fire.

  “You got a name?”

  I smiled and turned to him. “Sara,” I said. “With no h.”

  He looked at me, confused.

  “At the end,” I clarified.

  “Ahhh.” He said. “I’m Chris Miller. There is an h.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I looked back to the fire.

  “Well, Sara without an h, would you like some?” He held out a can of Sprite.

  “Is there...um...?” I looked at him.

  “...booze?”

  “Yeah.” I blushed.

  He grinned, and I noticed his smile was kind of crooked. “Yeah.”

  I pursed my lips.

  “If you don’t want—”

  I grabbed the can from him, bringing it to my lips and taking the smallest sip possible.

  “So what’s your favorite subject in school?” I said as I handed it back.

  We talked until the end of the party, and I kept taking sips of vodka Sprite so small that I hoped they didn’t count any more than church wine.

  When I got home, I had a Facebook friend request from Chris Miller. I accepted it, and got a message within a minute.

  Glad you told me there was no h. Otherwise I wouldn’t have found you.

  I could see the reflection of my smile on the screen as I typed my reply.

  Facebook turned to iMessage and summer turned to fall. We were talking every day, and the texts were getting flirtier and flirtier.

  One night, hours into clever back-and-forths, he messaged damn I wish we went to the same school so we could hang out. A week later he said homecoming is coming up and I don’t know who to ask.

  Both times I stared at the text until it was burned into my brain, but was too nervous to push further, to say that we could hang out anyway, or that he could invite me.

  I was hoping that if I was just funny enough over text or pretty enough on Snapchat, he would figure it out himself. I thought we really had something, or at least were building to something.

  A few weeks into school, I had lunch at the mall with Claire.

  “Do you want to look around a bit?” she asked, after we paid for our fancy mac and cheeses and strawberry lemonades at the Cheesecake Factory.

  “Sure!” I slung my Michael Kors purse over my arm and we made our way toward one of the department stores.

  We talked about the social media posts of people we hadn’t seen since eighth grade as we waded through the semiformal dresses in the Juniors’ section.

  Claire picked a dress up off the rack and held it up. “This one would look really cute on you. You have the boobs for it,” she said. “I wish I did.” She adjusted her T-shirt.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your boobs,” I said as I walked over to her.

  She rolled her eyes. “You say that, but you don’t know I’m wearing a bra with two cup sizes of padding.”

  I laughed and examined the dress. It was lavender with a sweetheart style neckline. I took the hanger from her.

  “I did already buy a dress, but this one i
s really pretty.” I mentally counted the babysitting money I still had after lunch. “And if I end up going to two dances, it would be nice to have a different dress.”

  “Two dances?” she asked, not looking up from the rack as she pushed a bunch of dresses over, the hangers making a loud screeching sound.

  “Well...” I bit my lip and looked at the dress, not her. “Maybe I if I go with Chris, to um, your school’s.” I looked up, wanting to gauge her reaction, in case he’d said anything to her about me.

  Her head snapped up. “Chris, like Chris Miller?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “How does he even know you exist?”

  I flinched. “We talked at your party. And we’ve been texting since. We have a Snapstreak.”

  “I don’t know.” She picked up a dress. “That might not mean anything. He talks to a lot of girls.”

  I put the dress back on the hanger. I don’t think he talks to a lot of girls as much as he talks to me.

  Heck, there would be no time left in his day. I was falling behind on sleep and deadlines talking to him, and there was definitely no one else in my picture.

  By the time I pulled into my driveway after the mall I had a text.

  Chris: Why did you think we’d be going to hc together?

  I stared down at the screen, the radio still playing and the engine still running, and suddenly it felt like my heart was in my butt.

  Me: I didn’t mean to assume anything

  Me: I just thought with how much we’ve been talking

  I sighed and turned off the engine while I tried to formulate my next text, explain to him what I thought he was a part of. What I thought we were.

  My phone buzzed in my hand.

  Chris: We don’t even go to same school or have same friend group