Chapter 2 - The Messenger

Lily

The week slogged on without another sign of the elusive “brothers”. I caught myself scanning the floor for Birkenstocks in crowded hallways, or the corners of the library for a mess of brown curls that I never found. By Friday I was beginning to think my clammy hands were a sign of some horrible illness, and meeting the boys had been nothing more than a bizarre fever dream.

On Saturday I got up early to study in my dorm room. We were mere weeks into the semester and I was already falling behind in almost everything. I planted myself at my desk with my books spread and laptop at the ready, but my wandering mind did little to aid my focus on coursework.

By the time I’d scanned the same paragraph of my textbook about a dozen times without actually reading it, my roommate Cassie rolled over in bed and woke up with a grumble. She squinted in the sunlight filtering through the window. “What time is it?”

“Almost noon,” I told her.

“Fabulous.” She stretched a lavish, full body stretch before alighting from her bed with her auburn hair in a wild mane around her head. Cassie was absolutely gorgeous and utterly comfortable in her own skin—a quality I’d always thought I would acquire at some point but never quite did. Being short, uncoordinated, and flat as a board even in adulthood didn’t help much in the confidence department.

I turned back to my book and willed my brain to absorb each individual word. I wondered if Avett had been serious about me showing them around. I also wondered whether his offer to “change” my purported boredom meant what I thought it did.

Sighing, I turned back to Cassie. She was standing at the mirror, brushing out her bedhead into shiny, dark waves. Thanks to her active social life and proclivity for gossip, she knew everyone, and everything about everyone, for that matter. I steeled myself. “Um, Cassie?”

“Hm?” Her reflection caught my eye.

“Do you know either of those new senior guys?”

She whirled around. “What new senior guys?”

“Um ... God, I wish I knew their last names. Avett and Adrian.” No sign of recognition, so I went on, “Uh, they’re both kinda skinny ... One’s really tall and blond and looks like a hobo ... The brunette one looks like a member of The Cure...” She narrowed her eyes. I don’t think she listened to The Cure. Actually, it was rare to find anyone around here that didn’t exclusively listen to the Hot 100 or dress like a trust fund baby. Finally, I said, “Um, they’re kinda weird?”

“Oh, those guys,” Cassie said, nodding decisively like she’d known all along. “Yeah, I’ve seen them around campus together. The blond’s in my stats class, too, now that I think about it.” She paused her brushing mid-stroke to narrow her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, just curious,” I said breezily. “I hung out with them a bit the other day, but I forgot to ask where they’re from, so I was wondering if you knew.”

Ignoring the question, she instead pounced onto her bed in excitement, sending pillows flying. “Ooh, Lily’s got a cru-u-u-sh!”

“Ugh, no—” I pressed my palms into my eyes. “I literally just met—”

“Which one is it?” She gasped. “Oh, I bet you like the moody little goth-y one. He’s your type for sure,” she said, glancing at my collection of knickknacks on the windowsill, which she had once described as “creepy”.

“I don’t have a crush,” I said, already turning her question over in my mind. If I did have a crush, I really couldn’t say who on—I was most fascinated by the way they interacted together. Was it even possible to have a crush on a ... dynamic?

“Wait ... is it both?” Cassie shrieked with laughter. “Thirsty, much?”

I groaned and turned back to my desk. “Forget I asked.”

“Wait, I wanna help you!” Calming her residual giggles, she plastered a pensive expression on her face. “I’m sure I must’ve heard something useful. Let me think.” She grabbed her oil pen from the nightstand and sucked the end until she erupted in a hacking cough and the familiar, waxy smell filled our room. Cassie always said that weed cleared her mind, which I didn’t understand at all because smoking it just made me feel like I was having a heart attack.

She shut her eyes for several meditative minutes before finally saying, “Nah, I got nothing. They’re too new. And they don’t talk to anyone other than each other, so no one knows them.” She hit her pen again and stood to grab her bathroom caddy, then paused by the door. Her voice was still tight with vapor. “Hang on...” She exhaled, suspense building. “They live off campus,” she concluded with a triumphant smile.

“Oh,” I said. “Uh, how do you know?”

She tossed her mane over her shoulder. “Because I would’ve heard about it if someone was rooming with them.”

“Right ... Unless they’re rooming together,” I pointed out.

Cassie frowned. “Shit, you’re right. ‘Kay, I’ve definitely got some digging to do. Don’t worry; I got you, girl.”

“Oh ... That’s okay. You don’t need to—” I started, but she was already swinging out into the hall. The door clicked shut behind her.

I turned one final time to my textbook, but the words on the page blurred together with my swimming thoughts and I gave up all hopes of studying. They don’t talk to anyone other than each other, she’d said. That statement simply wasn’t true. They’d talked to me.

Mild weather on Monday inspired me to spend my free hour between classes sprawled on the quad with my face in the sun and music in my ears. The sky was a pristine shade of blue beyond the slowly swaying branches of a tree—an oak, maybe, or perhaps a maple. Blades of grass tickled the backs of my thighs, and puffs of soft wind here and there lifted the straw-colored strands of my hair into the air.