Earlier this morning, before Cassidy woke up, I went running. With the migraine finally gone, it felt good to get out. The oppressive cloud hanging over my head since Friday night isn’t totally gone—it’ll never be completely gone—but the run helped.
I finger-comb my damp hair, trying to decide if I want to pull out the hair dryer. Since I don’t need to be to class for a while, I decide not to bother and let it dry naturally. I put on my favorite lip balm, slip a hairband around my wrist for later, and call it good.
Cassidy whips off the covers, looks at me, and frowns. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
I’ve got on my favorite jeans that are fraying out at the bottom, no-longer-white Toms that are getting a hole in the toe, and a large gray PSU sweatshirt with a coffee stain on one wristband.
Obsessed with fashion and makeup tutorial videos, Cassidy wouldn’t be caught dead walking out in public like this. In fact, she’s wearing cute PJ shorts with a matching shirt that says Sweet Dreams in rhinestone sequins across her chest. And if that’s not enough, the clothes she plans to wear today were picked out last night and are folded neatly on her chair.
“No, I’m just putting this on temporarily before I slip into the Tom Ford gown I have hanging in the closet.”
“Bitch.” She stands and yawns again. “What happened to that cute top of mine you were going to wear?”
Since we’re approximately the same size, we borrow each other’s clothes all the time. It’s like having two wardrobes for the price of one. Only she has a lot more clothes than I do.
“It’s brand new with the tags still on. You should wear it first.” Besides, I just wore her teal top on Friday night.
“I don’t mind. Seriously.”
Even though Cassidy comes from a really wealthy family, she’s not snobby or pretentious. You should see their house in Portland—it’s this huge three-story mansion. I’ve never been there, but from the pictures I’ve seen of her bedroom, it looks like it could be featured on one of those HGTV shows my mom watches. All she and her mom ever do when she’s home is shop. Half her clothes here still have the tags on them. But I still don’t feel right about wearing something she hasn’t worn yet.
She grabs her phone from the charging station—a narrow shelf above her desk that her stepdad was somehow able to mount on the dorm room wall without using nails—and scrolls through her texts. “Ivy, listen to me.”
Okay, here we go. I can tell I’m about to get a lecture.
“With the new quarter, you’re starting new classes and meeting new people.”
“Yeah, and your point is…?”
She huffs. “Hello?”
“New people. As in guys?”
“Of course I mean guys. Do you want that to be the first impression they have of you?”
I fold the ribbing on the sleeve of my sweatshirt to cover up the stain, then fold the other one to match. “See? All better.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. What if you run into Jon Priestly or someone equally hot?”
I grab the brush from my desk and throw it at her. “My run this morning kicked my butt and I’m too lazy to do any more than what you see here. Besides, I’m not going to run into him, or any other hot guy for that matter. And if I do, I’ll just walk on by because I’m not looking for a hookup buddy.”
I have no intention of repeating how I was down in LA when I visited my best friend Deena. In those few weeks, I slept with more guys than I’d been with the entire time I lived in Lincoln Falls. Which sounds impressive (or slutty, depending on how you look at it) but wasn’t all that much, because there were exactly two guys in high school.
And because I know you’re curious, they were:
1) Arturo De Luca, AKA smoking hot exchange student from Italy. (Yeah, I lost my virginity to a guy with an accent, which I have to admit is way better than Deena and obsessed gamer Perry Rogers on the floor of his parents’ basement. When she snuck over to my house that night to tell me about it, I actually plucked a Cheeto out of her hair.)
2) Chase Marquette, AKA all-time leading scorer for the Red Devils football team. Blond hair, blue eyes, and totally gorgeous. The darling of Lincoln Falls. Everyone loved him. Including me, or so they tell me. But honestly, I don’t remember ever loving him.
Cassidy’s phone beeps. As she’s reading the message, I look at my face in the mirror again and decide she’s right about the mascara. Grabbing it out of my makeup bag, I put on a few coats.
“Oh my God,” she says, looking at her phone.
“What?”
She scrambles to open her laptop. “More tickets went on sale for Sasquatch. A bunch of people are road-tripping over there and camping the whole weekend. Do you want to go? I’m going to buy tickets right now.”
“Sasquatch? The music festival?”
“Yeah, it’s on Memorial Day weekend at the Gorge.” Seeing the confusion on my face, she adds, “That’s an outdoor concert venue in eastern Washington on the Columbia River. Google it. It’s really cool. They’ll post the line up in a few weeks, but in the past they’ve had bands like Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, Vampire Weekend, and Arctic Monkeys.”
I’ve been to plenty of concerts, but I’ve never been to a music festival before. “When do you need to know?”
“Like ASAP. I fucked up and didn’t get tickets when they first went on sale. I can’t even believe they released more. If you want, I can buy them and you can pay me back.”
“How much are they?”
Her fingers fly over the keys. “Three hundred bucks and change. But that’s for the whole weekend and it includes camping.”
“For one person or is that for two tickets?”
“No, it’s per person.”
I chew on my lip as I think about it. That’s a lot of money. I’ll have to check my account to see if I can swing it. “And you need to know now?”
“Yeah. These won’t last.” Her fingers are poised above the Buy button. “If you want, I can buy them now and if you can’t go, I’m sure I won’t have any problem selling your ticket.”
“If you’re sure you’re okay with that…”
“No problem. I’m just using some of my Christmas money anyway, so it’s no big deal.” Before I can say anything else, she stabs the Buy button with a manicured fingernail. “Done.” Then she rubs her hands together gleefully, like a villain planning an evil plot. “It’s going to be so much fun.”
While Cassidy showers, I grab the book I need to start reading for Comparative Lit. The Butterfly Lovers is the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet, written centuries ago. The textbook contains several versions of the story and we need to read all of them. Even though the paper isn’t due for a while and the stories are short, I want to get a jump start. By the time Cassidy returns, I’ve read two of them.
She changes into skinny jeans and flats and arranges a knit scarf around her neck.
“Is that new?” I ask, looking up from my book. “It’s really cute.”
“Thanks. Ryan made it for me for Christmas.”
“Your brother? He made that? Let me see.” She comes over and I examine the baby-blue scarf more closely. All the rows are even, the stitches uniform. Although it’s simple, it’s very well made. Makes me want to pull out my latest knitting project—or at least log in to Ravelry. It’s the only social network I didn’t quit. Figured Aaron and his stalkerish ways wouldn’t think to look for me in the knitting and crocheting community.