8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Lou

Saturday mornings are not my thing.

Actually, that’s completely inaccurate. Saturday mornings are totally my thing – who doesn’t love sleeping in after a long week of morning classes? – however, when my Saturday morning starts with a grumpy roommate and a looming ten-page paper, it quickly becomes not my thing.

Even though Stella told Cody they were good, in her mind, they most certainly are not. I know because she told me in those exact word, many, many times on the drive home and now again over breakfast.

“The nerve of that guy. Doesn’t he realize we live in the 21st century and you can’t throw people over your shoulder like some sort of caveman? I may have told him we’re good, but in my mind, we most certainly are not.” I mentally add another tally to the Hating Cody scoreboard. If Stella keeps this up, we’ll hit rant fifteen by lunchtime without breaking a sweat.

I poke at my breakfast mac n’ cheese and try to think of a response I haven’t said yet.

“Totally ridiculous.” Hmm, that one sounds familiar. I may have used that line while we were brushing our teeth this morning.

“Right?! God, he makes me so mad…” My phone buzzes on the table and I swiftly grab it. I’ve been waiting for this call all week.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this, it’s my dad. Meet you back at the dorm?” Stella waves me away with a flick of her protein shake.

“No rush. Say hi to your father for me.” I shoot her a smile, snatching up my bag and pressing accept on the FaceTime call as I head to the courtyard.

“Hi sweetie,” My dad’s smiling face fills the screen. “How’s my favourite university student?” I shake my head with a smile.

“Dad. We both know I’m the only university student you know.”

“Ah but that doesn’t mean you’re my favourite, now does it.” I can’t help but groan. Some things never change.

“Enough joking around, I want to hear about everything. Tell me about your roommate. About the disastrous state of your bathroom. Everything.” Laughing, I answer each of his questions.

Due to the nature of his new job, I don’t get to see my dad as much as I used to. He’s an ecologist, so he gets paid to study the relationships between organisms and their environment. Last spring, he got a promotion to be one of the scientists who travel around Canada, conducting research on various ecosystems. The opportunity, not to mention the extra salary, made the decision to accept an easy one. Sadly, it also means the time my mother and I get to spend with him is cut in half.

“Anyways, how are you doing? What’s Yukon like?” Another bonus of this promotion is I get to hear about every corner of Canada. Most of the time our calls end with me adding locations to my vacation bucket list, other times I am putting them on my don’t-step-off-the-plane list. The trick is to have balance.

“Yukon is amazing; you would love it here. I get to see the northern lights every night, and nature stretches as far as the eye can see.” I sigh at the image, and suddenly my father’s voice drops into a serious tone.

“But let’s not talk about work, are you really doing alright, Lou Bear?”

High school may have taken years off my social development, but I swear it took even more years off my parents’ stress-producing organs. The sad part was there was nothing my parents could do to help me make friends, just like there was nothing I could do to reduce the worry my parents carried day-in and day-out.

No one enjoys being the social outcast, but when your own parents are aware of the struggle it makes it so much worse. The stress sinks on both parties as I feel guilty for not being normal while my parents feel guilty for not being able to help. It’s the ultimate lose-lose situation.

“I’m doing well, dad. I really am. Besides Stella, I’ve managed to make a couple of other friends too. University is different from high school; no one cares about cliques or popularity anymore. It’s as though the social hierarchy has finally flattened out.” I see relief relax the lines around his eyes.

“I am so happy to hear that. And I want you to know, I am proud of you. You’ve really put yourself out there and already you are doing so much better than last year. Now, I hate to say goodbye Lou Bear, but I’ve got an incoming call from one of our shareholders. Let’s try and talk again soon, okay? Miss you!”

“Miss you too,” the words barely leave my lips before the call ends. And just like that, my dad disappears for another few weeks.

I love catching up with my old man, but the yearning to see him is always so much worse after we talk. I know from experience that the homesickness (dad sickness?) eventually fades, but right now my heart feels too heavy for my chest.

Closing my eyes, I take a moment to breath in the tranquility of the courtyard. About three breaths in my Zen gets broken when my phone chirps with an incoming message. I grin, thinking it’s my dad forgetting to tell me about some new insect he has discovered, but when I glance down at my screen it’s not his name flashing up at me.

WES: How’s that paper coming along?

Laughter bubbles up in my chest. I don’t know how he does it, but Wes has impeccable timing when it comes to lifting my spirits.

ME: Finishing up the conclusion as we speak.

WES: I can smell the lie from here.

Laughter spills out of my mouth because he’s caught me: I haven’t thought up a topic for my paper, let alone started the writing process. When it comes to procrastination, I am the master of all masters. Not that he needs to know that.

ME: I’m serious. Operant conditioning has never been more interesting.

Typing bubbles fill my screen instantly.

Wes: Not even I can make operant conditioning interesting. Send evidence.

ME: Sorry, I’m not a pic sending type of girl.

I smile victoriously. He set himself up for that one.

My phone dings again, dragging my attention downward. I open the message, gasp, and hurl my phone across the cobblestone path. Instantly realizing my mistake, I scramble towards the flower bed my phone flew towards.

Cursing my stupidness, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see my device uncracked and safely waiting for me in a pile of dirt. Carefully brushing off the screen, I re-open the last message Wes sent me. It’s a picture, one I barely looked at other than to register skin was showing and throwing it away in panic.

Why my immediate thought was AHH NUDES! I do not know. Especially considering the message is from a friend. An annoyingly attractive friend who uses dimples to his advantage but still. A friend.

Blowing the photo up, turns out Wes didn’t send me nudes at all. Shocker.

Instead, the photo is a solid PG shot of his ten-page report lying mockingly on his bare chest. The only reason I know his chest is bare is because the tiniest bit of shoulder pops out the righthand corner. So basically, I decided to shotput my phone over Wes’ ten-page psychology paper.

As one does.

I type back a responseand put my phone away. With a heavy sigh, I take one last glance around my personal Eden and start walking back to the dorms.

Those ten pages aren’t going to write themselves.

Wes

Nerd.

“Uh oh. Someone’s got a crush.” Nico’s voice pulls my attention away from my phone screen. I look up and smirk, “Mrs. Montez and I blew by the crush stage years ago.”

My best friend rolls his eyes. “Not even my mother puts a grin that big on your face.”

Busted.

The curse of a childhood friend is they always know when something’s up. In the twelve years we’ve grown together, I have never once gotten anything by Nico. He sees right through my charades, from the time I lied about stealing his last cookie in fourth grade to the reasoning behind my prom date last year; no matter what I show the outside world, Nico always sees beneath the surface.

“Let me guess,” He taps his chin thoughtfully, “This girl’s name may or may not rhyme with Slip.”

See what I mean?

I sigh with defeat, “You may be on to something.”

Pumping his fist in victory, Nico draws looks from the other benchwarmers lining the sidelines. I lean forward, making eye contact with one of the sophomores, and give him a big thumbs up so he knows the crazy comes in a duo.

Never abandon a brother. It’s part of our bro code.

Nico shifts his attention back to the skill demonstration the seniors are putting on and bumps my shoulder. “So, what’s the deal? I’ve never seen you gush over text messages before.”

I scoff, “Smiling at a comment does not qualify as gushing, thank you very much.” I pause for a moment, taking the time to admire a backwards pass Cody just pulled off. The guy’s got moves.

“I don’t know, man. Trip and I are… friends, but it’s like half the time I don’t think she even likes me while the other half just clicks. Like on a different level.” I hesitate before adding, “And we almost kissed in the courtyard the other day.”

There’s no point in me holding back information because Nico is bound to find out eventually. He’s got perceptive powers that could rival Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth: the more you resist, the more it hurts.

Think friendly intervention with a side of emotional torment.

“So, what I’m hearing is you’re insecure about where you stand in this friendship and are unsure whether you want this connection to stay friendly or become something more.” And just like that, Nico takes the jumble in my brain and lays it all out on the table in a clear, orderly fashion.

Lasso of truth, I’m telling you.

“Pretty much. Where does that leave me?” Nico takes a moment to cheer for the goalie’s save. Not sure which side we’re supposed to be cheering for, so we’re keeping the enthusiasm equal.

“That depends on you, Wes. Where do you want this to go?” Talking in riddles is all fun and games until you’re the one in the hot seat. Then suddenly those answer-questions don’t seem so fun anymore.

Luke, my man, I am so sorry. Dealing with Yoda must have been a bitch.

Taking my silence as confusion, Nico does his best to clarify, “What I’m trying to ask here is: are you happy being friends with Trip or do you want more?”

“That’s the whole issue. We were solid buddies until the courtyard situation and now I’m feeling all these things I shouldn’t be feeling and noticing all these things I shouldn’t be noticing.”

“An example being…”

“The shampoo she uses.” Nico takes his eyes off the field to stare at me.

“The shampoo she uses?”

I shake my head impatiently, “That’s what I just said. Every time I’m close to Trip all I can smell is this amazing coconut vanilla combo. It messes with my head.”

Nico’s lips start to twitch and I can tell he’s struggling to keep a straight face. “Right, of course. So, Trip buys nice shampoo. Anything else?”

“Well, when we were at the club the other night, I kind of… well, I wouldn’t say kind of, it was more of a fleeting feeling…” I trail off, suddenly nervous about voicing it out loud. Is it normal to be scared of an emotion?

“Come on, Wes. It can’t be worse than fangirling over hair product.”

He’s right yet so wrong. This one feels worse so much worse.

“IkindofgotjealouswhenHunterlookedatTrip.” In one breath, I push the terrifying truth past my lips as fast as humanly possible.

“I can’t tell if that was one long word or an entire paragraph thrown together. Let’s try that again, but this time slowly.”

Fuck, this is painful. Pretty sure I can feel emotional bruises forming.

“When Hunter checked out Trip at the club, before making a move on Stella, I felt uh… uncomfortable.”

Nico blinks, “By uncomfortable, do you mean jealous?”

The agony. Make it stop.

“Fine. Yes, I was jealous. But it didn’t last longer than this,” I snap my fingers in front of his face.

“But it was there?” Any sign of mirth disappears from his dark eyes as they intently scan mine. It feels like he’s cataloguing every micro expression crossing my face.

“It was there.” I hang my head in defeat as Nico slaps my back in glee.

“Your first adult crush. Congratulations my boy.”

“Very funny. Thank you for the therapy session.” The beaming smile across Nico’s face doesn’t waver as he gives my arm a supportive squeeze.

“Hey, you know I’m joking. Honestly, try not to overthink this thing with Trip. Put in the effort to hangout more, just the two of you, and see how things go. What’s the worst that can happen?” The man’s got a point. I’ve already turned into a babbling fool from one almost-kiss, so my pride and dignity are no longer a consideration.

“Yeah, thanks man.” Cody signals for Nico to switch out with the senior goalie, so he gives me one last pat on the back before running onto the field.

I shuffle down the bench, thinking over Nico’s advice.

As far as suggestions go, his hangout idea is a pretty good one. In theory, the more time I spend with Trip, the less power her coconut vanilla spell will have over me. Like alcohol or caffeine, I’m going to build my Trip tolerance, so soon those misty grey eyes and full bottom lip will be a decaffeinated, distant memory. Brilliant, right?

Shit. I need to get laid.