Lydia
The library is quiet but chaotic with a bunch of students everywhere. We’re meeting up on the second floor, back corner, where all the booths are that people normally fight over on a packed Saturday around here.
I see that Pali has already claimed one for us, sitting there guarding it with her huge tote bag that’s filled to the brim with way too many supplies for a psych project.
Jaden walks over and slides in next to her.
I walk up and say hey to both of them before dropping into the booth on the other side of Pali, pulling out my laptop.
Bash shows up with a Red Bull and a notebook that has tabs in it and looks way too organized for a college boy.
He slides in beside me at the end, greeting everyone before turning to me and saying ‘Hey’ in that lingering way that felt like he was saving me for last and wanted to give me more of his attention.
I can’t help the traitorous blush I can feel creeping onto my cheeks.
We get down to project business pretty quickly. Pali makes the Google Form, Jaden drafts the outline of our plan, Bash works on the pitch, and I start drafting our poster on my laptop.
We plug it all in—who’s doing what. My job is to also write the midday text to everyone. I stare at the blinking cursor and try not to write something that sounds like a lecture. Don’t be a scold. Don’t be a dare. Just talk like a person. I start typing:
If you missed yesterday, you’re still in the club. Try today. Two cups. Ten minutes. You can even walk while listening to that one song you loved in middle school. (Yes, that one.)
Jaden reads it and laughs. “That’s evil. Now I’m going to be outside crying to Paramore.”
“Good,” Pali says, smiling at him. “Crying is hydrating.”
When the bones are all in place, the conversation loosens. We slump a little, peeling back from the formal task-doing into the mess of just being regular college kids.
“So,” Pali says, cracking her knuckles, “what are your majors and how did you get tricked into this class?”
“Psych,” Bash says. “Senior. I like this stuff because it feels like actual life. Think I want to get into the therapy side of it mostly.”
“Same,” Jaden says. “Psych, too. Junior. Don’t know what I wanna do with it yet. Also, I heard Dr. Helms doesn’t tank your grade if you’re a normal person and aren’t always the picture-perfect student.”
“Pre-med turned public health,” Pali says. “Junior. I like telling systems to behave.”
They look at me, and I fiddle with my pen. “Social work,” I say.
Saying it out loud makes me feel like I’m actually going through with it in a way, like an out-loud promise no one else knows about. “Sophomore. I—” I stop myself before just saying it, thinking it might sound too cliché. “I want to help people.”
I told you, it sounds dumb, but it’s the truth. The system I came up in sucks so badly. Maybe there’s room for improvement.
Pali’s mouth does that soft smile that means she’s listening, and she likes what she hears. “Welcome to yelling at systems with me,” she says. “It’s more fun with friends.”
“I’m also still catching up in this class,” I admit. “Late add. First day was…the day we got assigned this project. So I have, like, half a semester of stress lions to meet.”
“I can help,” Pali says immediately. “One-on-one, if you want. You have my number now. We can make a plan. I’m an excellent tyrant if you like that kind of help.”
Jaden tilts his head at her, fascinated. “You’re terrifying in the best kind of way.”
“And you’re chaos in the laziest way,” she counters, deadpanning.
He looks delighted, even smitten a little. “Teach me your ways,” he says, mock-bowing. “I will forget, and you will remind me, and I will pretend it was always my idea.”
“Deal,” she says, returning to her list with the tiniest smirk.
They somehow get into their own little weird bubble of conversation.
Kind of an odd pair that just…works. Bash turns a little, facing me more.
If I leaned a fraction, I’d be touching him.
I don’t, but my mind is very aware of it.
My phone is still in my hands, finishing a text to Lani.
I quickly place it face down on my notebook, turning towards him like it’s no big deal to be this close and have his attention on me.
“How are your other classes?” he asks, not fishing for conversation or anything, just being friendly.
“Newly terrifying,” I say. “But I think it’s just the whole doing it all sober now thing.”
He nods like he understands, and hearing him at group the other day made me realize he might actually understand in a way I didn’t realize before.
“I get that. My first two years were spent drowning it all out too, and barely making it by.”
“Yeah, I caught a little of that in group. But…you’re doing good now? Is it…still hard some days?”
“Some days, yeah,” he says. “Not most days, though, not anymore. But yeah, I’m doing good, haven’t touched anything in almost two years now.”
“Wow,” I tell him, genuinely impressed. “That’s pretty cool.”
He laughs a little. “Doesn’t feel ‘cool’ sometimes, but I’m learning what other people might think is cool ain’t all it’s actually cracked up to be.”
“What made you choose Psych?”
He doesn’t answer right away. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s thinking about why or if the why is just hard to say out loud.
“Um, my…sister. She…she committed suicide my senior year of high school. I guess this feels like the best way I can be used to help others like her. Seemed like something she’d be proud of me doing.
Plus I like the way the mind works, how it’s like a puzzle you have to figure out… even when it’s your own.”
My heart drops at that. Knowing that he watched me try to do the same thing his sister did, how he must have felt when he found me.
I fucking hate myself for that in this moment.
I almost want to apologize to him for it…
but I can’t. I can’t make myself think about that time right now.
I don’t think I’m really in a place to mentally even bring it up. So I try to steer it somewhere safer.
“She’d be proud.”
“Thanks, I’m still working on fully believing that.”
“Why?”
He rubs the back of his neck, and I see in his eyes there’s so much more for him to say that he just can’t. “I don’t know, just a lot I’m still working through around her death. I’m still a work in progress, just like everyone else. Still trying to train my brain better.”
“Don’t go therapisting yourself now.”
He laughs at that, and I can’t help but smile when I see it. His laugh and his smile could literally make any bad day better.
The conversation is lighter after that. We eventually filter ourselves back into the conversation with Pali and Jaden, wrapping up any last loose ends of the project before heading our separate ways.
When we leave the library, Pali and Jaden both head in different directions, waving as they tell us bye.
It’s fucking weird, but I wish Bash would ask to walk me back to my dorm.
Not for any other motive other than to have ten more minutes talking to him.
I know we can’t have one-on-one time together, so I know he won’t even offer to…
but a small part of me wishes he’d say screw the rules for me.
But who am I? I’m not anything to him…and I don’t want to be anything to him.
So, of course, he wouldn’t do that for someone he doesn’t know outside of a few coincidences around campus.
I don’t know, I just like being around him. Sue me. Something about him calms my nervous system…my mind doesn’t feel like it hates me when it’s around him. That feels kinda dangerous.