Mixed Signals

by Alyssa Cole

  I laughed, but I was also a little surprised that he’d unknowingly cut through to the heart of the matter. I wanted what Arden and John had with each other. I wanted what they had with their significant others, what my parents had. I’d spent the last few years watching everyone have someone to depend on, someone who’d do anything for them, and although I usually just made faces when they were all lovey-dovey, I’d felt so alone.

  I knew part of it had been teenage angst, but there was regular old angst mixed in there too. I wasn’t hoping college would bring me love, but that it would provide the sense of camaraderie that had been missing from my life. My family couldn’t provide that particular brand; I mean, they were obligated to love me. I hadn’t even made it to school yet and already I felt a sense of the kinship I’d been missing, and with the person I least expected it from. I’d thought I couldn’t be friends with Edwin because of the wedge of humiliation between us, but talking to him was nice. I wouldn’t see him all the time, but maybe something could be salvaged between us and created anew, like the art made from the steel of buildings that had burned when the gas mains went.

  “Whoa,” Edwin said, hunching forward over the wheel. I leaned forward too, although I didn’t have to search hard to see what had grabbed his attention.

  Along one side of the road there were clusters of military vehicles that looked like something out of a movie about a viral outbreak. Men in military uniforms marched with guns. In the background, a huge facility loomed: Falling Leaf, the nuclear power plant none of us had paid much mind to until it had been almost too late. The stories of the brave men and women who’d stayed behind to make sure the generators kept going and the reactor didn’t go were among the first universal tales that had spread across the country as everyone strove for national heroes. The first post-Flare book to be published had been a fictional account of the lives of the engineers who’d stayed to work on failing reactors, knowing they were being irradiated in the process. I’d started the copy Arden had brought back from Burnell, but stopped at the introduction. It was too gut-wrenching to read.

  “I guess they’re taking those threats seriously,” I said. “Or maybe it’s just a front.”

  “That isn’t for show,” Edwin said. “Trust me.”

  I glanced over my shoulder as we passed, a chill running down my spine. I’d heard about the few locations across the country where the nuclear plants had blown because the workers hadn’t been able to prevent a meltdown like the Fallen Leaf Five. I lowered my head for a moment in silent acknowledgment.

  When I turned back around, the roadside sign announced Oswego 15 Miles.

  I took a deep breath and focused on my future—the one that was possible because of people like the engineers at the power plant. I couldn’t worry about the scary possibilities ahead of me; I’d go crazy if I did. For now, I’d have to start small.

  Chapter Five

  “Hey, you got a single. Every freshman’s dream! Although I guess there aren’t that many of you guys, so it probably doesn’t have the same cachet it used to.” Edwin dropped my bag onto the floor of the dorm room.

  Cachet? Was he seeing the same thing I was? My room was completely sterile. The walls were cinder block. I sat on the edge of my the extra-long twin bed and hopped back up, hoping the lumps that had poked into me weren’t living creatures, or deceased ones for that matter. Papers spilled out of one of the bags he’d placed near my feet as I scurried away, but the room was going to be a mess sooner or later anyway. My laziness made an executive decision to leave the pile for later.

  “I’m kind of sad I don’t have a roommate,” I said, giving the mattress a vicious kick and waiting to hear any telltale rustling. “Who will help me ferment wine using garbage bags and dirty socks? Who will let me know which gangs to look out for?”

  “It’s not that bad,” Edwin scoffed.

  I pulled aside vertical blinds that weren’t doing such a great job at keeping the sun out and pointed at the bars crisscrossing the window.

  Edwin walked over and gave the bars a shake. “Well, they have to keep you safe. You’re on the first floor, and anyone could get in.”

  “I’ve visited John at Burnell. I know what a nice dorm room looks like,” I said.

  His smile faltered, only for a moment, but so suddenly that I knew I’d touched on something that hurt him. Again. One thing I’d discovered while trying to make friends at my GED program and talking to the odd stranger here and there was that we humans were a sensitive bunch. In the aftermath of such a widespread catastrophe, there was barely anyone left unscathed. One minute you could be discussing sandwiches and the next thing you knew you’d walked into a minefield because someone’s dead dad made great chicken parm.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked him. It was the only question that mattered once that look crossed someone’s face. Usually, some selfish and scared part of me hoped they kept whatever sad story they had to themselves. I was full up on things that made me want to scream at the unfairness. But I’d enjoyed the way he opened up to me in the car, like I was someone he could trust with the memories of his brother, so I was a little sad when he nodded his head and pasted on a smile.

  “Of course.” He stepped closer to me and pulled the shades down. For a moment, it was too close to one of the fantasies I’d slipped into during a nap in the car. Heat stomped an ungainly path from my neck down to the area where my jeans chafed against my thighs. Then he ruffled my hair, like my brothers did, and the millisecond of hope I’d entertained disappeared. “You’ll get used to it. This is bigger than the room they assigned to me. I won’t complain, though. I should just be happy that I have a place to stay.”

  My autonomic nervous system chose that moment to misfire and when I swallowed, my spit went down the wrong pipe. I coughed violently, the burn in my throat almost distracting me from the information he’d just dropped at my feet. Edwin rushed over and brought his warm hand down on my back again and again, sending me into another spasm of coughs.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. I looked up at him, sure that my perfectly smudged smoky eye was now raccooned and my bright red lipstick was even more out of place. “You live on campus?” I croaked when I was able to talk.

  His eyebrows knit in confusion. “Yeah. I work here and take classes...where did you think I lived? In a van down by the lake?”

  My face heated as I realized two things: one, when giving people the silent treatment, you should still listen to what they say to other people so information like this doesn’t bite you in the ass. Two, Edwin’s hand was still on my back, the heat of it intense even through the layers of clothing.

  “You don’t live in this dorm, do you?” I tried to keep the hopefulness out of my voice, but I did too good a job of it because he moved away from me.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to cramp your style.”

  I had to fight hard not to roll my eyes at him. Did he think that was what I was worried about? I thought being at school would get Edwin out of my head, but now I was going to be in even closer proximity.

  “Hello, neighbor!” A high-pitched voice sent shock waves of cute through the room, shattering any lingering annoyance. A girl poked her head in, and the heart-shaped face, kewpie lips and fantastically well-done eye makeup that made her look like an anime character matched her voice perfectly. For a moment, I thought some fuzzy creature rested on the young woman’s sleek brown hair, then I realized it was a panda bear head. Not a real one, but one of those silly stuffed animal roadkill hats that had been popular back before the Flare. Hers had obviously seen better days, but the rest of her matching black and white outfit, a schoolgirl-esque ensemble complete with knee-highs, was flawless, so I let it slide. Then she started talking, and I reconsidered. The hat would make a wonderful gag if shoved down her throat.

  “Oh! How wonderful! Nihao!�
�� She clapped her hands in front of her and bowed deeply, and I allowed myself the satisfaction of a long, luxurious eye roll.

  “I’m not Japanese.” I didn’t sneer because my tone did it for me.

  She suddenly stood ramrod straight, hands still clasped, eyes squinting as she examined my features. “Oh! Pardon my rudeness. Anyoung haseyo. Sometimes it’s so difficult to tell the difference between Japanese and Korean. I’ve watched like fifty K-dramas, so I should be an expert by now.”

  In that moment, I wished I was in one of the shows she was referencing, the comic ones I used to watch with my mother. If that was the case, I could suddenly develop martial arts skills that would allow me to slo-mo kick her across the hall into her room, which I could already see was half wallpapered with manga posters. Like in the television shows, she wouldn’t suffer any injuries, Edwin would suddenly think I was super cool and I’d score a point for annoyed Korean girls everywhere. But this was reality.

  I threaded my hands together and spoke very slowly to her. “Okay. Am I supposed to ask you for the mayonnaise-based recipes of your people now? Is there anything you would be comfortable with me assuming just from looking at you? I’m gonna guess no.”

  Her lower lip began to tremble and her eyes seemed to get even larger, shine even brighter. Her cuteness was like some kind of kryptonite to my righteous indignation, and I was already regretting getting on my soapbox. I should have just pretended not to speak English, like my mom did when people asked her stupid questions, but with my luck this girl would speak better Korean than I did. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just got excited because I thought I’d finally be able to talk about—I’ve never had anyone to talk about stuff with—”

  Her voice was getting higher and higher as she spoke, and she wrung her hands in front of her, obviously distraught for having offended me. I sighed. Now was the moment when I had to be the bigger person, because otherwise I’d scar this fragile young woman forever. “It’s okay. But just because I’m Korean doesn’t mean I’ve got hand-painted mecha figurines in my bag. Cool it with the assumptions.”

  Her eyes lit up again. “You know what mecha are?”

  I considered just turning around and ignoring her, but she was staring at me so hopefully that I held out my hand instead.

  “Maggie,” I said.

  “Danielle.” She kept her grip on my hand and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Is that your real name? Like, what’s on your birth certificate? Because I read that sometimes people have two names—”

  I strengthened my hold and gave her what John liked to call my “murderous innkeeper” grin. “If I did have another name, I wouldn’t tell you. Ever.”

  “Everything cool here? If it is, I have some pre-req reading to do for my Mythology class.” Edwin drew my attention back to him. One good thing about Danielle was that she made it hard to focus all my attention on a certain tall, hot, bemuscled dude standing in my room, the one who was suddenly part of the student body I’d intended to trawl for my harem.

  “I’m taking Mythology too!” she squeed, then whirled back to me. “Is he your boyfriend?” She twirled one finger around a frayed string that hung from the hat as she regarded him. “Hi, Maggie’s boyfriend!”

  Oh God.

  “We’re just old friends.” Edwin recovered smoothly while I felt suddenly stuck in a quagmire of unhelpful thoughts. No, but I did ask him to bang me once.

  “So he’s your boyfriend?” Danielle made a face as she picked up a paper under the sole of her loafer, one that had fallen out of the bag I’d kicked over earlier. It was a picture of Devon I’d printed out, and seeing it was like a boot to the clavicle. She frowned. “He doesn’t seem like your type, but different strokes I guess.”

  “Old flame,” I said with feigned sophistication as I snatched the paper out of her hand and turned it over. A familiar pang of sadness throbbed in my chest.

  She lifted her head toward the ceiling in relief. “An ex? Good, so you won’t mind if I call him a jerk.” I stared at her a long time, not comprehending what she meant. She placed a hand on her hip. “All I did was introduce myself, and he acted like I was a ration scammer and kicked me out of his room. I hate when people are mean just because they can be.”

  “What are you talking about?” Edwin asked helpfully. I’d been trying to ask the same thing, but my lips had sealed themselves shut.

  She twirled the string of her hat again. “He was complaining about not getting a lake view so loudly this morning that I had to go see what the hubbub was about. He was just as rude to his parents as he was to me. No wonder they ran out of there so quickly.”

  The room spun around me, and even though it would be a totally uncool move, I briefly thought I would faint. My voice sounded distant when I finally spoke. “No, you don’t understand. It can’t be him. You just confused me for a Japanese person, so maybe you think all white people look the same too.”

  She tilted her head, and both her and her panda hat seemed confused by my behavior. “If you don’t believe me, we can go to Devon’s room and you can check for yourself.”

  I dropped down onto the edge of the bed. “Devon?”

  The annoyance faded from her face. “You didn’t know? Darn...maybe it’s another Devon? Did he have a twin?”

  “Why would his twin be named Devon too?” Edwin asked, entirely confused by what we were talking about.

  Their conversation flowed past me as I perched on my bed, fighting numbness. Devon was supposed to be in Tampa. He was supposed to be dead. Everything he’d told me about himself—not very well-off, neglectful parents, limited resources—had spelled out certain demise for him. What was he doing all the way up here, and how had he made it into this program, one that I’d only snuck into with John pulling strings?

  Even though I hoped Danielle was tripping on shrooms or some other substance that was supposed to be a hallmark of the college experience, I knew there was only one way to stop the quaking in my knees. I stood.

  “Take me to his room.”

  Chapter Six

  The hallway wasn’t very long, but it seemed to take forever to get to the room at the end. Edwin and Danielle flanked me, like my own personal bodyguards. I was thankful for Danielle’s chatter because I was too stunned to talk. My heart thudded in my chest and I’d forgotten how to walk in my high heels and kept tripping. Danielle was probably wrong. There were lots of dudes with sandy blond hair and green eyes. She was obviously someone who indulged in a rich fantasy life—maybe she was just making this all up. Or maybe she was just messing with me for being mean to her. But she’d been the one to say his name. Not me.

  Devon.

  I teetered into Edwin, and he placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

  No. I wanted to shout. The only boy I’ve ever shared all my secrets with might be in that room five feet ahead of us. The boy I thought about every night, until you showed up, might still be alive, and you think it’s possible that I’m okay?

  A shadow stretched out of the room and into the hallway, and I thought I was going to puke up the deer jerky I’d snacked on during the ride. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. I remembered how I used to center myself during the archery competitions I’d competed in, when shaking hands and a scattered mind were absolutely not an option.

  When I opened my eyes, the nausea had receded. I leaned away from the warmth of Edwin’s body and faced the shadow moving like Nosferatu against the hallway floor. The prospect of seeing Devon was scarier than any pointy-eared vampire—I preferred mine sparkling, thank you—but I was ready.

  “I got this.” I strode extra wide those last few steps and struck a power pose in the doorway. I probably looked like I thought I was cool, with my hands on my waist and my head angled back, but I was hanging on by a thread.

  Devon.


  Anguish and hope leaped up in my throat at the sight of him. He stood on his radiator hanging a pennant in the window, and the light streaming in around him made him look like an angel. An angel who regularly worked his trapezius and glute muscles at the gym, that is. That was one explanation for his presence here.

  “Devon? Is that you?” His name left my mouth high-pitched and off-tune, like when a guitar string broke during the best part of a song. Something inside me did seem to snap when I saw him standing there. He was alive and unharmed, and emotion slammed into me powered by a nostalgia-fueled engine.

  He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes slid over me without registering anything other than annoyance. The same green eyes I’d stared at night after night as we’d video-chatted, as we’d laughed and revealed our hopes and fears, fixed on me with disinterest. “If you’re another emissary from the anime fan club, I already said I’m not interested in hearing about your favorite Naruto episode.”

  Every bit of hope I’d had was suddenly pulled out of my body and exchanged for the particles of humiliation that lingered in every college dorm room, an act of existential osmosis.

  He didn’t know who I was.

  His voice was deeper, his face leaner, more masculine and scruffy where it had been baby smooth before, but it was Devon. I’d thought of him so many times over the last four years, even after I’d given him up for dead. I could recall every feature of his face just by closing my eyes, but he’d looked at me like some kind of louse that had crawled out of his mattress.

  My mouth opened and closed, and the muscles in my body contracted quickly, as if I’d been Tasered.

  “Hey, asshole. You have a guest.” Edwin’s voice was the furthest from friendly I’d ever heard it, and even in my cocoon of embarrassment I was aware that it was pretty hot. What was wrong with me?

  “An uninvited guest,” Devon said without turning around. What the hell? This was the same person I’d once thought was the sweetest boy in the world?