Forever With You (Silver State Series)

by Renae Kelleigh

  Rhiannon snorts, then squeals in laughter. I smile, shaking my head in memory of this particular misadventure of artistic expression. “I don’t know what you guys are laughing about,” I say in mock sincerity. “Pink smoke is essential when preparing to bust out a sweet sax solo.”

  “Totally agree,” Blake says as he turns away, still chuckling.

  Rhiannon dabs at the corners of her eyes as she struggles to collect herself. She takes a deep breath then, hands on hips, says, “Okay, what next? Did you get all your stuff out of the bathroom?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, flopping down on the bed. “I just need the stuff from the top of my closet.”

  I spread my fingers out over the worn stitching of my bedspread; we went out yesterday and bought a new comforter and sheets for my dorm room, so my ruffled white ones will stay here. I’m going to miss their familiar, broken-in feel.

  “Whose is this?” Blake’s voice drifts from behind a tall, precariously balanced stack of boxes. He leans forward into our line of sight and holds out a sweat stained Washington Redskins baseball cap. It’s soft and well-worn, the bill perfectly arced from years of folding and shaping.

  I lunge for it, perhaps a bit too ardently, snatching it from his fingertips from across the twin-sized mattress. My mind rewinds to the night Kyle left it in my car, when I dropped him off after Jared Mink’s party. I didn’t find it until the next morning, partially hidden beneath the seat on the passenger side.

  Rhiannon blinks at me curiously, and I sigh in response. “It’s Kyle’s,” I tell her, quietly enough I don’t think Blake can hear.

  “The guy who told you you’re ‘good’?” he says loudly, still obscured by the cardboard towers surrounding us. Damn him and his superhuman sense of hearing. Rhiannon must have told him the story after it happened – not that I care. There isn’t much she keeps secret from Blake, unless I specifically request that she do so.

  “Yes,” I grumble, my stomach twisting at the thought of his soft lips brushing against my cheek before he uttered that cryptic phrase and slipped away.

  Rhiannon eyes the cap fisted in my hands, then glances back up at me before turning around to sit beside me. “Have you heard from him since then?” she asks.

  “Nope,” I say. My eyes flicker to my phone laying on the nightstand, as if there might suddenly be a text message from him after all these weeks.

  She sighs and ruffles my hair as she stands up again. “Come on. I’m in the mood for omelets.”

  Saturday, 1:30 PM

  We follow the signs on North Virginia around the back of Argenta Hall to the loading dock, which for today is a parking lot filled with other moving vans and freshmen moving into their rooms. Every available inch of space is taken up with furniture dollies, mini fridges and dusty, faded plaid sofas. I feel vaguely nauseous taking in the alien quality of it.

  We check in with a friendly looking older student in a blue and white Wolf Pack t-shirt; she consults her clipboard and hands me a key for my assigned room. Dad jams his truck into park, then hops out of the cab and walks around to lower the tailgate. He and Blake commence the heavy lifting, while Mom, Rhiannon and I busy ourselves gathering boxes.

  We ride the elevator to the sixth floor and cross a spacious TV lounge with floor-to-ceiling windows before angling down the left-hand corridor to room 640. The door has been propped open with a waste basket, and the room is already crowded with a handful of other people. An Asian girl is on her knees in the lofted bed to the left, tucking crisp green and yellow striped sheets around the mattress while her mother supervises from the floor. Another girl stands by quietly, playing a game on an iPhone – she looks practically identical to the one up on the bed, only several years younger.

  “You must be Tawny!” someone says, causing the Asian girl’s head to jerk up with a quick smile of recognition. I turn to face a curvy brunette with a small nose ring who’s offering me her hand. “I’m Beatrix.”

  I set down the box I’m carrying and shake her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I hope you don’t mind we already picked our beds,” she says. “You’ll be over here by the window next to me – if that’s okay?”

  I glance over at the bare mattress against the right wall. A small desk and bookcase are turned perpendicular to the foot of the bed. “Sounds perfect,” I reply, giving her a reassuring smile. Meanwhile, my other roommate hops nimbly down from her bunk and extends her hand as well. “Glad to meet you, I’m Harumi,” she says without any trace of an accent.

  “We’re about finished, why don’t we get out of your way?” says a middle aged woman with short brown hair. She stands behind Beatrix and places her hands on her shoulders. “I’m Jillian by the way – I’m Bea’s mother.” She exchanges pleasantries with my parents and with Blake and Rhiannon, who also introduce themselves to Harumi’s mom and Beatrix’s stepdad. The younger girl is introduced as Kimi, Harumi’s nine year old sister.

  The ensuing couple of hours are a flurry of unloading and unpacking. By the time we finish it’s close to four, and I’m utterly exhausted. Beatrix and Harumi have both left with their families, and my freshly made bed looks very inviting.

  I yawn my way through dinner at a Thai restaurant on the edge of campus with my family. Taking the hint, Rhiannon insists afterward they all move along and grant me my space. Mom gives me a tearful hug, while Dad is all business, instructing me to call about anything I might have forgotten. Rhiannon squeezes me and reminds me she’s less than an hour away, and Blake claps me on the back and wishes me luck. When the door finally closes behind them I breathe a sigh of relief tinged with a unique brand of loneliness.

  Chapter 4 – Mixer

  Wednesday, August 16

  Kyle – 3:15 PM

  “Bad news, man…We can repair it, but by the time I order the parts it’ll run you about as much as just buying a new lens.” Jay leans his considerable mass against the glass case at the back of Ball Photo Supply. He’s a nice guy, just like everybody else who works here. That’s why I come here – they excel at customer service, and they don’t try to bullshit me. That’s why I trust what he’s telling me; unfortunately it doesn’t make it any easier to hear the truth.

  “Goddammit,” I mutter as I take my Canon telephoto from his big, meaty hand. I scratch the side of my face as my eyes sweep across the array of lenses on display in the case behind us. It will cost me well over seven hundred dollars to replace this particular lens, and I simply don’t have it. I saved up for months to afford it in the first place. Silently I curse my cat, Pumpkin, who got up on my bookcase and pawed at my camera bag until it finally crashed to the floor this morning. I guess I’m fortunate this was the only thing that broke. Still makes me want to think about finding another home for the damn cat, though…

  I’m still pondering the extent of my plight when the bell above the door jingles. I turn and see Grace Mullins pushing her sunglasses on top of her head as she strides to the back of the store. She’s a year ahead of me in the journalism program, and I’ve heard she was recently picked to be one of the section editors for Summit, the student-run magazine I freelance for. We had hit it off at a holiday social last year and ended up sleeping together twice before things turned south… Let’s just say she was interested in more than I was prepared to give. I somehow managed to successfully dodge her for most of last semester, but there’s no avoiding her now – she’s already spotted me.

  “Hey Kyle,” she says, sounding slightly out of breath. I notice one of her pant legs is rolled up and remember she usually bikes everywhere.

  “Hi, Grace.” I look back down, distracted and not really in the mood to chitchat.

  “What’ve you got there?” she asks, nodding to the lifeless lens in my left hand.

  “Fucked up lens,” I reply. “Stupid cat knocked it off my shelf.”

  She sucks in a breath, nodding in commiseration. “That’s some tough luck.”

  “It sure is.” I sigh, then shake my head to clear it as
I stuff the lens back in my shoulder bag. “Well…if you know anybody who needs a good paperweight, let me know. That’s about all this thing is good for now.”

  She smiles and nods. “Sorry for your loss.” She reaches up and awkwardly touches my arm, as if she’s comforting me after the death of a family member.

  I shrug while subtly angling my body away from her, afraid to give her any ideas. “You win some, you lose some,” I say in as unaffected a tone as I can muster given how defeated I feel. “Later, Grace.” I turn and head toward the door before she can say anything more.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket just as I step outside, and I whip it out to check the display. Les. I press Answer and hold the phone up to my ear. “What’s up?”

  “You have plans for this evening?”

  “Depends... You have a proposition for me?”

  He sighs. “Leila’s roommates want her to go to this mixer on the quad for the incoming freshmen, but she won’t go unless I tag along…”

  “Tell her not to go then,” I reply. “Those things are lame.”

  “Yeah, but I want her to make friends with her roommates so she doesn’t feel like she has to hang around me all the time, you know? I mean, not to sound like an asshole, I love her and everything, but I want her to have her own life, too.”

  I nod in understanding as I sidestep a group of guys clamoring down the sidewalk. Campus is noticeably more crowded now that all the students are back. “Okay… So how do I figure into this?” I ask.

  “Just come with me, man. I don’t want it to just be me and a bunch of freshman girls.”

  “Really? Because that kinda sounds like Heaven to me,” I joke.

  He laughs. “All the more reason for you to come then. Come to my place beforehand, okay? We can ride over together. Come at like six-thirty.”

  “Yeah all right. See ya then.” I tap End and slip my phone back in my pocket. Honestly I probably wouldn’t have given in that easily if I wasn’t already thinking about a certain other freshman who might be in attendance…

  Tawny – 7:00 PM

  “Oh I love that dress,” says Beatrix as she slides around me at the bathroom sink. “Pink is a great color on you.” I look down at the simple strapless maxi-dress I’m wearing and brush at a piece of lint on my boob.

  “Thanks,” I reply with a smile. I watch as she brushes her shoulder-length hair and pulls part of it back into a clip. Meanwhile, my practiced hands work quickly to arrange my hair into a loose French braid, which I secure with a white elastic from around my wrist.

  “Are you two about ready to head down there?” calls Harumi from the other room. I smooth the loose wisps of hair away from my face and walk over to my closet to grab my pair of silver sandals. Harumi sits Indian style on her bed, a large pair of headphones circling her neck.

  “I’m ready,” I say as I step into my sandals. A moment later Beatrix joins us, and Harumi hops down from her bunk and shuffles into a pair of beaded moccasins. The three of us head to the stairwell and take the five flights of steps down to the lobby before exiting the building. We cross Virginia Street and weave between the buildings toward the quad.

  It took me a few days, but I’m beginning to feel settled here. I get along really well with both roommates. Beatrix, who wants to study speech pathology, isn’t terribly profound, but what she lacks in depth she makes up for in sweetness. Harumi will be an art history major, and everything about her is refreshingly unique, from her spiky black hair to her taste for nineties grunge music. I breathe out in contentment, savoring the heat that lingers in the evening air while thinking maybe this college thing won’t be so bad after all.

  We can hear music drifting from the quad well before we reach it. Massive speakers broadcast the music and all announcements across the expanse of green that extends from Mackay Mines to the alumni building. A big blue banner on the south edge of the lawn is printed with the word “Welcome,” while on the east end a number of booths are set up with representatives from each of the student organizations. Countless freshmen from across campus mill around holding cookies and cups filled with alcohol free “mocktails.”

  A bubbly girl with blond hair and braces bounds over to us as we approach. She hands us each a ticket and explains the Residence Hall Association is raffling off door prizes every half hour. We nod our thanks before beginning a slow lap around the perimeter. Several games of cornhole are going at the center of the open field. Nearby a crowd has gathered in a ring around the capoeira club, which has several members performing a demonstration. We pause to watch as a girl with braided pigtails and a tom-tom in her lap pounds out a rhythm while two guys bow to one another. I’m impressed by their fluid movements, an intricate cross between martial arts and dancing.

  We move off to the row of nearby booths, one for each undergraduate club. I stop at the Reno Runners table and pick up a brochure listing the weekly group runs and this fall’s 5K’s and half marathon. I write my name down on the e-mail list, thinking I might like to get back into running. I did both track and cross country my junior and senior years of high school, but I’ve grown rusty since graduating, lacking for the sort of structure and team spirit that drove me to excel in school.

  I roll the brochure into a tube as I step away from the booth and begin searching for my roommates. I spot Harumi at the Women’s Rugby table, chatting up a stocky girl with impressive calves. I turn my head, continuing to scan for Beatrix, but stop when my eyes land instead on a familiar face a few yards off. My heart rate accelerates when I see Kyle bent over a refreshment table; I laugh when I notice him stacking several oatmeal raisin cookies on a napkin and laugh harder when he walks away, apparently intent on keeping all of them for himself. He’s in a fitted green t-shirt and cargo cutoffs, and a professional-looking camera hangs on a thick strap that crosses from his left shoulder under his opposite arm. I watch as he walks a little ways off and stops beneath a big shade tree and wonder if he came here alone.

  I glance back at Harumi. Satisfied that she’s still deeply involved in her conversation with the rugby player, I turn and begin walking toward Kyle. He doesn’t look up until I’m within a few feet of him; when he notices me he pauses, a half-eaten cookie lifted partway to his open mouth.

  “What made you decide to crash this party?” I ask. “You’re no freshman.”

  He seems to remember then what he was doing and lowers his hand again as he smiles warmly at me. He brushes a crumb away from the corner of his mouth as he replies. “I’m here for Les, who’s here for Leila. Only now I’m not sure where they went off to…”

  “You like those cookies?” I ask, inclining my head toward the significant stack of them in his left hand.

  “They’re okay,” he says. “The fact they’re free makes them taste better.”

  I laugh. “I didn’t know you had a thing for photography.”

  He looks down at his camera and nods. “Yeah, photojournalism. I’m pre-majoring, but I’ll find out this year whether I made it into the program. I’m trying to build up my portfolio, so you’ll probably see me chained to this thing for a while.” He pats the heavy-looking piece of equipment as he adjusts the strap next to his neck.

  “That’s cool,” I tell him. “I’ve always wished I was more artistic and could get into acting or painting or something. My sister – you remember Rhiannon? She sings and plays guitar, but I’m not really gifted in anything.”

  He tilts his head to one side as he looks at me. “Somehow I doubt that,” he says. For a moment he simply stares at me, into me, but then he clears his throat and qualifies his statement by saying, “Everybody has something they’re good at.”

  I shrug, and he chuckles a little, rubbing his chin.

  “So Tawny, what do you wanna be when you grow up? What are you here for?”

  “Cultural anthropology,” I respond. “I want to be an archaeologist. Someday I want to move to China or Spain and work on a dig.”

  “Wow, really? China or Spain? Those are pr
etty far away.”

  I nod slowly. “That’s part of the point.”

  His face opens into a smile that makes me feel like I just said something truly enlightening and causes a glowing warmth to spread through my body. “I feel ya on that one.”

  A voice behind me catches me off-guard. “There you are! We didn’t know where you went!” I spin around to find Beatrix and Harumi standing behind me. Beatrix has one hand planted on her hip and is gazing dreamily at Kyle.

  “Kyle, these are my roommates – this is Beatrix, and that’s Harumi.” I gesture to Kyle and add, “This is my friend Kyle.” Once the words are out I bite down on my lip, second-guessing my use of the word “friend.” Was that presumptuous of me? I turn to look at Kyle, but it doesn’t seem to have fazed him. He leans forward and grins as he shakes each girl’s hand.

  “We were gonna go check out the poster sale,” says Harumi, a question in her voice as she jerks her thumb over her shoulder at the tent on the far end of the quad.

  I look back at Kyle, whose eyes are fixed on me. “I’ll walk with you if you don’t care,” he says casually, shoving off the trunk of the tree. “Looks like Les deserted me.”

  “Of course,” I reply as we start off across the stretch of grass.

  I talk with Beatrix and Harumi as we walk, and Kyle hangs back a bit, pulling his camera around to the front of him and holding the viewfinder up to his eye. His fingers fly over the controls as he twists the focus ring, snapping photos of our surroundings while we wade through the crowd and the sun sinks lower in the sky.

  Kyle – 8:15 PM

  While Tawny and her friends peruse the posters and Wolf Pack pennants on display in the dimly lit tent, I find space in the corner to cursor back through the photos I took on our walk over here. There’s a decent action shot of one of the cornhole players and another respectable shot of one of the RHA volunteers shouting into a megaphone, but my favorites are of Tawny. I keep going back to the string of portraits I shot of her and her roommates when they didn’t realize I was pointing my lens at them. Tawny is stunning in every single photo, her blue eyes dancing, the copper hues to her hair brought out by the rosy light of evening.