Chapter 9
June, Wednesday
In my typical fashion, I sat alone in my dorm room with far too many hours between now and bedtime. There wasn’t even enough homework to fill all that emptiness, and certainly not enough willpower.
Mary left about thirty minutes before with a girl who winked at me thrice during the ten minutes she was in here. Flattering, but not enough to motivate me to accompany them to whatever fratty get-together they were probably on their way to.
The desolation in my chest physically weighed me down as I sat staring at a spot on the wall for a number of minutes I wasn’t entirely clear on. Time felt like a block of Jell-O that I was suspended in, forced to sit with no way out and nothing to make it more interesting. I couldn’t even eat my way to the surface or poke at the blob. All I could do was wait until I fell asleep or was saved by some sort of scheduled obligation.
I didn’t have any desire to pick up one of the books that sat on my desk. I was about to finish one I was quite enjoying, and I wasn’t feeling strong enough for the sinking hangover that I knew would come after having to say goodbye to that story. So, I just didn’t touch it. But I couldn’t sit in this room while the walls closed in, inch by inch, dragging so steadily it was as if life was taunting me. As if it wanted me to believe they weren’t closing in at all.
What was worse? Sitting in a dorm room which became smaller by the second as my body caved into itself, or wandering out into the world with no direction, forcing a pleasant look on my face as if I, as a human, hadn’t fallen into disrepair.
I groaned, my eyes stinging as I opened my computer to search the same thing I’d searched on many occasions before: What to do when you’re bored.
The same suggestions as always popped up.
Write a story.
Do a crossword puzzle.
Play a board game.
“God, these suggestions fucking suck,” I mumbled.
I navigated back to the search bar. What to do when you’re bored at college.
Watch a movie.
Read a book.
Join a club.
I huffed a long breath, listening to the air escape me as my ribs fell. I didn’t want to do any of those things, but there were walls with tons of club postings on them around campus. Maybe if I went for a walk and had a mission to find one of them, it would give the next thirty minutes of my life some freaking purpose.
“But how embarrassing would it be to get caught looking at the club postings?” I asked the air, pondering for a moment before changing my mind. “No. I can’t sit in this awful room for another second.”
I changed into clothes that made me feel at least a little bit cute—so perhaps I could score at least a little bit of external validation—and shoved my earphones into my head. The music I listened to wasn’t happy, but it reminded me that others felt lonely too sometimes. Listening to a person sing about crying over a few beers was much more comforting than that mainstream pop shit about dancing all night and feeling the beat. What beat? The same 1, 2, 3, 4 that every other radio song in existence had? It was astounding to me just how much we were made to believe that banal was the new brilliant.
I grabbed the book I didn’t want to read, just in case I felt inclined to sit somewhere and open it but mostly just to carry it around as a comfort item, and walked out of my room.
It was a mild evening. Low seventies. My favorite kind of evening, honestly. At least life had that going for it. Mother Nature was really quite pretty and, if you ask me, she just about carried the whole show. Alana helped her out too, I think. I liked seeing my friend in the sunsets, imagining she was the bird in the tree watching me, or feeling her in the wind as it wrapped around me to let me know that, while she was gone, she was still my compass.
I didn’t know if I’d lost it or not, always murmuring into the breeze and convincing myself that the gust picking up was her answer, but it was the simple comforts that kept me going, so I couldn’t question it too much. Didn’t have the strength to.
It only took me about fifteen minutes to find a collection of those club posters, and they were taped to an embarrassingly public wall. Another girl was looking at them, her tattooed arm peeking out from her rolled-up sleeve as she thumbed the tape on the edge of one of the postings, pushing down a corner that had flapped up. I decided that if she was confident enough to read the listings in public, I could be too. I stepped next to her awkwardly, in awe of the many tones that shone through in her beautiful, golden hair. It was precisely the same color as Alana’s.
She did a double take as I came to her side, her second glance lingering on me with a grin.
“Hi,” she said, peering through her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Hi.” I gave her what I hoped was a friendly closed-mouth expression and turned my attention to the wall in front of me. Nothing really stood out. I certainly didn’t want to sign up for a political club, nor was I interested in joining a sorority. They both seemed a little too intense for me. Wasn’t there a club for people who were just plain lonely and wanted to meet people, but simultaneously had no interest in connecting with others? A club full of people who just got it so that I could be accompanied without having to suffer through small talk?
“Hey,” she said, turning toward me and signaling at the book in my arms. “I know that one.” She reached out her hand. “Can I?” I passed the book to her, and she fluttered through the pages. “My sister told me to read it, but I’m not much of a reader.”
She spoke with a casual tone, not overtly cheery but kind. Something in her voice made me feel...comfortable. Like I wanted to talk to her, maybe even be her friend. Just maybe.
“I kind of just got into it this semester.” I flattened my lips into a half-smile. “This one is pretty good.”
“I just wish I could know the story without having to sit down for hours to read it.” She grinned and handed it back to me. “Any chance you’re semi-into nature?”
Subject change. That meant she wanted to talk more.
Okay, June, you can do this. Be nice. Say something cool.
“Do I think it’s pretty? Yeah. Do I scale mountains for fun? No.” I mustered a friendly chuckle and sent a shrug her way.
“That’s perfect.” She pulled a flyer out of her bag which matched the one she had been thumbing on the wall. “We call it Nature Club, but it’s just hanging around outside. Every meeting is different. Sometimes, it really is casual hiking. Sometimes, it’s just sitting in the quad.”
I slid the green paper from between her fingers and looked down at the swirling text splayed across it. “Every Thursday.”
She nodded happily. “It’s my day off from work, and my boyfriend is usually busy with school and band practice on other days, so we thought it would be fun to dedicate Thursdays to something social. Full disclosure, I don’t even go to school here. He does. We live off-campus, so he wanted a way to connect with the students in a fun setting. I take care of most of the admin stuff, though.”
“And what do you do?” I asked, attempting though probably failing to be open and social. Her club sounded kind of cool, and I did like her vibe. Call it intuition. “Besides the Nature Club.”
“I work at a restaurant not too far from here. Vittorino’s. You know it? Really good pasta if you ever need a date spot.” She winked at me, and I pretended to relate. “You should come to the meeting tomorrow if you can. We’re headed about thirty minutes north to check out a cool surprise location. Bring snacks and a sweatshirt.”
“Thank you,” I said with another mustered chuckle. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
“We group up every Thursday at 4:15 in the quad. Start at 4:30. Open invitation. Okay?” She patted my shoulder with a sympathy I didn’t expect to see. A sympathy I didn’t quite understand either.
Was I that obvious?
“Thanks.”
She walked off, looking back at me over her shoulder amicably before disappearing behind a building.
Shit. Her name. I hadn’t even asked her fucking name. She acted perfectly friendly and I acted perfectly weird. I sighed as I turned away from the poster-covered section of the wall and trudged to a convenience store just off the east side of campus to buy a load of snacks instead of a proper dinner.
Thursday rolled around, and I didn’t show up to the Nature Club. I thought about it every second of the day right up until 4:15, and then I kept thinking about it until I fell asleep. I desperately wanted something to do, but I was sure that if I went, I’d say something rude, or everyone would hate me, or I just wouldn’t click. So, I stayed in.