Freshmen

by Tom Ellen

  “We call dibs next.” Ed was there, scratching his damp curly hair and grinning down at us. And Luke Taylor was standing right beside him.

  Ed hugged all of us, but Luke just nodded and leaned awkwardly against the kitchen counter.

  “We could hear you guys from B Dorm,” Ed said. “Although, to be fair, they can probably hear you in Scotland.”

  I snuck a look at Luke, his hair still wet from the rain, and wondered if I would ever stop feeling stuff for him. Like, when I am fifty, will I still look at him and feel scared and excited and on edge? I feel like it will never go away. It got written into my DNA so long ago that my body doesn’t know how to undo it. If Luke Taylor murdered someone I’d probably end up marrying him in prison.

  If Connor sensed any awkwardness, he didn’t show it. He just thumped beers into Ed’s and Luke’s hands, and then started dragging the mattress back up the hall.

  “So, Luke Taylor…,” Negin said. “What are you actually doing here?”

  Frankie nearly choked on her cocktail, and even Ed winced and clenched his teeth.

  Luke shuffled against the counter and took a swig of his beer. “I just wanted to say sorry, I guess. Because I really am sorry. I’ve felt so shit about it all semester. So guilty. It’s not an excuse or anything, I know. But it’s the truth.”

  Everyone was looking at him, but he was looking at me. “I’ve been such a dickhead. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know why I didn’t do anything earlier, but then when Becky left, it was just…” He took another sip of his beer and looked around at everyone this time—Negin and Frankie and Ed, and then back to me. “I’m so, so sorry,” he said again, and I could feel how much he meant it.

  Connor came smashing into the door again, with a whole new mattress-load of randoms falling off behind him. He stood up, dusted himself off and shouted: “Right…Never Have I Ever.”

  Suddenly, there was only the scream of chairs scraping and glasses clinking and people cramming themselves frantically around the table.

  “Sorry, Luke Taylor,” Frankie shouted, pouring herself another drink. “We’ll have to return to your soul-searching later. Never Have I Ever takes priority.”

  Luke looked quite relieved. He unwrinkled his brow and ran a hand through his hair. I saw Ed punch him on the arm and grin.

  “I have never been in love,” Liberty shouted. And I looked at Luke. I didn’t mean to; it was an insane, drunk, instantaneous reaction. He looked at me. And then we both looked away.

  “I have never vomited blue puke,” Connor shouted, and he and Frankie both drank.

  “I have never sleepwalked,” Liberty squealed.

  Frankie held her glass up and looked around the table. “I have never lied about jerking off.” Then she drank. Everyone burst out laughing. “I literally don’t know why I lied about it before,” she said.

  And then, one by one, all the girls drank. And everyone was thumping the table and cheering.

  Connor stood up on his chair. “To everyone jerking off,” he boomed. “We are all wankers. Everyone in D Dorm is a wanker!”

  Ed frowned. “I’m not in D Dorm.”

  “It’s all right, mate.” Connor smiled. “You’re still a wanker to me.”

  Ed squeezed his shoulder. “Thanks, man. That means a lot.”

  “Let’s play Sardines,” Liberty squealed, and suddenly everyone was charging down the stairs, out into the driving rain. It was pitch-black and freezing, but it felt amazing to be out in the cold after how boiling hot the kitchen had been.

  We ran to the clearing behind the buildings, which was flanked by massive, manicured trees. It was so muddy. Loads of us had fallen on the way and looked like we had just swum through a bog. There was a trail of shoes that people had discarded in favor of going barefoot.

  “Phoebs is it!” Liberty shouted, so I ran off, and they all started counting. I kept falling over, and by the time I’d found a decent hiding place, inside a bush, my entire face was caked in mud. I sat there quietly, thinking how I wanted and really didn’t want Luke to be the first one to find me. But then Negin’s face poked through the leaves.

  “Fuck, you’re good at Sardines,” I whispered. “Sardines and quidditch. Your two major life skills.”

  She settled down beside me. “It’s so cold.”

  “I think my alcohol blanket’s wearing off,” I moaned.

  “I don’t even have one of those,” she said, wiping the wet mud off her forehead.

  “I’m so excited about our house,” I said. “I’m so, so glad we all met.” And because I was drunk I just threw my arms around her. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I know you’re not a hugger.”

  “I think I’ve become more of a hugger.” She smiled. “What can I say? College has changed me. I still don’t like puke, though.”

  Then Connor, Frankie and Liberty emerged through the leaves. “We could hear you guys laughing from three trees down,” Connor hissed. “You might be good at feminism, but you’re shit at hiding.”

  “ ‘Good at feminism,’ ” Negin repeated. “I might get a T-shirt with that.”

  “You could put ‘Shit at hiding’ on the back,” Connor suggested.

  “Can you guys shut up? I don’t want Ed to find us,” Frankie whispered.

  “Why not?” I said. “He’s your knight in shining armor.”

  “I know. But I’m too nervous to speak to him.”

  “You need to get over it, Frankie. He’s not gonna Colin Firth you, I promise.”

  “What’s Colin Firthing?” whispered Connor. “Is that, like, a sex thing?”

  Frankie shrieked, and suddenly Ed was clambering into the bush, too. “All right, who’s screaming in here?” He was so big that his knees stuck out through the leaves. “I’m guessing that was you, Connor?”

  Everybody got hysterical, and then suddenly Luke was peering into the bush, too.

  “Luke Taylor,” said Frankie. “I’m not sure there’s room in this shrub for the likes of you.”

  “I’m not sure there’s room in this shrub for the likes of anyone,” said Negin.

  Luke looked uncomfortable. Almost shy, like we were at elementary school and he was trying to join in our game but not sure if we would let him. He took a step backward and nodded, accepting that he wasn’t welcome. I scooched closer to Negin and gestured at the little patch of mud beside me. Neither of us said anything as he smiled and sat down.

  Rita looked down at the book. “I feel like it’s too precious to actually touch. How much was it?”

  “Fifty-five quid,” I said, and she whistled: “Luke. Going all out.”

  We were drinking Oreo milk shakes on the bus back from town, where I’d spent a good half hour riffling through various dusty bookshops until I’d finally found it. An early edition of Ariel.

  “I hope she likes it,” I said.

  Rita handed it back. “She will.”

  The present had been her idea. Well, not the book itself, but the idea of getting Phoebe something special for her birthday.

  But the extra thing—the surprise—had been all me. It had come to me on that mad night in D Dorm, right after I’d made my garbled apology to everyone. I suddenly knew what I needed to do. I hadn’t even told Rita about it yet. I hadn’t told anyone.

  A week had gone by since the Sardines craziness, and it had quietly, inexplicably, turned into the best week of the semester so far. Not because everything was suddenly perfect: it wasn’t. Random girls still gave me evils as I walked through campus, and the D Dormers were as frosty as ever, but at least it was all out in the open now and not some shadowy, guilt-ridden secret that I had to carry around on my own.

  Me and Phoebe definitely weren’t back to whatever we had been before Becky left, but we were edging closer. We
’d spent most days together in the library, whispering and laughing and people-watching, when we should have been working on our essays. We hadn’t even kissed again yet, but in a weird way it felt like we were closer than before. Like, now that everything had been knocked down, we could actually start to build something new.

  Will had gone home the day after the game. No one even knew if he was coming back. All soccer stuff was on a sort of hiatus. The morning after Sardines I’d gone and spoken to Arthur and Rita about it all. The Wall of Shame, everything. Just laid it all out and told them how awful I felt. And how I knew saying sorry didn’t make it better, but I was still really, really sorry.

  Rita had told me: “You know, Luke, for someone who’s not a dick, you can be such a dick.” But then Arthur had thumped me gently on the arm, and they’d both told me how much they’d hated the first semester, too.

  A buzz in my pocket shook me out of the memory, but before I could check it, Rita said: “So are you and Phoebe actually a thing again now?”

  “I don’t know, really. I feel like tomorrow, at her birthday thing, maybe…” I took a sip of my drink and stared out of the bus window. “I don’t know. It’s still kind of awkward. I want us to be a thing again, but I’m not sure whether she wants it. I don’t really feel like she’s really forgiven me—”

  “Which, let’s be honest, is fair enough,” Rita cut in sharply, and I could tell she was only half joking.

  I nodded. “I know, I know. I really fucked up. Shit, man. Why do things have to be so messy?”

  “They don’t.” She shrugged. “I mean, we’re not sixteen anymore, Luke. It is possible to sleep with someone a few times and for things not to be awkward afterward.”

  “Not sure about that.”

  “Well…me and Arthur.”

  I nearly choked on my milk shake. “What? Seriously?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, seriously. We had a little thing in the first semester. I was still rebounding pretty hard from Jack. And me and Arth just got on so well. We were spending loads of time together, and…it just happened.”

  “Shit. Then what?”

  “Well…I think he wanted it to turn into something more serious, but I wasn’t sure. I mean, I’d literally just split up with Jack. So I suggested that maybe we should just be friends for a bit and see what happened. And a year later, we still are friends. Really good friends.” She pushed the bell for the next stop and stood up. “And who knows what’ll happen in the future? In spite of my good taste, and his many, many shortcomings, there is still something about that boy….”

  I lifted my knees to let her pass. “I can’t believe it. You and Arthur. I’ve always thought you’d make an amazing couple.”

  “Ha! Maybe. Who knows? I’ll probably end up marrying him.” This idea made her snort into her milk shake for a good five seconds.

  She got off the bus outside her house, and I stayed on till campus: the end of the line. I walked the long way back, around the lake, toward Jutland. It was bitterly cold, and I could feel the book bumping against my back through my backpack. I thought about giving it to Phoebe at her birthday dinner tomorrow, and how she might react. And then I thought about how she would react to the surprise.

  As I passed the library, I remembered that buzz in my pocket. The message was from Reece. It said: Shit man, you OK? You seen Abbey’s Instagram?

  A little quiver of shock ran through me—mostly at the fact that Abbey literally hadn’t even crossed my mind in the past week. I checked her Instagram and saw that she’d posted a new photo just a few hours ago. She was smiling brightly in it, and weirdly my first thought was to wonder how long it had been since I saw her smile like that.

  My second thought was: Who the fuck is the guy kissing her?

  By the time I got back to my dorm, I’d tried to call her five times. No answer. I unlocked my room and kept trying. Nothing. Just the first two seconds of her voice mail, over and over again: “Hi, it’s Abb—” Hang up. Redial.

  The guy in the picture had glasses, black hair and a full beard, like a real adult, even though he couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than us. They were standing on a beach somewhere, wrapped up in scarves and sweaters, Abbey’s hair billowing out sideways in the wind. He had his eyes closed, and was kissing the side of her mouth, while she half kissed him back and half grinned at the camera. At me.

  I tried her again. No answer. I felt panicked suddenly. On edge. What the fuck was wrong with me? Why was I reacting like this? I thought back to that morning in bed with Phoebe a few weeks ago, when I’d wondered how I’d feel if Abbey met someone else. I’d really thought I’d be OK with it. Relieved, even. Happy.

  But clearly, Hypothetical Me was much more stable and mature than Actual Me. Actual Me, as it turned out, was a fucking pathetic dick. Actual Me was suddenly wondering if breaking up with Abbey had been a huge mistake.

  But then, were we really broken up? That night after the initiation, I’d said “I’m not over you,” and she’d said “I’m not over you, either.” What the fuck did that actually mean?

  After an hour or so, sick of feeling this cold, gathering panic, I gave up and went for a walk across campus. I purposely left my phone in the room, picturing it swollen with texts and missed calls by the time I got back. In the end, I was out of the dorm for all of about six minutes—I basically jogged to the vending machines and back—and the phone was just as Abbey-less as it was when I left.

  I picked it up and tried her again. No answer. Arthur knocked on my door and poked his head around: “Yo, what you up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who were you calling?”

  “No one.”

  “Want a spliff?”

  “No, I’m all right.”

  “Bit of cheese?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  As soon as he’d closed the door, my phone buzzed. I leaped on it, but it was just a text from Phoebe, asking if I wanted to have coffee with her and Flora before the dinner tomorrow.

  I chucked the phone back onto the bed, but it burst straight back into life again. It was ringing now, and Abbey’s name was flashing across the screen. I felt my heart kick into double-time.

  “Abbey?”

  There was silence, and for a horrible second I thought she’d hung up. Then she spoke, really softly.

  “Hey, Luke…Are you OK?”

  A weird sense of calm came over me. Like, now that I’d finally gotten through to her, everything was going to be all right.

  “I just needed to speak to you. Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling for ages.”

  “We’ve been driving back from Sussex. I’ve been down there quite a bit lately, staying with my gran.”

  “Cool. How was it?”

  Another pause. “Yeah, it was good.”

  I couldn’t dance around the subject of the photo any longer. “So…what’s his name?”

  She sighed heavily. “Luke…”

  “Oh, his name’s Luke, too? That’s a coincidence.” I was being an ass, and I knew it. But then, as we’ve established, Actual Me is—and probably always will be—an utter ass.

  She sighed again. “His name’s Marcus.”

  “Marcus?”

  “You don’t need to say it like that.”

  “Who the fuck is named Marcus?”

  “He is.”

  “Right. So is he…?” I ran out of words. “Who is he?”

  I listened as she explained how they’d met. How his family had rented a cottage next to her gran’s. How they’d spent most of the past few weeks hanging out together, going for walks by the sea. How he’d just finished college—he was twenty-two, he’d majored in classics at Oxford—and was now trying to figure out what to do
with his life. How they’d bonded over both being in what Marcus referred to as “a transitory stage” of their lives.

  If I’d disliked the bloke after seeing that photo, I absolutely hated him now.

  “Are you together, then?” I asked when she’d finally finished talking about Marcus and all his incredible achievements. “Like, is he your boyfriend?”

  “No, Luke. Of course not.”

  “Well, you look pretty cozy in that picture.” I was reaching new, previously unexplored levels of brattiness.

  She half-sighed-half-tutted. “Look, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or whatever, by putting that photo up, but—”

  “I’m not embarrassed, Abbey,” I snapped. “I don’t care what other people think—I never did. I just care about what I think and what you think.”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I think…” What did I think? “I think it’s really weird seeing you with someone else. Not just weird. Horrible.”

  There was silence again. Then she said: “Luke, you need to figure out what you want.”

  “I don’t know what I want,” I said lamely.

  “Well, you said you didn’t want me anymore,” she said. “You broke up with me, remember?”

  “I said I wasn’t over you.”

  She groaned. “You only said that when you were drunk and lonely and…confused or whatever.”

  “Well, I didn’t know you were going to run off straight into the arms of some fancy dickhead named Marcus.”

  “He’s not fancy.”

  “So you’re not disputing the dickhead part?”

  She ignored this. “Look, I didn’t know I was going to run straight off to Marcus. I didn’t run straight off to Marcus. I didn’t plan any of this. I’m sorry. But isn’t this what you wanted? I’m OK now, Luke. At least, I think I’m on the way to OK. Aren’t you happy about that?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Luke…” Her voice wavered and sounded heavier suddenly. “Trying to get over you has been the hardest, most awful thing I’ve ever had to do.”