Freshmen Page 3

  I actually had no idea where Negin was. Would she be angry that we had gotten separated? I pointed vaguely out across the lake toward Jutland. “Over there somewhere.”

  “That’s a duck, Phoebe.” It started swimming toward us.

  “Look, it wants to be our friend.” I threw a bit of Twix into the water.

  “OK, fair enough.” Luke smirked. “It’s you, me, Stephanie Stevens, this girl Negin—whoever the hell she is—and that duck. That’s it for First Night. Any more friends is overkill.”

  “It’s weird, ’cause everyone says you don’t ever speak to the people you make friends with during orientation ever again, but I actually do really like Negin.”

  He held his mug up. “Thanks. Me and Stephanie and the duck haven’t made the cut. Whatever. We’ve got each other, anyway.”

  Luke was actually funnier than I imagined. And less confident. He was quite soft-spoken, it turned out. He stared down blankly at the water. “I wonder what will have happened between now and, like, three years’ time.” He said it like he’d almost forgotten I was there.

  “We’ll be twenty-one,” I said. “That feels so far away. What do you want to have happened?”

  He didn’t look up. “For everything to feel less complicated, I guess.”

  It was the first time he’d said something that wasn’t just banter. It was like his real voice came through. I didn’t know what to do. So I just stayed silent.

  He swung his feet underneath the bridge like a kid. “Shall we go and check on our First Night Friend?” He got up and held out his hand to me. “Try not to fall in.”

  Even as it happened, I simultaneously imagined describing it to Flora. It was the first time I had ever touched him. I took his hand but didn’t want to put my whole weight on him in case I ungracefully pulled him over and into the lake. We walked back into the dorm and up the stairs. In the kitchen, we washed our mugs carefully and put them back in the cupboard. Then we looked in on Stephanie Stevens like new parents checking on their baby in its crib. She was snoring so loudly her bookshelf was shaking.

  We wandered back over the bridge and along the walkway. Music was still blaring from the Jutland Bar, but the overhead lights were on now.

  We were walking side by side, and every so often our arms brushed. I could feel my heartbeat upping its rhythm. Even though my eighth-grade phase of stalking the hell out of Luke Taylor was just an embarrassing memory now, I still really, really fancied him. More than even Max and Adam, the two people I’d actually slept with. A part of me didn’t even have the guts to look at him, in case he could tell.

  We stopped outside the Jutland Bar. We were facing each other, and not far apart. My tummy flipped over a few times. We were in a classic kiss position.

  “See you tomorrow, then, yeah?” he said, and reached forward to give me a hug. It was just a quick, see-you-later, cursory one—the kind you would give someone you were going to see right after the next lesson. But it woke my whole body up.

  I wandered back to D Dorm in a bit of a daze. I kept replaying the hug in my head. I texted Flora, saying, LUKE TAYLOR BREAKING NEWS: EVERYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

  Negin’s door was closed but I could see her light was still on.

  I knocked gently. “It’s Phoebe,” I said softly. “Just checking you’re not dead.”

  “Not dead,” I heard her say. Then she opened the door in her pajamas and smiled. “Sorry I lost you. I was waiting up to check you weren’t dead, either.”

  The Jutland Bar looked like a bomb site. The lights had come up and people were staggering about, broken and sweaty and blinking at each other like ridiculously dressed moles. Five guys in ripped bedsheet togas were on the dance floor, punching the air to “Build Me Up Buttercup.” There was a girl wearing a full-length banana costume crying underneath the foosball table, while a girl in a Justin Bieber onesie comforted her. Two wasted guys were playing an aggressively competitive game above them, apparently unaware the girls were even there.

  I felt empty. Not in a stupid, over-the-top, dramatic way. Just sort of…numb. And exhausted. I tried to let the phrase “We are broken up” sink in properly, but it was like entering the wrong password. It wouldn’t compute. It felt unreal, somehow. The phone call and the computer room meltdown seemed like days ago. In a weird way, the whole thing with Phoebe and Stephanie Stevens had been the best part of the night. It had taken my mind off everything, at least. There was no way I should have been able to enjoy myself after what had happened, but Phoebe’s sunniness was infectious. She was just so easy to talk to.

  I couldn’t see Arthur or anyone else from my hall, so I headed back to B Dorm. Even though it was nearly two a.m., I didn’t feel like sleeping. I didn’t want to give my brain the chance to properly process what had happened. I heard the soft thud of music coming from Arthur’s room next door, so I tried knocking. His voice came through muffled: “Hang on….Who’s that?”

  “It’s Luke.”

  There was a pause. “All right…Come in, then. It’s open.”

  For a second, I thought I must have heard wrong, as there didn’t seem to be anyone inside. Over the music, I could hear a watery tinkling sound, like a burst pipe somewhere in the walls. But then, suddenly:

  “Where’d you get to, then?”

  From behind the open door of the sink cupboard, I spotted Arthur’s sneakers.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “Didn’t see you. You OK?”

  “Yeah, man. Nearly finished.”

  Before I could ask him what he was nearly finished doing, I suddenly realized what the watery tinkling was.

  “Sorry, are you…y’know? Peeing? In the sink?”

  “Yeah. Obviously. What do you think the sink’s for?”

  “Well…not for peeing in, I wouldn’t have thought.”

  “Look, mate, just ’cause we’re not rich enough to get an en suite bathroom, like those posh fucks up in Gildas, doesn’t mean we can’t improvise, if you know what I mean.”

  I saw the sneakers bob up and down, and the tinkling stopped. Arthur stepped out from the behind the door, grinning. His face was red and shiny, and he was wearing the Superman cape I’d started the night with.

  “All right! How—” He raised his forefinger, stopping himself midsentence. “Sorry, forgot to flush.”

  He reached back inside the cupboard and turned the taps on. My feelings about this must have been reflected pretty accurately in my facial expression, because he smirked and said, “Don’t you worry, my friend, you’ll be peeing in the sink in no time. I mean, the toilets in this dorm are literally at the end of the hallway.”

  He switched on his Xbox and pulled a little bag of weed out of his pants pocket. “I’ll have a cup of tea if you’re making one,” he said.

  I laughed. “All right.”

  “See if there’s any food in the kitchen as well,” he whispered. “My mum bought me fuck-all this year. Just ’cause I’m not a first year anymore, she apparently thinks I don’t need to eat.”

  “My mum got me ingredients, but no actual food,” I said. “I’ve got, like, flour and salt and olive oil, but nothing I can actually eat.”

  Arthur raised an eyebrow mischievously. “We could always break out Barney’s Nutella….I’m sure he won’t mind if we have a tiny bit….”

  Three spliffs and ten slices of chocolaty toast later, we were lying nearly comatose on the floor. Arthur scooped out the last splotch of Nutella and examined the now-empty jar.

  “They shouldn’t make this stuff so fucking delicious,” he groaned. “Having something this delicious is clearly going to cause problems within a communal living space. It’s fucking irresponsible is what it is.”

  “What we gonna do?” I mumbled stickily.

  He yanked open his bedside drawer
and pulled out a Sharpie. “Fuck, I’ve only got a black one. If I had a brown one, we could just color the jar in, and he’d never know the difference.”

  “Until he decided to actually eat some,” I said. “Which we’ve got to assume he will do at some point.”

  Arthur shrugged and chucked the jar back at me. “Just dispose of the evidence. He can’t prove it was us, can he?”

  I went out into the kitchen, but just then Beth’s door opened and Barney stepped out, wearing what was presumably Beth’s T-shirt, since it said LANCASTER GIRLS HOCKEY and stretched all the way down to his knees. Beth poked her slightly disheveled head out behind him, and the three of us just stood there, staring awkwardly at each other.

  And then Barney said, “Is that my Nutella?”

  After I’d apologized and promised to buy him a new jar in the morning, I went back to Arthur’s to find him snoring loudly on the floor. I switched off the Xbox and headed back to my own room.

  I lay down on the bed, surrounded by unopened suitcases and untouched Ikea bags, and stared at the dirty yellow ceiling. My phone had run out of batteries, and I decided, for once, to leave it that way.

  I feel like how cool you are is in your DNA. Cool people naturally sleep until their sleep is interrupted—it’s the mark of the effortlessly rock ’n’ roll. I wake up at seven most days. Maybe earlier, if I’ve been drinking.

  I forgot where I was for a second, and reached over to push the thin brown curtain to the side and look out of the rickety window. It felt weird. I wasn’t on vacation. I actually lived in this strange little room now, hundreds of miles away from home. Across the road was a little village green and an old church with some ducks waddling about, like a card you would buy for an old person you don’t know very well. A postcard of quiet English countryside life, but with a few thousand teenagers living stage left.

  I sat up in bed and scrolled through pictures of last night. Flora had posted one that looked like some arty album cover. She was sitting on the steps of some grand building in Leeds, wearing a ball gown, battered-up sneakers and a feather boa. Her bright bleach-blond bob lit up the black-and-white picture, all moody and messed up. On one side of her was a girl wearing a black dress with a slit and a Breakfast at Tiffany’s tiara, and on the other, a boy in a disheveled tux. She had just captioned it “ball.” She felt far away. With people I had never met, in a place I had never been, wearing a dress I had never seen before. It scared me a bit. Like she was slipping away from me. Even two weeks ago, if I had spent the evening with Luke Taylor, I would have literally banged her door down at 2 a.m. to tell her about it.

  She still hadn’t read my message from last night, so I started composing a long, rambling essay about what had gone on:

  Luke Taylor TOUCHED me He is so hot I wanna die…We drank tea, I think he actually is THE ONE. He used to FLAMENCO dance He is actually funny, oh my god, he cried…Luke Taylor CRIED

  Then I realized the cry emoji made me a terrible person, so in the end I just deleted everything and wrote, “WAKE UP, CALL ME.” What would make Luke Taylor cry? Who would make Luke Taylor cry? Luke Taylor crying. Luke Taylor crying had made him hotter. Sensitive, intense, troubled and achingly enigmatic.

  Last night had kind of recast him as the lead in my daydreams. In a non-weird-stalker way. With a bit of weird stalker thrown in. I wonder if boys ever lie back and daydream scenarios about girls. I wonder, if they were projected onto a screen, would they look the same as ours? It is a bit messed up that I’ve been dreaming about Luke Taylor for all these years but never actually considered what he is really like. Him crying and speaking and making tea and being a real person had given me a lot of material.

  Not that I’ve needed material in the past, obviously. He just morphs into whatever I feel like him being at the time. In sixth grade, when I was on the soccer team, I always imagined us going to soccer camp together. Later it was seeing him at a gig, and then it was him joining Model UN and us both representing Swaziland or whatever. He’s like the face of the life I want, whatever that is at the time.

  No wonder I’ve never been in love—I’m too busy daydreaming about it.

  I got dressed and wandered out into the unknown. I felt like a grown-up; in charge and independently up and off to buy food.

  The whole campus was deserted. I couldn’t see one single person and it was kind of scary, but turning back felt silly and defeatist. I walked along the path, following the signs, trying to work out the way to the store. It was zombie-movie freaky, being in this concrete jungle, totally alone, but knowing there were actually hundreds of people sleeping in buildings all around.

  The store was closed, which felt anticlimactic. It was cold, even in my new duffle coat. And I was hungry. And then I couldn’t remember which way I had walked. Or where Jutland was. I went back to the lake and tried to decide which way to go.

  And then, out of one of the towering gray walls, a door swung open and a boy walked out.

  So, it was me and this random boy in the postapocalyptic York Met University. The boy looked back at the doors he had come out of as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was or how he had gotten there. I realized I was staring at him. And then I realized I recognized him. He was wearing the Princess Diana T-shirt Negin had on last night, but it had various liquid stains and a footprint on it now.

  “Phoebe!” Josh said, and hugged me. “You look lost.”

  “And you look cold. I am lost, actually. No one in my suite is awake and I thought I would go and buy some food.” I sounded so square. I hadn’t gotten shitfaced and woken up in a rando’s bed. I purposely stopped myself looking behind him to the door he had come out of. “But the store is still closed and now I have absolutely no idea how I even got here.”

  “And just like that your RA appears, like a genie, to save the day.” He looked like the hero in a Thomas Hardy novel. Tanned and solid and kind of open and honest looking. He had soft blue eyes that seemed out of place under his shaved head. He bowed ever so slightly. “You summoned me?”

  “Yes. Clearly you are sneaking about campus in last night’s clothes because I summoned you.”

  “I’m not sneaking,” he said. “I don’t sneak.” He laughed like a kid who has done something naughty, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes and groaned. “I have to go to work.”

  “What? Now? It’s eight-forty-five.”

  “Not till eleven, but still.” He yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “I’m starving. Come on, I know where we can buy food.”

  We walked across the bridge I’d sat on with Luke. A duck quacked at Josh and he waddled after it, quacking back. A woman passed wearing a bright-red suit and matching heels. She smiled. “Josh, it’s still late. Today is the last day. Last day.”

  “Avril, that’s why I’m up so early. I’m going to the library to do it right now.”

  “The library is over there.” She pointed in the opposite direction.

  “I’ve got to eat, Avril. Even boys with late essays have to eat.”

  She shook her head but carried on walking, smiling to herself.

  “She’s the lady who works in the English office. She’s, like, my best friend, Avril. She’s who you have to talk to if you are gonna hand something in late.”

  “Sweet-talk, you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not even that subtle—I literally bring her cakes from my work and lay them out and am, like, ‘Avril, here are some cakes, save me.’ ”

  “Smooooth.”

  “Not the only one, am I?” He put his arm around my shoulder. “So you and Will looked friendly last night.” His eyes twinkled.

  “Yeah, he’s really nice.” And also really hot. I should have messaged Flora about that, too. The Luke Taylor interlude had knocked it to the back of my brain. Josh carried on smiling at me. “Stop. You’
re making me embarrassed. He’s really nice.” I had already said that. Oh god.

  We came out into a little village square. We went into the store and Josh picked up a basket, his goosebumps calming as he hit the warm air. “Shall we make breakfast for everyone?” he said. “I feel like that’s what a good RA would do.”

  I nodded. We got hot chocolate to warm Josh up, and milk and eggs, and then Josh put confectioners’ sugar and sprinkles into the basket. “Are you gonna bake them a cake for breakfast?” I asked. “I thought you had to work….”

  “Trust me,” he said. “I have four younger sisters. I know how to do a good breakfast picnic.”

  D Dorm was still quiet when we got back. Josh took out a bowl and started mixing the icing. “Do you think I can use this frying pan?”

  “Yeah, it’s mine. What are you making?”

  Connor walked in as Josh cracked an egg. Connor was not concerned about appropriate dorm attire. He was wearing fleece shorts and a T-shirt that said LET’S GET MESSY. He walked straight into the wall before ricocheting down on a chair.

  “Do you want a cup of tea?” I asked.

  He laid his head on the table and groaned a kind-of yes, then Liberty walked in wearing a silk romper and fuzzy knee-high socks.

  “Are you cooking?” she said.

  Josh nodded. Connor laughed into the table. “The way you say ‘cooking.’ Coooo-king.”

  Liberty had the strongest Liverpudlian accent I had ever heard. “Coooo-king. Coooo-king.” She said it loudly in Connor’s ear and sat down next to him.

  I started buttering a big pile of bread. Josh picked up the bowl of icing mixture.

  “What are you doing?” I looked over his shoulder. “Are you gonna ice the egg sandwiches?”

  “That looks disgusting,” Liberty said.

  “ ‘Dis-gust-in,’ ” Connor mimicked, and she kicked him gently.

  “When it comes to new experiences, you need to get over what’s in your head and just let your heart lead you.” Josh shoveled an egg onto a piece of bread and sandwiched it.