by Stacey Kade
“What are you doing on Tuesday?” he asks.
“Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Class, probably, depending on my schedule.”
“PBTs are having another party to celebrate surviving the first day of classes.”
I grimace, remembering the noise. The grabbing. The puke. “Why?”
“Rush doesn’t officially start for freshmen until next semester, but the fraternities throw parties to get to know people. You should come.”
“I think I’ve exhausted my supply of sexy librarian–wear,” I say.
He laughs, even though I was being serious. “There’s no theme this time,” he adds. “So no . . . what did you call it? Sexy librarian–wear?”
I nod.
“No sexy librarian–wear needed,” he says, his hand up like he’s taking a solemn vow. “And we’ll go together. Hang out. It’ll be fun.”
“And you’re willing to . . . I mean, why would you do that?” I have to know. If he’s pitying me . . .
“We’re Merriman South Bulldogs. We have to stick together.”
I just look at him.
“And you can help make me look better in front of the brothers,” he adds. “I might want to join, and they need guys who can bring girls—any girls—to a party.”
Um, ouch? I feel like “any girls” has the subtext of “even the non-hot ones” beneath it.
Are you seriously going to turn this down, Caroline? Come on! Maybe it’s not the ideal scenario I was hoping for, but Liam and I would be spending time together, becoming friends. In a few weeks I’ll have a new circle of friends with Liam and me at the core. And maybe, by that point, his pain over Stella will have faded and . . .
“Okay,” I say.
He grins, and I can’t stop myself from smiling back at him. “Good deal,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the table, like a judge issuing a verdict. He pushes back his chair and stands. “It’s going to be great. Being here, I mean,” he says, with determination. “And this proves it.” He gestures back and forth between the two of us. “What are the odds that we both ended up at Ashmore?”
“Yeah,” I say. “What are the odds?”
Chapter Ten
The next morning, I ease out of bed as quietly as possible, slide into my robe, and then grab my shower bucket and flip-flops. But every noise I make—the shampoo bottle tipping over with a thunk and the thwack of my shoes against the linoleum—seems impossibly loud.
Lexi is a silent lump under her covers, facing away from me. The sound of her key in the door woke me up around two, and she came in on a wave of stale smoke. But she didn’t say anything, and she didn’t turn on the lights. I had trouble falling asleep again after that.
I don’t want to wake her up and make everything worse.
I avoided our room all day yesterday. There was plenty to keep me busy and away. By the time Liam and I returned to campus, everyone was pouring out of Knutsen. Liam waved before disappearing into the crowd. I followed a clump of people to the Admissions Office for an official campus tour so I wouldn’t get lost on the first day of classes. Then, after grabbing a sandwich at the union to eat on the way, I went to the open houses offered by the English Department and the Communications Department. And I dawdled at the library for a few hours, using one of the computers to make my course schedule with multiple backup options for registration today.
When I finally dared to go back to our room to grab my laptop, no one was there.
Still, I stayed away, just in case. I found an empty lounge on the main floor of Brekken so I could eat my take-out from the caf and watch Felicity without having to use my headphones. I went back to the room around midnight reluctantly, when I was falling asleep on the couch and the RAs were making rounds. One of them, definitely not in the mold of Noel Crane, Felicity’s understanding and cute RA, snapped at me and told me I couldn’t spend the night on the couch.
Now I open the door as little as possible, trying not to let the light in from the hallway, but when I glance back at Lexi, I’m convinced suddenly that she’s only pretending to be asleep to avoid me. Something about the perfect evenness of her breathing and the tension in her body that’s obvious even through her covers.
I slip out and close the door gently behind me. The hall is empty and quiet except for the distant rain sound of the showers and a toilet flushing in the communal bathroom.
Taking a breath, I replay my conversation with Liam in my head. This is going to be great. Liam-and-Caroline is going to be a thing. Who cares if Lexi doesn’t like me? I don’t need her.
I make my way to the bathroom, which is overly hot and smells like fake flowers, thanks to all the body wash and the obnoxiously pink soap in the dispensers.
There’s a line for the showers. Well, one person, if that counts as a line. Sadie is standing by the counter in her robe, waiting patiently, white shower caddy in hand. She looks different with her hair loose and wavy around her shoulders instead of in its perpetual braid, the end in her mouth.
There are four shower stalls and three are occupied, but the far right one appears to be open.
“Um, sorry?”
She looks up at me.
“Are you waiting? Or do you mind if I . . .” I gesture to the empty stall. “I want to get to registration.” There’s a slight possibility that if all the normal 100-level Communications courses are filled, I could get stuck in something called Comm 107: Improv for Beginners.
She shakes her head, and I, taking that as permission, start to move around her.
But she catches the sleeve of my robe and pulls to stop me. “No.” Her cheeks flush red.
“Oh . . . sorry.”
“You don’t want that stall,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Did you look?” she asks.
I have no idea what she’s talking about. It’s a shower. What is there to . . . oh. Now that I’m paying attention, a small but rather obvious pool of vomit is puddled on the floor, right at the corner where the shower curtain is pulled back. There’s clearly been no attempt to clean it up, either.
I step back quickly. “Gross.”
She nods. “I called housekeeping.”
I must look confused because she points to a sign on the wall with a phone number and instructions to call if the bathroom needs anything.
Lexi’s words from yesterday float through my mind. My dad’s been cleaning up Ashmore shit my whole life. I wonder if he’ll be the one called in.
I still don’t know what I did yesterday that was so wrong, but maybe it’s not entirely me. I guess, if I were Lexi, I might hate Ashmore students in general, if this were what one of my parents was dealing with constantly.
“Thanks,” I say to Sadie.
“Welcome,” she says with a bob of her head.
We stand there for another moment or two of awkward silence, and then, thankfully, Anna emerges from one of the non-vomity stalls and Sadie takes her place.
I have to hurry to get through my shower, once another stall opens, and then get dressed and over to freshman registration, which is being held in the Morningstar Hall in the union.
I’m braced for a fight to get the classes I want. If I’d slept enough last night, I might have had nightmares about the huge bulletin boards with printouts that they studied on Felicity, trying to work out which classes were available.
But this is nothing like that. The hall is filled with rows of long tables, not unlike the ones I saw being used for beer pong last night, though these are tastefully draped in Ashmore’s school colors of blue and gold. Each table holds two adults—like adult adults—with laptops, staff from the Administration Office, I guess. It’s kind of like checking in at the airport. Students step up and hand over their paperwork, and the person behind the laptop starts tapping away.
I’m relieved not to be facing a giant wall of printouts. But I was right about the lines. Even though I’m only five minutes late, the line wraps ar
ound the room and nearly out the door.
It takes almost an hour to reach the front. I wish they had let us register online ahead of time, like the upperclassmen.
I step up and hand over my filled-out form when one of the laptop stations becomes available.
“Did you get your advisor’s sign-off?” the woman asks in a bored voice, taking my sheet.
“Uh, no . . . I e-mailed him, but I haven’t . . .” Dr. Hickey wasn’t in his office yesterday when I went to the Communications Department open house.
She sighs. “He’s always behind.” She starts typing. “He’ll have to sign off and then approve any changes you make,” she warns.
“Okay.” I wait with bated breath. Please no Improv for Beginners. No Improv for . . .
“You’re set.” She signs my form and hands it back to me.
I stare at her. “Wait. That’s . . . that’s it?”
“Yep, that’s it. Your schedule will be in your Ashmore e-mail by this afternoon. But I would head over to the bookstore as soon as you can. The freshman courses are loaded, and they don’t always order enough of the required texts.”
“Thanks.” I slide through the crowded room and out the doors to bolt across campus to the bookstore—thank you, campus tour yesterday!—where, as it turns out, unsurprisingly, another long line awaits me.
It takes me a few minutes to figure out how the system works—you find your class number on the shelf tag and then take the required books that are stacked above the tag.
My arms are breaking from the weight by the time I make it to the checkout counter, but I found everything I need. I nabbed the very last copy of Jane Eyre for my English 100 class.
Things are looking up.
After checking out, I drag my bags back to the union to get food. I skipped breakfast to hit registration first thing, and my stomach is now rumbling. The union is closer than going back to Brekken, and I figure my chances of running into Lexi there are way lower.
And if I’m honest, my chances of running into Liam are slightly higher. Our conversation yesterday still doesn’t feel quite real. Maybe he’s already thought better of it. I just . . . it would be nice to see him again.
I’m in line to pay, though, when I recognize a familiar profile two people ahead of me.
Lexi.
Her hair is down and still wet, and she’s juggling a sheaf of paperwork along with her boxed salad. She must have come from registration.
I slip over to the next cashier line. Juggling my bags of books and my paper boat of food, I finish paying and turn to exit the cafeteria.
And almost bump into Lexi.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” I avoid eye contact and head for the counter where they keep the straws and napkins.
“Wait. Caroline.” She follows me.
“I didn’t know you were here, okay?” I jerk napkins out of the overfilled holder, tearing them in the process.
She makes an exasperated noise. “I know that. It’s not . . .” She exhales. “Look, I’m sorry about yesterday.”
I cautiously face her.
“It wasn’t about you. I was frustrated, and you were in the wrong place at the right time.” She rolls her eyes, but it seems directed more at herself than at me.
“Okay,” I say.
“The thing is,” she begins.
A shrill whistle cuts through the air, and we, along with half the cafeteria, turn to look. Erica, dressed in an unfamiliar yellow uniform, is at the entrance. Her magenta hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, and a cigarette is tucked behind her left ear. She raises her hands in an exasperated What are you doing? gesture. “I have to get back to the diner. I only get forty-five minutes,” she shouts to Lexi.
“I’ll be right there,” Lexi calls.
Erica rolls her eyes and leans against the doorway.
Lexi turns her attention to me. “Yesterday, what that guy said—”
“Derek?”
“Yeah. It pissed me off, because that is exactly the kind of entitled asshole Ashmore attracts.”
“An Ash-hole.” It pops out before I can stop it.
“Exactly,” Lexi says. “I’ve been coming to campus and dealing with their crap for forever. But that’s the deal. My dad’s job comes with free tuition for me. And it’s a good school, you know? Better than I can afford.”
Oh. I hadn’t thought about that, and the fact that I hadn’t makes me wince.
“But that makes it hard to feel like I belong here, like everyone else. I’m a townie to them.” Lexi jerks her head toward the cafeteria in general. “I’ll always be a townie. And sometimes it feels impossible to escape all the history.” Her mouth tightens. “All my mistakes.”
“Jordan?” I venture.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says.
Except it clearly does to her. Possibly to him, too.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry and I didn’t mean what I said.” She lifts her chin. “That was wrong, and I know you’re not—”
“Caroline!”
I flinch automatically in surprise, and then turn to see who’s yelling at me.
For me, actually. Because it’s Liam, standing up at a table across the cafeteria. When he sees me notice him, he waves me over. “Come on!”
And literally, it’s like a fantasy moment from high school coming true. Liam wants me to sit with him.
The burst of joy is so heady I’m almost dizzy from it.
I wave at him awkwardly, with a heavy plastic bag of books around my wrist. “One second!” I must look like an idiot from the sheer magnitude of my grin.
I turn to Lexi. “That’s my friend Liam.” I can safely use that word now. Liam Fanshaw and I are friends! “The one I went to high school with. Do you want to come and sit—”
She’s already shaking her head with a grim expression. “Don’t worry about it,” she says tightly. “I’m eating with Erica. I’ll see you later.”
“Oh, but wait, couldn’t we—”
She turns on her heel and walks away.
I’m baffled until I glance back toward Liam, and this time I notice his tablemates. It’s a mix of guys and girls, but I recognize some of the guys from the party the other night. Phi Beta Thetas. Including Jordan, right next to Liam.
Oh.
“Was that the roommate?” Liam asks as I approach. He pulls out the chair to his right for me and then takes one of my heavy bags and puts it on the floor.
I try not to grin even harder at the gesture—I might strain a muscle or something. “Yeah.” I sit and drop my other bag. It lands with a loud thump.
“She seems like a bitch,” Liam says.
I exchange an awkward glance with Jordan, who has paused in eating his pizza. “Yeah, uh, maybe. She’s better today. How is yours?”
“We’re up to two and a half piss bottles.” Liam grimaces.
“You need to talk to your RA,” Jordan says.
“His parents came and got him this morning. Maybe he won’t come back,” Liam says. Then he looks down at his tray. “Forgot ketchup. Back in a sec.”
I pick awkwardly at my sandwich, feeling out of place with Liam gone.
“Is she okay?” Jordan asks, catching me off guard.
“I . . . Lexi?”
“Yeah.”
“I think so?” I don’t know her well enough to answer that, and even if I did, something tells me that she wouldn’t want me talking to Jordan about it.
He doesn’t respond.
“You guys were friends?” I ask carefully.
“No,” he says after a slight hesitation.
“But there definitely seems to be—”
“Drop it, Caroline,” he says.
My mouth snaps shut.
Liam comes back to his seat, his hand full of tiny paper cups of ketchup. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” Jordan says, but his stare burns into me. Don’t say anything.
So I smile, or try to, because I honestly don’t know w
hat to say anyway.
Chapter Eleven
It turns out that the first day of a class in college consists mostly of the professor reading the syllabus to you. Or making you read it aloud.
I had my laptop, fresh notebooks, and multiple pens at the ready, expecting some Legally Blonde–type moment where the professor calls on you to answer a question about a mysterious assignment you didn’t even know you had.
But nope.
So far classes are the easiest part of being at Ashmore—no more strenuous than sitting on a train listening to them announce next stops. I am, however, slightly more freaked out about the amount of homework. I have a hundred and forty pages of reading for Thursday. As in the day after tomorrow. And three fifteen-page papers due by the end of the semester.
And I have two entirely different classes tomorrow. If it’s the same level of work for those, I might as well give up on sleep now.
I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done.
Which means it makes even less sense that I’m going to this party tonight, let alone stressing out about what to wear.
I should be finishing chapter 3 in Modern Communications. Instead I’m staring at a closet full of clothing that looked super cute when I bought it but now seems too fussy or uptight. People wore pajamas to class today. Actual pajamas, not yoga pants or whatever. No one did their hair or makeup. Just rolled out of bed and headed out the door. I . . . don’t know what to do with that. Everything I own is too structured. Except, apparently, for theme parties, but tonight’s party doesn’t have a theme.
Tory’s not here to ask, either. She’s already out for the night. I saw her swaying drunkenly down the hallway earlier. When she noticed me watching, she whispered, way too loudly, “Pregaming in my room, darlin’! You should come next time.”
Leggings, maybe? I pull a pair from my closet and put them over the back of my desk chair.
My phone buzzes somewhere, and I tear through the clothes on my bed to find it, half expecting that it’s Liam texting to cancel, even though we talked about the party yesterday at lunch. When we exchanged numbers. (I have Liam’s number!)
The thought of him canceling fills me with a confusing mix of disappointment and relief. I want to see him. I do not necessarily want to go to another party. Or talk to strangers. But maybe it’ll be better with Liam at my side.