#ghostlysquash0

It was one of those heavy, gray mornings and today marked the 3rd day of my junior year. Technically, it's only my 2nd year of college, but I treated high school like it was a competition. College rewarded me with debt despite the scholarships and exhausting 8ams for my dedications. Thea was still asleep when I woke up, curled into her blankets like a snug little bug. Her soft snores floated across the room, and I'm sure they were teasing me. She had stayed out late with her on-again off-again boyfriend and his best friend - the same usual mess. I liked Thea's boyfriend, but his friends, I only saw them briefly in the living room when I came out of my room for a glass of water.  Male. Loud as hell. High as fuck. The kind that makes you roll your eyes.

I slipped on a hoodie, leggings, and my perpetually dirty Converse. The rain outside had ruined my energy right away, so I braided my hair, brushed my teeth, grabbed a granola bar, and accepted that was all I could manage today. My ecology lab was uphill and my calves were already protesting the thought.

This lab class is smaller than I imagined, and it smells of faint chemicals and is cold. There are random wet specimens and other odd findings like every science lab ever. It was smaller than I expected, and there were only two empty seats at a station near the back. Perfect. Next to a window to look out to pass time as well. I don’t consider myself to be a social butterfly in any way, shape, or form, so, it calmed my nerves a bit that I was safe from that for now. I was not even paying attention to the professor, who had stood up and began introducing himself. He had a huge mustard stain on his collared shirt. I looked out the window. I had my headphones in, mind floating away while listening to a soft, hazy Yung Lean song. The music helped to soften the edges of the gloomy morning. I decided to take them out, maybe out of a bit of guilt for ignoring the professor. Or instinct. 

“-and if you don’t have a partner for this lab, feel free to do it yourself or join another group. Let me know if you have any questions, get to it!” 

I look to my right, empty. I did this lab in high school. This was borrowed from the same website the baseball coach found after being forced to teach 12th grade biology, so it's fine, I guess that I'm alone. This way, I can just listen to music and get it over with, easy 100 on day one. I could even finish early and go home.

I am halfway done with the assignment when I see movement in my peripheral vision that caught my attention. Someone stood in the doorway talking to the professor. I glance up, not enough to stare, but just to peek. A guy, with sleepy, hooded eyes and baggy clothes who looks oddly familiar. I peek up again and immediately regret it.

Both of them are staring dead at me. I quickly look away. What the hell, did they catch me staring? My cheeks heated instantly. I slink into my chair a little deeper like it would make me disappear. 

The chair next to me makes a loud screeching noise I can hear over my music, loud enough to slice into the bass of the song I was listening to. The chair bumps into mine as he sits down. Before I could look over at him, a hand brushed against my face briefly and yanked my earbud free, letting the minimal chatter of my peers enter my eardrum without my permission. 

“Hey partner,” the boy next to me says. 

Oh great. It’s Ian. Up close he looked like he had a rough night, hood half up resting on his hat, eyes hooded and heavy. “Oh, hey I know you, you are Thea’s roommate ain't you?” 

“Why did you pull my earbud out?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. He laughs under his breath and shakes his head. “Had to get your attention somehow right?” I ignore that remark, but barely. My ears burned. 

“To answer your question, yes I am Thea’s roommate. You are Ian, right?” He maintains eye contact with me, casually leaning back in his chair, like he had all the time in the world. The pressure to maintain eye contact creeps up my neck, but I look away. His confidence is giving me a stomach ache. 

“In the flesh. What we workin on, partner?” He leans closer, peering over my shoulder, close enough to feel his breath hit my ear when he speaks. My own breath caught.I turned to look at him, realizing how closely our faces were, and turned back to focus on the paper. The smell radiating off of him was driving me crazy. It was almost like a woodsy, bourbon scent with a hint of weed on top. I hate that I noticed that. I scoff, I could see he had a shit-eating grin out of the corner of my eye, almost like he knows he intimidates me.

Ok I’ll admit, maybe I would come out of my room more than needed to sneak little peaks at him when he would smoke with Thea and her boyfriend. I never talked to him. I barely even looked at him. But I noticed him. More than I should’ve. It’s not a crush, just a mild interest is all. The one where you have to tell yourself to get a grip, which is what I'm doing right now.

“It’s a lab about the microorganisms found in pond scum,” I said, fidgeting with my pencil, “ I have the assignment almost done already. I did it already in highschool so it's pretty easy, so you don't have to help at all unless you want to. It’s mainly just cyanobacteria that I can see but you can look if you-”

“Ima cut you off right there,” he says, stretching, “I had a late night so I am gonna catch some shut eye since you got this down”

Okay. Rude. I kept working, but I couldn’t help that my eyes kept drifting back to him.. His outfit, baggy, but stylish, his backwards fitted cap covered his fluffy light brown hair that slightly spilled out the sides. His eyelids were low, but when they opened- 

“Were you, staring at me?” I look away. I tuck the hair falling out of my braid behind my ear, trying to play it cool. He looks at me like he can see right through me. 

I blurted, “You weren’t moving, had to make sure you were still alive, is all.” He lowers his eyes, and scoffs quietly. 

“Right, lab partner, sure you weren’t.”

“I have a name, you know.” I say, avoiding eye contact and looking back into the microscope at the familiar, fuzzy algae. I am not usually this brave, but I like being a shithead sometimes. I do it to my mama when she asks me if I can grab her a snack from the gas station, and I say we got food at home. And then silently chuckle to myself, amusing no one but myself. It brings me joy. Anyways. 

He doesn’t miss a beat. “I know you have a name, Liliana.” The way my name rolled off his tongue made my entire body go warm, he said it so deliberately and smoothly. I didn't correct him, that no one except my mother when she's mad at me calls me that. It sounded so different coming out of his mouth. 

“Wasn’t so hard, hm?” I muttered.

“I guess not.” 

We didn’t talk for the rest of class. I wrote his name on the handout after I finished, packed up, and walked home, ignoring my heart that was still beating out of my chest.

⟡₊ ⊹ . ✦ . ⊹ ₊⟡

Work was slow, the boring slow where the clock seemed to tick backward. I was tagging clothes, zoning out to my playlist but every time my mind drifted, it drifted right back to class today. How embarrassingly awkward I was talking to Ian. The way he said my name, like he was practicing it, even though just before that he immediately dismissed me like I was nothing. I don't know why I care. Or why I can't stop thinking about our interaction. 

I tried focusing on the music, the same playlist I always used when I needed to shut my brain off. Some cloud rap, some Yung Lean, and a lot of underground stuff, which I've been listening to since middle school. The kind of music that made me want to make something of my own.

I've been messing around with making beats for months now. Nothing serious, just something that made my brain feel less heavy. Something that made me feel like I had a little world of my own to escape into.

But today, even the playlist wasn’t working. Every time a song faded out, my mind drifted right back to class. Right back to him.

I hung a sweater that smelled of moth balls on the rack and sighed. My shift couldn't end sooner. 

By the time I closed the store, my feet hurt, my head hurt, and all I wanted was to go home and shower. The rain had finally stopped, but the air was still heavy as I walked home. I kept my headphones in, letting the music drown out the events of the day. 

When I reached my apartment door, I paused. Voices floated through the thin, wooden door. I wasn’t expecting company, assuming Thea invited some friends over and forgot to tell me. 

And then, I heard my name. They were talking about me? I paused, hand on the doorknob, and ear to the door. A neighbor walks by, giving me a weird look. I grimace, and awkwardly wave with my ear still attached to the door.

“Speaking of, my roommate should be home soon, by the way.”

“Oh yeah? What’s she like? Is she cute?” A voice I only recognize as masculine rings through the door. 

A beat passes. And that's when I hear him.

“Shes my lab partner, she ain't nothing special. She's…boring.” The word hit me like a slap to the face. 

“Boring how?”

“I don’t know. Quiet. She’s gonna get all our work done though, get me an A in the class. That's all that really matters, right?” I feel so stupid for thinking that he could see me as anything other than a convenient grade.

My chest tightens. Then I hear Thea, the sharpness radiating through her voice.

“Shut up, Ian. You don’t know anything about her. You don't get to talk about her like that in her own home.”  Someone let out a low whistle. As they should.

My throat burned. I opened the door to my apartment before my legs gave out in the hallway.

The living room was bright, filled with people sprawled on the floor and the couch. Thea was curled up into her boyfriend’s side. My eyes found Ian, sat on the arm of the couch with his hood up like he belonged there. 

Everyone looked up when I entered. Silence. Thea’s smile faltered, just enough to tell me that she knew I heard everything. 

“Hey Lils, how was your day?” She said softly. “We are just hanging out, probably going to watch a movie you want to join? There's room on the couch next to me.”

I forced a weak smile, one I knew she would see right through. 

“I’m okay. Thanks though. It's been a long day, just gonna grab a shower and head to bed.” I could still feel everyone's eyes on me, but Ian’s burned the most. Ian looked away before anyone else did, taking a long hit off of the blunt they were passing around. 

I turned and headed down the hall to my room, and quietly shut the door behind me, letting the silence swallow me whole. 

one hour later

The shower was the first time all day my body didn’t feel like it was made of static. The water was almost too hot, hitting my shoulders hard enough to sting, but I needed it. I needed something to drown out the tightness in my chest from earlier. It was hazy in the bathroom, the air was perfectly warm for me to relax. My little Bluetooth speaker sat on the counter, playing just loud enough to hear over the water. Not loud enough for the living room. I didn’t want to interrupt Thea’s hangout, or worse, draw attention to myself. I just needed something familiar. Something comforting.

A smokedope2016 track came on, one of my favorites. The kind of dreamy beat that made my brain loosen its grip on the day. I hummed along at first, then quietly sang the lyrics under my breath. Not performing. Letting the music fill the parts of me that felt hollow.

I closed my eyes and let the conditioner rinse from my hair, letting the song wrap around me like a blanket.

I didn’t know that in the hallway, someone had stopped walking.

Out in the hallway, Ian excused himself to go to the bathroom, specifically Thea’s bathroom at the end of the hall. He walked by my door, and froze, dead in his tracks.

He heard it.

His own voice, coming from behind the door that Liliana was showering right behind. 

He stood there a second, heartbeat suddenly getting louder in his ears.

For the first time all day, the act dropped, and he didn’t know what to do.

⟡₊ ⊹ . ✦ . ⊹ ₊⟡