As I was walking to the front door, I noticed a group of crickets scatter away from the door inside the apartment.  I squealed and jumped backwards before I knew what they were.  Why were there so many of them in my apartment? I noticed the early morning sun streaming in through a sliver of a crack under the door.  I swore to myself.  The reason the crickets sounded so close to me last night was because they had come under the door into the apartment.  I figured they were just sitting outside my bedroom window as I was trying to sleep.  

I used my dustpan to chase a few of the crickets back toward the front door.  Some of them had disappeared under my couch.  Others were chirping from hidden crevasses in the apartment I had yet to discover.  I growled as I heard one chirp that sounded like it was in my ear, but I couldn't find it anywhere around me.  I checked my watch.  I was going to be late for work.  I opened the front door to shoo out the few crickets I could direct out of the apartment.  On my front stoop was a small bag.  The smell of warm shit filled my nostrils and began to crawl into my apartment, mixed from the humidity already clouding up the atmosphere outside.

"What the-"

I didn't have time or patience to decipher whether the dog crap was an insult directed toward me or just a rude, lazy neighbor who couldn't make it to his own trashcan.  I glanced out into the quad to see if anyone was out with their dog.  The quad was quiet.  Still asleep.  I slung my purse over my shoulder and switched my lunchbox to my left hand.  In my right hand, I pinched the very tip of the bag between my pointer finger and my thumb and quickly made my way to the trashcan along the sidewalk.  I threw the bag into the can and shivered, the smell of warm shit still lingering in the dense air.

"Early shift this morning?"

I nearly leapt out of my skin as someone approached from behind me.  I whipped around, my purse swinging with my body and slapping against my butt as I did.  It was Wilson.  He was in uniform and looked like he was returning from a night shift.

"Or are you just returning home?" He asked.

It was too early for me to be dealing with him.

"Heading out," I said.  "First day."

"Yippie-ki-yay!  Good luck, even though I'm sure you'll be outstand-erific," he said, winking at me. "Maybe later tonight we can do that dinner date.  Early birthday dinner?  I know your birthday isn't until tomorrow but I just found out I've got a 16-hour shift tomorrow and I'm not sure I'll be able to take you out on that day.  I'm covering for a buddy."

"You know, Wilson, I really just need to stay home and do some more getting settle-" I started, trying to weasel my way out of this "date."

"Oh come on, Leah.  One dinner date.  Maybe more after that, but only if you fall in love with me first."  He snatched my free hand that previously held the poop-bag and kissed it.

I pulled my hand away and fake smiled.  "One meal," I agreed, eager to get going.  I refused to call it a "date."

"Magnificent," Wilson said, raising his arms to the heavens as if God himself had granted Wilson the permission to take me out. "I will pick you up around 7.  Does that work?"

Just then, Harry sauntered into the quad wearing nothing but shorts and tennis shoes.  He had a t-shirt draped around his neck and was using it to wipe the sweat from his forehead.  His hair was sticking straight up into the air.  His chest glistened with more sweat.  I caught myself before my jaw dropped too noticeably.  Harry's eyes met mine and he winked at me, smiling.

"Leah? Dinner tonight at 7?" Wilson asked again.

"What?" I asked, snapping back to reality. Harry was walking past us.  I wished Wilson would shut up and leave. "Yeah, that's great.  See you later-" I said, turning and following Harry.  I called his name before he entered his apartment.  He turned and smiled at me again.  

"Lee." He wiped his forehead with his t-shirt.  The full-frontal view of his bare torso finally gave me a look at the ink that covered every inch of his skin.  Each piece of art came to life as his lungs expanded with each deep breath he took.

"Leah," I corrected him, laughing as though it didn't really hurt me that he couldn't seem to remember my name.  ""Like, Lee-uh. Lee-uh," I repeated.  I sounded like an idiot. "How are you?"

"Great," Harry said.  "Nothing like an early morning run."

I faked a laugh. "Yeah."

"Do you run?" Harry asked.

"Not if I can help it," I answered honestly, chuckling to myself.  Harry raised his eyebrows and nodded, the look on his face indifferent to whether I really ran or not.  There was a glimmer in his eye that made it look like he was almost laughing at me internally or just really enjoying the conversation.  One of those, or he just was being overly polite and wanted to go shower off the sweat that was flowing gently over his toned torso. "I mean," I said.  "I should probably start..."

"Not a bad habit to pick up," he said, wiping just below his messy hair with his t-shirt one more time. "I can see how it's not for everyone though.  You headed to work?" He looked me up and down in my lavender scrubs and smiled as though I was a four-year-old child dressed up for the job I wanted in the future.  To be fair, that's about how I felt.  I couldn't believe I was about to have my own adult job.

I nodded slowly, enjoying the way the words rolled off his tongue and dripped off of his lips before I snapped out of my trance and shot a look at my watch.  "Oh shit- I'm actually going to be late."

"Good luck-"  Harry said, turning and using a key to open his front door as I sprinted across the quad, holding my purse tightly to my hip.  I slid to a halt with a sudden courage to ask:

"Harry, are you doing anything later tonight?"

He had disappeared into his doorway but the door was not yet closed.  He reemerged and shrugged.  "I'm not," he called to me. "Sounded like you made plans with Wilson, though."

The hopeful smile that had spread across my face disappeared as quickly as it came.  "Oh, yes.  I forgot."

Harry smiled and shook his head. "Maybe another time, Lee.  Get to work."

"Leah," I corrected him once more.  

He merely laughed and closed his front door.

I was tense arriving to work because I was a few minutes late.  I rushed into the main foyer of Sunshine Days Nursing Home and nearly slammed into the front desk.

"Leah Fitzpatrick here for work.  It's my first day."

The middle-aged, overweight receptionist was wearing some Winnie-the-Pooh scrubs, though the way she had snacks and drinks and cheap romance novels scattered all over the desk made it seem that she didn't actually work with any of the patients personally.  The only spills her scrubs were catching were from her 64oz mega-drink soft drink cup she'd picked up from a truck stop and the ketchup swirled onto a half-eaten pizza that was laying in the empty receptionist chair beside her.  She peered over her glasses at me.  I found it hard to meet her eyes since so much dead skin and eye goop had congealed in the corners of her glasses where the bargain-brand frames met the bridge of her pale nose.  Her red, short, curly hair matched the cheap red lipstick that had found its way to her front teeth.

"You're late," she said.

"I just got a little held up at home.  My new apartment... the bolt lock was giving me problems," I lied.

I could tell the receptionist wasn't buying it.  She cocked her head at me and looked at me.  I was almost waiting for her to say, "Mhmm.  Really?" I was relieved when she didn't.

"There are people here who work a night shift and it's really fucking tiring.  Have you ever worked a night shift?" She snapped.

I shook my head.

"It's really fucking tiring.  People are going to be mad if you refuse to get here on time.  They want to sleep.  Don't you like your sleep?"

I nodded.

"Then get here on time. It's really fucking tiring to work a night shift."

"Okay..." I said.  "I got it."

The receptionist sat back in her comfortable swivel-chair and placed a fat hand on her chest like she'd been personally attacked. "If you're going to have a problem with coming to work on time you may as well quit now.  Do you need to turn around and walk out those doors or are we going to agree that you come in at five o'clock?"

"Six," I corrected her.

She gasped at me, again offended that I would even open my mouth.

"Six is what the email said.  I can show you," I said, pulling out my phone.

Clearly not wanting to be proven wrong, the receptionist held up a hand to me and shook her head.  "Just be on time next time, okay?  We don't have patience for people who don't take this job seriously."

"Jesus, Martha, cool it," a cool voice said from a hallway behind me.  A woman in her 30's approached me and the receptionist slyly.  She looked too clean to have worked a night shift.  I wondered if she was working the day shift with me.  Still addressing the receptionist, she said, "You were late on your first day because you spilled a Chick-fil-a milkshake down your front and had to go back home and change."  

Martha's face flushed red.

The new woman leaned on the counter and looked at me. "Leah?"

"Yes," I said, extending a hand, relieved that someone spared me from the unwarranted wrath of the receptionist.

She shook it.  She was a plain looking woman with brown eyes and brown hair pulled back into a low ponytail.  She was wearing no jewelry or makeup, but still had a subtle beauty about herself. "Nicolle.  I'll be showing you around these next few weeks.  Or until you pick it up on your own."

She put her hands into the front pockets on the shirt of her green scrubs and walked back down the hallway she'd originally emerged from.  I followed, finding nothing but administrative offices and break rooms.  "You can put your stuff here," Nicolle said, motioning toward a single wall of tan lockers once we'd reached the room the furthest down the hallway.  There was a table in the middle of the room with a few coffee cups, food wrappers, and magazines spread across it.  A cell phone was plugged into the wall, charging.  An old, square computer monitor was in the corner of the room I figured no one ever visited - the top of the computer was coated in a thick layer of dust.  As the outdated "Windows" icon bounced from side to side of the monitor screen, it seemed to shake dust particles onto the rickety-looking desk it was sitting on.  "Don't let Martha scare you," Nicolle said as I shoved my purse and lunch into a locker that reeked of old perfume.  "Martha was engaged and basically got dumped for a skinny girl.  It sucks.  I'd be pissed if that happened too.  But Martha then proceeded to gain another 200lbs after her fiancé left her.  Whole thing was a mess.  She just hates anyone she thinks is prettier than her." Nicolle stretched her arms over her head and yawned.

I wanted to feel bad for Martha, but because of the first and only encounter we'd had so far, I couldn't make myself feel for her.

Nicolle crossed her arms over her small chest.  "We don't do a whole lot of training here for newbies unless you feel like you need it.  You're fresh out of school though, right?  You should have a better grip on physical therapy and art therapy and meds than any of us."

I laughed.  "It's been a month since I've had to crack a textbook so I wouldn't mind a refresher of the meds.  The rest I think will come naturally."

"Don't worry about the medicine so much.  We have a registered nurse who sorts out dosages and brings the meds to you for whichever client you're with at the time.  You just hand it to the client and make sure they don't spit it out or choke."

"Sounds easy," I said.

Nicolle laughed.  "Easy unless you're working with Mr. Lewis.  He'll spit until he has no more saliva if it means he doesn't have to take his meds."

For the day, I basically shadowed Nicolle.  She was 35.  Married to a guy she'd dated since high school.  She kept assuring me that she loved the guy but proceeded to talk about all of the problems they were having and how tired of him she was.  She droned on about how she went out with some of her single friends a week ago and was hit on by a tall, handsome cowboy.  "I should have gone home with him.  Spiced up my life a little bit.  There is never any excitement anymore," she said to me as we carried lunch trays down the hallways from room to room.  Before I could give her my opinion, she spoke to the old man in the room we'd entered. "Mr. Davenport, salmon today."

The old man she addressed merely turned his back to us and continued to watch The Price Is Right on his television.  He curled his lip like he was disgusted as Nicolle placed the tray of food on a table beside him.

She rolled her eyes at me and motioned toward the door.  In the hallway, she said, "He's a chef.  Has a daughter who's a chef too.  He says her name is Kennedy, I think.  She lives in NYC.  Dating some famous boxer.  Mr. Davenport talks about her all the time, but she never calls or visits.  I can't tell if she's actually real or if he's just crazy.  He claims he won't call her because he put her up for adoption when her mother died during child birth.  I just think Kennedy's a figment of his imagination.  Anyway, the food is never good enough for him but he'll eat it if you just leave it for him."

By the time I got to take a lunch break, I was exhausted.  There was something about the slow day that made me more tired.  I felt like I wasn't really doing a whole lot, but making small talk with some old people who were mentally aware enough to recognize I was a new staff member, and other old people who weren't mentally aware enough to recognize that I was NOT, in fact, their grandchild.  One woman in particular kept calling me "Elizabeth," who Nicolle later informed me was the baby girl the old woman miscarried in the 1930's.  Really, it all made me sad.  It just made me think of my father.

During group art therapy time, I sat with a table of four elderly women and watched as they painted aimlessly on their own canvases.  Really, three of them were painting.  The fourth was tugging at the uncomfortable smock that we'd distributed to everyone to keep their clothes from getting paint on them.  

"Shelley, I don't like this fabric," the old woman croaked, addressing my new coworker across the room.  

Shelley sighed and crossed her legs as she helped one of the elderly at her own table.  She scratched under the heap of blonde hair on the top of her head, which I guess was supposed to be a messy bun.  "Lydia, we've told you, we are keeping your other clothes from getting dirty."

The old woman looked at me as if I was supposed to contradict Shelley and give her permission to take the smock off.  I smiled at her as politely and sympathetically as I could, but didn't say anything.  In the 8 hours I'd been there, I didn't feel I knew any of the clients well enough to ask anything of them or order them around.  

"This damn place..." Lydia muttered under her breath, turning to face the muted TV that had some low-budget soap opera playing.  Her stiff, grey hair stayed perfectly in place as she huffed and puffed in her chair.  Her overly-exaggerated actions almost made her look like an annoyed teenager who had just been told "no."

I got lost in the soap opera for a moment. There was something about watching those shitty actors on mute that made it seem like they might almost be good at acting for a second.  I felt something wet land on my arm and drew my attention back to the table where Mrs. White had accidentally flicked green paint onto my new lavender scrubs.  I pursed my lips and sighed.  It was only a small blot of paint, but they were my brand new scrubs.  I tried not to be mad.  I knew my face probably showed nothing more than indifference.  I was good at hiding emotion when I wanted to.

"I'm sorry, Elizabeth," she said to me, glancing down at the table where she'd also dripped paint.  "I'm so clumsy these days..."

I stood up. "It's okay, Mrs. White." Almost immediately after rising to my feet, behind me, I heard some kind of liquid splattering on the wood floor, like someone had poured their water straight onto the ground.  I turned to see another woman, Miss Jane, with her elastic-waisted pants around her ankles, her Depends diaper around her knees, and her bare butt hovering just over the side of an empty vase beside the doorway to the community room.  I gasped as I realized that she was mistaking the vase for a toilet.  Though she was aiming for the vase, she was really getting half of her pee into the vase and the other half of it on her shoes and the floor.

"No, don't!" I blurted, a natural reaction to Miss Jane's mistake.  The old woman jumped, my outburst having scared her.  She stumbled backward and tipped over the vase.  I could hear the urine in the vase slosh before the vase hit the floor.  It was like it was happening in slow motion.  It was another natural reaction for me to stoop down and try to stop the vase from tipping completely over, but I was too late, and the vase bounced onto the floor, showering me in warm old lady piss.  I stood slowly, held back a gag, and shuddered.  In the corner of the room, my coworker Shelley merely cackled, still scratching under the heap of hair tied up on her head.

"Not the first time that's happened.  Next time, let her finish peeing.  Easier to clean up if you don't knock over the vase," Shelley said, looking nonchalantly at the old man painting beside her.

By the end of the day, I was defeated.  Done.  Grossed out.  A little depressed.  How could I do this job?  How could I last more than a week?  How did Nicolle and Shelley work so long in a place with people who couldn't go to the bathroom on their own or even remember who their own kids were?  I knew what I was getting into by taking this nursing home job... but then again, I didn't.

I wheeled into the parking lot at my apartment complex and dragged my body from the front seat of my car.  No sooner had I set my feet on the pavement did Wilson come bouncing jovially around the corner of the quad.  He was decked out in his cop uniform.

"I've been waiting for you!" He said.  He had to have been staring out the window of his apartment until I drove up.  Unless maybe he was standing outside the quad waiting for me too.  I wondered how long he'd been waiting. His blonde hair was slicked back so tightly that it didn't move as he bounded toward me.  

I had forgotten about our dinner.  I wanted to groan.  It was times like these I wished I had the power to make myself vomit on command.  If I could have one super power, it would be to vomit whenever I wanted just so I could weasel my way out of hanging out with people.

"Can I take a rain check on dinner?  I've had a hard day... my stomach is hurtin-" I started.

"No escaping your birthday! Your dad told me you're not much of a birthday person but I'm going to force you to dinner!" Wilson said, locking my small wrist in a tight clasp of his fingers and pulling me toward his cop car.

I silently cursed my dad for telling Wilson about my birthday at all.  "Wilson, I just really am so tired- I mean, I'm covered in pee and-"

"No excuse is going to get you out of this.  Your daddio said you would try every excuse in the book so I'm not buying it."

I was trying to find a way to free my wrist from his grip without making it seem like I was whipping my hand away from him, but he was not letting loose.

"I made reservations for 7:00 and it's 6:45! We have to get there," he said hurriedly, opening the back door to his cop car. "Let's get to bangin' on all cylinders."

I hesitated, suddenly the only thought occupying my mind: "Wait... you want me to ride in the back?"

"Awkward, I know," Wilson said, uneasily sighing and laughing at the same time.  "You can't ride in the front unless you're a cop."

"I didn't know that was a thing..." I said slowly.

"It's a thing.  Big thing.  Big thing," Wilson said.  He looked impatiently at the watch on his wrist and bounced his knees.  "We gotta get going though so jump in! The back is not that bad, I promise.  It'll be fun.  A good party story later in life.  Tell your friends like 'hey, I rode in the back of a cop car once.'"

I stared into the black back seat where a gate was going to keep me from properly communicating with Wilson.  The window was also barred.  I looked over my shoulder at the blue low-rider I'd first seen him in the day that my father helped me move in.  "We can't take that car?" I asked, pointing at it.

Wilson bounced on his toes.  I could tell he was getting more and more annoyed with me as each second passed.  Maybe I could piss him off enough to make him ditch his own date.  He inhaled sharply.  "I'm on call so we have to take the duty car.  It's fun in the back!  Don't worry."

I sighed heavily.  There was no way this guy was letting up.  "Can I change first? I'm covered in pee-"

"Good golly-wolly," Wilson laughed harshly.  "Your dad was right.  You really don't like your birthday-" He nearly pulled me into the back seat like I was a criminal.  He slammed the door in my face, nearly crunching my foot in the process.  I gawked at him, though he couldn't see me inside the tinted, barred window.  He jogged around to the drivers' seat, and before I could protest dinner any more, flew backward out of the parking lot and onto the main street.  He was speeding like crazy.

We came to a red light and he hummed angrily.  I watched in disbelief as he flicked on his police siren and forced the cars to part like the Red Sea.  He drove recklessly through another red light at an intersection, but all cars halted for him to speed through since he had his lights on.  Meanwhile, he didn't seem to notice me sliding around all over the back seat.

We arrived at an Olive Garden.  Wilson had to come let me out since my door wouldn't open from the inside.  A family of four eyed me suspiciously in my nasty scrubs as I crawled ashamedly out of the grimy back seat of the cop car.  Wilson didn't address me as he aggressively took my arm and pulled me into the restaurant.  He shoved through the waiting crowd by the front door and tapped the bell at the hostess' desk obnoxiously.  The hostess, who saw him approach and was going to speak to him even before he dinged her bell, froze with her mouth open.  I tried not to laugh as I watched her face, a fake smile spreading from cheek to cheek as she kept her cool with this rude customer.

"Table for two? The wait will be about 45 minutes," she said.

"Reservation for Kilmer at 7:00.  Sorry we are late.  This one wouldn't stop bitching-" Wilson said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at me.  

The hostess peeked over Wilson's shoulder at me.  I made the classic "what-the-hell-is-this-dickhead-talking-about" face at her and she seemed to immediately read me.  I was too tired to fight this.  And by this, I meant Wilson as a whole.  I had already accepted that this was going to be a disaster date I would talk about four years from now.

We sat at the table and ordered food.  I watched Wilson's face as he handed his menu to the busty, blonde waitress who wrote down our order.  His eyebrows were tightly drawn together and his jaw was clenched.  Almost like a flip had switched, his face relaxed with a single blink and he smiled at me.  "Happy birthday."

"My birthday is tomorrow," I said rudely, crossing my arms across my chest.

Wilson sighed heavily and relaxed in the booth seat we were in.  "My, my, my.  You are a little jokester, aren't you?"

I felt like he was trying to play off the fact that I was NOT, by any means, having a good time.

The waitress plopped down a basket of bread between the two of us.  Wilson grabbed a stick and shoved half of it in his mouth.  I watched as crumbs scattered down the front of his officer uniform, all blue this time instead of tan.  He chewed with his mouth open, flecks of spit flying my direction and landing on my arms and hands.  I crossed my arms across my chest as if it might actually help protect me from the flying spit.  It didn't.

"Let me get a Miller Lite.  Bud Lite.   Whatever beer you have that's light," he said to the waitress, half of the bread still in his mouth.

"Aren't you on call?" I asked. "You shouldn't be drinking."

He winked at me.  "I won't tell if you won't."

I sunk my head into my hands.  "Good god..." I sighed, mainly to myself.  Wilson ignored me.

We sat in silence after that.  Wilson tapped his short, stubby fingers along the table and clicked his tongue as he looked around at the other dinner guests enjoying their carb-loaded meals in the yellow lighting of the restaurant.  I didn't ever know it was possible to go from hero to zero so fast.  Not that Wilson was ever a hero in my book, but he seemed like more of an asshat than ever.  I was praying to God Wilson wouldn't get called into work for some kind of backup.  I was dying to escape this dinner, but after three beers, light or not, I was terrified thinking about what kind of damage this careless cop could do when he wasn't in the right state of mind.  Each time he ordered another beer, I would give him a death stare and tell him, "I don't think that's a good idea."

Each time, he ignored me and drank his next beer faster.

He motioned for the waitress to come to the table once more.  Without him asking, she brought him another mug of beer and placed it in his outstretched hand.

“I really wish you wouldn’t drink another,” I said to Wilson, unable to look this asshole in the eyes anymore as he cupped his fourth mug of beer in his hands.

“Listen, if you’re going to be my girlfriend, you need to be less controlling. I can’t believe this is our first date and you’re already trying to control me,” he said, lifting the rim of the glass cup to his lips and sipping the beer.

There was such a drastic difference between how Wilson was talking to me and treating me now as opposed to how he had been with me in front of my father. I wanted to believe that he was just playing a role to appease my father and give me a good first impression that day, but even earlier this morning, when he asked me to dinner, he seemed to be a totally different person.

“What did you do today?” I asked him.

He sighed in annoyance. “I’ve been on call all day,” he told me, putting to rest any thought that I had about him maybe just having a rough day. Whether he had a good day or not didn’t give him the right to treat me like he was.

He polished off his fourth beer and signaled the waitress for another.

I leapt to my feet. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

Wilson just stared up at me.

I turned and made my way through the tables, the murmur of private conversations surrounding me as I turned my hips to squeeze through chairs and people. I walked back to where the kitchen was and met our waitress as she was rounding the corner of the kitchen with another beer in her hand.

“Don’t you have an alcohol serving limit?” I asked.

She blinked at me and began to stutter.

“He’s on call for work. For police work,” I explained, trying to make her feel bad.

“I mean, he’s the customer though… I didn’t know he was working. Anyway, what he chooses to drink is up to him.” She tried to push past me with the beer, but I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed her back.

“He’s not going to arrest you if you cut him off, you know,” I said.

She gasped at me. “That’s not what I thought would happen anyway-“

“So you’re just going to over-serve him alcohol to boost your tip?” I asked.  I knew my tone was rude but I didn’t care. This was important.  A few other waitresses had protectively gathered around the one who had been serving us.

“What’s the problem?”

The waitress inhaled sharply. “She just couldn’t find the bathroom. It’s this way to the left,” she told me, pointing a finger past me and waiting for me to try and bring up the alcohol issue again.

I glared at her, turned on my heel, and nearly ran to the bathroom. I pulled out my phone and googled the number of the Easton Police Department. I locked myself into a bathroom stall as the phone began to ring.

“Easton P. D., how can we help you?”

“Listen, I have a problem-" I said, running my finger over the latch on the bathroom door.

“Ma’am, let me transfer you to emergencies-"

“No! No,” I blurted. “This is about one of your employees. He’s on call right now. Officer Wilson Kilmer. He’s-"

“Oh… Hold on, sweetheart. I’m going to have to transfer you anyway.”

“What?” I asked. “To who??”

“Please hold.”

The phone began to ring again before I could speak to the receptionist anymore.

“Chief Moore speaking, who is this?” A voice sounded as quickly as the ringing had begun.

“Um, my name is Leah and I’ve got a problem with one of your officers. Officer Wilson Kilmer?”

The other end of the line was silent for a moment. “What has he done?”

“Nothing yet, I suppose. We’re at dinner and he said he’s on call and he’s just been drinking a lot.  He’s intoxicated I think and I just want to make sure he doesn’t get called in. I don’t want him hurting someone because of a lapse in judgment caused by the beer,” I explained hurriedly.

“What?”

“I asked him to stop and even told the waitress to stop serving him but-"

“Is he wearing the uniform?”

I nodded and said, “Yes.”

“Where are you?” He asked.

“The Olive Garden on… uh…. I don’t know… I just moved to Easton like, three days ago. I’m so so sorry-”

“Miss, please. It’s okay. Thank you for the call. We’ll take care of it.” The line went dead.

I walked out of the stall and saw an older woman watching me in the reflection of the mirror as she wiped the water off of her hands. I knew she’d heard it all. She merely nodded at me once and smiled before throwing away her hand towel and exiting the bathroom.  I walked to the sink and threw water on my face before peering at my own tired reflection in the mirror.  God, this had been a long and eventful day.

When I walked back to the table, I was surprised to see Wilson throwing our food into to-go boxes. The food must have just arrived. He looked rushed.

“C’mere, Leah, come on. We’ve got to go. I called you a cab. I’ve got to go to work. They just called me in-“

“What??” I asked, shocked for a moment before I had the idea that maybe he was being called into work by the chief to get his ass chewed.

He grabbed his uniform jacket and threw some money down onto the table. He grabbed both of the boxes of food and pulled me by my wrist through the restaurant and out the door. As we walked out, another cop car turned slowly into the parking lot.

“James,” Wilson said seriously, coming to a halt as James pulled up in front of us and stepped out of the car.  James had a cautious, and yet seemingly unnecessary, hand hovering close to the gun on his hip.  James was also young, with short brown hair covered by his police hat and dimples so deep that you could fall into them if you got too close. He smiled faintly at me.

“Wilson-“

“James.   What’s the problem??  Robbery??  Murder-“

“Hey, man.  Why don’t you jump in the car and I’ll tell you on the way to the station?” James said, almost like he was talking to a confused child.  He looked at me and blinked slowly.

Wilson didn’t even seem to remember that I was standing there as he sprinted around the front of the cop car and dove into the front passenger seat with both my dinner and his.

James instantly turned to me and lowered his voice.  “Miss, we want to thank you for the call.  I’d just be careful around him from now on.”

On, I was planning on it.  I was planning on staying far, far away.  I meant, as far away as I could while still living next door to him.  James stepped back into the police car, closed the door, and sent one more sympathetic look my way as he drove away with Wilson.

At that moment, the taxi arrived.   I hadn’t even thought about the fact that Wilson literally called me a taxi to drive me home.  Not even something more clean and modern, like an uber or a lift.   There was something about just looking at the rusty, yellow taxi that made me feel dirty - well, dirtier than I already was.  I climbed into the cab slowly, avoiding a splash of grey mystery goop on the faux-leather seat and trying not to lean too far back.  There was a rip in the seat behind my back, and I was nervous that if I relaxed too much, I'd be sucked into the trunk by some taxi-demon.  I was hesitant to even pull the slick, greasy seatbelt across my still pee-stained scrubs.

The driver coughed so hard that I was worried a lung was going to hit the windshield.  It was obvious he'd just polished off a cigarette, the smell lingering despite the car's open windows.

"Where to?" He croaked.

I almost couldn't remember my new address.  "Marble Park apartments," I finally told him after racking my brain. He tried to make small talk, but I was too busy running over the events of the day to have a conversation with him.

When we got to the apartments, I paid the cigarette smoke-ridden cab driver and dragged myself out of the torn-up back seat, accidentally dragging my hand through the mystery goop I'd tried so hard to avoid the whole 20 minutes home.  I groaned and wiped whatever the sticky residue was onto my pee-stained scrubs and sighed heavily and almost sing-song-y as I rounded the corner of the quad.  It was dark outside, all except for the three, dim porch lights that were bright enough only to illuminate the three feet of porch there was for the first-floor apartments.  The lamp post in the middle of the quad was also dimly lit.

I used the entirety of my body weight to open the front door to my apartment.  I immediately dropped my purse, pulled my shirt over my head and pulled my pants down to my knees, using my feet to push them the rest of the way off of my legs.  I walked straight back to my bathroom and didn't even wait for the water to turn hot before I had slumped against the shower wall, letting the water flow over my skin which felt like it had a thick layer of grime on it.  Grime from being coughed and sneezed on.  Grime from being peed on.  Grime from Wilson's spit.  Grime from the cab.  It was like I could feel it coming off in layers as I dragged a bar of soap slowly over my skin.

I hadn't washed my hair because I liked to wash it in the mornings.  I threw it up in a messy bun on top of my head. The bun looked way better than whatever mess Shelley had created with her own hair, if I did say so myself.  I wiped the mascara off of where the steam from the shower had made it bleed down my cheeks.  Took my contacts out.  Threw on my glasses.  Put on some old, purple sweats I had.  Pulled on an old bralette.  I walked into the kitchen of my apartment and opened the cupboard.  Without giving it much thought, I snagged a bag of popcorn kernels, threw it into the microwave, and pressed the "six" button.  I knew it wouldn't take that long, but I would stop it when the popcorn had popped.  I stood, leaning my bare stomach against the cold, fake granite of the counter and stared blankly into the microwave.  A ring from my phone snapped me out of my trance.

"Hello?" I answered.

There was no reply.  

"Dad, are you there?"

I began to walk around my apartment, searching for a clear signal.  I could hear bits and pieces of something my father was trying to say - probably just checking in on me - but I couldn't get a full sentence from him.

The call ended.  I was standing by the window at the front of my apartment.  I typed out a quick text to my father:

Couldn't hear you.  We can try again tomorrow.  I've had a long first day.  Love you - L.

As I sent that text, I scrolled through some of the other text messages I'd been receiving from old friends for my birthday - Impersonal and brief "Happy Birthday!" messages that didn't bring me as much joy as they did in the past.  Getting caught up in the messages, I didn't realize that my popcorn had begun to burn. The smell filled the apartment, and I scurried to tear the smoking bag out of the microwave.  Smoke began to cloud the ceiling.  I burned my finger on the top of the bag where the smoke was coming out and dropped the bag to the floor.  Swearing, I hurried to the window and threw it open to prevent the single smoke detector in my apartment from releasing a shrill alarm and disrupting the peace of my new neighbors.

As I stood at the window, I rubbed my eyes with my uninjured fingers.  I examined the part of my finger that stung from the burned bag of kernels.

"Alright?"

I nearly leapt out of my skin.  I thought for a moment someone was standing in my apartment, but I finally realized that Harry was standing just outside the window.  I hardly noticed him since it was so dark outside and he was still dressed in all sorts of dark colors.  

"Fucks sake-" I exclaimed.  "I- I- I'm okay.  I'm fine.  You scared the hell out of me-"

"I'm sorry," Harry laughed, coming a little bit closer to the window.  The light from my kitchen illuminated his handsome face.  It also allowed me to see that he was holding some sort of green gardening can.  "I was just putting a little bit of plant food in Miss Jones' plants.  I do it every week or so.  Helps 'em stay alive," he explained.  

"At night?" I asked.

"What?"

"At night?  You feed the plants at this time of night?" I repeated, raising my wrist to look at a watch I realized wasn't there only after I'd checked the imaginary time.  

Harry laughed awkwardly.  "Eh, well, yes.  She doesn't know I do it.  At least, I don't think she does."

I stood and stared at him, becoming more consciously aware of my appearance and clothing (or lack thereof) and the fact that he'd probably been peeking in the window the whole time I'd burned my snack and been chasing some kind of cellular service.  For as much as I wanted to be creeped out, my stomach was fluttering.  He wasn't creeping in my window.  He was feeding Miss Jones' plants.  Her goddamn plants.

I walked out the front door and stood to the right side of my porch, leaning over the banister toward Harry's silhouette.  He watched me only for a short moment before he returned to shaking some of the small pellets of plant food into the vases on the ground and the plants hanging from Miss Jones' porch.  I wanted to ask him something.  Tell him something.  Have him ask me a question or anything to get us involved.  However, I stood for a few minutes in silence, in the dim lighting from my kitchen and the small light in the middle of the quad, and listened to the plant food pellets tap against the sides of the plants' bowls and vases.

When he'd run out of plant food, Harry sighed softly.  "Good night, then."

His feet brushed weightlessly against the grass as he began to walk away.

"Harry," I called quietly, almost as if I was whispering it to myself.

He stopped.  I saw the black shape of his body turn toward me, his figure becoming more visual as he stepped closer into the small amount of light from the kitchen again.  He stood and waited without saying anything.

I had a sudden wave of confidence wash over my body.  I stood up straight, sticking out my chest even though I know he couldn't really see my perky breasts in my bralette.  I took a deep breath, but just as quickly as the confidence had come, it went away. "Um-" I started.  My inner self was begging me to say something.  Anything.  

"Come inside?" I said.  I asked.  I whispered.  I basically breathed it.  I wondered if he even heard me.  I felt like an absolute dumbass.  Should I repeat myself?  What if he said no?  It was late.  Surely he would say no.  What was I inviting him in for?  Burnt popcorn?  I didn't know what part of me was asking him into my apartment, but could only imagine it wasn't for a cup of tea and small talk.  What did I think was going to happen?  He was going to just lean in and kiss me and-

"Sure."

"What?" I asked.

"I'll come in.  Let me take a look at your finger," he said.

Like that morning, I had to keep my mouth from falling open.  I turned around abruptly and opened my front door for him.  He followed me inside.  He moved so quickly and so silently that I just about jumped out of my skin again when I turned around and he was standing only eight inches from me.  He gripped my hand and extended my fingers, like he had the day I was moving in.  This time, however, I let him look, even though there was nothing there anymore.  No evidence of any serious damage.

"I think you'll survive," he told me after evaluating the non-existent injury.  "Your heart line here is showing some pretty interesting stuff, though," he said, dragging a long finger along one of the creases in the palm of my hand.  

"What?" I asked, kind of laughing to myself.  I'd never much believed in palm-reading or horoscopes or anything like that, but it was always interesting to read about and learn about. "What does it say?" I asked him, looking down at my own palm.

"It's about your love life," he said.  "Did you have a good date tonight?"

"No," I gushed, looking up into Harry's eyes.  I laughed just thinking about it.  "It was a disaster.  Does the palm say I'm destined for a long, devoted, and romantic relationship with Wilson?  After tonight, I'd rather die before having to spend more time with him."

Harry's mouth curled into a small, almost triumphant smile, but he shook his head.  "It says something about a tall brunette kissing you.  Unless you object."

My heart pounded in my chest.  "Oh?" I squeaked, nearly losing the ability to speak.  "My palm is that specific?" I asked.

Harry took a step toward me and began to lean in.  "I don't know," Harry chuckled.  "I can't read palms."

I lifted my mouth to meet his.  I began to instantly feel drowsy, like the room was spinning and I was going weak.  Harry wrapped an arm around my lower back and pulled my body more into his.  I felt like fireworks were exploding in my stomach.  His lips were warm and full.  I wanted to sink my teeth into them.  Without separating our lips, I began to pull him toward my bedroom, tugging at the hem of his black shirt as we went.  Clothes began to litter the living room.  I flicked off the lights as we neared the bedroom.  For as much as I wanted to look at Harry's handsome face, just the feeling of his mouth, which was making its way up and down my neck, was creating an overwhelming sense of euphoria in me.  

He was like a drug, his touch giving me an immediate high.  As he pulled his fingernails over my skin, a line of goosebumps followed.  His moans as he felt my body were giving me a confidence I didn't know I had.  I remember that he was on top of me, kissing down my stomach.  I was on top of him, sucking on the soft skin of his neck.  His hands were twisting into my hair and I was tugging on his.  We were twisting and turning around each other, around the sheets... tangling our lips, our legs, our arms... and before I knew it, the sun was coming up.  

My dad looked tired and older than ever as his sweaty gray hair matted against his forehead.  He wiped his upper lip on the back of his hand to clear the sweat beads that had gathered there.  "Yes, I suppose that's a good plan. Ready?"

He positioned himself at the end of the couch, struggling to suck in his belly as he squeezed between the end of the old green couch and the white dresser it was pushed up against. The couch had belonged to my grandmother.  The dresser had belonged to my mother when she was in her teen years.  I squatted down at the opposite end of the couch and felt along the bottom of it for a good grip, wrinkling my nose in disgust as my face neared the mystery stain that had been on the arm rest for years.  It was brown and shaped like the state of Florida.

"One... Two... Three-" My father grunted as we lifted. I knew his old knees were probably hurting him.  If only I had another sibling to help us out.  We managed to carry the couch into the apartment, taking three breaks between the 100 yards from the trailer to the front door of my new home.   Once inside, we argued over where the couch should sit, but ended up agreeing that facing the wall parallel to the kitchen bar was best.  Eventually, when I could afford it, I would have to get a TV to place in front of the TV.  Until then, I would be staring at the dull, gray walls of the apartment.

We reentered the trailer and got in position to try and lift the dresser.  It was heavy.  Ridiculously heavy.  The thick wood lasted almost 45 years in my parents house and it was ornately decorated with more wood carvings of filigree and flowers.  I'd always loved the dresser, especially when my mother died when I was four years old.  The bottom of the six drawers was deep enough for me to climb into while I was small enough.  The smell of her clothes lingered, and my father would often catch me tucked into the drawer, engulfing myself in the scent of my long-gone mother.  I loved the dresser.  However, I was certainly not loving trying to carry it 100 yards into my apartment on this densely-humid, 98-degrees-er of a Saturday.

My father and I hadn't even shuffled past the apartment complex parking lot before I caught myself straining to keep my fingers gripped around the bottom wood panel.

"Shit," I heard my dad swear.  "Put it down put it down put it dow-"

We both dropped the dresser onto the concrete.  On my side, a smudge of orange stood out against the white paint where my face had rubbed against it.  I was sure I looked like a melting crayon, sweating off the makeup I'd paid so much money for.  I instantly regretted putting on so much of it before we packed up and left my home in Greenville that morning.  Why did I need to contour for unloading crap into my new place? My dad put his hands on his hips and let out an exasperated breath of air.

"Leah, this might take us a while," he told me, looking at the dresser.

"Take your time, dad," I told him, glancing around at the back of the two-story buildings we were surrounded by.  The complex had a few different "quads" of buildings - four buildings in a square.  My quad was the only one that had a large space of grass in the middle of it, which I could walk out to directly from my front door.  The buildings were all two stories, but I was still provided the luxury of a front "porch" area with my particular quad.  As I was admiring the buildings and praying for the outside temperature to decrease by about 1000 degrees, an obnoxiously blue sports car wheeled into the parking spot closest to us, beside a police car.  The blue car had been lowered so that the bottom of the front door was nearly scraping across the sizzling pavement of the parking lot.  The bass from the driver's music was so loud that it seemed to rattle the old drawers in the dresser.

A man slivered out of the driver's seat which almost looked like it was only mere inches off of the ground.  He was about my height - 5' 7" - short for a man.  However, he was fairly wide in the shoulders thanks to some muscles that made it clear he was one of those gym-every-day-for-six-hours kind of people.  He couldn't have been older than 25.  His short blonde hair was slicked back and his gray polo and khaki pants seemed to be two sizes too small.  He snapped the front seat of his car forward and snatched a backpack from the back seat, slinging it onto his back before turning and flashing a bright, white smile at myself and my dad.

"Hiya, folks.  Need some help? Some hands?  Some helping hands?  I have two," he laughed.

Before I could protest, my father blurted, "Well yes, actually.  We are taking this to this building," he said, raising a tired finger toward the building that the blue car had parked in front of.  "Apartment 104."

"Oh, gnarly!" The blonde exclaimed.  He threw his hands into the air and smiled even wider.  "Neighbors! I'm in 105! Rock on!"

For as attractive as this guy's face was, his "hiya" and "gnarly" were already turning me off to him.  My dad didn't seem to notice the blonde's oddities.  "Oh, good.  Well if you can just get that end down there-" He pointed toward me.

"No," I objected.  "Take over for my dad, will you?" I asked the blonde, pointing right back at my father.

"Ah, so he IS your dad.  Groovy, dude!  I've been trying to figure out if you two were married for the last three minutes," the blonde said, laughing heartily to himself. "I was gonna ask how the hell that happened if that was the case."

My dad and I - about 35 years apart in age - exchanged a glance.  I didn't know what my dad was trying to tell me through his expression, but I was trying to tell him all in one facial expression that I was tired, hot, and becoming a little bit afraid that I was going to be living next to this goon for the next year or more.  The blonde's cheesy smile and bizarre vocabulary was already giving off that murderer-y neighbor vibe.  Like, you step on his petunias once and suddenly he is no longer hiya-ing or groovy-ing you.  Next thing you know, you're dead.  As I was trying to imaging exactly what I was going to accidentally do in the future to get myself murdered by him, he stepped over in front of my father and squatted down, adjusting his grip on the bottom of the dresser.  My dad immediately protested.

"Really, I can get it.  It's Leah I'm worried about."

"Dad," I grunted, squatting down on my own side and preparing to lift. "I've got it.  You just had knee surgery.  We can't have you doing too much."

"That was months ago, Leah.  I'm plenty fine now," he said.

I nodded once at the blonde and we lifted.  "Dad," I choked out.  "Just cover the middle, won't you?"

He sighed in defeat as he knew I wasn't about to let him do too much work. "I'll help tell you which way to go," he said.

"Thanks," I choked out again as we started walking toward the apartments.  

My father, the blonde, and I rounded the corner of the quad, passing the front stoops of all of the bottom-floor apartments.  We were about twenty feet from my front door.  My arm muscles were screaming.  My father ran to open the front door.  I could feel the sweat from my fingers slipping between my skin and the wood.  I gripped tighter.  The blonde was going too quickly for me to ask him to put the dresser down.  We only had fifteen more feet to go.  I could make it.  Only ten more feet.  I squeezed tighter.  My fingers were slipping.  "Help-" I began to sputter.  Five more feet.  I wasn't going to make it.  We were standing directly over the pavement of the front porch and I knew dropping the dresser would shatter the wood.  

"I gotcha-" A body shoved beside me, gripping the dresser and lifting it easily.  I let go without the stranger having to ask twice, stretching out my fingers and touching the bright red, painful creases that had been created from gripping so hard.

The blonde and this new stranger carried the dresser into the apartment, through the living space and into the only bedroom.  

"Over here," my father instructed them, helping guide the dresser where I previously decided I wanted it to go.  I was so busy looking at my throbbing fingers to notice that the stranger who caught me end of the dresser had walked back to where I was just inside the front door.  

"You alright?" He asked, reaching out his hand for mine and taking it gently.  He pulled my fingers straight to look at the marks, but stopped when I winced.

"I'll be oka-," I said, retracting my hand and glancing up at him.  His intense gaze caught me off-guard.  It was like his green eyes were pulling my soul from deep inside my body.  "Okay," I finished.  "I'll be fine."  

He touched the tip of his long finger to the top of his tan forehead where a sweat bead was forming, just below his wispy brown hair.  "You should probably turn on some air conditioning in here," he chuckled, looking back at the thermostat that I'd neglected thus far.  His voice was deep and smooth.  He said the words slowly, each word lingering for a half a second on his puckered lips before they actually reached my ears.  "You might die of a heat stroke if you stay in the heat much longer."  The stranger dared to wear black jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt, which he'd rolled up to his forearms to reveal a whirlwind of colorful ink.  The collar of his shirt stopped just low enough to give me a peek at more ink that reached just up to his collarbones.

The seemingly now-plain blonde emerged with my father from my room and, upon seeing the stranger, began to walk almost like he was marching and swinging his arms.  It was so weird.  "Ah, Mister H," he said.  "Mister H. S.  Mister Harry Styles.  Mister Harry British Styles.  The village foreigner."

Harry glanced at the blonde, completely unamused.  He looked back at me and pointed to the blonde.  "Wilson.  The village idiot."

I nodded as Wilson tried to laugh a genuine laugh.  He slapped Harry on the shoulder.  It seemed like he had to reach an entire arms' length just to touch Harry's shoulder.  He was so tall that I felt like I was looking straight up.  "How about village protector," Wilson said.  He smiled at me and pulled out of his pocket a golden badge, revealing it to me.  "Officer Wilson Kilmer, at your service."

"Ah," my dad interrupted.  "You'll be good and safe here then, Leah," smiling at me. "You're protected by the village protector," he said, patting Wilson on his shoulder.  

"Are you going to be living here by yourself?" Harry asked me.  

It was as if his voice pulled me out of reality into another dimension.  I nodded sheepishly, feeling embarrassed that the first time I was meeting this striking foreginer was when I looked like I'd just jumped into a pool of my own salty sweat. "Just graduated college.  I'll be working here in Easton for a while," I breathed.

"Haz!" Someone called from across the quad.  Their voice echoed into the front door where the four of us had congregated.  

Harry stepped out into the heat and called back to a large, bearded man and a short, black-haired girl.  The girl tossed her long, black curls over her narrow shoulders and said, "Let's get this over with! I'm on a time limit."

"Oi, be there in a minute," he told them.  The man and woman continued to stare our way but whispered amongst themselves.  Harry leaned into the doorway and reached out to shake my dad's had.  "Nice to meet you."  He stepped backward out of the doorway, winking at me.  "See you around, Lee.  Welcome to Easton."

"Leah," I blurted.

Harry merely grinned as he turned away from us and crossed the quad.  Wilson stood next to me and watched as Harry disappeared into apartment 403, directly across from my own living quarters.  "He really is kind of a village hoodlum.  He's got some questionable friends, if you ask me.  I've just been waiting to catch him doing something illegal," Wilson said, suddenly not so smiley and way more serious than he had been.

"What's he doing that's illegal?" I asked, my eyes locked on Harry's front door as I hoped he might come back outside and across the quad to talk to me again.

"... I don't know just yet," Wilson said.  "I will catch him though.  That's the most I've ever heard him talk.  He's also the village quiet guy.  The village..." He stared up at the ceiling as he tried to think about what to call Harry next, following the now annoying "village _______" theme. "Village hot guy," Wilson laughed and looked at me.  "I'm joking.  The village hot guy would be me," he said, pointing two short, stubby thumbs at himself.

As Wilson laughed yet again, I looked at my dad.  He was laughing to himself in the corner of the room, shaking his head.

After a few more minutes of talking, Wilson left and entered his apartment directly beside my own.  I could hear him singing Bohemian Rhapsody through the walls.  My dad only laughed.  My dad helped me unload and set up some of the bigger things - dishes, lamps, the microwave.  Then, he left.  Back to Greenville he went.  I wanted to cry, but I didn't.  If I was able to find another job straight out of college in Greenville, I would have stayed closer to him.  We were the only family we had left.  I hated leaving him, but he assured me he would be fine.  He wanted me to start becoming my own adult.  Establishing myself.  I just wanted to make sure someone was looking after him while I wasn't.

I didn't want to offend my father, but I was tempted to ask him to come live in the nursing home I was going to be working in.  He wasn't really at that age yet where he needed someone helping him with every day activities, but it would have been a way for us to stay closer and for me to keep an eye on him.  He'd worked hard for a construction company his entire life, and I knew he would never be okay with sitting in a home playing bingo and coloring for the last years of his life.

The temperature outside became more tolerable as the sun began to lower in the sky.  I microwaved some Chef Boyardee and threw it into a bowl for a quick dinner since I didn't have much else to eat yet.  I had to open every drawer in the kitchen before I remembered where I'd put the silverware, grabbed a spoon, and headed right outside my front door.  My father had surprised me with a small white wicker chair and table for the move, so I slid into the chair and began to eat my meal at the table.  In the middle of the quad sniffing some grass was a brown and white dog.  It's owner, in apartment 205, called to the pup from his front porch.  The dog made it's way back home.  The owner was a short, fat, middle-aged man.  He smiled at me and waved before returning inside.

The front stoop to my right was covered in plants, so much so that I hadn't noticed the small old woman who was watering the plants.  "Beautiful night, eh?"

I stared at the plants along her banister and the plants hanging from the porch ceiling, confused, until she spread two hanging plants and poked her head out to see me.  She was tiny and had a little red bandana wrapped around her delicate head, gray hair sticking out of the sides.  "Oh, yes," I finally agreed.  "It was horribly hot earlier but nice right now."

"This heat is gonna kill my ferns," she said, brushing her wrinkly fingers along a fragile fern frond.  "I've had to start watering these poor things three and four times a day to keep them from drying up."

"Well they look lovely," I said, smiling at her.

"Oh child," she chuckled to herself.  "You don't have to lie to me.  They look horrible."

At that moment, on my left, Wilson's front door swung open and he stepped out, clad in a tan and brown officer uniform.  He had a hat in his hand and a gun on his hip, as well as what I could only guess to be a taser, a baton, handcuffs, and a walkie-talkie of some sort. He was still humming some song.  "There are my gorgeous ladies!" He said, leaning on his own bannister toward the old lady and me.  "Leah.  Miss Jones.  Enjoying the late afternoon?"

His walkie-talkie made a loud ruckus.  I couldn't understand what it said other than the word "urgent."

Wilson sighed.  "Well, I must be off.  There's a storm a-brewin' downtown but I'm going to save the day!"  He turned and began to walk around the building toward the complex parking lot.  "Oh!  Leah, your father told me your birthday is this upcoming week.  Tuesday, right?  Party! Get lit!  Celebrate good times!!" He said, doing a little dance in the grass.  "Let me take you out to dinner."

I wanted to be mad at my dad for telling Wilson about my birthday at all.  While it may not have been obvious to my dad, it was obvious to me that something inside Wilson's brain was... off... to say the least.  At least he could have told Harry.  That dark, handsome Harry.  Although, however mad I wanted to be at my dad, I couldn't be.  I knew he was just trying to make sure I made friends and actually celebrated with someone instead of sitting in my apartment alone with Netflix and a cup of Ben and Jerry's like he knew I would do.

Wilson's talkie went off again.  "Kilmer, we need backup!"

He held down a button on the side and replied, "Ten-four." He looked at me again. "I can't go until you say yes!"

I didn't know what to say.  I felt bad for his fellow cops that needed help. "I just- I have more unpacking to do this week-"

"Just a quick dinner! Nothing fancy," he pleaded, running his hand over his slick hair.

"I just-"

"I'm not leaving until you say yes!"

His talkie sounded once more.

"Okay!" I exclaimed. "Fine, just go help whoever needs helping," I said, laughing partially in disbelief that he didn't take his work emergencies more seriously.  I shooed him away with my hands.

Wilson bowed to me, then pretended to rip open his uniform shirt like superman, and shouted, "Wilson! To the rescue!!!" He turned and sprinted to the parking lot.  From the other side of the buildings, I heard him start up the sirens to his police car.  The sirens faded as he disappeared out of the apartment complex and onto the main road.

Miss Jones shook her head. "Odd one, he is."

I nodded.  

"You shouldn't have said yes if you didn't want to go, sweetheart," she said.

"He wasn't going to leave otherwise," I defended my actions, stirring what remained of my ravioli. "One date is harmless, right?  Maybe all the weirdness is... just a front?  He may be a really genuine guy."

She chuckled and raised a shaky hand holding a green canister to pour some water into a different plant on her porch.  "I've never seen him act any differently than that and I've lived beside him for three years."

Just then, the front door to apartment 403 directly across from me opened.  The bearded man and black-haired girl emerged.  Harry walked out of the front door behind them.  They all spoke to one-another, but nothing that I could hear.  Harry motioned to a part of the girl's arm that was now wrapped in what looked like plastic wrap and cloth.  She was beaming.  She hugged Harry.  The large bearded man shook Harry's hand.  They all laughed at a joke together.  The bearded man and black-haired girl began to walk across the quad toward the parking lot.  They smiled and waved at me.  I waved back and turned my attention to Harry.  He was standing on his front stoop staring at me.  He smirked and waved when we made eye contact.  Even from that distance, his eyes were just as glowing and fierce as they had been the first time.  I waved.  He seemed to smirk again like something was funny, but then turned and disappeared into his apartment.

"You should buy some plants," Miss Jones said suddenly. She had moved around the front of her plants so I could now see her entire tiny body, draped in a long white dress with blue frills along the bottom hem and wrist cuffs.  It almost looked like a nightgown I knew my grandmother would have worn if she was still alive.  Miss Jones' blue slippers were worn from years of wear.

"Oh," I laughed, my eyes searching the windows of Harry's apartment as I waited for some kind of movement. "I don't have much of a green thumb," I admitted.

"But you see," Miss Jones said, leaning over the banister of my porch toward me.  Her old brown eyes were swirling with stories from her past. The closer she leaned in, she more my nostrils filled with the smell of moth balls.  She winked at me. "If you hang the plants from up here, they're hard to reach." She was pointing at the ceiling above my porch, like the space she had lots of her own plants hanging.  "Gives you a reason to invite the tall boy over."  She motioned toward apartment 403.  

"Oh," I breathed, my cheeks turning red as I stared down at my nearly empty bowl.  "Maybe," I said, finally smiling up at Miss Jones.  "Is he an odd one too?"

Miss Jones returned to her plants. "Harold always has people coming in and out of his apartment.  All sorts of people.  All the time.  At night, it's always dark in there and it takes a lot to get him to have meaningful conversations.  He's great at small talk.  Exceptionally polite though.  Always looking to help me out.  Always asks me how I'm feeling in the mornings," she laughed.  "I've never seen a consistent person going in and out of there.  Not sure if he has friends or a girlfriend... now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever seen family in there."

The sun was dipping behind the quad buildings and the single lamp post in the middle of the quad flickered on.  I hummed and stood from my chair, scooping up my empty bowl and dirty spoon as I did.  "Well, I should get going.  Got a good bit of unloading to do before Monday.  Nice to meet you."

Miss Jones poked her head out from behind some more plants.  "Leah, was it?"

I nodded and grinned.

"Well, Leah, in my 73 years of experience, it's the mysterious ones who are always the most memorable." She beamed slyly at me and disappeared behind her plants.  

I shrugged.  "What about long-term though?  It's the mysterious ones who are the first to flake in the movies."

"Honey, this is life!  Not a movie.  Who needs long-term anyway?" Miss Jones said, placing her watering pitcher on the ground.  "You're young and beautiful.  Just focus on having some fun in the here and now, hmm?"

Before I could respond, I heard Miss Jones' front door open and close.  As I was about to enter my own apartment, her front door opened again.  "I'll put in a good word for you tomorrow when I ask him to come help me water my plants," her voice sounded from behind the plants. She chuckled to herself.  Her front door closed again.

As I was running over this all in my head, Harry walked over to me, put his hands on my shoulders, and kissed me on the forehead.  Without saying anything, he picked up another cardboard box and went to his closet.  After putting the box together, he began tossing his clothes, still on the hangers, into the box in large clumps.

I didn't so much mind not talking because while he was speeding through the packing, I was getting to know him a little better by the trinkets around his room.  He had a box of quarters from each of the states that he had visited or lived in - almost all 50.  Some were shiny and new, but others were old and I struggled to identify the state.  Harry also had concert ticket stubs from Drake, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Rascal Flatts. He had other tickets from baseball games and football games and even one from a ballet he told me he went to with his mother (when I asked him about it).  A wooden box on his desk held tickets from hundreds of movies that he had seen, from more recent movies like Suicide Squad and Fury to faded tickets for Finding Nemo from 2003.  It was distracting and incredibly interesting to me.  Harry caught me flipping through ticket after ticket and smiled.  "Pretty cool, hm?"

I nodded and watched him pull his curls back into a bun, small ringlets falling down around his neck.  It was the first time he'd initiated conversation with me that day.  "It makes me wish I could go back and collect all of the movie tickets from the movies I've gone to," I admitted, pulling myself from the box and packing it away.  Maybe it wasn't too late to start.  I was trying to think of something I could do to cheer Harry up, but we'd only been unofficially dating for what?  Three days? Two?  "Do you want me to get you something to drink?" I asked, dipping my four fingers into the front pockets of my jeans and shoving them down as far as they could go.  It wasn't like I was making his entire day better by getting him a glass of water, but it was the very least I could do at that moment.

Harry smiled softly at me again.  He walked over and bet his knees so he could wrap his arms around my lower back.  I laughed when he buried his face in my neck.  "That would be great.  The cups are gonna be-"

"I know where everything is in this house," I laughed again.  

Harry kissed my cheek.  "I almost forgot how much you were in this house before we started talking."

Honestly, I couldn't tell if Harry was sad or mad or even indifferent about leaving Kappa Sigma, but he never once acted nasty or angry toward me.  Whatever he was feeling toward his ex-frat brothers, he never once turned and projected those feelings onto me.  I noticed it immediately.  Cameron had a problem with projecting.  It was something we studied in psychology.  When something irked Cameron, he would "throw" his anger - project it, if you will - at anyone he could - most times, at me. The difference between he and Harry was almost astonishing to me.  I couldn't believe I'd put up with Cameron for so long.

When I walked down into the kitchen, Richie was there with Jackson, sitting on one of the numerous wooden stools they had around the kitchen.  Jackson's lip twitched like he was going to grimace when he saw me.  "Can we help you?" Jackson snapped.  For once, his blonde hair wasn't neatly brushed back and I could have sworn I saw a few pimples on his chin.  I wondered what had him stressed out. Richie, on the other hand, looked his usual, disheveled self.

"I'm getting a drink for Harry and myself," I said, walking to the cabinet above the sink and standing on my toes to try and reach a glass. I could feel my ponytail brushing against the middle of my back.  For a moment, I was happy it had grown so much in the last few weeks.

"If you drop one of those and it breaks, you're replacing it," Jackson said, interrupting my thoughts about a haircut.

I turned to face him and frowned.  "What an obscure thing to say.  Is that a common issue around here? People dropping drinking glasses?"  

"Well, when we have parties-" Richie started, seriously answering my question before Jackson growled at him.  Literally growled.  Like a dog.  

Jackson leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.  "Getting a little mouthy, are you, Rory?  I thought the only time you'd ever be mouthy was when you were sucking Cameron's cock."

God, I hated that word.  "That never happened and you know it," I said defensively.

"That's not what Cameron's been saying recently," Jackson said, smirking.  "Actually, just last night he was telling us all about the things you would do for him.  Was him asking you to 'do his laundry' code for something?"

Richie chuckled to himself.  I rolled my eyes, thinking Jackson was just trying to get a rise out of me.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

Jackson raised his eyebrows like I should already know.  "You know Rory, you don't look to me like much of an anal girl, but Cameron's story about you last night certainly proved me wrong."

"Did it sound much similar to the vulgar story about you and Kara Keith from last February?" I snapped.  In one of Jackson's most drunken nights, he managed to bring into his room one of the kinkiest girls on campus.  Lucky for him, Kara had a strap-on in her purse (along with a mix of other toys) that she'd been saving for a special occasion.  I guess she thought Jackson was her special occasion.  Once word of their sexual adventure got out, Jackson's ego was bruised.  I'd never said anything to him about it before.  It wasn't like me to insult someone so blatantly like that. I was barely thinking about anything except trying to piece it all together in my head.  Had Cameron been spreading rumors about me doing sexual favors for him?  All because I was turning him down now?  Was he really that angry at me?

Jackson's face fell and he seemed to go pale before a rush of blood filled his cheeks.  "You twat.  Finally growing a damn backbone, I see. About time..."  He stood, adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt, and shoved past me.  Richie's head was sinking between his shoulders like he was bracing himself for me to attack him too.  He itched his ear with the tip of his pencil.

"Is he telling the truth?" I asked him.  

Richie avoided my gaze.

"What else has Cameron been saying about me?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

He shook his head and shrugged.  

"What, Richie?"

He shook his head harder.  "I don't want to repeat it."

I slammed the glass down on the counter so hard that I worried for a split second that I might actually shatter it in my hand.  I stormed past Richie and back up the stairs of the house.  I knew Cameron was there because I'd seen him earlier that morning.  He was having one of his notorious "lazy daze" (*days, but he always spelled it "daze" when he took a picture of his sweat pants for Instagram).  

"Ror?" I heard Harry ask as I hurried past his room.  I threw my body into Cameron's door and twisted the handle.  He jolted upward from his bed out of a nap as I tore into his room.  "You selfish son of a bitch," I growled leaping onto his bed and straddling him.  I slapped him.  I slapped him straight across the face.  He gasped and yelped and covered his head with his hands as I slapped over and over and over.  "You're an absolute fucking son of a shit bitch cunt asswipe-"

"Rory!!" Cameron yelped again, trying to grip my wrists so he could stop me.  "Rory, STOP-"

I stopped only to yell at him.  "How could you tell them that we slept together??? That I sucked your... that I sucked you off??? That we did it in the ass?? That I took it in the ass??  YOU TOLD THEM I TOOK IT IN THE ASS???" My open hands clenched tightly into fists.  I punched Cameron's cheek.  I punched him again.  I punched his chest. "You use me and treat me like shit and shit on me and abuse our fucking friendship when you know I loved you!"

"Let me talk- Ror- Stop-" He sputtered as I administered hit after hit.  

"You get Harry kicked out of the fucking frat?  You just have to get your fucking way and you have to get what you want!!! Like a freakin' spoiled-ass baby!"

"Rory, please-" He whimpered.

I scratched.  I pounded.  "I loved you and now that I've moved the hell on, you can't handle it!! You little bitch!! You tarnished my fucking reputation!! Goddamn you, Cameron Walker!" I didn't realize that I had begun to cry.  Tears were dripping off of my face onto his shirt.  "God dammit," I spat through my teeth at him.

He had stopped resisting.  He kept his hands over his face.  I twisted his shirt into my fingers and tugged on it.  "You just can't stand to see me happy, can you??" I started to pound on his chest again.  It was then that I realized he was crying too.  He had snot running down from his nose, mixing with the blood from his busted lip.  

I slapped him again before I felt two strong arms around my waist.  Harry pulled me off of Cameron's body and away from his bed.  Cameron sat up to look at me, tears streaming down his cheeks.  He dabbed his lip on the back of one of his hands and looked at the blood, but didn't stop to clean it.  He just laid back on his pillow and sobbed.  He covered his face with his hands.  "I'm so sorry," he was whispering over and over again.  "God, I'm so sorry."

Meanwhile, Harry was whispering softly in my ear.  "Not worth it, Ror.  It's okay.  Just take a deep breath..." He still held me tightly in his arms, but lovingly instead of like he was trying to contain me.

I did as he said.  I took a deep breath in, but it was followed by a nasty cough and some heavy tears.  My eyes flickered down to my fists, and through the blur of the salty tears, I saw swipes of dark red blood.  Not my blood.  

"I'm just so sorry.  I'm so sorry," Cameron continued to cry.  For once, I could tell he was being genuine.  I had never seen him cry, but I couldn't take it anymore.  

Harry moved his hands up to my shoulders and let me turn on my own to leave the room.  "Let's get out for a little.  Get some fresh air," he urged me.

"No," I shook my head.  "Please, let's just finish packing."

"Are you-"

"I'm positive.  The sooner we can get out of here, the better," I said, staring straight into Harry's face.  

He nodded.

I glanced down at my hands again.  We could hear Cameron's crying from the hall.  "Let's get you cleaned up first," Harry said.  He wasn't looking at me like I was damaged.  He didn't look at me like he was afraid or surprised.  He didn't look at me like he was judging me.  He seemed so calm and understanding - the last two things I would have expected from him.  From anyone, really.  I was getting to know Harry better and better with each hour of the day.

We walked into his bathroom.  "Last time I was in here I was covered in vomit," I said, wrinkling my nose.

Harry laughed and brushed a strand of my bangs off of my wet cheeks.  "Maybe just for future reference, I'd prefer vomit over blood."  

It was then that I noticed Harry was a little bit pale.  "Good god, does blood make you sick?" I asked, pulling my hands away from where he was beginning to wipe them with a wet washcloth.

He flashed me a toothy grin.  "This little bit isn't going to bother me.  If I had to see Cameron's face again I might."

"I might vomit if I see his face for other reasons," I said, thinking back to what had just sent me into a tizzy.  "Did you hear what he-"

"You don't have to repeat any of it," Harry interrupted.  "I followed you when you sprinted past the door.  I heard all you said and what went down."

I stared at the floor, slightly embarrassed he's seen my fit of rage.  I'd never done something like that before.  I don't know what had come over me.

"I'm so sorry, RJ," Harry said, standing and wiping the wet tear stains on the skin just beneath my eyes.  "When I came back here last night, I went straight to bed.  They were all in the living room talking, but I didn't know what about.  I didn't want to join them."

I gave him a small smile.  "It's not your fault.  I don't blame you for any of it."

"Can you promise me something?" Harry asked.  His green eyes had such serenity to them that I had no choice but to be calm.  They were hypnotizing.

"Anything," I said.

"Next time something like that happens, let me punch the asshole who says it.  Whatever it is.  Whoever it is."

I couldn't help but laugh.  "Absolutely.  I don't usually... I just have never been so angry-"

"Sometimes, it's good to let it out like that.  I'm bad about letting it build up inside.  I internalize my feelings a lot," Harry said, wiping the last bit of blood off of my hands.  

I nodded.  "I'm the same."

"I know," Harry said, grinning.  He bent down and hovered just over my lips until I closed off the distance between us.  He kissed my lips three more times before washing his own hands in the sink and clapping.  "Let's finish packing this crap and get the hell out of this place," he said.

We actually didn't have much more to do other than move the boxes down the stairs into a truck Harry was borrowing from a classmate.  Liam and Lina showed up to help move the mattress, and especially helped when we arrived to the small, two bedroom house Harry was renting.  Luckily, he found a house about three doors down from where Lina and Liam were staying and I had high hopes that we would hang out with them more.  As we all shifted and slid in and out of the doorway past each other, moving boxes and parts of Harry's bed frame into the main room, Lina and Liam discussed the upcoming election - the policies of each of the candidates and which they thought would be best.  Though they disagreed on some policies and some candidates, it was interesting to hear how respectful they were to one another and how much they discussed rather than angrily debated.  Honestly, I'd avoided discussing politics with anyone since middle school.  It seemed like a majority of the people my age couldn't talk about politics without it becoming a fight.  With the way Liam and Lina were respectful of one another actually made me want to listen.  It was especially intriguing when Lina began to compare American society to other countries. I was jealous of both Liam and Lina's worldliness.

Thankfully, the whole move was quick with all of us working hard and fast.  Being around the positive energy of Liam and Lina as well as the constant movement of the transition from Kappa Sig to a new house took my mind off of Cameron and the horrific things he'd said about me.  Harry and I dropped down onto the single, black couch Harry had donated from a friend in the French club.  It was the only thing in the bare, white room, but after a long day of work, we needed a seat.  All I could think about - providing Harry and I would stick with each other the next couple of days... hopefully weeks... or months - was how much I would be at the house.  I couldn't imagine he would want to come back over to my apartment with all of the space we could have to ourselves in his house. It would be especially nice without my stoned roommate barging in on our heart-to-hearts.

"You know, theres a lot of open space in here," Harry said.  "If we keep dating for a while... I mean a while like, you know... another day or two... you could totally move in."

"God, I wish," I laughed, though I wasn't sure.  I was on cloud nine with Harry right now, but technically we weren't even official yet and he could do something tomorrow to completely change my mind about him.  "My parents would have a shit-fit."

Harry snorted.  "Why's that?"

I mimicked his laugh.  "They're super conservative.  My mom is pretty religious.  Her father was a minister.  She'll obsess over things like Real Housewives but she'll panic if she thinks about me even kissing a boy."

"So I take it she wouldn't like you living with a guy."

I shook my head.  "Any guy who isn't family."

"What about when you get serious? Like almost engaged?" Harry asked.

"Not a chance."

"Christ," Harry sighed.  "What about your dad?" Harry asked.

I shrugged.  "He's a little more understanding of the modern world and how it works.  I think he figures I'll take care of myself no matter where I live or who I'm dating, and if I feel like I can't, I'll come back to him and ask for help."

"After what I saw today, I don't doubt you can take care of yourself," Harry laughed.  I shook my head, thinking of Cameron.  Harry quickly changed the subject.  "What do you think about living with a guy?"

I shrugged.  "I think if I feel like it's right between us, I'd be up for it."

Harry grinned. "Well, I'll keep a room open for you."

I smiled back at him and then glanced at the floor.  Technically, he still had a lot to do.  A lot of boxes to unpack, a little bit of cleaning to do, especially since the four of us had tracked in so much mud and water from outside where it was still recovering from the horrible storm the day before.  For as much as I wanted to help him or even just lay around for the rest of the afternoon, I also remembered a lot of homework that I had to do for my classes the upcoming week.  I groaned and began to explain it to him, but my phone rang, cutting me off.  

I picked it up.  "Hello?"

"Rory Jane, it's your mother, Callie!"

I sighed.  "Yes, mom, I saw the Caller ID."

"Well where are you?" She asked, clearly annoyed.  "Cameron called a few days ago and invited us to dinner.  Your father and I thought we would surprise you and the four of us can grab a bite tonight.  Grab him and let's go!"

I felt like I might pass out.  "Cameron is sick today, mom."

"Oh, no.  Well we'll bring dinner to him and eat with him in his room.  How does that sound?" She asked.

"No, mom.  No-"

"Now listen here, Rory Jane.  Cameron is the reason we're here and we aren't leaving him out tonight.  Do you hear me?" She said sternly.

"I don't want to see him," I said blatantly.

I smiled.  "Astronaut.  Hands down," I answered quickly, tugging on a strand of my hair and extending it as far as it would go.  "I love the moon and pictures of Earth from space.  It's so beautiful."

"You wouldn't be afraid of being out in the middle of nothingness?" Harry asked, running his hand through his own hair. "There's no oxygen, no gravity, no guarantee you'll return to Earth safely."

"I didn't criticize your dream job," I gasped at him.  He laughed.  I continued.  "I might be afraid for a little while, but it's got to be peaceful up there.  Just floating around, admiring the beauty of silence and nothingness."

"Hmm," Harry hummed, pouting his lips like he was thinking. "My turn.  If you could be on any show on the telly, what would it be and why?"

I giggled as Harry ran his rough hand up my shin and back to my ankle.  We were stretched across the grungy blue couch in my apartment, our legs tangled on the middle cushion as we tried to face each other.  I was glad I'd decided to shave that morning in the shower.  "Mmm... maybe Long Island Medium. The one where the woman can sense and speak for spirits who want to connect with friends or family here on Earth."

Harry frowned at me.  "A reality show?  Those stories are all fake and you know it."

I scowled.  "She is really talking to the spirits."

"The whole show is rubbish and made up for views," Harry said, raising his eyebrows at me.  "There is no way that woman is actually talking to ghosts."

"Spirits," I said. "And I believe she is.  Those people's reactions are too pure for them to be acting.  AND-" I said, cutting him off before he could argue with me more.  "If they were acting, they should be getting Oscars.  They give very convincing performances."

"Fair enough.  Why would you want to be on there?" Harry asked, slowly dragging his nails down my shin.

I stared into his face for a moment. "I would wanna see if she could channel my grandpa.  My dad's dad.  All of my cousins were very close to him and I just never was.  He was so funny," I chuckled, thinking about the old man who had the soul of a 20-year-old until the day he passed. "He could crack jokes better than any comedian can nowadays.  I just never really opened up to him.  We never got to be too close.  I was the only grandkid to not be able to tell him goodbye.  It eats away at me sometimes," I said, fixing my gaze on a spot on the dirty carpet. I dragged my eyes back up to meet Harry's, which were focused intently on my face. I sighed.  "Either that show or Cupcake Wars... but I can't bake," I laughed.  

A slow smile began to spread across Harry's face, and I could tell he was still thinking about what I'd said about my grandfather.  He pulled himself back into the conversation.  "Well I think Cupcake Wars would be a fun show to be on, but I would want to be a judge."

I wiggled my toes in his face before he pinched one in his long fingers.  He had come over earlier that morning to take me to brunch at the dining hall, but afterwards, it started to storm.  There was a chance for more snow that afternoon.  We ran back to my apartment in the downpour and were trying to warm up a bit since we'd been caught in the freezing rain without any kind of umbrella.  I was dressed in an old hoodie and some of my black sweats, which Harry had pushed up to my knee so he could... rub my leg, I guess.  It sounded weird, but it had me just the right amount of turned on. No one had ever done that for me before.  Harry on the other hand was too tall and wide to fit into any of my clothing, so while his clothes were drying in my dryer, he was in his boxers tucked beneath my comforter, which he had stolen from my bed.  Only one of his legs was out from beneath the comforter, and it revealed enough for me to see Harry's hilariously white thighs.

"My turn," I said, looking at the wings of the swallows inked on his chest that were peeking out from under the comforter. "If you could get another tattoo, what would it be and where?"

Harry grinned.  "Been thinking about getting this sleeve filled in," he said, revealing his left arm which displayed an assortment of meaningless tattoos. "When I was younger I just got whatever I wanted or whatever my friends wanted all over, and now it looks like a mess.  I want some kind of background that can pull it all together.  Make it look more like a cohesive piece."

I wrinkled my nose.

Harry cocked his head.  "If you've got something to say, then say it."

"I don't think that'll ever look like a cohesive piece," I laughed. The tattoos were too diverse, some looking like they'd been done by professionals and others like they'd been done by amateurs.

Harry lifted his broad shoulders and let them fall.  "I can at least try. What about you?  I can't imagine you'd ever get a tattoo."

I raised an eyebrow and directed my attention to the TV, which was muted on the weather channel.  Harry's nails dug a little deeper as he dragged his fingers down my leg again. "RJ... You cannot convince me that you have tattoos. I don't believe it."

"I didn't say anything about plural tattoos..." I mumbled.

Harry's eyes widened and he sat forward on the couch.  "Show me."

"No."

"Come on.  You brought this on yourself."

"What? How?"

"Come on," Harry said, slapping the blanket in front of him.  "You can't have asked that question without knowing it would come back around to you."

That was fair. My subconscious had been bad about revealing many hidden secrets to Harry that morning.  I'd never told anyone but Cameron about my grandfather.  I'd told Harry all about my overbearing mother, who I'd managed not to speak to in three weeks since I'd been back to school.  I even opened up to him about the morning that he saved me at the Kappa Sig party.  I admitted I was a little bit sad I hadn't woken up beside him that morning...

Who was I?  Harry was just too easy to trust now.

I grumbled with discontent as I forced myself out of my comfortable position and off of the couch.  I walked over to where Harry's face was parallel with my hips and tugged at the waistband of my sweats.  

"Oh shit, RJ-" Harry laughed, turning so that his feet were on either side of mine and he could get a good look at my ink.  The comforter only covered his lap at this point.  I wished he would just lay there in his boxers without the comforter.  "Are you sure you're ready for this?" He asked, putting his hands on both sides of my stomach.  "I mean, we could at least go to the bedroom first," he joked, looking up at me and winking.  

I rolled my eyes and tried to play it cool, but suddenly, with him touching me like that, I was self-conscious.  I was most self-conscious of my stomach.  I'd always hated it.  It wasn't by any means flat, and he was gripping right where my love handles stuck out like a muffin top.  No one had ever just held me like that - as if he was about to tickle me, maybe.  I didn't know.  He didn't seem to notice my nerves as he laughed and tugged at the drawstring of my pants.  "I'm joking, I'm joking... Let's see it then."

I took a deep breath and pulled the left corner of my pants down just low enough for him to see the small, pink lipstick kiss tattooed just along where my hips began to turn into my thigh.

"It's tacky and I hate it," I blurted.  

"What's the story behind this one?" Harry asked, running his thumb along the ink. My stomach rose and fell as he moved his face closer to get a better look, as if the tattooed lips were whispering sweet nothings to him.

I sighed.  "I had a massive fight with my mom.  I was pissed as hell and feeling defiant and I went to Cameron's house. His uncle was there - Uncle Buck, I think?  I've only ever seen him once."

"Ah, Buck the tattoo artist uncle.  I've gotten a tattoo or two from him," Harry laughed and pointed at a tattoo of the Bible on his upper forearm before turning his attention back to my pink ink.

I shook my head.  "He just LOOKED sketchy.  He was staying with the Walkers for a few days in the basement and gave Cameron and myself tattoos..."

"Cam has a tattoo??" Harry asked.

I laughed and nodded.  "On his ass."

"Of what??"

I shrugged. "I think it's a skull or something stupid.  We were both stupid at the time."

"How old were you? I can't believe I never knew about this," Harry said, gripping the sides of my stomach again.

"Hmm... 16, maybe?  It was during the summer before he and I had to go to band camp," I answered, pushing my hair behind my ear.

"No shit," Harry said, looking up at me.  I had the sudden urge to put my fingers in his hair too, so I did.  As he spoke, he closed his eyes slowly and let me tug on some of his damp curls.  "I think that was probably around the same time I got my tattoos from him.  I agree, he looks a little sketchy compared to the rest of the family, but Buck was a good guy.  I haven't see him in a while..." His voice trailed off as his head began to relax in my hands.  His own hands slid down from my stomach to the waistband of my pants.  He tugged on them gently before opening one eye and staring up at me.  I smiled.  "What?"

"My turn for a question," he said.  "Have you ever slept with someone? Like gone all the way?"

"Gross," I said to him, pushing his head gently away from me and moving out of the grip of his warm fingers.  I walked to where I had been on the couch before and plopped down.  "You ruined the moment."

"You're right," Harry said bashfully, raising his hands in surrender and trying to hide his blushing under some of his hair.  "I'm sorry.  That was too personal."

"Why does that matter?"

"I don't know," Harry said, putting his hand on my foot and looking at me.  "I'm sorry, RJ.  Really, I was just... feeling it a second ago and it kinda slipped out before I thought about what I was asking."

We stared at each other for a minute before I sighed. "I mean, I don't think the answer is much of a surprise, really.  I've been in love with the same guy since forever and there's no way he wanted to sleep with me ever so...  You put the pieces together yourself."  Cameron and I had never done it.  I never felt the need to do it with anyone else.  That was that.

Harry nodded slowly and turned so his body was on the couch again.  He tugged the comforter out from under me and covered his body with it.  "If it makes you feel any better, I am."

I laughed.

Harry stared at me blankly.

"You're joking," I said.

Harry shook his head.  "I, Harry Styles, am a virgin."

"Jesus..." I breathed.

Harry gawked at me.  "Well fuck, RJ, do I really come across as that much of a lady-killer to you?"

I stuttered, looking for the right words to say.  "I don't know, I just - it was like, a thing in your frat to take a girl into your bedroom after the parties started to die down.  Jackson did it every night, Cameron did it, even Richie-"

"It was a personal choice that ninety percent of the frat thinks they have to do.  They're proving their manhood in a way I find a bit repulsive, honestly.  I just think you should wait until you find someone it can be at least a little meaningful with... you know?" Harry said.

My mouth hung agape as I studied his face.  He bit his lip.  "What?"

"I just can't tell if you're poking fun at me..." I said.

Harry's face fell.  "No! Not at all."

I squinted my eyes at him.  "I saw you at so many of those parties with other girls making out and-"

"And what?" He asked.

I hesitated.  I guess that was it.  All I'd ever seen him do was make out with someone. From what I could remember, he never disappeared with anyone into his room.

"It's just a surprise, is all," I said honestly.

Harry grinned.  "That's why I don't usually tell people."

"So what made you tell me?" I asked, burying my toes under the edge of his comforter.  

He started to speak, but before he could, Eliza's bedroom door flew open and my red-headed roommate came slowly gliding out of her room into the kitchen, giggling and talking to the person behind her - the leggy, short-haired girl I'd seen in the dining hall the day before.  A cloud of smoke followed them out of the room and the smell of marijuana filled my nostrils. "Oh shit-" Eliza blurted when she saw us sitting on the couch, leaning forward to put her hands on her knees and laugh.  Harry looked from them to me, raised and eyebrow, and put his fingers to his lips like he was smoking a blunt.  I nodded.  "We didn't know you were here," Eliza said, flipping her long red curls over her shoulder.

"No worries," I said.  "Hi, I'm Rory.  This is Harry," I told the girl with short, black hair and still perfect makeup.  Both of us waved.  She was wearing a largely oversized men's zip-up hoodie that hid her lower half.  I wasn't sure if she was wearing shorts or anything beneath it.  

"I'm Morgana," she said, waving back and crossing one leg over the other, causing her to bump into Eliza.  Both girls laughed.  "Nice to meet you," Morgana said in the middle of her laughter.

"We didn't know you were here," Eliza said again.  She frowned as if she suddenly realized she'd already said that and looked at Morgana, who was giving her a funny look too.  Once again, they laughed.

"We're just hungry," Morgana said, walking over to the fridge and pulling open the door.  She grabbed my milk jug and started to open it before Eliza stopped her.  

"That's Rory's.  You can drink mine," Eliza said quickly. She placed my jug back in the door of the refrigerator and grabbed her own.  I was surprised she wasn't being an ass to me.  This was one of the first friends of hers that I'd ever actually been allowed to interact with.

Harry looked back at me.  

I shrugged.  "I don't know if they're just friends or sleeping together," I whispered.  "Eliza usually doesn't bring anyone back to the apartment unless they're having sex."

Harry widened his eyes and glanced back at the two girls, leaning into each other and giggling again.  "And the...?" He put his fingers to his lips again.

"Weed," I grinned.  "Eliza is a total pothead. She's usually better about smoking in the bathroom with the vent on," I whispered.

"You guys wanna smoke?" Morgana asked as if she'd heard us. She had one of Eliza's Coke cans in her hand.  Gross... milk and Coca Cola mixed??  

Eliza slapped her hand over her tall companion's mouth and both girls laughed again.  "They can't know!  Rory has too much of a stick up her ass to smoke anyway."

"I'm right here, thanks!" I said.  "And how would you know, Liza?  You've never offered me any."

Eliza snorted.  "Well..."

When she discovered she had no comeback, both girls laughed again.

Someone knocked on the door.  

"Shit, it's the cops," Eliza said, scurrying around Morgana and sticking her head through her arm.  

"I'll scare them off," Harry said, standing up and taking the comforter with him, though it fell to cover only his lower half.  There was a harmonious hum as all three of us girls admired his bare torso.  I knew Eliza was bi, and I guess Morgana was too.  Harry pulled open the door.  I swear his nipples got hard with the gust of freezing wind that swept through the apartment.  

"Can I come in?" A familiar voice asked.  

"Yeah, you're letting all of the cold in. Hurry-" Harry said, ushering Cameron into the apartment.

Cameron was bundled up in his winter coat, which was stuck with what looked like frozen raindrops.  The front of his jeans were a darker color than the back, clearly from him walking in the rain.  The hair sticking out from his black beanie was sticking to the sides of his red face.  He shook himself off right by the front door before looking around and taking in his surroundings.  He smiled shortly at Eliza and Morgana before gazing at Harry, looking him up and down as he stood there in what looked like nothing but a comforter around his waist.  Cam's breath seemed to hitch in his throat as he imagined all the possible reasons Harry could be standing in my apartment, half-naked.  His eyes finally caught a glimpse of me, fully clothed, and he breathed again. "Hey, Rory."

"Hey Cam, what's up?" I asked, not moving from my comfortable spot on the couch.  Any other time he just appeared at my door, I probably would have leapt up and ran to him for a hug.  God, I couldn't believe I was so desperate before.

Cameron took a few steps toward me, his snow boots clunking along the floor heavily.  From under his jacket, he pulled a small bouquet of flowers which had been crushed in the process of him getting here in the storm.  He handed me the flowers.  "Sunflowers," he said, smiling.  "Your favorite."  

I hesitantly took the flowers, though they weren't sunflowers.  They were daisies.  They looked like the ones you could purchase at the grocery store that were often dyed crazy colors, like pink and blue.  A few of the crushed, white petals trickled off of the flowers and onto the floor and my lap.  Cameron looked disappointed.  "Thanks..." I said slowly.  Across the room, Eliza was whispering to Morgana, and I was sure she was explaining the situation to her.

Speaking of situation, the storm was getting worse outside.  I could hear it beating against the window.  There was no way in hell that I was about to be trapped anywhere with Harry and Cameron again, even though it seemed like my relationship with both boys was much clearer now. "So... why'd you trek all the way here in the middle of the storm?" I asked, eager to get to the point so Cameron could leave.

Cameron's face relaxed from the disappointed look about the flowers.  "Oh, your mom called me.  She just was doing her normal check-in..."

"What did you tell her?" I asked.

"I said you were great.  I told her you seemed happy.  You look... amazing..." Cameron whispered the last bit.  He hesitated a moment.  "She wanted to check in on your eating.  I told her you were eating healthy."

I rolled my eyes.  Always, with the food.  It drove me crazy.  Leave it up to my mom to monitor me through my friends.

"Why didn't she just call RJ herself?" Harry asked.

Cameron nearly winced when he heard Harry speak.  He frowned.  "She's just always called me... wait, 'RJ?'" He asked.  "I thought your dad only called you that." His blue eyes suddenly seemed angry, and he stared at me as though he were waiting for an explanation.  I didn't have one.  

"Did she want you to pick me up some flowers too?" I asked, holding up the crushed daisies and trying to change the subject.  It had been too good of a morning for Cameron to walk in and ruin it with a fight.  

Cameron blushed.  "No... no.  Those are... well, they're from me.  I just thought I would...  I don't know.  I saw them and thought of you."

Morgana and Eliza exchanged wide-eyed gazes of astonishment before turning and creeping slowly back into Eliza's room.  As they closed the door, another small whiff of marijuana crossed the apartment.  Cameron made a face as the stench reached his nose.  "Um, I guess I'll just go..." He said, straightening up.  He pulled his beanie off and shook his hair out, pushing it all back from his face before putting the beanie back on.  He shot a quick glance at Harry and then stared at me.  "I was going to ask if you wanted to grab lunch or something today, but it looks like you're a little preoccupied."

I swallowed.  "Yeah, maybe not today," I said shortly.

It was as if my answer almost paralyzed Cameron.  He didn't move.  Maybe it stunned him that I was turning him down.  Finally, he blinked himself out of his trance and nodded.  "Yeah, okay.  Maybe a later time."

He turned and walked to the door where Harry was standing with his hand already on the doorknob.  Harry opened the door and waited as Cameron slowly made his way out.  Halfway out the door, Cameron stopped, faced Harry like he wanted to say something, but turned and left.

For a large portion of the afternoon, we kept asking each other questions.  I hadn't gotten to know anyone like that in a long while.  I was worry free.  I was relaxed.  At one point, I felt my cheeks hurting because I'd been smiling so much all day.  I couldn't remember the last time that happened.  Surprisingly, it didn't snow, but the rain was still so horrendous all day that were surprised when we heard another knock on the door around dinner time.

"I'll get it this time," I said, standing up from my bed where we had migrated to mid-afternoon.  

"You sure?" Harry asked, grabbing the bottom of my hoodie and pulling me back toward the bed.  "We could just not answer."

I laughed and fell on top of his bare chest.  I kissed the tip of his nose.  "No one ever comes to our door," I laughed.  "It's probably important."

"If it's Cameron again, don't let him in," Harry called to me as I left my room.  

I chuckled to myself and walked to the front door to take a peek through the eye-hole.  I was not expecting who I saw.  "Uh... Harry, I think this one is for you."

"What?" Harry asked.  He emerged from my room pulling his jeans up around his waist.  

I tugged the door open.  

Jackson stepped into the apartment, slinging mud and water from outside all over the floor in front of the door.  "Where is Harry?" He asked me, before even taking a look around.

"Nice to see you too, Jackson.  You can totally come right in," I said sarcastically, taking a step back from the mess he'd created.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, stepping forward as he pushed his pockets to his jeans down.  

Jackson didn't look happy.  He sniffed the air and sent a disgusted look my way.  He looked at Harry.  "You're out of Kappa Sig."

Harry's mouth fell open.  "What?"

"We had a meeting today and you didn't show.  This is your third miss."

Harry looked irritated as he shook his head.  "There wasn't one scheduled for this week."

"There was a group text earlier today," Jackson said, looking at his nails like he was bored of the conversation.

"I never got a text-" Harry started.

Jackson held up his hand.  "I'm not here to discuss your phone carrier problems. You missed three meetings.  On top of that, you left the carnival when we needed you to hang out with this tramp and you're smoking marijuana," Jackson said.  "Should I go on?"

"We weren't smoking-" I started, but Harry cut me off and pushed me behind him.

"Watch what you say about her-" Harry growled.

I wasn't sure Jackson had ever seen so much emotion from Harry, because he stumbled backward out of the apartment before gathering himself again.  "Of all of the bitches you could have had at this school, you chose Cameron's sloppy seconds?  Come on, Harry..."

"You son of a bitch-" Harry grabbed Jackson by the front of his jacket and shoved him back a few more feet onto the pavement outside.  The rain was coming down hard, but Harry was too furious to notice the freezing drops hitting his bare back.

Jackson seemed to laugh, but in an attempt to hide his nerves.  He threw his hands up. "Harry, Harry, Harry... I didn't come here to talk about her.  I came here to tell you you're out of Kappa Sig.  We can't be associated with you anymore."

Harry tightened his grip on Jackson's jacket.  "This isn't about me.  This is about Cameron," he spat through his teeth. "He can't fight his own battles so he has you fight them for him-"

"Let's not lie to one another," Jackson said, nonchalantly, though Harry looked like he might beat his face in.  "You were never a part of this brotherhood in the first place.  Just let it go.  It's gonna be better for all of us if you just don't come around Kappa Sig anymore."

Harry sucked his lips into his teeth and slowly let Jackson go.  

"That's it," Jackson said, straightening his jacket and squinting up at the sky.  "You have a week to move out things out of the house."

I glanced around at the tables around us in the student union. Eliza was speaking loudly and I didn't want anyone listening in on our conversation. I didn't even know why I was telling her all of this. I just had to tell someone.

"Yes," I confirmed softly. "To be fair, he hasn't called or texted me either.  I didn't get so much as a 'Merry Christmas' or a 'Happy New Year' from him," I sighed.  "It's been over a month."

"Maybe you just sucked at making out or something," Eliza told me, leaning back against the seat and shifting her massive bun of red hair on the top of her head.

I rolled my eyes. "Why would he have continued making out with me if I sucked at it? I could tell he enjoyed it."

"You could tell?"

"I could... feel it."

"Like, emotionally?" Eliza asked. "Or you could feel his penis getting hard?"

"Eliza...." I grumbled, dipping my head as my face turned red. "Don't say that word."

"Penis," she repeated, crossing her arms across her chest and looking at me like I was a pathetic animal. "It's human anatomy, you child."

"It's a weird word," I said softly.

"Would you rather me say dick? Johnson? Willy? Wang? Dangling-" I threw a piece of lettuce from my plate at her to shut her up. She glared at me and flicked the lettuce off of her grey shirt, a tiny stain remaining where a spot of dressing seeped into the fabric of the clothing. "I don't know what to tell you, Rory. Maybe he was just in a dry spell and needed to kiss someone. When was the last time he slept with someone?"

I gawked at her and shrugged my shoulders in annoyance. "Let me just think back to when he told me who the last person he slept with was. Oh yeah, his teddy bear! It was last night," I said tapping my chin and raising my eyebrows as if I had to search my memory for that answer.

"Don't be such a sarcastic bitch," Eliza said. "You could have just said you didn't know."

I used my fork to roll a piece of broccoli across my plate.  Eliza watched me for a moment before saying, "You do know that you could have texted or called him, right?"

I rolled my eyes.  "Yes."

"Well why didn't you do that instead of waiting on him to text you first?"

"I don't know," I said quietly, tugging the sleeves of my own grey shirt up to my elbows.

"Welcome to the twenty-first century, Ror.  Guys don't have to do everything first," she said.  "Jump on this bandwagon full of powerful women.  Go after what you want and take it."

I shook my head.  "It has nothing to do with that."

"It has everything to do with that."

I shrugged.  "Maybe a little.  But I mainly just want to make sure he's going to put in the effort.  I wanted to be sure he wanted this...  Whatever this is between us. "

"Maybe he wants to know the same thing about you," Eliza sighed, making it obvious she was growing tired of the subject.  "Do you want it?"

"A relationship with him?"

"No, Rory.  A cup of fucking ice cream.  Yes! A relationship!"

"Ice cream sounds nice..." I muttered sarcastically.  I stared across the cafeteria at a table of girls I had seen at the Kappa Sig party a few weeks back. They all threw their heads back and laughed at the same time.

"Hey, Liza," someone said, drawing my attention back to the table before I could answer Eliza's question. A tall, leggy girl stood beside my roommate, her winged eyeliner, eyebrows, and lipstick all perfectly drawn onto her already beautiful face. Her short, black hair was straightened to perfection. I found myself frozen in intimidation as her hazel eyes scanned my currently disappointed and confused face for a moment before she turned her back to me and put her hand on Eliza's shoulder.

As I looked at Eliza, I saw something I'd never seen before. She smiled up at the girl and blushed timidly, the freckles on her cheeks almost disappearing with the rush of color.

"We still on for tonight after January Jam?" The tall girl asked quietly.

Eliza bit her lip and nodded.

The tall girl squeezed Eliza's shoulder and walked away.

My mouth fell open and I cocked my head. "Eliza..."

She glared at me. "Nothing."

I raised my eyebrows.

"I said it's nothing," she snapped at me, grabbing her blue Gatorade and aggressively raising it to her lips, which had been turning blue because of the dye in the drink.

"I opened up to you," I said. "I told you about my potential love interests."

"Well that doesn't mean I have to tell you about mine, so shut up," she snapped, darting her green eyes away from me.

I grinned at her. She stood up angrily and snatched her plate. As she turned around to march off, another two people approached my table. My stomach dropped when I realized it was Liam and Lina.

"Hey Rory!" Lina said excitedly. She was holding a plate of food similar to the one that Liam was holding. She looked so different from the one other time I'd seen her - at the French Club party - her hair down, and her body engulfed in a warm-looking green sweater and black leggings. Something about her gave off a very warm and powerful vibe.  Behind her, Liam effortlessly held both hers and his snow jackets, a plate of his own food, and a drink.

"Lina, Liam, hey!" I said hesitantly, pulling my plate toward me. I hadn't seen them in forever, and I was intoxicated last time I had.  I was worried I'd said something to embarrass myself last time I was in front of them.

"Mind if we join?" Liam asked, dropping the jackets in a chair and putting his plate where Eliza had just been seated, all before I could tell them I was about to leave.  Liam picked up the winter coat Eliza left behind just as Eliza returned for it. She snatched it from his hands and looked at me for some explanation as to why some stranger was holding her belongings.

"Liam, Lina, this is my friend-"

"No," Eliza interrupted.

"-acquaintance-"

"Nope."

"Roommate," I corrected myself for the third time. "And roommate only."

"Hi, Roomie," Lina said pleasantly, but Eliza merely rolled her eyes and walked away.  Lina made a face at Liam, muttered some French to him, and laughed with him as she plopped down into the chair beside him.  I almost wanted to tell them I wouldn't be offended if they talked badly about her in front of me.  Most of the time, I would probably agree with whatever they said.

"Sorry," I grumbled instead.  "She's not a very friendly individual."

"Oh, it's fine,"  Lina said to me, adjusting in her chair and grabbing her fork.  "I've met my fair share of assholes before.  How was your Christmas break?"

Liam's eyes flickered up to me as he bit into a grilled cheese sandwich.

I hesitated. "Fine.  A little boring," I answered. "Yours?"

"Liam and I went to Australia," Lina said. "It was amazing, to say the least.  We love to travel."

"Wow," I said jealously.  "That's always been a place I've wanted to go to," I admitted.

"You can join us next time.  We're headed to France in the summer but I'm sure we'll be back to Australia at some point in the next few years," Liam said, grinning at me before he took another bite of his sandwich.  He had tattoos all across his forearms and hands. I stared at them for a moment, getting lost in the ink before Lina drew me back into their conversation.

"We aren't holding you up, are we?"

"No," I answered honestly.  It was nice to sit with friendly people for once and talk about someone and something other than Cameron or Harry. "I'm done with classes for the day so I'm just hanging out right now.  I know January Jam started a little while ago, but I probably won't go for a bit."

"Good," Lina said, smiling excitedly. "We can talk about Harry."

I spoke too soon.  Liam watched my face for a reaction that I didn't end up having. "What about him?" I asked.  

"He doesn't stop talking about you.  That's all, really," Lina said bluntly as she picked up an apple from her plate.  I felt my face flush.  "Well, at least when he's with Liam and myself.  We went to his place in Norfolk over the break.  I think he pointed out your house to us when we went on one of our walks in the snow.  It's like a bluish-grey, right? I didn't know you lived so close to Harry."

I nodded.  "We practically grew up in all the same places.  I didn't know you guys lived so close to us."

"We don't," Liam laughed.  "We just went to visit Harry for a bit.  Next time we're in Norfolk, we'll let you know and we can all get together."

I nodded and smiled. "Sounds good." And I wasn't lying.  It was nice to have people asking me to hang out after so many years of me following Cameron around and depriving myself of any other kind of social life.

"Sounds good if Harry hangs out with us too?" Lina asked.

I hesitated.  "Yeah.  Definitely.  It's whatever."

"It's not," Liam said.

"What's not?" Lina asked.

"It's not 'whatever'."

"Why not?" Lina asked him.

"Look at Rory's face.  She doesn't want to think about him right now," Liam said, pointing his fork at my reddening face.

"Oh, God," Lina sighed.  "I told Harry he should have just freakin' texted you.  I mean, at least ONCE since you two made out."

She seemed to mutter the last bit under her breath, but I definitely caught it and my eyes nearly fell out of his head. "He told-"

"Only us," Liam interrupted casually, as if this were no big deal.  I understood that college was a place to come and try new intimate things with new or different partners, and with a small school like Holbrooke, word got around about who was hooking up or making out with who - especially in the greek world.  That being said, I was not one who liked for my business to be out in the world, especially when it came to who I was kissing.

"Don't look so worried," Lina laughed, her dimples deepening. "We aren't going to tell anyone," she said, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder and smiling so genuinely at me that I had no choice but to believe her.

Liam shot up from his seat, spilling the contents of his plate all across the table.  "Hey everyone! Guess what I know about Rory Alexander!"

While I had a mini heart-attack and the entirety of the student union looked our way, Lina leapt across the table, grabbed Liam by the front of his blue sweatshirt, and dragged him back down into his seat. "For fucks sake-"

Liam laughed, reaching out his hands to both of us, clearly flustered.  "It was a joke, girls.  Come on, do you really think..." he started laughing again. People around us rolled their eyes and went back to eating. While still laughing to himself, Liam shook his head and tapped my end of the table with his hands.  "You should.... have seen... your faces..."

"We want her to like us, Liam," Lina said, trying to hide a smile under one hand and fixing her brown hair with the other.

For as much as I almost didn't want to admit it, it was funny.  I let out a tiny snort and shook my head.

Liam pulled his phone from his pocket.  "Harry's texted me.  He's at January Jam already. He wants to know where we are."

"Lunch," Lina said.  "We're headed that way."

"Don't you have class this afternoon?" Liam asked.

Lina shook her head.  "My professor was kind enough to cancel class.  He knew no one would come with January Jam going on.  He went on a dumb rant that January Jam was scheduled too soon in the afternoon and went on for too late into the night, but he cancelled class regardless."

"Well hallelujah," Liam said, picking up his fork and knife and piling it on to his plate.

Lina grabbed both of their napkins and tossed them on to her plate.  "Hallelujah indeed.  Come with us, Rory."

"Okay," I blurted, standing quickly.  I was nervous.  The thought of seeing Harry was suddenly exciting me.  I couldn't decide if it was Eliza's pep-talk about woman-ing up or the fact that Lina told me Harry doesn't stop talking about me.  Either way, I wasn't about to let this sudden burst courage go to waste. Lina grinned at me and took her jacket from Liam, pulling it on to her body.  I grabbed my jacket off the back of my chair and wrapped my scarf around my neck.  As I pulled on my snow jacket, I took a deep breath to calm myself.  My heart was racing.

We walked through the cold to the gymnasium where January Jam was being held.  There were only small ice spots on the ground from snow showers a few days before, but no snow.  Despite this, I was thankful that Jackson Wilde had enough sense in him to plan the carnival inside. The Holbrooke gym was massive, with an indoor track circling above the basketball courts where the carnival was going on.  The three of us immediately climbed the stairs to the track, shedding our jackets as we took the steps two at a time. I had to pretend like I wasn't out of breath when we made it to the top.  We leaned over the railing on the track to get a better look at the entire carnival.

Music flooded the gym, but the horrible acoustics made it sound like nothing but an unnecessary blur of headache-evoking noise. On top of that, people were shouting to be able to hear each other.  My eyes grazed the crowd and all sorts of colorful greek organization fundraising booths. There was a red, blue, and yellow bounce house filled with college students.  It was shaped like a castle made of children's blocks.  The center of it dipped significantly, making it seem like the inflatable was about to collapse in on itself every time the students jumped together.  It always amazed me how many 20-something-year-olds went wild for a bounce house.

In the very center of the gym, they managed to set up a tiny, five-seat ferris wheel. The line for it was long.  In the line, I spotted Eliza and her leggy "friend."  She spotted me up above her on the track and liked away quickly.  Beside the ferris wheel, there was a small stage with a band on it.  I recognized some of the guys on the stage from classes I had taken.  I could only imagine Jackson asked the fellow students to play for free, and once he realized how poorly they sounded, turned on the music in the gym to play over them.  Of course, that wasn't helping anything except creating more awful noise.

In front of the stage, there was a small dance floor, packed with students. Most of them were dancing while it looked like the rest were trying to start a moshpit.  Even the Holbrooke Hawk, our mascot, was bouncing around in the middle of the group.  I saw a few red solo cups amongst the people in the crowd, which I pointed out to Liam and Lina.

"I don't know how many people have to get sent to the Conduct Board for them to stop sneaking alcohol into this event," Liam said, shaking his head.

"It's only 2 o'clock in the afternoon," Lina laughed.

I was certain I could walk around to any of the fraternity booths and buy a beer off of them, even though alcohol in the gym or on campus was prohibited.  There was no doubt in my mind they had coolers hidden under their tables to sneak a Bud Light to anyone who said the code word.  Being caught with alcohol meant you had to go in front of "Conduct Board," a group of student-recommended students who hear your side of what you're being accused of.  They then determine whether they think you were wrongfully accused or they'll convict you and choose your fate from there.  Some students have been expelled by the Conduct Board for drugs, sexual assault, or plagiarism. Underage drinking was a huge problem last year especially.

With the reputation that January Jam had, I didn't doubt that some teacher or admin was standing on the outskirts of the crowd just waiting to catch someone with alcohol. With that same reputation, I was stunned people were even trying to drink any alcohol at all.

"Oh!" Lina squealed, grabbing Liam's arm and pointing.  "They're doing glitter tattoos over there."

"I've been watching that booth," Liam said, pointing in the opposite direction.  "They're charging people a dollar to go into that little corner of puppies."

"So first we'll do puppies, then tattoos, then Rory has to pick something," Lina said, turning to me.

I grinned and nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

Liam pulled his wallet from his pocket and revealed about thirty $1 bills. "I know they usually charge a dollar for everything here so I've got you guys covered."

I laughed.  "It looks like you have a side job as a stripper."

Liam winked and hugged Lina around her shoulders.  "Only for one girl, and only in the bedroom."

Lina blushed and shoved Liam off of her as he tried to kiss her face.  I laughed again.

We hung our jackets over the railing of the track like many other people had done.  Because of all of the body heat, I wasn't about to carry that heavy thing around while I was maneuvering with Lina and Liam through the booths and games.  I also didn't care much if it got stolen.  It was an old coat.

"One dollar and you can watch all of your stress disappear by hugging a puppy," a cheerful Alpha Chi Omega girl said. Liam whipped three dollars from his pocket and handed them to her, pointing to himself, Lina, and me standing behind her.  The ΑΧΩ girl nodded and motioned us into the tiny, fenced in area.  "If you fall in love with any of the dogs, they're all from the local Humane Society and they're up for adoption! Except the black lab, he's already taken," the ΑΧΩ girl told us.

"God, don't tell me that," I said, bending down and allowing a fuzzy golden retriever puppy to place his front paws on my knee and lick my face.  "I'll adopt them all."

Liam laughed and picked up a long-haired dachshund puppy the size of his hand.  "Me too!"

Lina laid flat on her back and allowed an assortment of puppies swarm her.  "Heaven," she sighed. "I'm in Heaven."

Post-puppy party, we took a stroll through the booths on the way to the glitter tattoos.  At a few booths we passed, I noticed certain suspicious-looking guys slipping beers under the tables to equally as suspicious-looking customers. A few booths were actually pretty fun, like a dart-throwing booth with targets of paint-filled balloons. There were games to throw a ball and knock over pins for a candy bar.  Many sororities were selling hand-painted wine glasses and other little Holbrooke-decorated trinkets.  There were a few "spin-the-wheel" booths where you could win a t-shirt or a lanyard.  

We stopped to watch Lina spin for a t-shirt at a Theta Chi booth.  Beside the ΘΧ booth was Kappa Sig. Unlike many of the other booths, the booth had no decoration at all except for a crudely drawn "ΚΣ" in black Sharpie on a white poster.  I made eye contact with Richie Wallace, the only ΚΣ member actually at the booth.  He looked away from me quickly and then back at me, finally forcing an awkward smile. "Haven't seen you in a while," he said, itching his scalp through his messy, black hair.

"Well, I did go home for winter break," I said.

"What?" Richie asked, leaning toward me and putting a hand up to cup his ear. The music was loud.

"I went home for winter break," I repeated, nearly shouting at him.

"Oh, yeah. I mean, other than that... like at the house..." He shifted on his feet.  "With Cameron..."

I shrugged. "I've been busy.  Where is he?"

Richie mimicked my shrug.  "Somewhere around here," he said.  "With all the other guys."

"With Harry?" I asked, shifting backwards as a group of friends snaked between Lina, Liam, and myself.

Richie shrugged and shook his head.  "I don't know.  I haven't seen him."

I sighed.  What help was he? Lina and Liam high-five next to me.  Lina had won a Holbrooke t-shirt.  I smiled and high-fived her as well.

"On to glitter tattoos then?" She asked.

Liam led the way, followed by Lina and myself, to the tattoos.  While we waited in line, someone from the school newspaper snapped a picture of us.  I was worried about how I looked, clad in some old, cuffed jeans and baggy, long-sleeved v-neck, but I knew it wasn't like the picture would be on the front page.  Even though the picture had already been taken, I took a minute to fix my messy bun, a few strands of my blonde hair falling from the hair tie no matter what I did.

It took us 20 minutes of standing in line to finally get our tattoos. Lina and Liam got matching pink, glittery hearts - all Liam's idea - and he made me take a picture of them both flexing their biceps where the tattoos were. It was funny to watch how Liam would always do things you could tell made Lina want to roll her eyes, but at the same time, I had the feeling she absolutely loved his antics. I got an orange, glittery sun just beneath my collarbone.  

"Where next?" Lina asked.

Liam pointed back to the booths.  "I saw some amazing looking brownies at the Delta Zeta table."

"Lead the way," Lina said.

As we started to walk that way, a loud splash and a few drops of water on my back caught my attention.  The three of us turned and spotted a dunk-tank, previously hidden from our view because of the large crowd surrounding it.  I stood on my tip-toes and peered into the bubbling water where the dunked student was beginning to emerge.  It was Harry.  He flipped his long hair back out of his face and clapped for the student who managed to hit the target that dunked him.  

Harry climbed up onto the ledge and wiped more water out of his face.  He was only wearing some yellow swim trunks, giving me the opportunity to gaze at his heavily tattooed body that I had only ever seen so naked once in my life before.

"Who's next?" He shouted, grinning at the crowd and pointing to random people.  Everyone around me was trying to convince their friends to step up.

"Do it!"

"I can't throw!"

"You should still do it-"

"Everyone will see!"

Before I knew what was happening, Lina slipped a dollar into my hand and Liam pushed my shoulders forward so that I was standing alone in front of the crowd.  

I tried to turn around and push back through the crowd, but Liam laughed and pushed me back toward the dunk tank. People were suddenly cheering me on and encouraging me to take a throw at the target to dunk Harry.  Reluctantly, I walked over to where Jackson Wilde was collecting money and handed him my dollar.  He looked out of place in some pressed, blue slacks, a collared shirt, and a tie.  He raised his thick eyebrows at me and exchanged my dollar for a ball.  "Three tries, three balls," he explained. "Stand at that line on the ground back there, no closer."

I nodded and took the first ball in my hand, walking back to the duct tape line on the basketball court.  I stared at my feet for a moment before glancing up at Harry.  He was leaning forward on the ledge, resting his weight on his arms on either side of his body and swinging his feet back and forth, his toes just brushing the top of the water. He cocked his head at me, his green eyes studying me calmly as he waited for me to throw.

I brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, set my eyes on the small target, and threw the first ball.  I heard a loud "thud!" as it hit the thick mat behind the target.  The crowd booed and Harry smirked.  He shook his hair out and scratched his knee.  "Weak," he said.

I bit my lip and took the second ball from Jackson.  "I'm gonna dunk you," I said matter-of-factly to Harry, though he was far away enough to where he couldn't hear me.  However, he still read my lips and grinned.

"No you're not," he yelled back to me just as soon as I released the second ball.  It missed the target by a mere inch, again hitting the mat behind the target and earning me a "boo" from the crowd. Behind me, I heard Lina and Liam cheering me on.

"Last throw," Jackson said, handing me the ball. "Or if you just want to leave, it's not like you're gonna actually hit the target."

"I know how to count," I said, snatching it from him.  "And I will hit that damn thing."

Jackson snorted and adjusted the black tie around his neck. "Yeah, okay..."

I looked at Harry and shook my head as he tauntingly grinned at me.  "Come on, RJ.  Just give up."

I threw the ball as hard as I could.  It hit the target.  Harry didn't budge.  

"What???" Lina bellowed from behind the crowd.  "She hit it!"

"Not hard enough," Jackson shouted back, fanning out the cash they had made in his hands and beginning to count.  "Maybe next time."

My eyes shot over to Harry. He was laughing hysterically.  

"Come on, mate! She hit the target to dunk him!" Liam yelled.  People from the crowd were beginning to yell, too.  A few of them began to chant my name.  I was surprised that many people knew who I was.  

"Rory! Rory! Rory!"

When I looked back at Harry again, he shrugged playfully and mouthed a sassy "sorry!" to me.  I chuckled to myself and glanced at the target.  Jackson wasn't guarding it.  He was already turned to look for the next paying customer.  I took off.  I sprinted at the target.  I slammed into the target with my entire body weight and watched with pure glee as Harry unsuspectingly took a dive into the cold water of the tank.  

The crowd around me erupted into laughs, cheers, and applause. I watched as Harry came sputtering out of the water and stared at me in disbelief.  Before I could push my way out of the crowd, Harry used his long body to leap out of the tank and come sprinting for me - only he forgot about the slick floors of the gym.  He slipped onto his butt and took my feet out from beneath me, forcing me to fall on top of his soaking wet body.  He hugged me so tightly that I could feel the water from his body soaking into my jeans and my shirt.  I struggled against him as other people stood around and laughed.  

Lina came to my rescue, pulling me from Harry's arms as Liam pulled Harry to his feet.  

"You are a bloody cheater-" Harry panted, putting his hands on his hips and widening his eyes at me like he still couldn't believe I did what I did.  

"I hit the target and nothing happened! You guys are ripping people off," I said.

Harry bared his teeth to us.  "That's Jackson's idea.  Not sure what that asshat is doing," he said, glancing over to Jackson.  "Jacks! I'm out of here," he yelled at him.

Jackson looked up from counting money and gawked at Harry.  "Who is going to go in the tank then??"

"Why don't you do it?" Harry suggested.

Jackson looked offended.  How dare Harry suggest he get into that nasty water? He called something to Harry, but at that point, Harry had his arm around my shoulders and walked slowly to be sure he didn't slip again. Liam and Lina walked behind us and I could hear them giggling about the fact that Harry had his arm around me.  "My dry clothes are in the locker room," Harry said.  "Mind helping me get there?"

I grinned up at him and nodded.  "Damn, I sure do wish I had some dry clothes."

Harry glanced down at the massive water imprint he had made on my jeans and shirt.  It looked like I had peed on myself.  "I'm so, so sorry,"  he laughed.  "But at the same time, I'm not."

I poked him in the side. I was oblivious to all of the surprised gazes and jealous glares being sent my way because I had Harry Styles wrapped around my shoulders.  I was on cloud nine.  I had only seen him for five minutes and I already regretted not texting him or calling him over the month-long break.

"Why didn't you call me?" I asked once we walked into the boy's locker room.  It was empty except for Harry's clothes and a few strangers' snow jackets. Lina and Liam didn't follow us.

Harry reached for the waistband of his yellow swim trunks, but stopped when my question reached his ears.  He stared at me, not blinking for a few moments before he answered: "I don't know."

"Well damn you," I said.

Harry seemed taken aback.  "Damn you, Rory.  Why didn't you call me?"

I tensed my jaw.  "I was scared."

"Scared?"

"Yes.  I mean, I think so."

"Why?" Harry asked.  

I shook my head.  "I don't know."

Harry sighed and grabbed the waistband of his swim trunks, untying the front tie and letting the wet bottoms slide down his legs.  He had some soaked, blue boxers underneath.  I turned away from him and blushed.  "Why scared?" Harry asked again.

I cleared my throat.  "I told you, I don't know."

"Well I do."

I spun around to face him again just as he pulled on a dry pair of boxers.  I was trying to keep my eyes on his face.  He raised his eyebrows.  I could tell in his face that he was about to say something serious and not something sarcastic or funny.  "You're afraid because I'm something new."

I made a face.  "Not really.  You've been a constant in my life..."

"I don't mean like that.  I mean you've had your feelings for Cam for so long that your feelings for me are new and it's scaring you," Harry said as he pulled on a pair of light jeans.  Here he went again, having me all figured out.  It made me think of the first few times that he and I ever spoke.  Especially when we went out to Joey's Pancake House and he accurately evaluated my entire Cameron situation.   "Maybe you're worried it's temporary.  Maybe you're scared that I'll turn out like Cam."

"Fine," I said, crossing my arms.  "You've pegged me.  Now what's your excuse?"

Harry picked up a towel and rubbed it around on his wet head, causing his soaked ringlets to frizz up and go all different directions.  "I don't know.  I guess I just thought it was kinda just the snowy day and the cold atmosphere and the darkness that made you want to snuggle up to someone and-"

"Don't you think if that was the case that I would have gone to Cameron?  To 'snuggle up?'" I asked, offended by this idea that I had used him that morning for a whim of feelings.

Harry's face lit up as if it suddenly dawned on him that it wasn't just the snow or the early morning that had me snuggling up to him. He sighed and pulled on his shirt. "I'm sorry, RJ... I just didn't think you really liked me enough for me to pursue it."

"Well I do," I said abruptly, not only startling Harry, but also myself.  "A lot," I choked out.

Harry's nose twitched like he was trying not to smile too hard.  He quickly pulled his own curls back into a bun.  He allowed his hands to drop and slap his sides.  "Well I don't know what to say.  I'm flattered... really... but I just don't think I like you like that..." He put a hand on his chest like he was covering his heart and grinned at me.  I felt my stomach plummet before I realized he was joking.  I stepped toward him and shoved him into the lockers behind him.  He caught my hand and pulled me against him, connecting our lips without a second of hesitation.  I melted on the spot.

"I'm going to run to the bathroom," Harry said, hugging me tightly and letting me go.  "Just hang here, I'll be back in a moment."

I nodded and sucked my lips between my teeth.  I felt jittery and warm.  I wanted to dance around the entire locker room.  I was so aggravated with myself for not calling him or texting him over the break, but I was trying not to focus on that anymore.  We were in a good place at the moment.

"Rory?" Someone called my name from the door of the locker room.  I turned to see who it was.  

"Hey, Cameron," I said, smiling pleasantly at him.  

He stepped into the room fully. He had a KΣ shirt on and a pair of khakis I remembered buying with him a few years back. "Uh, I'm looking for Harry.  Have you seen him?"

"He's in the bathroom," I said, motioning over my shoulder with my thumb.  For once, I was having no reaction to Cameron Walker.  None at all.  No anger, no annoyance, and more importantly, no love.

"Jackson said he has to come back to the dunk tank," Cameron said.

"He just changed.  I don't think he's going back in," I informed him.

Cameron sighed.  "Okay. Thanks."  He turned to walk out of the locker room.  Before he got to the door, he slowed his pace and turned to face me.  He shoved his hands deep into his pockets like I knew he did when he was nervous. "Rory?"

"What's up, Cam?" I asked.

He stared at the floor.  "I'm not really sure what's wrong.  Like, I don't know what I did - or even what I didn't do... but I'm really sorry.  I hope I figure out what it is... but I just- I think I miss you.  I mean, I know I miss you.  Hanging out and... you know."

I pressed my lips together until I was sure they'd turned white.  I remained silent.

"I just wanted you to hear that," Cameron said.

"Ready to go?" Harry asked, coming back up to be from between the lockers. He froze when he saw Cameron.  It was clear they were still not on good terms.

Cameron began to glare at Harry, but stopped himself.  "I'll tell Jackson you're leaving."

"Thanks, mate," Harry said flatly.

Cameron shifted his blue eyes to meet mine.  "Rory, I think that I... I wanna tell you that I... I just..." He shook his head.  "You're truly amazing.  I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner."

OKAY SO WHERE TO BEGIN This is gonna be like a short story with very little detail lol I JUST NEED TO GET THIS OUT 

PS this is all true straight from the heart 

PPS This is not a pity-party or me bragging or making any excuses in any way I just want to be honest with you guys because I’ve finally come to terms with all of this! 

Basically my parents never taught me that failure was okay.  I was student body president of my high school, in all kinds of AP classes, graduated fifth in my class, prom queen, i went to girl’s state (like a shortened governors school for government) and all of this super successful stuff in high school! It was a great time!!! But then I got to college and I basically shut myself into my dorm with my roommate and we literally hibernated.  Like actually turned the AC down to 60 degrees (fahrenheit) and we made it so dark and basically I just slept and cried and it’s taken me until two years ago to realize I was depressed as shit.  I think the depression actually started when I was in the tenth grade but it didn’t hit me hard until Freshman year of college. 

SO I stopped going to class and I failed everything and dropped out of school which was a major blow to my self-esteem.  Basically I was waiting for God to come and smite me because I thought my life was over because no one ever taught me that it was okay to fail sometimes! 

In moving back home, I had my very angry and controlling and mentally and emotionally abusive mother hovering over me all the time and yelling at me for sitting around being depressed basically instead of getting me the help I needed so long story short I tried to commit suicide.  It was so so shitty. 

DONT DO THAT FRIENDS COME TALK TO ME FIRST IF YOU EVER HAVE THOUGHTS LIKE THAT PLS

I would say this was around the time of my writing Two Truths and a Lie which is why the posting was so sporadic and shitty and came to an abrupt halt! I’m so sorry! I literally hate myself for that but tbh I had zero motivation to do ANYTHING let alone finish that story for some reason! 

More recently I’ve gotten back into school and I’m still depressed here and there and have anxiety attacks. I’ve actually stressed myself out so much that I have these incapacitating headaches (like the muscles in my head are so tense that it just becomes blinding pain) SO I went to the doctor to try and get that figured out and I also found out I was allergic to like all kinds of foods (wheat eggs milk cheese bananas coffee quinoa LIKE PLEASE just take away ALL of my happiness) and I’m taking 14 pills a day because my body is so fucked up right now (literally 14 pills it’s incredible) and on top of that they said that my thyroid cancer was back!  if you followed me about two years ago you might remember I told you that they told me I had cancer and then after a ton of testing said I DIDNT 

WELL THATS HAPPENED AGAIN like they get me all mentally prepared to have it and they do testing and testing and testing and I just found out like two weeks ago that I DONT have it which is great! So great.  Still can I fight them for mental abuse???? FFS it stresses me to the max (Should stress anyone to know they may have cancer) I know they have to prep me for the worst but this is like the third time ffs I feel like I’m gonna have it sooner or later at this point

BASICALLY it’s been a shitstorm the last few years but I’m on the up and up! I’m trying so hard to be positive and get back into the groove of things! TBH I never got the actual help I needed as far as meds or genuine therapy for depression that I feel I would have benefitted from in the past but I feel like I’m in such a better place than I was before so I don't know that theres a point to any of that anymore ya know? I can identify my stressors and stuff so that’s good and for the most part I’m like pretty content! 

I’m a very apologetic person so i’m sorry that y’all had to go through this with me but I’m also NOT sorry because I was seriously struggling and I’m proud of myself for getting back out into the world! I’m supposed to graduate this time next year and I have an internship this summer and I’m even looking into FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY ACTUALLY publishing a book that I’m stoked about and I think you guys would love to death (Based off harry but not actually harry ya feel) 

I love y’all so much and I hope you have an amazing week! Thanks for listening or if you didn’t listen that’s okay you do you and I’ll be posting soon! 

"That's why I asked you, mum," Harry said, taking the card from his mother.  He held the pair between his two fingers and waved them at all of us before putting the pair of nines in front of him on the shaggy carpet. "I knew you had it."

I laughed, but stopped when Cameron started to talk to me. "Do you have a five?" He asked. I knew he was just playing the game with us to pass the time, but I really wished he wouldn't talk at all.

"Go fish," I muttered, staring into the lit fireplace a few feet away from us. I pulled the heavy, blue blanket around my shoulders more tightly around my body. When the power went out in the house, Dana lit the fireplace and grabbed all of the blankets that she had. This hellacious storm came out of nowhere. I was certain my mother would have been raving about it for days if she'd heard about it before it happened. Even Dana said she saw no indication on the weather channel about such a storm happening today. I used Harry's phone to text my parents that I was fine, but I'd heard no response. I was sure this storm and being locked in with both Harry and Cameron was God's way of punishing me for rolling my eyes at my mother too many times.

"Do you have a six?" I asked Harry, my eyes scanning the numbers on the three cards I had fanned out in my hand. Harry's hair was up in a bun and he was swaddled in a blanket of his own, as well as a black, tight-fitted high school hoodie and grey sweatpants that he had obviously grown out of. I almost felt bad for stealing his pajamas, but then again, seeing him in such attire was exceptionally amusing.

"Go fish," he said after a second of squinting at the card in his hand. It was hard to see from the wavering light of the fire. He looked at his mother. "Do you have a two?"

"Harold, you are grounded," Dana groaned, throwing one of her cards at him.

Harry grinned and put down the last of his cards on the carpet. "I win."

Cameron and I tossed the remainder of our cards onto the floor in front of us.

"We should play again," Dana suggested, but she was quickly shot down by a reluctant stare from Harry. We'd played the game seven times, and at that point, I was more willing to stare at the shadows dancing on the wall of the living room than play the card game again.  Dana stood. "Well, if that's the case, I'll go see what I can find for food. This is why I keep telling your father that I want a damn gas stove..."

Dana disappeared into the kitchen, using a flashlight to find her way. Instantly, the room felt colder. The three of us were silent. I tugged at the plaid fabric of Harry's flannel pajamas on my body and glanced back at the fire, popping every so often. My eyes flickered to Harry sitting beside me. He suddenly looked dead. Lifeless. It was like the Harry that I saw when we got to his Kappa Sig party, silent and expressionless. However, I couldn't say I was any different. When I'd returned downstairs to Cameron and Harry from changing a few hours ago, I'd already shut down mentally and emotionally. This was how I was in confrontations and situations I didn't want to deal with. At the moment, I did not want to deal with Cameron.

"Jackson has started planning January Jam for when we come back to school after winter break," Cameron told Harry, breaking the silence. Cam pulled at the collar of his own hoodie, which was also too small and from our high school years. Harry had reluctantly graced Cameron with a warm, dry outfit, very similar to his own.

Harry sucked his lips between his teeth. January Jam was a school-wide event that helped the sororities and fraternities raise money. In recent years, with Jackson Wilde on the planning committee, the event had become a little less of an appealing fundraiser and more of a dirty, classless, drunken hoedown throw-down. "Great," Harry replied monotonously.

"It's supposed to be a carnival theme," Cameron added.

Harry sighed, "How original."

Cameron, taking immediate offense with Harry's tone, scowled. "Well you can join the planning committee next year if you have a better idea."

Harry shrugged.

"You should go with me to January Jam, Rory," Cameron said, calming his tone. When he said my name, a wave of heat spread through my body.  Cameron watched me with wide eyes, almost leaning toward me from across the room.  Harry's fingers slowly curled into the blanket around him and he seemed to tighten his jaw before slowly glancing my way as well.

"You should take Megan," I said to Cam softly, reaching forward from beneath my blanket and picking at a spot on the carpet.

"Ex-girlfriend," Cameron said bluntly, shivering.  "She was psycho."

Cam was single? Part of me wanted to ask further questions: When did they break up? What made her psycho? Did they still talk? Did they break up because he left to take me home that morning after the party? I held my tongue.

"She wasn't the only one in the relationship who was psycho," Harry muttered, breaking the silence between all of us.

"Just think about it,"  Cam told me through his teeth, ignoring Harry.  "I'd love to take my girl with me to January Jam.  I think we would have fun together.  I told Jackson to get a ferris wheel.  I know you love ferris wheels."

He called me his girl.  He called me his girl.  He called me his girl.  I gulped.  And did he request the ferris wheel just for me?? My head was reeling.  Harry caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.  His face was distorted, like he was confused about what was going on.  He started to open his mouth.

"Rory, how have your classes been?" Cameron followed up quickly, trying to change the subject and not giving Harry two seconds to make a comment.  I wanted to turn back to Harry and ask him what he wanted to say, but once more, I held my tongue.

"Rory?" Cameron asked again after a moment. "Your classes?"

"Oh, fine," I croaked.  Why was Cameron suddenly making me jittery?

"You had Gilmer for a teacher this semester, right?" He asked.

I nodded, staring straight into the fire, my eyes following the dancing flames as they reached for the top of the brick fireplace.

"Well," Cameron said, leaning back on both arms and crossing his legs in front of him. "He was a great teacher when I had him for Intro to Psychology. This girl in the class was trying to talk about the experiment with the dog and salivation and Gilmer said 'Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?' Get it? Because Pavlov was the experimenter and the dogs - he rang the bell and the dogs salivated-" Cameron was chuckling at the joke, but it was a forced laugh. I knew it. I appreciated that he was at least trying to have conversations about things that appealed to me, but not only had he already told me that story before, but I just was not in the mood to talk to him.  He was trying too hard to force a conversation.  That aside, along with Harry, I was confused.

Cameron noticed my disengagement and stopped laughing. He waited a few seconds, staring into the fire with us before flashing a nasty glare at both Harry and myself. "For fuck's sake," he sighed harshly. "Of course, I would get snowed in with the two most non-conversational, unresponsive people on the planet."

"Well, no one invited you to come over," Harry said. "You could have turned around and gone home once you saw it was snowing. Or raining. Or hailing. Or even if it was none of the above, you probably should have turned around and gone home."

Once more, the look on Cam's face told me he took full-offense from Harry's comment. Harry and I could definitely have been doing more to make this as little of a hostile environment as possible, but it wasn't part of my nature and it certainly wasn't a part of Harry's.  At least not at that moment.

"How much longer is your father living in Bahrain?" I asked Harry, desperate to avoid a scrap.

"A little less than a year," Harry said, smiling softly at me.

"Are you excited for him to be back?" I asked.

He nodded. "He's been gone a year and a half."

"You don't have to brag to us about how long your father's been deployed," Cameron snarled. Finally, he was trying to pick a fight. "We all know what it feels like to have a parent deploy for months and years at a time."

"I'm not bragging," Harry growled, his mood shifting from a sense of hopefulness about his father to one of anger. Cameron had finally pushed Harry from a blend of annoyance, sarcasm, and monotony to the brink of rage.

"Sounds like it.  My father's been deployed for a year now too-" Cameron started.

Harry pushed himself off of the floor angrily, straightening up and letting his blanket fall from his shoulders.  His small high school hoodie rose up above his belly button.  I would have laughed if there wasn't about to be a duel of the frat brothers two feet in front of me. "Cam, why don't you just shut up?  Why do you make everything about you?? You're a selfish bastard."

"Fuck you, Haz-" Cameron said, struggling to quickly leap to his feet and facing his childhood friend defensively.  He puffed upward to try and get a lock of brown hair off of his forehead, but to no avail.  It fell further into his eyes, but he didn't move it.  Both boys had their fists clenched and were leaning toward each other like the air between them had a stronger pull than the gravity holding their feet to the ground.

Wanting to remove myself from the situation, I stood abruptly, scaring both boys out of their battle stances.  They watched me silently as I scurried out of the room and into the kitchen, knocking my knee into the side of the counter as I blindly searched with my hands for my way around the unfamiliar house.  I groaned and felt two hands reach out for me.

"Are you okay?" Dana asked.  "I did the same thing on my way in and I live here." She laughed and felt her way around until she could locate her flashlight and flick it on to allow some sliver of light into the room.  On the counter, I could make out what looked to be bags of lunchmeat, chips, and bread.

I rubbed my knee and nodded at her.  "I'm fine," I lied. "Feeling a bit run-down, really.  I don't want to impose, but..." I glanced at the dark window to the backyard where I could make out flakes of dedicate snow still coming down just as hard as they had been all afternoon. "I don't think I'll make it home tonight. Especially not in the dark."

"Good lord," Dana laughed.  "You didn't think I was going to send you home in this madness, did you?  I made you a bed in the guest room, upstairs, beside Harry's room.  I figured the boys could sleep in Harry's room.  They can have a sleepover like they used to.  Talk about pretty girls and fraternity stuff."  She grinned at me in the darkness.  Dana was a lovely woman, physically very beautiful and personally very kind, but she was either dull and oblivious to the tension that had filled the house since Cameron arrived or she was wise and choosing to ignore it. "Do you want something to eat before you go to sleep?"

I shook my head.  "No, thank you."

"Well if you want anything in the night, be careful coming down the stairs in the dark," Dana warned me.  "They're hard wood.  No carpet.  You'd be surprised at how many times I slip coming down those stairs, even when the lights are on."

I forced a laugh.  "Thanks, Mrs. Styles."

She handed me her flashlight and gave me general directions up the stairs to where the bedroom was.  However, from the second I left the kitchen, the light from the flashlight dimmed with each step I took, slowly warning me that the battery was running out.  How convenient.  When it completely went out, I was halfway up the stairs, so I stumbled along in the darkness, bumping cabinets here and stairs there, but finally found my way into the guest room. I walked to the window and peered into the unlit street where the wind coming off of the ocean was swirling and whipping around ribbons of snowflakes before they fell to the ground and built up more of an icy wall between us and the outside world.  I sighed, thinking about the hike in the snow that I would have to take to get home tomorrow if the snow ever halted its downpour. It gave me a headache to think about staying here another day with Cameron. With Harry, it was a different story. Before Cameron got to the house, Harry and I were actually bonding. He was a genuine person. A good guy. I was probably an asshole for giving him such a hard time.

When the cold air seeping through the frame of the window brushed my skin, I shivered and leapt into the freshly made bed.  The yellow feather comforter was heavy, but it wasn't warm enough to soothe me to sleep immediately.  I curled up into a ball and tensed all of my muscles to try and warm myself up, ultimately tiring me out and putting me to sleep.

"Rory."  After being asleep in the cold for a while, it was as if my brain was too frozen to process that someone was talking to me.  "Rory."

It was Cameron.  I whined when he lifted the comforter and let a whirl of cold air flood the tent of warmth I'd managed to create over the last few hours.   He slid into the bed and scooted closer and closer to me.

"What, Cameron?  What?" I groaned, angry that he'd disrupted my sleep. I was aware of the cold again and was becoming more and more awake with how much Cameron was shifting around.

"I just can't sleep.  I'm kinda hungry," he whined.

"Go get food then and go back to sleep," I told him, pulling the comforter back around my shoulders.

"I can't sleep in that room anymore. Harry's floor is hurting my back," he complained. "It's cold.  I don't want to go get food.  It's too dark."

"Well get comfortable - and fast," I snapped.  "I was warm until you got here.  Just go to sleep."

He stopped his shifting around for a second and then started moving again to come closer to me.  I felt his arms slip around my waist and he dragged me from my comfortable position on my bed into his own body.  I had to admit, it was much warmer, but also much more awake.  I was frowning the wall across from me, waiting patiently as Cameron continued to shift behind me, pressing his groin against my backside and burying his face into my hair and the back of my neck.  Right when he finally seemed to get comfortable, I felt his hand sliding slowly, slowly, slowly up my stomach under Harry's flannel pajama shirt. He stopped just beneath my bare breast, drawing circles in my skin with his thumb.

I held my breath.  I didn't want this, did I?  He was all I wanted for so long that it was almost a default feeling for me to feel butterflies when he touched me and blush when he called me "his girl."  Beneath those feelings, I was experiencing something new.  Anger.  Annoyance.  Not just because it was cold and I was tired.  Cameron was acting like a child.  I was angry that he seemed to think he could come back to me like that, crawl into bed with me, pull me into his body, touch me delicately like he was in love with me.  He pressed his lips against the skin of my neck.  He lifted his hand higher and gripped my bare chest.  I leapt out of the bed.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

I watched his silhouette sit up on the bed.  "Rory, come lay down."

"Cameron, this... I... just no..."

"Just come lay back down.  I'm trying to warm us up-"

"Just stop.  Go back to Harry's room."

"I told you," he whined.  "My back hurts and-"

"God dammit, Cameron..." I breathed, turning and shuffling to the door.

"Rory, where are you going?"

I bumped into the door frame and grunted angrily, gripping my sore shoulder. I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door to the guest room behind me, shutting Cameron away.  All of the doors in the hallway were closed, but I remembered that Dana told me the guest room, the room I had just left, was directly beside Harry's.  I went to the closest door to me and carefully pushed it open.  I stepped over a pile of thin blankets that must have made Cameron's initial bed. I walked toward the real bed in the room, but upon creeping closer, I realized the bed was also empty.  As I reached toward the sheets on the bed, a loud thud behind me shook the silence of the house and startled me.  I spun around, half expecting Cameron to have fallen on his way to get back to me, but he wasn't there.  No one was.  At least not in the hallway.

"Fucking stairs," I heard Harry grumble as he struggled to stop himself from sliding further down the stairs than he already had.  His mother warned me about the slippery wooden stairs, but I didn't think even Harry would be slipping down them.  I hurried to the top step and peered down at the black shadow of a body sprawled out on the stairs.

"Harry?"

My voice startled him, sending him jolting forward to try and turn around to look at me, but ultimately making him slide down three more stairs.  His elbow connected hard with each stair, eliciting a cry of pain from him each time. When he finally slid to a stop, he let his body go limp and he pressed his thumb to his head, which he relaxed on the step above him.  "Fuckin' hell, Rory.  You scared me half to death," he sighed quietly.

I tip-toed down the stairs to him, making sure to hold onto the railing and to be sure my feet were firm on the stair before I put any weight on them.  As I came closer, Harry reached for me and gripped my ankle beneath my flannel pant leg. My skin tingled where his warm hand closed against my skin. "Careful," he whispered.  "There's a busted flashlight somewhere around here."

"What are you doing up and about anyway?" I asked, helping him sit forward.

"Cameron wouldn't stop huffing and puffing and just go to sleep.  I came down to get a drink of water and I was on my way back up," he whispered.  "What are you doing awake?"

"Cameron came to my room when you left yours I guess," I said, straightening up and glancing at the top of the stairs to be sure Cam hadn't emerged from the room.  The door to the guest room was still shut.  "I left.  I was just... coming down for a glass of water too, I think," I lied.

Harry stood up slowly, his chest lining up with my face.  The way he smelled made me drowsy - the smell of yesterday's cologne mixed with the smell of his bed, the smell of his sleep - I silently breathed it in. "I'll help you," Harry offered, grabbing my elbow to help me down the stairs. He stepped ahead of me, and I could hear him slide a shard of plastic from the flashlight he must have dropped across the stair, away from where I would have stepped on it.

"Oh, you don't need to," I protested.

Harry snorted.  "Just let me help you, you butthead."

"Butthead?" I asked, offended.

Harry chuckled, turned around to pinch my nose between his fingers, and turned to face away from me on the step just below me.  "Jump on my back.  I don't want you to get plastic in your foot."  

"Well what about your feet??" I asked.

"They're tough. Don't worry about them."

"But your elbow-" I started.

"I'll be fine," Harry said. "It's not like my elbow is going to give out."

Before I could protest again, Harry leaned his back against my stomach and reached behind him to grip my thighs in his hands, pulling me around his waist and wobbling to catch his balance.  "We're both going to fall down the stairs again," I whispered to myself, though my mouth close to Harry's ear.  

He laughed softly again, all of his body tensing beneath the grip of my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. "Probably."

I was in no way opposed to this idea, however.  I gripped him more tightly and shut my eyes, allowing myself to trust him completely as he slowly made his way down the steps to the first floor.  Something about the situation was getting my blood rushing, and I couldn't tell if it was the suspense of not knowing whether I would make it to the bottom of the staircase without injury or the intoxicating smell of twilight-hour Harry, more pungent since my face was the closest to his body that I had consciously been aware of in my life.  

He carried me safely to the bottom of the stairs and even further into the kitchen, expertly making his way through the darkeness of his house without bumping into everything like I had done a few hours earlier.  He turned around to place my bum on the cold counter of the kitchen before slowly withdrawing his warm hands from their hold on my thighs.  I felt my heart physically wilt with the loss of contact, but it leapt again when Harry turned around, gripped my bottom lip, and playfully tugged it.  I wanted to blame the late hour for my sudden need to be caressed softly and slowly, but I had just run away from Cameron for offering me more than what Harry was. Regardless, Harry's little touches here and there were making my heart race.

"Water," he sighed, turning away from me.  "Water, water, water..." I listened to his fingers drag along the tops of the cabinets until he found the ones containing the cups.  He grabbed a glass and walked to the sink, twisting the faucet so that water came out, dribbling softly against the bottom of the sink until Harry held the cup under.  As he waited for the cup to fill, he and I glanced out the window into the backyard where we could barely see through the built-up snow along the outside window pane.  "It's stopped snowing," Harry whispered.  He turned and handed me my glass of water.

I took it from him, being sure to brush my fingers along his in the process.  The early hour of the morning was messing with my head, surely.  All I wanted at that moment was for Harry to lean against me.  Hold my hand.  Stand between my legs as I sat on the counter.  I wanted to touch his hair.  I wanted to pinch his nose like he'd pinched mine a few minutes earlier.  I wanted to drag my fingertips down his arms.  The hair on my own arms stood with the thought.

"I suppose I'll leave a little later today," I said.

Harry hesitated a moment before saying, "Well, you don't have to."  He cleared his throat as quietly as he could.  "I mean, if it's too much snow to walk or drive, you can stay.  It's not like my mum or I have things to do."

I took a sip of my water.

"If you want to leave though, I have big snow boots you can borrow," Harry continued.

I nodded appreciatively, but I wasn't sure he could see me in the darkness.

"I'll probably kick Cameron out, regardless of whether you stay or leave, though," Harry whispered again, almost giggling to himself.  I couldn't help it.  Even I laughed.

"Please," I begged, setting the glass beside me on the counter. I waited for Harry to say something, but when he didn't, I asked, "What happened last night? After I left, I mean."

Harry shifted, crossing one leg over the other and crossing one arm over the other.  "Surprisingly, nothing.  I didn't say anything and neither did he. I told my mum I was going to sleep and Cam followed. He laid on the floor and huffed and puffed like he wanted to say something until I fell asleep, and even then I woke up a few times and heard him rolling around and grumbling to himself, but I ignored it."

"He's a whiny, little child," I said, bouncing my heels gently against the counter.

Harry seemed taken aback.  How could I, Rory, say something horrible about the love of my life? "Yes... Yeah.  He is," Harry stuttered.

I sucked my lips between my teeth.  "I appreciate you, you know."

Harry cocked his head.  In the darkness, I scrunched up my face.  Wrong choice of words.

"I mean, I appreciate what you've done for me, you know.  Not only taking care of me when I was drunk, but being brutally honest... helping me to realize Cameron is... well, Cameron.  I think I was blind to it before... well, without actually being blind to it..." I managed to sputter out.  "I was just-"

"Ignoring it," Harry concluded for me.

I laughed.  "Yes.  Ignoring it.  You didn't have to help me.  Like, at all."

Harry raised his shoulders and let them fall.  "I just felt like I owed it to you, for some reason.  I guess I felt like we were... well, friends?  Without actually knowing each other?  If that makes sense..."

I smiled.  "I guess so.  Like, for as much as I didn't know you before, you've just constantly been there."

"Yeah," Harry said, his voice piping up since I seemed to understand what he was saying.  "You're one of the few constants in my life."

"Same," I nodded.

"I'm sorry it took so long for me to get to know you," Harry said.  "I just... Cameron made you sound kinda lame, to be honest."

I gasped audibly and stared at the blackness of the floor beneath me.

"I'm sorry-" Harry blurted, gripping his head with both hands and shaking it.  "I'm so tired, I just don't have a filter right now-"

I laughed.  "It's fine."

"It's just the only time I ever saw you was when you were playing his maid or following him like a lost puppy.  Half the time too, it would be right after he was talking shit about how needy you were or something-"

"I was needy??" I interrupted.  "He was needy.  Well, I guess I was needy.  I don't know.  We were needy in our own ways, I guess.  Me for his love, and him for my.... laundry ability-" Harry choked back a laugh.  I couldn't help but laugh at myself.  "God, let's just stop talking about it.  I hate thinking about all of this.  I can't believe myself," I said, covering my face and shaking my head.  "I do sound like a lame-ass."

Harry continued to laugh and shuffled over to me, grabbing my hands and pulling them away from my face.  "Listen, RJ, I'm just glad you snapped out of it.  You're an amazing girl.  You deserve better."

Just then, the lights flickered on.  My eyes shot up to meet Harry's, just in time to watch the black of his pupils shrink into nearly nothing as his green eyes adjusted to the sudden light. The green numbers from the clock on the microwave and oven flashed on, displaying their default time of 12:00. The refrigerator buzzed on and the house shook as the air system rumbled back to life.  Cool air flowed through the vents into all of the rooms, hitting us like a bucket of ice.

"Shit," I gasped, not thinking as I reached for Harry and gripped him around his neck, pulling his warm body into my own.  "It's freezing."

Harry rubbed his hands up and down my back, over the warm flannel of his pajamas.  "It'll take a few minutes for it to warm up again.  The whole system has been off for a few hours, so-"  My body shivered in Harry's arms.  He laughed.

"Sorry," I breathed, pulling away from him and crossing my arms over my chest as I relaxed in my seat on the counter again.  With the lights on once more, I felt insecure.  The darkness was like a shield, keeping me from having to worry about my sleep-hair or my early morning makeup, but it was gone now.

"Don't apologize," Harry sighed.  He was standing just inches from me, leaning into his hands against the counter on either side of my hips.  He gazed down at the floor.  It seemed like he was suddenly quiet, the darkness having provided him some kind of shield as well.  Maybe he felt like he wasn't actually talking to me since he couldn't see me.  Now that the lights were on, I was real.  His compliment was real.

With an unexpected burst of bravery, I reached up and gripped his chin between my fingers, pulling his face back up to meet mine.  I leaned in, watching his lips as they began to pucker, but then he pulled back away from me just enough to stop all of my motions.  We both froze, inches away from each other, breathing each other in.  I watched Harry's eyes as he stared back into mine.  

His brows furrowed - he didn't want this.  

He inched toward me - he did want this.  

I wanted this.  I reached my hand up to touch his face.  He grabbed my hand in his own, reaching up to cup the back of my head with his other.  

I sent him a look of both distress and disbelief before he disappeared around the corner of the room into the kitchen. Reluctantly, I stood up and walked over to help my mom lift the garland. My mother liked decorating for Christmas early, and while it wasn't as early as some people in our neighborhood, it was two weeks too early for me. She insisted on decorating all of Thanksgiving day, making that my least favorite holiday of the year. For most people, the holiday meant relaxing and eating, but for us, it was eating only a little and decorating for 12 hours with old decorations that my mom had collected over the course of her married life. Even my father hated it.

"Are Aunt Betsy or Uncle Robby coming over today?" I asked, raising more of the garland up as my mother continued to pin it along the wall.

"No," my mother sighed. "Betsy said Robby woke up ill so they're staying home.  Betsy was watching her granddaughter and I think she passed along some kind of cold." She glanced down at me as I stared at the floats from the parade on the TV. "Was there anyone you wanted to invite over?"

I shook my head.

"What about Cameron?"

I shook my head again.

"You know, I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks."

"I know, Mom. I haven't either," I said.

"Why not?"

"He found a new group of friends, I guess."

My mother stepped down from the step-stool and pulled her brown hair back with a pink scrunchie she had around her wrist. It matched the pink eye shadow she was wearing and the pink trim on the festive sweater she was modeling. She sighed. "Rory, do you need to find a new group of friends?"

"Mom, I have friends," I said defensively, but boy, was that a lie. I had been alone for the last two weeks, sticking to myself and my apartment. I'd had a few strangers approach me about the party and ask if I wanted to come to another party over the weekend, but I wasn't about to go drinking in a place I didn't know with people I didn't know. Sure, I could go to the party and not drink at all, but I was ignoring that rationale as an excuse not to go. Neither Harry nor Cameron had reached out to me. I avoided the student union at normal meal times to avoid seeing either of them. "I have Eliza," I said.

My mother snarled and walked over to a purple tote box labelled "Christmas" - one of fourteen in the room. She opened the box, which turned out to be Christmas pillows, and began to toss them onto the couches. "I know that rude girl isn't a friend to you."

"She's really blossomed into a true friend this year," I lied.

"I just don't want you to be alone for the rest of your life! College is where you make life-long friends and connections-" My mother started, but my father cut her off.

"Callie, leave RJ alone. She's fine. She has friends."

"I think you should see a doctor," my mother continued.  "Maybe all of your unsociable tendencies are because of a thyroid issue.  Your hormones are imbalanced-"

That was another thing my mother did that drove me wild.  She was always trying to find something chemically wrong with me.  She refused to believe even for a second that maybe I was more tired than usual sometimes because I went to bed too late.  It had to be some kind of vitamin deficiency.  She wanted a doctor to tell her exactly what was so wrong in my head that had me turn out more like my father instead of her.  She insisted that my weight-gain HAD to be because of something wrong with the hormones in my body instead of the fact that maybe I'd just been binging on too many potato chips that month.

"My thyroid is fine," I grumbled, rubbing my throat.

"We can just get the doctor to be sure-"

"Mom! My thyroid is fine!" I said, raising my voice.

Before my mother could speak again, I was saved by the bell - the doorbell, that is. As my mom shook her head and stepped back onto the step-stool, my father walked a few steps further to the front door and pulled it open, letting in a gust of cold, November wind.

"RJ, I think there is a woman here for you," my father said.

"Uh..." Harry hesitated, pushing a long strand of wind-blown hair out of his face.

"Dad," I gasped when I saw Harry standing in the doorway to our house, dressed plainly in his usual jeans, boots, and petticoat. I knew my dad was joking with what he said, but Harry didn't know my father and probably had no idea he was poking fun at Harry. Usually, my father would have made that kind of joke once Harry was gone. He was either getting older or just caring less. Probably a little of both. "That's Harry. Colonel Styles' son."

My father frowned. "A boy here for Rory? In that case-" He started to close the door.

"Dad!!!" I yelped.

"Alright, alright," he laughed, pulling the door back open. "Come on in, son. Come in.  It's freezing out there."

Harry didn't seem to want to come in anymore, and I didn't blame him, but he stepped into the living room and glanced around, shifting his jacket as he did. His eyes lingered on me before he glanced to my mother, stepping off of her step-stool. "Happy Thanksgiving," he said, cracking a smile. "My mom made these for you." He handed my mother a decorative, red tin of chocolate-chip cookies.

"Shit-" my mother swore. "I didn't make her anything!" She hurried into the kitchen. "FRANK, come help me find something!!"

"I think she means 'thank you'," I said, sighing at my embarrassing family as they disappeared into the kitchen.

Harry chuckled. "It's okay, my parents do it too."

I shook my head.

Harry rocked on his feet.

I drummed my fingers against my thigh.

Harry cleared his throat.

"You been okay?" Harry asked.

I nodded. "You?"

Harry nodded.

My mom flew around the corner of the room with the box in her hand. "I've got store-bought lemon bars, but-"

"Callie, you can't give Dana Styles store-bought lemon bars," my father called from the kitchen.

"Does your mom like lemon bars?" My mother asked frantically, shaking the box out toward Harry.

Harry shrugged. "I know my dad does."

My mother spun around and headed back to the kitchen. "Frank! Get me a tin!"

"We don't have just a tin laying around, Callie!" My father fussed at her.

Harry and I stared at the TV and listened to my parents bicker back and forth about a tin. After a good five minutes of scurrying around the house, my mother appeared back in the living room with an old Christmas tin of hers that she usually used for storing her sewing tools. "I cleaned it, I promise. It's not that old. And just don't tell her that the cookies are store-bought."

"I won't," Harry winked.

"Good boy," my mother nodded, though she didn't look convinced. "Actually," she took the tin from Harry's grasp and handed it to me. "You take it to her."

"What?" I asked. "Why?"

"Oh, come on, Rory-" She scolded.

"It's freakin' freezing outside," I complained.

"Harry walked all the way over here! Now you can walk over there-" My mother tried.

"I can just take it-" Harry interrupted.

"No, Harry, Rory needs to-" my mom insisted.

"Moooom," I groaned.

"Come on, RJ, just go quick and come back," my father instructed. "You'll be getting out of Christmas decorating..." he muttered to me. "And talk of doctor visits..."

"Fine," I said quickly. With that, I was convinced, but I didn't want to walk with Harry. There was some awkward air between us that I couldn't explain, though I felt it had to do with the fact that last time we were together, he was tickling me when I had no pants on.  "I'm going to go put on a jacket. Harry, you can go ahead," I said, motioning him toward the door.

"I can wait," Harry offered.

"No, it's okay," I replied.

"Really-"

"Honestly, you can go-"

"Well how long is it going to take you to put on a jacket?"

"Four years," I snapped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father make a face at me.

Harry put his hands in his pockets and smiled at my sarcasm. "I suppose I could postpone graduation for four years. I can wait."

To my dismay, he did. I dropped my feet heavily on each step as I came back down the stairs, trying not to look at Harry as he stared at me. "I'll be back," I told my parents as I led Harry to the door. My father was eyeing us intently, but I waved off his concerned stare with my hand before Harry and I stepped outside into the chilly street.  There was nothing to be worried about with Harry.  

"It's cold," Harry said, pulling his coat more tightly around his body.

"Yep," I said.

"Like, usually cold."

"Mhmm."

"I think it's gotten colder since I walked over here," Harry reiterated.  

I sighed and peered up at the cloudy sky.  "Mmmmhmmmmm."

We walked another few yards before Harry cleared his throat. "So, RJ-"

"Don't call me that," I said.

"Can I ask what it stands for?" Harry cocked his head sideways at me.

I glanced at him and back at the sidewalk. "My initials."

"Obviously," Harry chuckled, brushing a strand of hair from his own face. We were walking toward the beach, against the stinging wind. I tried to pull the front of my red coat up around my mouth, but it wouldn't stay.  Harry's house was another two blocks away. "But what's your middle name?" He asked.

"I suppose I'll tell you if you guess it," I told him.

Harry hummed and stared straight forward down the street, pulling at his jacket to protect his face a little more from the wind as well. "Jessie."

"No."

"Julie?"

"No."

"What about Jessica?"

"No."

"Jelissa."

"What?"

"Jordan."

"Nope."

"Janet."

"You're close."

Harry scrunched his nose. "Janet... Janet... Jannay? Janna?"

"Oh my god..." I sighed, my warm breath appearing in a cloud in front of my face. "You're making this harder than it needs to be."

"Jeta?"

"Jane, Harry."

"Jane."

"Yes."

"Rory Jane," Harry said, putting it together.

"Yep."

"RJ."

"Nope."

"Okay, okay," Harry chuckled. "That's reserved only for your father, I guess."

"For people who are close to me," I explained, thinking about the times my mother called me RJ on accident. She hated it, though. She said it wasn't as feminine as my full name.

"Did Cameron ever call you that?" Harry asked.

I grimaced as I looked up at Harry. "No," I answered sassily. "He's not close to me."

At that moment, we were passing Cameron's house. I couldn't help but glance in the front window where his living room was. The TV was on and I spotted his messy, brown hair resting on the back of the couch. He stood up to leave the room, but stopped when he spotted the two of us walking down the sidewalk. He hurried to the window and leaned forward on his hands on the windowsill, watching us with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. I gazed back down at the sidewalk and my pink snow boots as they clopped against the pavement and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jacket. My body was tense as if I expected Cameron to come sprinting out of his house after us. He didn't.

"You know he thinks that I ruined your friendship somehow," Harry said to me after we'd passed Cameron's house. He continued when I didn't reply. "He came back from dropping you off, you know, that morning that everything went down after the party, and he tried to fight me again. He was real upset. What did you say to him?"

I shook my head. "Can we talk about something else, for once? I feel like 95 percent of the conversations I have with you are about Cameron."

Harry cleared his throat, but from the corner of my eye, I swore I could have spotted a slight grin on his face. "Definitely. Yeah. Uh... Well how are you doing with your classes?"

I groaned. "Not exactly a better topic, but I'm failing a class. I don't know how I'll tell my parents."

"Can you bring up your grade by the end of the semester?" Harry asked.

I shook my head. "We only have the final exam left and I know I'm not going to pass it. I'm such a bad test-taker, and that's essentially all that the class is. Tests."

Harry seemed surprised. "Shit, RJ, I always saw you as a straight-A student."

I glared up at him.

"I mean... Rory," he said, flashing me a toothy, "please forgive me" smile.

"Why would you think that?" I asked, referring to his earlier comment.

"You just always seemed to be doing work. You missed three senior skip days in a row one of the last weeks of school," Harry said. It was weird to me that he noticed such a thing.  "We went to Busch Gardens! How could you pass up Busch Gardens for school?"

"My grandmother died that week..." I explained slowly. "I was in Colorado." What Harry didn't know was that I would have loved to go to Busch Gardens. Roller coasters were one of my favorite things in the world.

"Oh, shit," Harry muttered. "Sorry."

"How are your grades then?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I'm failing a class as well, so you can tell your parents you weren't alone. This has been a shitty semester, really," Harry chuckled. "For everyone, I think."

I couldn't help but laugh a little myself. It had been a wild semester. While it made me feel much better knowing I wasn't alone failing a class, I knew my parents would only care about my academic performance and not anyone else's. "What class are you failing?" I asked.

"Statistics. I hate math," Harry sighed, shaking his head.

"Me too. I barely passed that class with a C last semester," I said.

"What class are you failing?"

"Biopsychology."

Harry put his hands by the sides of his head and expanded his fingers to make it seem like his head was exploding. "What?"

I laughed. "It's like psychology but we study the body's chemical makeup behind mood disorders and addiction and things like that."

"Sounds god-awful.  No wonder you failed it."

I raised my eyebrows.  "It was actually my favorite class this semester."

"And you failed it."

"And I failed it," I laughed.

Harry shook his head and nudged me with his elbow. "You loved the class so much, you just had to take it again."

I laughed. I had been so hard on myself for failing that, for the last two weeks, it was though I'd forgotten how to be anything but tense and moody. I always struggled with failure because, in my family, it wasn't an option. My mother raised me to think that a B was failing, so when I got a C in Freshman statistics and an F in Biology my first year at school, I nearly sunk into a bottomless pit of self-pity and depression. It was Cameron that dragged me out of that hole. Though I had learned over the following years that perfection wasn't always achievable, it still took a toll on me when I got any less than a C in a class. The last two weeks for me had been difficult since there was no Cam to snap me out of my self-loathing mood. Really, there was no one. Eliza had been the only one around me for the last two weeks, but she would help a flea before she helped me in any way.

At that point in our walk, we had gotten much closer to the sandy beach, as well as Harry's home. The wind was whipping my hair around my head and cold raindrops began to pelt my face. Harry and I exchanged looks of worry before Harry took off running, grabbing one sleeve of my jacket and pulling me with him. Within ten seconds, it was as if someone had taken a pail of water and dumped it on us. My clothes were soaked all the way through to my skin and my hair was drenched and laying flat against my scalp. Though I was keeping up with him as we ran, Harry continued to hold on to me, sliding his hand down my jacket and taking my hand in his. My heart was pounding in my chest and all I could seem to think about was sliding on the ground and falling on my butt in front of him.

Upon arriving at his house, Harry leapt over the two steps onto his front porch and pulled me with him. I tripped and fell into his chest, slamming both of our cold, wet bodies against the front door. Harry instantly laughed, but his laughter was cut short as his boots slipped out from underneath him, sending us both to the ground. The tin of cookies slipped out of my hand and the lid popped off, scattering lemon bars all over the small front porch.

While I stared at the mess, Harry began to laugh. His body shook beneath mine until he gasped and shot upward, dumping me off of him. It was then that my head began to throb.

"Are you okay??" Harry asked, staring at my head.

"My head kinda hurts but-"

"You're bleeding," Harry told me, pressing his thumbs on either side of my forehead and holding me still so he could look at the wound.  He glanced up at the door and shook his head.  "You must have smacked your head against the door handle when we fell.  I'm sorry, Rory."

"I didn't even feel it," I said, sitting back and chuckling.  "It's already numb from the rain."  My hand started it's way toward my head to feel the wound, but Harry's widening eyes told me that maybe I shouldn't touch it.

"Let's just get inside," Harry said, beginning to help me to my feet.  Just then, his mother swung open the front screen door, sending the side of the door straight into the side of Harry's head.  Harry stumbled sideways, staggering to a halt just before he fell over the side of the porch.  His mother gasped and let the door swing shut before slowly pushing it open again and sliding her head out from behind it.

"What in the world was that?"

"That was my bloody head," Harry groaned, clutching the area around his ear.

"You head-butted the door?" Dana asked, widening her bright eyes.  She looked just like her son, young and healthy, with stunning bone structure and wavy brown locks that fell down her back. Her warm breath was visible like a steam curling delicately against the freezing, salty air.  It was obvious that we'd woken her from a warm nap.  She was still waking up.

"You door-butted my head," Harry said.

"But before that, there was a thud-" She started.

Harry pointed to the rain.  "We were trying to get out of the rain.  Slipped."

"Why have you thrown lemon-bars all about the porch?" She asked.  "It's going to attract animals."

It was then that Dana's eyes shifted to meet mine, and much like Harry had done seconds before, she gasped and hurried to me, pressing her thumbs on either side of my bleeding forehead to get a clearer look at the wound.  "Oh, I see it," she said.  "It's not that big of a gash.  Come in, we'll get it fixed up."

"I can just go back home and fix myself up, really," I explained.

Both Dana and her son opened their mouths to protest, but stopped when little pieces of hail sporadically pelted the ground just off of the porch.  We stared in awe as the rainstorm gradually turned to a hailstorm with marble-sized rocks of ice colliding more steadily with the pavement of the sidewalk.  Both Dana and Harry looked back to me after a moment with looks on their faces as if to tell me there was no way in hell that I was walking back to my home anymore.

Inside the warm house, I was instructed to perch myself on top of the counter in the kitchen as Dana ran upstairs to grab her first-aid kit.  Like he'd done for me a couple of weeks prior, Harry pressed a cold washcloth to my forehead and gently dabbed the area around where I'd split my head open.  I watched his eyes attentively as he stood so close to me.  

"C'est bien mieux," Harry breathed.  His breath smelled like peppermint.  "Much better.  My mom was right.  It's not nearly as big of a gash as I thought it would be."

"What about you?" I asked, pushing his wet hair from the side of his face.  It was his turn to stare straight into my face as I studied his cheek up to his ear.  I tried to pretend like his gaze wasn't sending chills down my spine.  He had a large red mark from his jaw to the bottom of his ear, but there was no blood.  "You're fine," I told him, letting his hair fall into his face.

"Well shoot, Rory, so are you..." Harry said, winking at me and nudging my chin with his knuckle.

I gasped, partly out of surprise but mainly to hide a laugh.  "You know what I meant."

"Do I?" Harry asked, stepping back from where I was on the counter and throwing his hands back as if he was challenging me.  

I sighed and shook my head as he laughed at himself.  It was odd to see Harry so full of life and character.  It was like he had been at the French club party.  When he wasn't around his frat brothers, he was a completely different person.  He shook his wet hair out, showering me with drops of cold rainwater.  I shoved his shoulder, and he playfully fell back against the counter opposite me.

"RJ," he said suddenly.  "I mean, Rory.  I'm really sorry about that morning."  The change in mood was so sudden that I almost felt my head spinning.  "It wasn't my intention for you to feel violated or anything, really.  I was just trying to help, is all.  I promise."

"By tickling me?" I asked.

Harry shrugged.  "Honestly, I have no idea what came over me.  I was just trying to lighten the mood, I guess.  Something in my head said tickling was a good idea and I went for it."

I shrugged too.  "It doesn't matter.  I know you helped me a lot more than I deserved that night and morning, so thank you."  We sat for a quiet minute.  Finally, I broke the silence, saying, "Sorry for falling off the face of the Earth for the last two weeks."

Harry laughed, his eyes beginning to sparkle with a certain playfulness again.  "What was that all about?  I've been third-wheeling so hard with Lina and Liam.  There were times I wanted to call you and invite you to the movies with us or something, but I wanted to you have your space."

"You should have called!" I said, pushing on Harry's chest as he leaned toward me.  He fell back against the counter behind him again, but pushed himself toward me again this time.  

"You wouldn't have answered," Harry said, raising an eyebrow at me as I pushed him backwards again.

I rolled my eyes.  "You're probably right." Harry rocked toward me and waited to fall until I pushed back on his chest again.  "Then again, who answers the phone anymore? It's all about texting," I told him sarcastically.

"Oh yes," Harry agreed.  "Why didn't I remember that?  We are in the twenty-first century now, aren't we?  How old-fashioned of me to call."

"But you didn't call," I said playfully, shaking my head at him.  "How dare you?"

Harry stopped rocking and widened his eyes at me.  "So now it's all my fault??" He said, raising his voice and trying to hide a cheeky grin.

My eye caught a glimpse of something that pulled me from our playful banter.  Behind Harry, I could see out the window into the Styles' backyard where snow was falling.  I mean FALLING.  Slightly disappointed, I slid off of the counter and stepped around Harry to get a better look.  There had to have been at least 6 inches on the ground already, on top of the hail. I couldn't see three feet out the window because of how much snow was falling.

"This has honestly been the weirdest last ten minutes of my life..." Harry said behind me.  I was thinking that exact thing.  

"I didn't even know we were supposed to be getting snow today," I told him.

I was thinking about walking home and how it was going to be impossible at this point.  I was still soaking wet from the rain.  It would take me forever to walk home in this white-out and I was sure everyone's cars were snowed in by now.  Even if they weren't, it would have been dangerous to get behind the wheel while no one could see three feet in front of them.  I should have just walked home when it was hailing.  

Just when I'd decided all hope was lost and accepted that I would be at Harry's house for the next while, someone knocked on the door.  Harry and I exchanged looks of uncertainty.  Dana was coming down the stairs, first-aid kit in hand.  "Who the hell is crazy enough to be outside during all of this??"

She pulled open the front door, sending a wave of snow dust scattering across the foyer.  

Cameron was standing on the front porch, shaking the snow and hail off of his umbrella and boots.  He was bundled up in a puffy, black jacket, a scarf around his face, and a  beanie falling over his eyes. "I started this way while it was raining.  The weather changed so quickly-"

"Come in, come in," Dana said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him into the house.  Cameron shot chunks of snowy hail off of his boots as he stomped on the hard-wood floor.  I could see the disapproval in Dana's face, but she merely turned to walk up the stairs.  "I'll grab a towel.  Cameron, go warm up in the kitchen with Harry and Rory.  You know Rory, right?  Colonel Alexander's daughter?"

Cameron stared at the two of us and we stared right back.  Not only was I trapped in the Styles' house with wet clothing and no cell phone, which I'd conveniently left at my house, but now I was trapped with Cameron.  And Harry.  I'd warmed up to Harry in the last two minutes, but it was Cameron that was going to be the problem.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked once Dana had disappeared up the stairs.

Cameron unwrapped the scarf from his neck and pulled his beanie off.  His hair was static and sticking straight up.  It was something that I typically would have made fun of him for and laughed at, but the only thing I could do right then was be quiet. He said, "I just thought I'd stop by.  See if you wanted to chat.  Wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.  Thought we could hang out, like old times."

I couldn't tell if he was talking to Harry or myself.  Both of us remained silent.  Cameron had seen us walking.  He knew I was with Harry.  Why did he have to butt into our time together?  I was struggling between being angry and being thankful.  Cameron was standing in front of me for the first time in two weeks.  My stomach wanted to flip like it did when I was in love with him - I could feel it trying, but something was stopping it.  The internal struggle made me shiver.

"Sorry, Rory," Harry said softly into my ear, rubbing his hands down the sleeves of my jacket.  "Let's go change.  I have some clothes you can borrow."