2. Cin
Cin
The map of campus is pretty scarce. Only a few buildings dotted it with detailed descriptions of each one. I follow the signs in the main building to a courtyard. Of course, it too, is perfect. Shrubs line the cement pathways, cut to the practical limit of waist-high.
Flower beds surround the dirt beneath the shrubs acting as hideaways for the unseemly roots. I would bet my monthly allowance that they have flowers embedded for each season, so the roots were never bare.
Dorms stand to my right and left. Mirror buildings of each other, one for girls, one for boys. The tall white buildings look more like mansion sorority and fraternity houses than dormitories. However, I cut across the grass toward the left building designated for girls.
It has freshly laid mulch in a pattern so I guess part of our tuition goes toward landscaping. Everything is in its place. Not a leaf to be seen.
The doors to the building look out of place on the white washed stone. Double-paned glass doors at the entrance, coupled by windows that run in neat rows around all three levels. The porch and roof are held up by the same limestone columns as the office building. Old and weathered but painted over recently.
I guess the landscapers still worked over the break.
Half of my senior year is gone, along with my previous life. It’s the second semester, and I didn’t fight mom when she said it was time to move.
It’s not like I had a lot of friends. I had a few, but none worth telling I was moving and wouldn’t see them again. I have my mother for that. She is everything I need. My best friend, if you will.
The keys Mr. Finnighan gave me are dangling from my half-frozen fingers, the cold winter air digging into my skin like tiny icicles. The map doesn't explain which key unlocks the glass door so I’m trying them in order of color.
Black? No.
Green? Notta.
Yellow? Nope.
Badda Boom Badda Bing. Red.
Figures where I’ve taken up residence would be unlocked with a red key. Something about it feels ominous, like bad things are waiting behind those squeaky clean panels. It doesn’t matter, I’ve dealt with a lot of things. I can deal with rich, high school assholes.
After unlocking the door, I pull the heavy glass panel open. Heat surges over my body from the warmth in the building. Standing there I take in the view, students must be out for their last gallivants before the semester starts tomorrow.
I don’t hear a thing.
The silence is unnerving for a mansion that houses close to one hundred girls. My boots clomp on the marble tile of what I assume to be the common area. Dark red leather couches dot the open space, tables low and high take up most of the floor with matching chairs.
The walls are painted a muted gray that does nothing for the less-than-homey experience. Notes of honeysuckle clings to my nose as I make my way to the elevators.
Sleek silver doors open as soon as I get close, security must not be that strict if the doors are on sensors. I go to step in when a canvas shoe steps over the silver trim, straight into my space.
Long thick legs lead up to a trim waist and shoulders that flare out, stout and proud. I have to take a step back just to get all of him into view, and I am not a short girl. His hair is perfectly tousled, as if he just rolled out of bed and ran a hand through the golden strands.
“You’re not a girl,” the words pop out before I can swallow them down. I don’t want to speak to him, or to anyone really. I just want to unpack and explore the campus.
He chuckles, the sound vibrating the dead air in the room.
“Observant, are we?” The amount of rasp in his voice sends shivers down my spine, and he steps closer. His foot lands beside mine and the smell of his expensive cologne invades my nose. He leans down into my space, taking the air out of my lungs.
“Excuse me,” I say, trying to cut the tension between us by moving on. I don’t want to be in his orbit.
I have a feeling that if I am, I’ll make stupid decisions, and now is not the time for that.
I have too much riding on graduation, and Mama has enough to worry about. She does not need to worry about me sneaking around with guys.
Hot as this one may be.
As I try to skirt around him, he grabs my arm. I whirl on him and growl, “get your hands off me.”
Feeling unwanted hands on my body isn’t foreign to me. Sad, but true. With dreams like mine… it was hard to avoid sometimes.
His grip relaxes but he doesn’t remove his hand. His blue eyes bore into mine, the colors shifting and changing as if he is processing our interaction. Cataloging it in his memory.
“I said,” I warn, “remove your unwanted hand from my body.”
He chuckles, and I shove him.
HARD.
He doesn’t have time to react, and trips a few paces back catching himself on the low back of one of the couches. His hands grip the leather, indenting it to the frame.
“You little…”
I don’t stick around to find out what his next words will be. Smashing the elevator button on the inside, the doors close and I blow out a few quick breaths, my heart nearly beating out of my chest. The look of rage on his handsome face is burned into my memory.
The audacity of people really shouldn’t surprise me anymore. I should have broken his fingers, maybe then he would be more perceptive about ignoring a woman’s requests.
The elevator stops mid-rise and I click the button a few times to see if the doors will open. Admittedly, I can’t remember what floor my room is on. The lights go out, and I feel my body go stiff.
Panic begins to creep in.
Think Cin.
I’m not afraid of close spaces, and the elevator wouldn’t fall too far since there were only three levels and I hadn’t made it far before the car lurched to a stop.
I swallow and pull my phone out of my boot. The screen lights up and I swipe for the flashlight button. When it clicks on, I survey my surroundings, noting the mirror on the sides of the carriage, the railing across the back, and the emergency call button.
Pressing the button, I hope someone will be able to come open the doors, and soon. I do not want to spend my first day tomorrow bumbling around like an idiot trying to find my classes.
What sounds like an intercom buzzes, and a robotic voice says, “help is on the way, stay calm.”
The hell? What is this place, where they have a robot answering emergency calls? Pounding starts on the outside of the doors, heavy hits that rattle the frame.
“Hello?” I shout, hoping whoever is on the other side can hear me.
I think I can hear voices from the other side, as well as more bangs and rattles. I place my fingers as far between the doors as I can and pull. The doors crack a bit and a flash of blonde hair is all I can see before I have to let go.
“Can you do that again?” Says a distinctly female voice.
Again, I place my hands carefully and pull. The blonde pulls on her side as soon as I open the doors a crack. Together we open the doors as wide as we can and she mutters, “hurry through, or you’ll be stuck until someone from maintenance decides to come help.”
I am not a slim girl, I have more fat around my legs, hips, and stomach than what society labels as mid-size. So squeezing through isn’t a viable option.
“I need a little more space than that,” I huff, pulling as hard as I can to open the doors further.
“Toby!” The girl on the other side hollers, “come help me open this damn door. There’s someone in here.”
Another giant lumbers into view. He has to be a least a few inches taller than the guy downstairs, and I wonder if everyone here breaks the rules, or if it’s just my luck finding the only two males in the building.
“Move,” he instructs after grabbing hold of the mechanical door. The blonde rolls her eyes, but does as he asks. His arms strain as he inches the doors farther and farther apart, pushing them into their pockets. When I can safely squeeze through, I dip under his arms and emerge on the other side. Checking my surroundings to make sure no one else is here to witness my grand entrance, it seems like it’s just these two.
The girl is stunning, and immediately my stomach bottoms out. Because of course my savior had to be a gorgeous girl, what did I do wrong in a past life to deserve this torture? She breaks my train of thought by sticking out her hand and hooking the other thumb over her shoulder at who I’m assuming is Toby.
She confirms as much when she says, “that’s Toby.”
When he turns around I take a step back and gape, he looks almost exactly like the boy from downstairs. Except his sea blue eyes look less murderous, and his hair is a bit darker.
“I see you’ve met Talon,” the blonde chuckles, as if we’ve known each other for more than two minutes, “sorry, I’m Gemma.” At my confused look she adds, “Toby and Talon are twins.”
“Right, makes sense,” I twist my hands behind my back, twining my fingers together trying to understand, “does that happen often?” I gesture toward the elevator.
“No,” Gemma said, looking up at Toby and biting her lip, “well, only when Talon is in a mood and has access to the building.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I scrunch my eyebrows, unsure I’m understanding what Gemma is saying. Talon can’t have stopped the elevator, he’s a kid.
“Talon stalled the elevator,” she says, as if it’s a normal occurrence.
“Excuse me?” I’m still having trouble processing the fact that this chick is making this seem like it was a normal Sunday midday affair, “you said his twin stopped the elevator. From where?”
She nods her head slowly and looks at Toby. The apparent twin to the boy downstairs with the touchy hands.
“Talon is…” she starts and stops, glancing between me and her… boyfriend?
“He’s got many talents,” Toby supplies while she flounders.
“You call locking someone in an elevator a talent?” I ask, pissed that this may be a common thing, and happened to me on my first fucking day, no less.
“Well, no,” Gemma says, head tilted to the side like she’s observing me, “Talon can be… mean.”
Toby rolls his eyes and pulls her away into the room across from the elevator bay.
“Just don’t cross him again, new girl,” he grunts and shuts the door in my face.
I don’t know if that was a friendly warning or not.
Both boys have the same striking faces and tapered build. But the one downstairs, Talon, his hair was golden, like the sun shone directly down on him and he soaked up all the color.
But Toby, his locks are darker. Not terribly dark, more sandy than his brother, and he did help me out of the elevator. I stand there for a few more minutes, staring at the gray walls with white doors lined up in neat rows on either side.
Where is the bathroom? I expect something communal, on each level.
Shit. What level am I on? I don’t even remember pressing a button.
Quickly scanning my documents I find my assigned room number.
34
Okay, the hall goes in either direction, and none of the doors have placards detailing the room numbers. So I don’t even know if I’m on the right floor.
The door Gemma escaped into opens, and she comes bounding out.
“What room number are you?” She asks, as if she’d been watching me struggle this whole time.
“Thirty-four.”
“Lucky! It’s a single, a lot of the seniors were hoping to get that one after Mercy graduated early,” she eyes me, as if just now realizing she should be cautious, stranger danger, and all that.
“It’s the room I was assigned to, and no, I don’t know why.”
She shrugs and flounces to the left. I follow, assuming she’ll take me to the correct room. She stops to look over her shoulder and continues when she sees me following.
She gets to the very last door on the right and says, tada like some magic trick has been accomplished.
“Thank you,” I offer in response. She tells me to use the black key on my key ring and then leaves. I watch her walk back down the hall until she disappears behind her door once again.
The key fits perfectly into the lock, and turns smoothly. When I swing the door open fully I see my bags sitting perfectly piled in the corner of the room.
It’s nice, a single queen-sized bed takes up the middle. A window is open, facing the courtyard and boys dorms, and two doors stand to my right.
The floors are dark, stained, skinny wooden planks, small rugs dot the spaces where cold feet would hit the ground in the mornings.
They’re hideous. Probably left from the last girl who lived here. I wonder to myself why she graduated early, why I inherited her room, or if my mom paid for her to be relocated .
The latter is probably the most accurate.
I go to the closest door and open it. Inside is a closet, shelves line one wall, hooks hang near a floor to ceiling mirror, and hanging poles adorn the opposite wall.
It’s a pretty big closet, which shouldn’t have surprised me since it was a single room. Mom knows I value my privacy. I back out and shut the door, eyeing the other one.
If it’s an adjoining room…
A bathroom, complete with brass fixtures opens before me. It is the perfect addition to the room, and I throw out my anxieties over a shared bathroom.
A large clawfoot tub takes up the most space on the marbled floors, along with a shower, toilet, and vanity that makes me smirk.
I can work with this.
Thank you Mama.