Track 8 Mirrorball – Audrey
AUDREY
Two hours later
An aimless walk around campus dropped my blood’s temperature from boiling to simmering. At this rate, I’d be ready to return to my suite with Taylor by next month.
Granted, I’d miss the entire first week of the program and lose any chance at winning the top award, but it might be worth preserving my mental health.
Snap out of it, Audrey. You can’t let Taylor win again…
Taking several deep breaths, I resisted the urge to take an Uber back to the airport. Instead, I strolled around the small town that bordered the campus, taking in the shops and restaurants.
A bright blue sign flashed “Gayle’s” ahead of me, and I stepped forward.
The store was closed for the day, but the faux stacks of pancakes in the window beckoned me to come back with their labels: “For when you hate your life,” “For when you’d rather be home,” “For when you want to restart the day.”
I made a mental note to come back this weekend and continued strolling.
No matter how far I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the universe was laughing at me.
“That which we call a ‘rose,’ by any other name would smell as sweet.” A guy held out a bloom when I returned to the residence building. “What’s your name?”
“Audrey.” I smiled and took it from him. “Audrey Parker.”
“Harold Bessemer.” He gently grabbed my wrist and kissed it. “Would you, by chance, be the same Audrey Parker who won the Rhodes Writing Award this year?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Oh.” His smile vanished. “Well, you must feel really good about yourself for winning that.”
“It was a pretty big highlight for me.”
“Well, you won’t be getting a highlight in this program, bitch.” He snatched the rose from me. “Hope you’re prepared to lose to the man who actually deserved that Rhodes Award.”
“Um… okay then.”
“It’s not okay.” He narrowed his eyes. “If you possessed a single ounce of human decency, you would write a letter with your basic prose skills and tell the committee to reroute that award to me.”
“Are you being serious or sarcastic right now?”
“Serious.” His voice was tense. “If you’d like, I can write the letter for you, since we both know you overuse em dashes and sprinkle them wherever you can.”
Oh my god…
I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be around people who took every comma, semicolon, and award like it was life or death—and every conversation, no matter the topic, always circled back to prose.
People who were just like my parents.
“Would you like that, Fraudrey Parker?” he asked. “Hmmm?”
“I would like you to stop blocking the door,” I said instead.
“I bet you would like that very much, Fraudrey Parker.” He hissed. “Fraudreyyy!”
His words shouldn’t sting—he knew nothing about me or the guy who’d uttered that same cadence before—but they did.
They always did.
“Okay, fuck you.” I pushed past him and made my way inside.
I took the emergency stairwell up to my floor, and when I stepped inside the suite, my luggage was neatly pushed against the wall, and Taylor was leaning back on the couch, staring at his phone.
I cleared my throat, and he immediately looked up.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words fell.
His lips parted, too, but the room remained silent.
The tension from earlier was still here, still palpable, laced with an awkwardness we couldn’t deny.
The living room walls slowly closed in as the seconds passed, bringing him closer to me.
Still silent, he stood to his feet and walked toward me.
“So,” he said, finding his voice first, “did you get the office to assign you another roommate?”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
“What were you doing?”
“None of your business.”
He arched a brow.
“But speaking of this roommate situation, I think it’s best if we set some boundaries for the next few months and commit to being cordial.”
“I don’t think you know what the word ‘cordial’ means, Audrey.”
“Of course I do.” I hated that this man was even more attractive up close—that his boyish charm from our childhood had intensified to impossible levels I couldn’t deny.
“Congratulations on getting into the Postscript Program,” he said. “I’ll do my best to be cordial with you.”
I nodded, searching for something to compliment him on as well.
“Your girlfriend Stacey seems…” I couldn’t finish that sentence because odd and ditzy as hell were all that came to mind.
“Congratulations on getting drafted in the first round,” I said instead.
“Did you actually watch the draft?”
“I saw it on the news the next day.” I shrugged. “I was secretly rooting for you to fail and go undrafted because of your ego.”
“You should’ve known that wasn’t happening.”
“I don’t know anything about you, Taylor Wolff,” I said. “And I don’t plan on learning anything new either.”
“What part of being ‘cordial’ is this?” He smirked.
“Anyway—” I rolled my eyes and stepped back. “I took a quick look at the syllabus this morning, and it looks pretty intense, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t have any company here late at night.”
“Ever?”
“Yes, ever.”
“Then I expect the same from you,” he said.
“Obviously. I’d also appreciate it if you could treat me like any other stranger.”
“Come again?”
“We have a history, but I’ve spent the past several years trying to erase all of our pages, so… I would prefer it if you didn’t allude to anything in the past.” I kept my voice firm. “You’re here to write and compete, as am I, and we’re roommates. That’s the end of our connection.”
“I assure you that we don’t have a connection at all, Audrey.”
“Exactly.” I shrugged. “I’d prefer if you didn’t write about me in any of your work here or bring me up in conversation with any of our fellow cohorts.”
“If you honestly think that you cross my mind enough to make it into anything I’ve ever written, you’re still as delusional as you were on the day I first fucking met you.”
“I just met you today, remember?”
“Right.” He clenched his jaw. “Anything else, Miss Parker?”
“No, that would be all, Mr. Wolff.” I smiled. “I actually like this formality. We should keep it that way.”
He shot me a pointed look, but he didn’t protest.
“Two professors dropped by with updated syllabi while you were away,” he said. “I slid them under your door.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t say “You’re welcome.”
“One more thing,” I said, itching to get him out of my sight. “I think we should establish some type of communication system—just for emergencies.”
“You mean, like our cell phones?”
“No, no,” I said. “We can just use one of the social media messengers if something comes up, right? You can choose which one.”
“That’ll only work if you unblock me.”
Nope, never. “In that case, we can use the program’s messenger board.”
“Or you can be an adult and give me your phone number.”
“It’s the same as it’s always been.”
“No, it’s not.” His eyes darkened as he stepped closer to me. “You changed it last year…”
“How would you know?”
He didn’t answer. He just stared at me.
“I doubt there’s anything we’ll need to talk about.” I glanced at my luggage, then back at him. “I’m going to unpack my stuff and—”
He walked away from me before I could finish my sentence, slamming the door on his way out.
The sound reverberated through the suite, settling somewhere between my chest and the ache I swore I didn’t still feel.