Chapter 1 - Looking Glass

Lily

Nothing lulls a freshly awake student right back to sleep quite like a classic movie in a dim room, so I should’ve known enrolling in a morning film class was a bad idea. The smell of my unfinished coffee, still warming its thermos between my palms, did little to offset the sleepy pull of the projector’s whir above my head, so like white noise in a nursery. In the back row, I was shrouded from the colorless glow. I nodded off.

I caught my heavy head right before it hit the desk and quickly glanced around for any potential witnesses to my misdeed. The ancient film professor sat in the corner with his nose buried in a tattered paperback. Mitch Friedman, to my left, had his head bowed and his wrist twitching—fervent notetaking had been forte since high school. I scanned the risers before me: each row of classmates a foot lower and twice as bored as the last. From way below in the front row, a playful pair of eyes found mine and lingered there.

The eyes belonged to the elvish face of a boy with long, sand-colored hair and a blue pen hanging from his mouth. The pen rolled between his teeth as grinned. He turned back to the screen. Even so, the back of his head somehow seemed to smirk at me still. Though I couldn’t recall his name, I quite clearly remembered his favorite director as proudly announced the first week of class. “Wes Anderson,” he’d said. It was such a typical boy choice.

I popped the lid of my thermos and took a bitter swig. Determined wakefulness forced my attention back to the film, but I’d missed enough of the plot to leave me confused by the time the credits rolled.

Professor Corval stood to flick the light switch, flooding the room in blinding fluorescents. “Your film journal for Rear Window will be due this time next week, as per usual,” he said, trailing off amidst the rustle of students stretching and shifting things into their bags. “Class dismissed.” He returned to his paperback.

Mitch shoved his notebook into a backpack already crammed with the weight of a full course load and gave me a curt nod. “See ya, Lily,” he said, and slipped off.

“See ya,” I murmured absently, thinking of the soft bed I could still be laying in had I only registered for some afternoon class to fulfill my required art credits instead.

The sandy-haired boy was swimming upstream against the current of exiting students, the wood risers squeaking under his scuffed Birkenstocks which he wore over loud, mismatched socks. “Not a fan of Hitchcock?” He pulled himself to a seat on Mitch’s desk and smiled like we were old friends. “I totally saw you dozing off back there.” His voice had a lazy rasp to it, as if I wasn’t the only tired one.

I muttered a noncommittal response, fighting with the zipper to my bag, unaccustomed to being accosted after class.

He leaned so far forward he might’ve fallen off the desk and forced his freckle-spattered face into view. “Hey.” The sudden shift in his tone urged me to catch his eye. He whispered, “I think you’ve got some drool. Just there,” and motioned with a finger to the corner of his mouth.

Mortified, I frantically wiped at my chin with the back of my hand. It was clean. I narrowed my eyes at him.

He threw his head back for an unnecessarily loud laugh and the overhead lights bounced off his teeth, which were crowded and all pointing in ever-so-slightly different directions. “Gotcha!”

As obnoxious as his laughter was, his utter delight was so infectious I couldn’t help but crack my own small smile. “You jerk.”

He was practically wheezing. “You should’ve seen your face!”

I finally wrestled my zipper closed and stood, swinging my bag over my shoulder. “Okay, I get it.”

He grabbed my wrist just as I turned for the door. “Hey, wait. What’s your name, again?”

I eyed his boxy hand encircling my arm and tried not to think about the fact that it was the first time a boy had touched me in quite a while. “Lily,” I mumbled.

“Avett.” He moved his hand to take my own in a warm, firm shake. “Jesus, why are your hands so cold?”

Before I could come up with a response, I was being tugged toward him as he collected both of my hands between his palms, rubbing them to create friction. “What are you—?”

“Shh.” He raised my hands to his mouth and blew on them. His breath was hot, and yet it sent a shiver through me. I tried not to blush.

He dropped my hands and shot me another squinty grin. “There.” As he slid off the desk to stand, I realized just how tall he was—tall enough that I had to crane my neck to hold his gaze, at least. He asked, “Wanna get coffee?”

I licked my lips and glanced at my cooling thermos. “Um...”

“Come on.” He cocked his head toward the door before turning to descend the risers. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Rather bewildered, I clambered after him. From the classroom, his long strides traversed the stale hallway and I trotted to keep up until we emerged into the crisp sunlight of early fall—a respite from the sterile fluorescents.

The route to the campus café carried us across the grassy quad, where he slowed to a stroll and lifted a lengthy arm to absentmindedly stroke the leaves of a passing tree branch. Finally falling into stride with him, I asked, “So, uh ... who do you want me to meet?”

He either didn’t hear the question or chose to ignore it, opting instead to repeat my name several times under his breath. “Lily ... Li-ly...” he said, letting the two syllables roll slowly off his tongue. He turned to me. “Is it short for something?”

“Uh, no,” I lied.

“Hmm... Lily. That’s Latin, right? Meaning ‘pure.’”

“I guess.”

His fingertips grazed another leaf overhead. “Innocent.”

I changed the subject. “What does ‘Avett’ mean, then?”

He smiled. “Nobody knows.”

I looked at his clothes—tattered jeans and a patchwork button-down that matched neither of his visible socks. Bet it means “poorly dressed.”

We entered the café, which was crowded with the morning rush and smelling strongly of coffee. It was the best place on campus: wood-paneled and cozy with plants hanging by the dusty windows and instrumentals drifting from a portable speaker near the register.

Avett spotted someone in line and called, “Adey!” He dashed forward towards a brunette boy dressed all in black and scooped him clean off the floor to spin him around, legs swinging, and nuzzled his face into his neck.

Going pink in the pale face, the boy squirmed and grumbled his startled objections until Avett put him down. He looked around and caught me staring, and I quickly looked away. My stomach flipped with sensations: relief, maybe—or perhaps just a touch of disappointment?

Avett tugged him forward by the arm and deposited him in front of me. “Adrian, this is Miss Lily,” he said, still wearing his toothy, mile-wide smile. “Miss Lily, Adrian.”