“I’ve been here for almost three weeks now.”
“Come with me, just tonight.” He senses her hesitation and pushes on. “Just until we scare up some blankets and make this whole place less . . .”
“Rustic?” she offers.
“I was going to say creepy. We should aim for rustic.” We.
She follows him down the trail, unable even in her weightlessness to match his grace over logs and through the marshy bits. All of their talking seems to have emptied them of words, and they move through the moonlight in an easy silence until the hulking gray buildings of Saint Osanna’s appear above the tips of the trees. The idea of a dorm room, of a comforter, a rug, and walls that keep the elements at bay seem almost decadent.
Colin’s room screams “boy.” Muted earth tones, bike magazines, dirty laundry. Greasy bolts on his desk, a soda can, a row of trophies. She can see, beneath the layers, strong architectural bones: dark wood windowpanes, polished hardwood. The shelves built deep into the walls are now cluttered with papers and bike parts and small stacks of photographs.
“Quite a man lair,” she says. Colin flops down on his bed and groans a relaxed-happy noise, but Lucy doesn’t want to sit down. She wants to go through his stuff. She has two school uniforms, a pair of boots, and a shed. She’s fascinated with all of his things.
“A brown comforter? How understated.” She smiles and runs her hand along the edge of his mattress.
“I like to imagine I’m sleeping in the dirt,” he jokes. She feels him watching her while she studies a pile of clothing near the closet door. He throws an arm over his face and mumbles beneath it, “Jay and I . . . we’re not so skilled with the cleaning.”
“Yeah . . .” She pushes aside a pair of socks on a shelf so she can read what books he has stacked there.
“At least my sheets are clean.” He immediately clears his throat, and she continues to stare at his books. Awkward settles like a thick gel into the room. “I didn’t mean that. Yes, I mean, my sheets are clean but . . . for sleeping. Oh my God, never mind.”
Lucy is already laughing. “I don’t sleep.”
“Right. Right.” He’s quiet for several beats before asking, “Won’t you get bored?”
“It’s nice to be near someone. I promise I won’t draw a mustache on you in your sleep.”
He yawns suddenly, widely. “Well, if you do, give me a Fu Manchu. Go big or go home.” He stretches as he stands, and a strip of bare stomach is exposed beneath his shirt. Heat pulses through her, and she wonders if it’s possible for him to notice the way her entire body seemed to ripple. Hooking a thumb over his shoulder, he says he’s going to go brush his teeth.
Without Colin’s eyes on her, she feels free to look around a little. Not to dig in his drawers or look under his mattress, but to take a closer look at the pictures on his desk, the trophies on his shelves.
He’s won races and stunt contests. He snowboards, and from the looks of it, he used to play hockey. Ribbons and plaques line two shelves, and there are so many, she quickly stops trying to read each one.
On his desk there’s a picture of a small boy with a man who looks like she imagines Colin will in his thirties— thick, wild, dark hair and bright eyes. Scattered on his desk are papers and Post-its and a few pay stubs from what she assumes is the dining hall. Tucked under his keyboard and sticky with spilled soda is a picture of Colin at a school dance with a short brunette. His hands are on her hips. She’s leaning back into him, and they’re not just smiling tight, staged smiles. They’re laughing together.
A tight ball forms in her chest and expands into her throat. The way his hands rest on her hips is mesmerizing, as if she is firm and his and there. Lucy doesn’t know how his touch will ever feel normal to her and whether she’ll ever be able to be close to him the way she imagines this girl was.
The skin on the back of her neck burns warm when she feels him return to the room, and she quickly puts the picture back where it was. She thinks he notices, but he doesn’t say anything and neither does she. It’s too soon for the conversation of what they are, let alone who that girl was. Even so, Lucy can’t quite stop the jealous fire that licks at her insides at the image of Colin with someone else.
“I realize this is lame,” he says, “but I’m actually really tired.”
The clock reads two a.m. “God. Of course you are. Sorry . . .”
With a small smile, he climbs under the covers and pats the mattress next to him. Lucy climbs onto the foot of the bed, careful to stay on top of the comforter, and sits crosslegged facing him.
“You’re going to watch me?”
“Until you’re asleep and I can sneak a permanent marker from your desk.”
He smiles and curls onto his side. “Okay. ’Night, Lucy.”
Questions pulse in her mind in the blackness of the room, begging for answers. About her, about him. About why the universe sent her back here and why he seems to be the only thing that matters. “’Night, Colin.”
“Hey there, new girl.” Jay grins, pulling out a chair next to his and patting the seat. Colin ignores this, pulling a chair out for Lucy across the table from his friend. “Lucy, Jay. Her name is Lucy.”
“Lucy is a sweet name, but New Girl is better. It’s mysterious. You can be whoever you want to be.” Leaning forward, Jay gives Lucy his best smoldering smile. “Who do you want to be, New Girl?”
Lucy shrugs, thinking. She’d never considered this aspect of being new, and untethered, and unknown. Everything she’s done has been on instinct. She looks through the open doorway to the dining hall, where most students eat. All of the girls bleed together into a single, boring uniform.
“I play bass in an all-female band called the Raging Hussies, have a math fetish, and open beer bottles with my teeth.” She grins at him. “One of those is true.”