Chapter Four Colin
Chapter Four
Colin
Fifteen years ago
Oxford
“I don’t suppose it’s acceptable to be seen with your mother on the first day of university.”
“It’s fine, Mum,” I reply, walking down the residence hall toward my room at the end. She’s not the only parent dropping off their child and getting them settled in their quarters. There are plenty of other parents escorting students around the campus.
She is, however, the only one in head-to-toe Armani, looking very out of place as her designer heels click against the dusty, weathered wood floors.
Clinging to my side with her handbag clutched tightly under her arm, she stays close as we pass a communal room with large threadbare sofas and a dinette set with mismatched chairs. A waft of bleach, cheap aftershave, and freshly brewed coffee drifts from the room and permeates the hall.
A moment later, a raucous group of teenage boys spills out and nearly barrels into my mother, laughing as their trainers squeak against the old floors.
Her eyes widen with surprise as one of them narrowly misses her.
“Shit, sorry!” he calls before running after his mates down the hall.
When she turns toward me with alarm, I’m afraid she’s about to call this whole thing off. After months of pushing me to stay in a flat near campus and hire a private tutor, as well as a personal driver, she finally relented and promised to give me what I want—a real uni experience.
My entire life, I’ve lived in comfort and luxury—complete with private school, chauffeurs, constant surveillance, and total containment—and it’s been incredibly dull.
I’m ready to live, and for me, that means getting to be an authentic, normal eighteen-year-old, although I’m afraid I have no saintly idea what that entails.
I just know that I want to be unsupervised and uninhibited.
And one mob of rowdy boys has my mother shaking in her stilettos, threatening to ruin this for me. Little does she know, I ache to be one of them, in all of their wild and disorderly glory.
My poor mother is petrified for me, but I think I understand her fear. She’s raised me in captivity and is now releasing me into the wild.
And she may never understand why I need this, but I do. Even I don’t entirely understand why yet, but I can just feel it in my bones. I’ll never figure out who I am while living in the warm, comfortable confines of my father’s inheritance.
“This is it,” I say as I reach the end of the hall. Room 212 has a battered brown door that is open just a crack. I gently press on it, and it squeaks as I peek my head inside.
It’s minuscule, stuffy, and smells of the pine-scented cleaner they must use far too much of on all the old wood. To the left, there is a single oak-frame bed with a visibly thin bare mattress, an old six-drawer dresser, and a small plain desk.
My mother gasps from behind me.
Meanwhile, a smile of excitement creeps across my face.
I press the door open farther and freeze with a breath caught in my chest as my gaze lands on a dark-haired boy resting on the second bed on the right side of the room.
He’s reclining against the headboard with a sketch pad propped on his legs and dark-gray charcoal in his hand.
His fingers are stained with the soot-colored dust all the way up to the middle knuckle.
“Oh, hey,” he says with a hint of disappointment in his tone. “Was sort of hoping you wouldn’t show up.”
A chuckle escapes my lips as my mother gasps again—this time in indignation.
“This can’t be right,” she whispers.
“I’m Colin,” I say, entering the quarters with my arm outstretched toward my new roommate. “Colin Shelby.”
“Declan,” he replies as he sits upright and takes my palm for a quick shake. “Declan Barclay.”
I glance down at my hand, running my thumb curiously over the smudges of black now smeared across my palm.
“Scottish?” I ask, noting his accent.
“Aye.”
My lips tug into a smirk as I fight to hide it. I can’t explain why I find so much amusement in this. It’s like entering society for the first time and feeling so enamored by every tiny mundane and ordinary detail.
Shoebox-sized living quarters among hundreds of unruly and vulgar teenage boys—perfect. A scraggly, strange Scottish artist for a roommate—even better.
The more appalled my mother appears, the more pleased I am. And just as she murmurs her discontent again, I’m reminded that she’s standing there.
“Oh, this is my mother,” I say, pointing to her behind me.
“You staying in here too?” he asks her before scooting over on the bed and patting the mattress by his side. “I’ll make some room.”
She scoffs, and I let out a clipped laugh.
“She was just leaving,” I say, turning toward her with wide eyes.
“Lovely to meet you,” Declan calls after her in a fake posh British accent. I delicately shove my mother toward the door and walk into the hallway with her.
“Are you really certain about this?” she asks again with worry and love in her eyes.
Holding her by the arms, I force her to look at me and not at the dust and dirt gathering in the corners of the floor.
“I’ll be fine,” I say with emphasis.
“But you don’t have to do this,” she argues. “Just come home, and we’ll get you the best education in Great Britain.”
“I know you would, Mum, but I need more than an education. I want…an experience. An adventure.”
Her shoulders slump in defeat when she realizes that I’m not leaving with her after all. My mother just wants to protect me and keep me close; I know that. So it hurts me to bring her this pain, but it’s for the best.
“If you change your mind—”
“I know, Mum. I’ll call you.”
“And you can come right home.”
I nod. “I know.”
“I love you so much,” she says, holding my face in her hands. Leaning onto her toes, she presses her lips to my cheek. “And I’m so proud of you.”
“Don’t be proud yet,” I say. “I haven’t made it through my first term yet. Hell, I haven’t even made it through my first day.”
“You will,” she says with a warm grin.
Just then, our driver appears with my luggage, and I wave my mother goodbye. She disappears down the hallway, and I take my suitcases under each arm.
Reentering the room and suddenly being alone with this new stranger is awkward for a moment.
“Fancy,” Declan says as he watches me hoist my Louis Vuitton luggage onto the small bed.
“Uh, thanks,” I mutter.
Chancing a glance back at the boy sitting on the bed, I notice that Declan is wearing loose dark jeans that are frayed at the edges, with ink stains around the pockets, much like the charcoal on his hand.
His feet are bare, and his shirt is unbuttoned and hanging open, revealing a tight-fitting white tee underneath.
“I’m going outside for a smoke. Wanna join me?” he asks after standing with a loud breath.
“I don’t smoke,” I reply over my shoulder.
“It’s never too late to start,” he jokes, and I smile to myself as I unzip my first suitcase.
As my fingers linger over the perfectly packed clothes and toiletries, I consider turning him down again. But that’s something the old Colin would do.
And I’m ready to be the new Colin.
“Fuck it,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Declan has a wide, handsome smile as he claps a dirty hand on my back and leads me toward the door.
He kicks it shut behind him but keeps the hand there as we walk down the hallway.
He’s nearly the same height as I am, and I’m the tallest person in my family.
In fact, now that I’m glancing sideways at him, I realize he might actually be a bit taller.
Two minutes later, we’re standing across from each other in the small outdoor space between buildings where the grass and weeds have sprouted between the cracks of the stones and pavement on the ground. And I’m coughing so hard it feels like my lungs might actually propel themselves from my body.
“Okay, maybe it is too late to start,” Declan says with a laugh as he pats my back and takes the cigarette from my fingers.
My eyes are watering, and I can feel people looking at me. Seasoned, calm smokers who probably trained their lungs to handle the toxic smoke when they were young teens, not fully grown.
“Easy, Shelby,” Declan says, rubbing my back. “Don’t die on me. That’s not how I want to start my term.”
“I’m fine,” I wheeze before coughing again.
When I can finally stand upright and get a good look at the man leaning against the brick building with a cigarette in his hand, I resist the urge to run away out of embarrassment.
“So what’s your story, Shelby?” he asks as he takes a puff.
“It’s Colin,” I reply. I hate being called by my last name, mainly because it reminds me of my father.
“Sorry,” he says, putting up his hands. “What’s your story, Colin?”
“My story?”
“Yeah, what is a proper, rich young Brit like yourself doing in these halls and sharing a room with a commoner like me?”
His jet-black hair hangs messily forward before he uses his free hand to brush it out of his face. He carries himself with such confidence it makes my chest ache with longing. I’d kill to be half as assured.
“You’re not a commoner,” I say, shaking my head.
Declan’s eyes pop open in surprise. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I know that your family is wealthy,” I reply.
“Mr. Shelby, have you been stalking me?” he asks with fake offense.
I can’t help but smile but can’t seem to manage a laugh without coughing again. “No, I haven’t. But let’s just say I know my parents. They always have a way of manipulating things in their favor.”
Declan grins to himself as he pulls another drag through the cigarette.
I don’t go into much detail, but judging by his lack of surprise, I’d say my suspicions were correct.
My mother wouldn’t let me board with just anyone.
No, I would bet my life that they paid off the housing department and hand-selected my roommate, someone from a wealthy family, presumably. Someone without a dangerous background.
So, while Declan asked to know my story, I can already guess his.
“Wow,” he says as he stubs the butt of the cigarette into a nearby ashtray. “I guess we’re just two birds of a feather, aren’t we?”
“Are you also running away to uni to escape your overbearing parents and try to live an authentic life instead of the charade of being rich?”
Declan’s dark eyes are like an abyss as he stares at me, and it’s almost too intense, as if his gaze is swallowing me whole.
“Close, Shelby,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “The only difference is that my parents are dead. But everything else sounds right on the money.”
My face falls. “Oh, blast,” I mutter. “I’m sorry.”
He laughs as he shoves my shoulder. “It’s fine. I’m used to it by now. I do, however, have an overbearing sister and aunt that I’m here to escape, so I guess we do have a lot in common.”
Heat flushes to my cheeks from the embarrassment. As difficult as my parents are, especially my father, I couldn’t imagine not having any parents at all. How lonely that must be for him.
Desperate to change the subject and relieve myself from the torment of having my foot so far in my mouth, I ask, “So what are you studying?”
“Fine arts,” he replies, kicking a pebble with his shoe.
That explains the charcoal.
“What about you, Shelby?” he replies, without expanding further on his topic of study.
I give a shrug. “Theatre studies.”
He nods appreciatively before shoving his lighter into his pocket. “Theatre, huh? You want to be an actor or something?”
Wincing uncomfortably, I reply, “I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
“Well, you’ve got the face for it,” he replies, and I freeze for a moment, letting the compliment wash over me. Did he just call me handsome?
It could have been some backhanded compliment, for all I know. I’m not good at casual conversation. I don’t always pick up on nuanced clues and jabs.
“Uh, thanks,” I mutter in reply, making Declan laugh.
With that, he throws an arm around my shoulder and tugs me toward the door. “Come on, Shakespeare. Let’s get some food.”
The soft skin of his arm touches my neck as we make our way toward the cafeteria, and I turn my head toward him, absorbing the brief warmth of his smile like it’s the sun hanging in the sky.
It might be a little too early to call it, but I think I’ve just made my first uni friend, and if my parents did have a hand in choosing my first roommate, I’m glad they chose Declan Barclay.