Chapter 14
Empty Net
Austen
The acoustic properties of an empty dormitory are haunting. Without the dampening effect of five hundred bodies, music, and slamming doors, Stony Creek Hall echoed like a tomb.
It was eleven a.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday. Campus was a ghost town. The cafeteria was closed. The library was locked. Even the EDM guy next door had packed up his bass and gone home to Long Island.
As far as I could tell, I was the only person left in the building.
I know the complex director was around somewhere, since I couldn’t be in the building without some official university presence, but I wouldn’t know how to find them if there was an emergency.
I sat at my desk, staring at a blank terminal window.
My original plan for the day had been to spend the it refactoring a neural network for my thesis, but the silence was distracting.
Sure, I love quiet, but this was unnerving.
It pressed against the windows like the gray November sky outside.
Every creak of the building settling felt like a gunshot.
Technically, I had options. Maya had invited me to her aunt’s house in Vermont (“There will be wine and arguments, come shield me!”). My former foster family in New Jersey had sent a generic text: Thinking of you, hope school is good. Not an invitation to come visit.
But holidays in the system are performative.
You sit at tables where you don’t quite fit, eat food you didn’t help cook, wait for the polite timeline to expire so you can leave, and hope desperately to avoid small talk that involves politics, religion, or your sexual orientation.
You are a guest in a family portrait, blurring the edges.
I preferred the dorm. Here, the loneliness was a variable I controlled.
I stood up, stretching my back, and decided to execute Plan B: The Vending Machine Feast. I had twelve dollars in quarters and a hunger for anything that wasn’t a blueberry oat bar.
I grabbed my key, opened the door, and walked face first into a massive wall of muscle.
Luke stood in the hallway, key in hand, looking like he’d been caught breaking and entering.
A beanie pulled low and a thick wool coat suggested the cold, but the lack of a duffel bag made it clear he wasn’t traveling.
Instead of luggage, a plastic grocery sack from the 24-hour convenience store on Route 9 dangled from his grip.
We stared at each other for a second. The hallway lights flickered overhead, buzzing in the silence.
“You’re supposed to be in Glen Rock,” I said. My brain scrambled to recalculate. Luke had left yesterday. I’d heard him pack. I’d watched him walk out the door with a “See you Sunday” that felt too casual.
“Travel issues,” Luke said, not meeting my eyes.
“You drive a giant truck.”
“It was making a noise, I think it’s the transmission.”
“You had that repaired in August,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“I told my dad that the truck was making noises, and since it was Thanksgiving, I was stranded here,” Luke admitted.
“You lied to him.”
Luke sighed, his shoulders dropping two inches. He looked exhausted—not physical fatigue, but the bone-deep weariness that comes from holding up a ceiling that keeps trying to collapse.
“I didn’t want to go,” he admitted, voice low.
“I can see that. Why?”
He looked down at the plastic bag in his hand.
“Because if I go home, I have to sit at a mahogany table for four hours while my dad critiques my save percentage between courses. And I decided…” He looked up, meeting my eyes.
“I decided I’d rather eat gas station nachos in a hallway than do that again. ”
The admission hung in the cold air.
I stepped back, opening the door wider. “Get in here. It’s freezing.” The university had reduced the temperature in the dorm’s communal areas. We had heat in our room, but the rest of the building was just warm enough to ensure no pipes burst.
Luke stepped inside. The room felt instantly smaller, warmer. He set the bag on his desk.
“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d be here,” he admitted, unwinding his scarf. “Didn’t Maya invite you to Vermont?”
“She did, but I wasn’t in the mood to be around a large group of strangers pretending to be thankful,” I said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Holidays are chaotic variables.”
“So, we’re both hiding.”
“Strategically retreating.”
He grinned—a flash of the real Luke, the one who emerged when the pressure gauge dropped. “Well, strategic retreat requires supplies.”
He upended the bag. A tragedy of nutrition: two boxes of generic macaroni and cheese, a can of Spam, a bag of frozen peas (ironic, given their usual medical application), and a carton of milk that expired tomorrow.
“I panicked,” he said, looking at the pile. “The store was picked clean.”
“We can work with this,” I said, standing up. “But not in the microwave. We need the communal kitchen.”
“The basement kitchen? The one the freshmen used for a failed candle-making experiment?”
“It has a stove. And I have a pot.” I grabbed the single saucepan I kept for tea emergencies. “Grab the milk. Let’s go.”
The basement of Stony Creek was a concrete bunker that smelled of mildew and industrial-strength cleaning supplies.
The kitchen was a windowless alcove with a stove from the 1970s and a refrigerator that hummed in the key of G minor.
Fluorescent lights overhead had a distinct yellow tint, casting us both in a jaundice-like glow.
But for today, it was completely ours, even if it was only a few degrees above the average temperature inside an igloo.
I set the water to boil. Luke hopped onto the counter, his legs swinging, watching me measure milk and butter powder.
“You have good technique,” he noted.
“Chemistry is cooking with higher stakes. Macaroni is forgiving.”
I dumped the noodles into the boiling water. They hit the surface with a splash that echoed off the tile walls.
“My dad has a chef,” Luke said. He was staring at the blue flame of the burner. “Every Thanksgiving. Catered. Perfect turkey, perfect sides. We eat in the formal dining room. It’s quiet. You can hear the silverware hit the china.”
I stirred the pasta. It was turning a translucent, gummy white. “Sounds expensive.”
“It was a performance review,” he corrected. “Last year he brought a tablet to the table to show me a breakdown of goalie stats for the incoming freshman class. Told me I needed to ‘eat hungry’ because they were coming for my spot.”
He laughed, but it was a hollow sound. “I realized yesterday… I’m the starter. I’m posting shutouts. And I became physically ill just thinking about walking through his front door.”
I turned down the heat. The steam rose between us, smelling of processed cheese and comfort. I dumped the powdered cheese packet in. It exploded in a cloud of neon orange dust.
“My eighth-grade foster home,” I offered, staring into the pot as the sauce turned a nuclear shade of tangerine. “They forgot to set a place for me. Everyone sat down, and there wasn’t a chair. The dad had to go to the garage to get a folding chair. I ate off a TV tray at the corner of the table.”
Luke went still. “Austen.”
“It’s fine. It was a learning experience,” I said, shrugging. “Taught me not to rely on assigned seating.”
Luke slid off the counter. He walked over to the stove, standing next to me. Close—close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him through his sweater.
“You have a seat here,” he said quietly.
I looked up. His eyes were dark and serious. No sarcasm, no deflection. Steady, terrifying sincerity.
“Here,” he repeated, gesturing to the grim basement kitchen, the bubbling pot of orange sludge, the empty dorm above us. “With me.”
My heart stuttered against my ribs. “The mac and cheese is ready.”
“Good.” He grabbed two plastic bowls from the drying rack. “Because I’m starving.”
We ate on the floor of Room 317, sitting cross-legged with our bowls. I had added the peas and cubed the Spam (pan-fried first, I’m not a savage).
It was, objectively, a sodium bomb of questionable texture. The sauce was too thick, gluey, and coated the roof of my mouth. The peas were mushy, and the Spam was salty enough to pickle a tongue.
“This,” Luke said around a mouthful, “is the best meal I’ve had in months.”
“Your palate is broken.”
“No. It’s…” He pointed his fork at me. “Quiet. No expectations. No school, no hockey.”
“Just mushy goo?”
He chuckled, scraping the bottom of his bowl. We finished eating and set the dishes aside, but neither of us moved. The radiator hissed—our third roommate, keeping time.
Luke stretched his legs out, leaning back on his hands. He looked relaxed in a way I rarely saw—shoulders loose, jaw unclenched. The silence wasn’t heavy anymore. It felt safe.
“What are you doing for the rest of the break?” he asked.
“Working. Reading. Maybe sleeping more than four hours.”
“Want company?”
I looked at him. “You’re staying? The whole weekend?”
“Yeah. Unless you kick me out.” He shifted, his knee brushing mine. He didn’t pull back. “Maybe you can help me understand financial accounting better. Or play chess. Or… exist.”
Exist. It sounded like a luxury I couldn’t afford, and yet, here it was.
“I could use a chess opponent,” I said. “My computer beats me too fast.”
Luke smiled. He shifted again, sliding down until he was lying on the rug, looking up at the cracked ceiling.
“Hey, Austen?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for not prying.”
I looked down at him. His eyes were closed, his lashes casting long shadows on his cheeks. He looked young. Not the star goalie, not the disappointment son. Just Luke.
“You came back because the dorm has better heating than sleeping in your car,” I said softly.
He huffed a laugh, eyes still closed. “Yeah. That’s it. The heating.”
I lay down next to him. Not touching, but close enough that I could hear his breathing sync with the radiator’s rhythm.