1. Blesk #3
Once we pass the old gargoyles with their leering grins and chipped wings, the lobby hits me with its unexpected brightness, gleaming tile floors, plain but comfortable-looking sofas surrounding a few wooden coffee tables, and a wall of mailboxes.
Erik reads the “FEMALE RESIDENTS ONLY” sign and his jaw softens.
I approach room twenty-three. I drop my baggage on the floor and stand in front of the door.
This is it.
I pause.
“You gonna go in?” Erik asks.
“It’s just… this is my home for the next four years.”
“Yeah.”
“And I want to take it all in.”
“Take your time.” He leans against the opposite wall, crosses his arms, watching my hesitation. A soft, knowing grin rests on his face.
I got this. “Okay.” I slide my key in and push the door open, immediately greeted by a bouncing girl.
“Hi!” a girl yells, jumping up from her position on the room’s central rug. “Hi, I’m Elise. Ooh, wow you smell like daisies!” She yanks my guitar case from my hand, carries it to a bed, and drops it on the mattress.
Um…
“Thanks, it’s my perfume…” I like that she doesn’t try to shake my hand at least. We’re already past formalities, clearly.
“This is your bed,” she begins. “I’ve been waiting for you all day. Did you go to orientation? How old are you? Sorry, I don’t mean to come on so strong.”
I blink at her. “Um, hi. I’m Blesk.” What were her other questions—how old am I?
She brightens. “Ooh, what kind of name is that? Is it a religious name, like bless?”
Erik strides in. “Woah, calm down, kid. She just got here.” He gives Elise a quick once-over—a glance only I know as patronising. “She’s twenty. Yes, we just left orientation.”
I can answer for myself, Erik.
“Sorry.” I walk straight to Elise, who looks as if she’s just taken a punch from my six-foot-three brother. “I’m Blesk Bellamy. It’s really nice to meet you.”
I narrow my eyes at Erik, silently saying, ‘Stop it. Don’t be a dick.’
Elise’s gaze follows him as he wanders our room, scrutinising the area.
She barely comes up to his shoulder. Behind brown horn-rimmed glasses, her eyes dart between us.
Freckles dust her nose like cinnamon, an unexpected softness against the sharp wings of black eyeliner and the chipped rainbow nail polish.
The wall her bed is pressed against is an explosion of colours with Katy Perry mid-note, Lady Gaga in meat dress glory, Ryan Gosling’s rain-soaked Notebook stare, while my side is a bare, red-brick wall.
She leans in. “Is that your boyfriend?”
“No. That’s my brother.”
“Ah.” She walks to her bed and tucks one leg beneath the other, her eyes fixed on Erik as if willing him through the doorway. My doorway, too, now?
Erik finally stops and looks at me. “Nope. I don’t like it. You need your own room, beautiful.”
I glance at Elise, unsettled by the endearment the way I sometimes am when someone else hears it. “No, I don’t,” I say, and I actually mean it. “I like it.”
As if to mark my space, I unzip my bag and pull out a small, bubble-wrapped parcel. I unwrap it, revealing a palm-sized metal unicorn. My only ornament.
Okay, so I have one trinket.
Staring at its pointy horn, I trace a finger over its raised hoof. A shiver moves through me. I take a slow breath. The unicorn goes on my bedside table so I can see it every morning when I wake up.
I turn back to face him. “See.” I wave at the ornament that he has never asked about even though I have always had it. “This is officially my space.”
He releases a long sigh. “Fine.” He flashes Elise a tight smile before approaching me and leaning in to peck my cheek. I hold my breath while his lips linger a moment, warm, familiar. Then he pulls back and looks at me. “First night away from home since… well…”
Before I was adopted.
“Ever,” he finishes, because to him that is true.
I’ve never had a sleepover. I've always been in my room—the one beside his, in the same house we shared with Dad. The same house I left for the first time this morning. “Sure you don’t want to sleep on a mattress in my dorm? My roommate is at his girlfriend’s. ”
My insides flip. I kind of do want that, and I kind of don’t. “Yes, I’m sure,” I say, the words coming out even as my mind wars with itself.
“What if you…” He lowers his voice. “Have a bad dream or something.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say as convincingly as I can.
He nods stiffly. “Okay, Bebe.” He turns to Elise, grinning. “I think it’s great your mum is an alumna. Look after my sister, yeah? And call her Bebe, because it drives her craz—”
“Time to leave, Erik,” I cut in, placing both hands on his chest and pushing him towards the doorway. And he lets himself be pushed by me. He lets me think I’m moving him when he could just stop, refuse to budge, and become a smug immovable wall.
“I’ll pick you up at 6:15 for The Grill?”
Fuck. “Yep, okay.”
I push him again, edging him out the door, wanting him to walk away. I keep it playful.
“Goodnight then,” he finally says.
“Goodnight.”
I close the door in his face. Turning, I press my back to it for a moment, my hand flat against the wood.
Then I go and unpack.