Chapter Five Sawyer
Chapter Five
Sawyer
If there’s one thing I quickly learned the second I stepped onto LSU’s campus, it’s that the movies got it wrong. Girls don’t get dolled up to go to classes. There’s barely any makeup on their faces or hair styled to careful perfection. Most of them are wearing leggings and their college garb, which makes my skinny jeans and long-sleeved shirt look overdressed.
At least I didn’t go all out with my hair. The sandy-blond color I chose to start the semester with is braided back and resting carefully over one shoulder. Casual but cute. I touch the tips of the braid as I walk out of the Journalism Building, blocking the beaming sun with my free hand and already feeling the slightest trickle of sweat under the expensive heat-friendly wig that my mother bought for me. She’d gotten me three different kinds of the same shade so I could play with lengths, and I know she spent a fortune on them because they’re real hair. I learned the hard way that synthetic wigs don’t last nearly as long and, after a few failed trial runs with a straightener, that they aren’t meant to be styled with heat.
It’s a comfortable sixty-nine degrees today, but with the sun out, it feels like I’m baking in my clothes since I’ve been used to thirty-degree days in upstate New York. Most people are bundled up in layers, but this is nothing compared to northern weather in January. As soon as it hits fifty at home, everybody is in T-shirts and shorts.
“Stop being a baby,” I murmur to myself, wishing I’d put on a wig cap. I’d been running late, sleeping through my first alarm and accidentally hitting snooze twice after that. I used to be a morning person, but that changed over the years. Now I’m lucky if I can interact with people before nine, which makes eight a.m. classes a near impossibility unless I’m heavily caffeinated.
Pulling out my printed schedule that I color-coded with the highlighters Bentley got me as a going-away present, I double-check the building and room number for my last class of the day. I memorized most of it, but I had a bad dream last night that I got lost and walked in ten minutes late. Everybody stared. Everybody .
It was worse than the time I had a dream where I went to school and the wind knocked my wig off in front of everyone standing outside. From that day on, I’ve been adamant on the best wig fasteners just in case .
I’m walking toward Field House Drive when somebody taller than me jogs over and stops beside me at the crosswalk, shading me from the sun. “Hey,” he greets, a big grin stretched across his scruffy face with familiarity.
I offer a timid smile at the stranger. “Hi.” It takes me a minute to recognize him. He came over and introduced himself to Dad and me when we were moving in. I remember it was the first time I ever saw somebody taller than my father, who stands at almost six foot five. “You’re Dawson, right?”
His grin widens. “And you’re Sawyer. You look different today though.”
I look down at myself, wondering what could possibly be different. I skipped shorts for my favorite pair of skinny jeans, and the shirt I opted for isn’t the stained one I wore when I first met the boy in front of me. “Put together?” I ask, half-jokingly.
His eyes roam down the front of me again in appraisal. “I did like your shorts. A lot.”
What is it with boys and shorts? It’s like they’ve never seen legs before. “You and my neighbor across the hall,” I murmur, more to myself than him as I look both ways and wait idly for the cars to pass.
Dawson hears me anyway, brows furrowing at the comment. “What number is your apartment again?”
I think back to that stranger-danger conversation I had with my parents as a kid, but my gut isn’t telling me to run. Self-preservation be damned, I say, “Four D.”
A twisted look weighs the corners of his lips down for the briefest moment. “Ah. Gotcha.”
His less-than-stellar reaction piques my interest. “Friend of yours?” I guess. After the last car passes, I start walking, Dawson following right next to me.
“Something like that.”
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, so I don’t push. It’s none of my business, even if the guy is my neighbor. “Well, tell him he owes me a taco after he stole mine.”
Dawson gives me a funny look. “He stole your taco?”
“My delivery,” I correct, still peeved that I never got my crunch wrap. I haven’t heard the door across the hall open or close since the incident. I’m pretty sure he’s alive, but I’ve heard drunk people can choke on their vomit if they’re passed out. When would I start smelling something to be alarmed over?
Realizing my train of thought is getting dark, I push it away. “Who just takes somebody’s food if they didn’t order it?”
Dawson shrugs. “Broke college kids?” he guesses, making a thoughtful face. “Pretty sure I stole a whole pizza at a party once. I was hammered. Don’t think it stayed in my stomach long once I downed half of it.”
I wince at the mental image. “Most guys wait to divulge those kinds of gross stories to keep a good image of themselves.”
“I am who I am, baby.”
I try holding back the face I make at the pet name.
“Where you headed?” he asks rather than continuing to flirt, looking at the schedule still gripped in my hands.
I show him, relieved he isn’t going to make this weird. “Allen Hall.”
“I’m headed that way,” he says, offering me a boyish smile that’s more friendly than charming. “I’ll show you.”
I don’t tell him that I already Googled it and memorized which route to take. It’s a two-minute walk. Easy. Instead of admitting what a dork I am, I say, “Thanks.”
What’s the harm in letting a cute boy be my tour guide? The senior who showed me around during my short orientation two days ago was moody and rude, so I’d take a smiling face any day.
Dawson grips the strap of his backpack as he looks around us, nodding at a few guys who pass by and fist-bumping one of them. “What’s your major? Pretty sure I saw you over at Doran, but that doesn’t make sense. You don’t seem like an ag kinda girl.”
What does an ag girl look like? What even is ag? I make a mental reminder to Google that later when I get home. “What kind of girl am I?”
“Hot,” he answers automatically.
I stop walking, taken aback by his bluntness.
His cheeks turn a light shade of pink, the same color as his bloodshot eyes, as he swipes one of those massive palms through his short blond hair, stopping beside me. “Er, sorry. Too much? My buddies say I can be.”
I’ve never been called hot before. The closest I got was being called pretty by a boy I used to go to school with. That was before the cancer and the chemo. Once I lost my hair…well, those kinds of compliments stopped. People saw past the wigs and fake smiles. I guess once they know you’re different, there’s no changing their perception of you.
I was the sick girl, which made me untouchable. Vulnerable. I’m determined to never be that girl again. Not here. Not ever.
Clearing my throat, I absentmindedly touch my hair again. “Maybe a little. But…” I lose my voice, shrugging instead of finishing my sentence. It’s nice to hear an attractive boy call me hot. It makes me feel normal for once.
We keep walking. I wonder if he realizes that he’s not guiding me anywhere. He clears his throat. “So what’s your major?”
“Communication,” I say after realizing I never answered the first time. “I haven’t focused in on a medium, but I was thinking journalism. I like to write.”
“What do you want to write about?”
I say the first thing that comes to mind without any hesitation. “Life.”
His brows rise. “Deep.”
Is it? I should ask him what he’s majoring in, but we approach the building I need. “Thanks for walking with me,” I say, stepping ahead of where he stops in front of Allen Hall. Unsure of what to do, I stare at the ground.
“If you ever need a ride to campus, let me know. Like I said yesterday, I live right downstairs from you.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he lifts his shoulder. “It’s not a bad walk here, but we get a lot of rain this time of year.”
Did he see me walking this morning? It was too beautiful to get a ride, not that I would tell my parents I opted to walk. The doctors told me exercise was good as long as I wasn’t overexerting myself.
Dawson already offered to give me lifts when he talked to Dad and me, and Dad thanked him before I could. I think that was his way of saying thanks but no thanks on my behalf . “I’ll keep that in mind. It was nice seeing you again.”
This dismissal makes him chuckle. “Yeah. It was nice seeing you too. I guess I’ll see you around.” He starts backing up, narrowly dodging a few students walking behind him. “If you ever want to hang out, I know a few good bars around. Doesn’t have to be just us. We could get a group together.”
I’ve never been the best at making friends. I used to think I was charming enough to draw people in, but after I started homeschooling, my social skills were only ever used in the oncology unit with women and men much older than me.
I think about my list.
Make new friends.
“I’d like that,” I say, rubbing my arm. “I’ll take you up on it.”
That big, doofy grin is back. “You do that.”
His tone is flirty again. Or, at least, I think it is. I’ve only had one boyfriend in my life, and that was in eighth grade. Brady Tompkins didn’t exactly have any game, but what thirteen-year-old would? And, technically, we only dated for a couple of days because I was worried my parents would somehow find out and ground me. Dad always told me I couldn’t date until I was thirty, and I thought he was serious back then.
When I open the door to my classroom a few minutes later, I find that I’m not the only person who likes arriving early. There’s a boy near the middle with his back turned to me, and a funny feeling buzzes under my skin.
Brushing it off, I study the space to find the perfect seat. Not in the front where the teacher’s pet sits, but not directly in the back either, where the professors probably write you off as the screw-off. The dark-haired boy has it right.
That tingling sensation moves up my spine, causing prickles in the back of my head when it settles into the edge of my skull. Warm. Calming.
When I drop my bag onto my chosen desk, the boy turns in my direction.
I gape when we lock eyes—his brown, a pretty color that seems familiar trapped behind a black pair of glasses.
I glare at him and say the first thing that comes to mind. “You owe me a taco.”