by Tom Ellen
“Well, it was supposed to be tuna mayo pasta,” said Nishant. “But Tom forgot to buy the tuna…”
“And the mayonnaise…,” Rosie added.
“So, basically, it’s my specialty…Extremely Dry Pasta,” Tom said.
Rosie rolled her eyes and smiled at him. “That Jamie Oliver book your mum bought you is really coming in handy, isn’t it?”
They all laughed. It was crazy to think they’d only known each other six days. They were already like a little family.
“Are you all starting labs tomorrow, then?” I asked them.
Tom nodded, and Rosie said, “Do your classes start tomorrow, too?”
“Yep. Should do some reading for them, really.”
A silence descended, which Nishant burst by reigniting the covalent bonding conversation. It felt a bit awkward to shuffle around them, cooking my own dinner, so I just made some toast and took it back to my room. I found Barney out in the hall, knocking on Arthur’s door.
“Just tried it,” I said. “He’s out.”
“Oh right.” Barney stiffened slightly. “It’s just that I had some Fritos, but I can’t seem to find them at the moment. I was wondering if Arthur…knew anything about that.”
“I’ll ask him when I see him.”
“Thanks, Luke. I’ll be in Beth’s room.” He cleared his throat. “Studying.”
“OK, cool.”
I sat on my bed and ate my toast and wondered if I was the only person on campus currently all alone. Beth was with Barney, Arthur with Rita, the chemists with the chemists, everyone with someone else.
Orientation Week was basically over, and what did I have to show for it, except a series of increasingly bad hangovers? The only truly enjoyable bits had been playing soccer and making sure Stephanie Stevens didn’t die. I hadn’t really made any friends. Not real ones, anyway. Dad had met Ryan—my godfather—on his first night at Manchester. Reece was constantly posting crazy pictures of all his new friends at Nottingham. Was it bad luck or was it just…me?
I chewed my toast and tried to convince myself that it was just because soccer hadn’t really started yet. Soccer was how I’d meet people. It was how I’d always met people. Or maybe I’d meet them in classes and lectures. But it was like the terror of not making friends was stopping me from actually making friends. Like, how can you relax and be yourself when you’re constantly wondering if every conversation might be the beginning of a life-long friendship?
I finished my toast and started reading the first chapter of Modern Romantic Poetry for tomorrow’s class. And then, after about three paragraphs, I gave up and watched Rick and Morty on Netflix.
When I went back into the kitchen an hour or so later, the chemists had relocated to Tom’s room to eat their dinner, and Arthur was there instead, unwrapping something on the counter.
“Where d’you get to?” I sniffed the air. “And what the fuck is that smell?”
He turned around, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “I have found the bargain of the century here, man. I mean, literally, the supermarket Holy Grail. Only fifty quid…for this.”
He stepped aside flamboyantly to reveal a massive wheel of Brie, about the size and thickness of a car tire. It was wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, but it still absolutely reeked.
“Didn’t they have any edible stuff?” I said, pinching my nose.
He ignored this question and patted the cheese proudly. “Look at the fucking size of it! I’ll literally be able to live off this beast all semester. I won’t have to spend another penny on food.”
“You can’t just eat Brie for ten weeks, Arthur.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like a challenge, Luke.”
“It’s not a challenge. You’d die. Probably. Plus, won’t it go bad at some point?”
Arthur snorted. “Cheese can’t go bad, Luke. It’s already spoiled. That’s the great thing about cheese. I could literally still be eating this in 2050. My kids could be eating this.”
I opened all the windows as wide as they’d go while Arthur tried to jam the monstrous cheese into the fridge. But it was way too big. So he chopped it into six smaller, smellier chunks, then labeled each one with a Post-it. “Don’t want Barney getting any ideas,” he muttered. “This is definitely not communal.”
He straightened up and dusted his hands off. “Right, that’s that handled. I’ll see you in a bit. Going out to meet Dan and Hassan and that.”
“Oh, OK.” I nodded. “Cool.”
He stopped in the doorway. “Do you want to come?”
I shook my head. “Nah, thanks, though. I need to be up early for this safety presentation thing anyway.”
“Oh yeah. I remember that from last year. Massively boring. Bring a book or something. Anyway, see you later, man.”
I went and sat on my bed again and stared lamely at the wall as I listened to the muffled chatter wafting across the hall from Tom’s room.
I thought about calling Reece but decided against it. When have I ever called Reece just “to talk”? Then, suddenly, without realizing it, my finger was hovering over Abbey’s number. For some reason, I wanted to hear her voice so badly. To talk to someone who actually knew me, who actually cared about me.
Before I could make the decision, though, my phone exploded into life on its own.
I answered. “Hey, Will, what’s up?”
“Hey, how are you?” he said. “You at home?”
“Yeah, just finished dinner. Why?”
“I had to come to campus to hand something in. Just wondered if you wanted a beer. They’ll have Match of the Day 2 on in the bar.”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
A few minutes later I was down in the bar, which was by far the most deserted it had been all week. Will brought two bottles of beer over to our table, then flopped down dramatically into his chair.
“Fuck, man.” He took a long swig from his bottle and wiped his lips. “Hungover essay-writing. Never, ever fun.” He swept a hand through his hair. “I miss being a freshman. No pressure. Except to get fucked up every night.”
I picked a sticky piece of spaghetti off the chair next to me. “They’re going to be cleaning up after you all year in here.”
He laughed. “I might make the pasta a regular thing. No matter how wasted I get, I’ll still be able to tell where I’ve been.”
“Did you have a good night last night, then?” I asked. I’d watched him leave around one a.m. with his arm draped around Phoebe’s shoulders.
He raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Yeah. Good, mate. Very good.” He picked carefully at the label on his beer bottle and left it at that.
“So how’s your suite, then?” he said.
“Yeah, they’re all right. I don’t have that much in common with them, to be honest.”
“Translation: they’re boring geeks.” He laughed, and I laughed along with him.
“No, no, they’re nice,” I said. “We’re just not that similar, I guess. I dunno. I mean, it’s just luck who you end up in a dorm with, isn’t it? Some people get lucky, some people don’t.”
Which was about as close to “I’m fucking lonely here and I don’t know what to do” as I could manage.
But it was almost like Will got what I meant. His smile dropped and he scratched harder at his beer label. “Yeah, well…You’re on the team now, man,” he said, not quite looking at me. “I mean, you’ve got us, haven’t you?”
I nodded and smiled, as if that made me feel better. Then I realized it actually did.
Will’s phone buzzed and he checked it, snorting a laugh at whatever had just come through. He dropped it back onto the table and stood up. “Just going for a piss.”
I watched him walk off, then stared down at his phone, which was just ly
ing there, unlocked on the table. In the split second before the screen went dark I caught a glimpse of a photo—what looked like a girl’s face, asleep on a pillow.
I went to pick up the phone but it had already locked. So I just sat there, sipping my beer and watching the soccer flicker silently on the massive TV.
Frankie looked like a medieval king, her comforter dragging along the grass behind her.
“Too early,” she was wailing. “I didn’t even know it could be this early.”
Me and Negin traipsed alongside her and onto the walkway. “What if Will’s there?” I asked them. “Like, with Josh?”
“He won’t be,” Frankie yelled. “Who the hell would go to an eight a.m. safety presentation by choice?”
“Well, you,” Negin said. “You’re not even part of these dorms. You don’t technically have to come to this.”
“What?” Frankie stopped dead and stared at her. “Why are you telling me this now?” She turned and looked at D Dorm. “Just when I’ve come too far to turn back.” She carried on trudging slowly behind us, wailing intermittently.
I really didn’t want to see Will. I didn’t think I could cope. It had been a full twenty-four hours now, and nothing. As Frankie had acknowledged, no one can be offended by a text of a guinea pig doing the Macarena.
Negin said Will probably didn’t know he was supposed to respond to it, and that I should just chill. But I hadn’t told them about the awkward sex thing. It was too embarrassing to admit to myself, never mind them, and even if I could face it, I didn’t know them well enough for that level of humiliating awkwardness. I kept wondering if the incident was why he hadn’t replied. I had told Negin and Frankie that I went back for a bit but that nothing had happened. Which was true. In terms of stuff.
Will’s room didn’t have any curtains and I had woken up at seven, like always. There wasn’t even a fitted sheet on the bed. I felt like my mother, lying there, wondering how he could not mind sleeping on the bare mattress. I needed to pee really badly but I didn’t even know where the bathroom was. I crept out and tiptoed about, but all the doors were shut and I didn’t know which one it was. Will woke up as I was getting dressed and offered me a no-milk tea. We cuddled and kissed goodbye, and it had felt natural and couple-y. When I got back I had tucked in with Frankie—who’d crashed in my room—and sent him the picture of the guinea pig wearing a birthday hat doing the Macarena, and fallen asleep.
And he just hadn’t messaged back.
We followed the walkway over a bridge toward Gildas College, and the Central Hall building came into view. It was huge and oval, and almost totally made of glass. It looked like a giant UFO. Frankie was still moaning on about the earliness.
“To be fair, Frankie,” I said, “out of everyone at this university, you are probably the one most likely to fall in a river.”
“Or start a fire.” Negin nodded. “Maybe they heard you were coming and organized an emergency health and safety presentation. This whole thing is probably specifically tailored to you.”
She ignored us and squinted at the crowds of people heading into the hall. “Is Josh holding a clipboard?” He was at the main door, ticking people off as they walked in. I wondered if he knew I had been in his house. It’s weird that I went there and he was probably asleep in the next room not knowing I was downstairs. I wondered if Will had said anything to him about me.
Josh’s jean pockets were filled with pens and he was trying to count people. He smiled at us, but he looked a bit overwhelmed. He was wearing a massive neon-yellow vest that said YORK MET. “You look like a teacher,” I said.
“I look like a jerk.” He laughed. “It’s, like, the one important thing the RA has to do. Basically, if I check you off this list, and you die in a fire, no one cares. If you jump in the lake, that’s fine. As long as you are checked off this list.” He smiled at me. “Phoebe Bennet. Check.”
We shuffled into the hall and sat down. Frankie’s comforter was so massive it covered her and Negin entirely.
“This is immense,” Frankie said. “It’s like going to the aquarium. I love the aquarium. I even went there as my family thing for my eighteenth birthday and we all dressed up as manatees. Look, though. Literally everyone is here.”
There was a kind of electric buzz being transmitted from person to person, getting more intense as it was passed along. There must have been a thousand people squeezed into the hall. Everyone from the past week was in the same room. Everyone.
Frankie held the comforter across her face, and me and Negin leaned in. We all peered over the top. “I think this is drawing more attention to us, not less,” Negin whispered.
A man got up on stage and started speaking, but no one paid any attention to him.
“There’s the boy you hooked up with,” Negin whispered triumphantly to Frankie, pointing with her forehead across the other side of the hall. “I told you you got with someone. He’s even wearing the exact same red shirt. Red Shirt Boy. Look.”
“This is the thing about you not drinking,” I said to Negin. “You remember everything. You’re like this abstinent elephant, keeping the doomsday book of freshmen regrets.”
Frankie slumped down into the comforter until she disappeared. “Don’t let Red Shirt Boy see me,” she hissed. “My face is falling off.”
Negin rolled her eyes. “Is not. You’ve only got a little dry skin round your nose.”
“Literally all the greats are in here.” I started pointing discreetly. “Beautiful Eyes Boy, Hot Quidditch Marco, Interesting Thought Boy, Afraid-of-Sex Phil. So many hot boys we might marry.”
“None of whom we’ve actually spoken to,” Negin added.
“I’ve spoken to Afraid-of-Sex Phil,” Frankie said. “How do you think I know he’s afraid of sex? I spoke to him at the quiz. I told him about my height, he told me about his fear of sex. We bonded.”
“Interesting Thought Boy is so enigmatic,” Negin whispered.
We all looked at Interesting Thought Boy. He was wearing a loose-knit sweater with holes in the sleeves, and scratching his chin while sort of gazing dreamily into the middle distance.
“Yeah, good old ITB.” Frankie nodded. “He’s probably philosophizing about what to have for breakfast.”
The man on stage started demonstrating how to use a fire extinguisher, and then they played us a painfully bad Crimewatch-style reenactment of a girl wearing a trashy bandage dress, falling into a river. I just kept scanning the room, looking at all the people I had seen over the last week penned into the same space.
I somehow missed Luke Taylor on the first couple of sweeps, but then he came into focus. At school, he had always been surrounded by people, but he was on his own, politely paying attention to the video. He was so good-looking he seemed out of place. Like a Hollywood film star who had been plonked into EastEnders.
The man was pointing at the screen and telling us how you’re only ever one Bacardi and Coke away from river death.
“Look”—Frankie jabbed her elbow into my ribs—“there is Quidditch Bailer himself.”
“Already saw him,” I whispered. “He looks amazing today. Like, amazing.”
We all looked over at Luke. His white T-shirt and tan made him easy to find in his row. He ruffled his hair, leaned back and yawned.
“I feel like we’re observing a lion in a documentary,” Negin said.
“When I was little I had to go and see an educational psychologist because all I drew were lions.” Frankie mimed drawing manically. “I had, like, a mania for drawing lions.”
“Can we just all appreciate Luke Taylor for a second?” I said. “I know he is a self-obsessed ass, but just push that to the back of your mind and you know…objectify him.” I could feel Negin and Frankie rolling their eyes. “Come on, you can’t deny it, he is insanely beautiful.”
“I think he looks like a Ken doll,” said Frankie. “He is very square. His face, I mean. And his hair.”
“When did you stop drawing lions?” Negin whispered.
They showed us a final clip of a boy getting an STI test, and then we all filed out of the spaceship. “I’m going back to bed.” Frankie yawned at me. “In your room. I’m also really hungry.”
“Me too,” said Negin. “Me and Becky are meeting early to get breakfast.”
I left them and wandered toward the English department, where I had my first class and which looked like a dilapidated block of buildings covered in tattered old Drama Club posters. Everyone says making friends with people in your program is important, so you know more people than just the ones in your hall. I gave myself a mental pep talk about speaking to everyone but not seeming too eager-beaver. But then I got lost trying to find the classroom.
When I did get there, it was already almost full. The only person I recognized was Bowl-Cut Girl, who was wearing a low-cut, electric-blue vest dress thing and no bra. The dress was kind of draped over her and looked like it could just fall off at any time and leave her completely naked.
I did a jolly smile at everyone and said “Hi” as I walked in and took an empty chair. They all said an awkward “Hi” back.
Then Bowl-Cut leaned across and said, “You’re in Jutland, right?”
I nodded.
“I’ve seen you around,” she said, and smiled.
I felt sort of honored. Bowl-Cut knew who I was. I smiled back but didn’t really know what to say, so I just said “Great!” and then felt a bit stupid.
I got out my pencil case and notebook and laid them out on the table in front of me. Bowl-Cut was directly across from me and I could not stop staring at her. She had a tattoo that went from just underneath one of her boobs right around her back. What did it say? I kept trying to make it out. She had scraped her rainbow hair back and was wearing no makeup but she still looked amazing. She didn’t seem nervous at all. She was sitting cross-legged on her chair like a kid waiting for story time, like she had done this shit a million times before.
