Chapter 5 #2
All I know about Carly and Aimee is what they look like and that they are always trying to get Chloe and me to go partying with them.
Carly is the louder of the two. She is always singing out loud with her headphones in, and we can clearly hear her through the shared wall.
She’s almost six feet tall and has envious long silky brown hair.
I think she’s here on a volleyball scholarship.
Aimee is the polar opposite, standing at just under five feet tall with a short blond pixie cut.
She’s studying archeology or anthropology.
Or was it architecture? I really should get to know them better.
With Chloe being my roommate and studying the same major as me, we see each other all the time.
It’s effortless for us to stick to each other like glue.
Even a handful of people from my hometown go to UCSD, like Isaac, but what’s the point of hanging out with anyone else when I can hang out with my favorite person?
The guilt of feeling like I should do more and not doing enough sticks to me, and I try to brush it off as I walk into the lecture hall.
I need to focus on class and pretend like this is what I’m supposed to be doing.
“Class was brutal. Mr. Tahoma lectured for two hours straight. I was starting to hear him like a Peanuts teacher by the end of it.” Chloe slides into the picnic table seat with her lunch tray.
She is vegan this week, so her lunch consists of iceberg lettuce, an array of fruit slices, and a cup of baked beans.
I cannot help but notice how her outfit today is so sweet and effortless.
She can do the smallest amount and still look like a goddess.
Her long, ashy blond hair has two braids on either side of her face while the rest cascades down her back in a mass of tangled curls.
She is wearing her trusty paint-splattered overalls with a white tank top underneath and Rainbow-brand flip-flops.
Her fair skin has freckled quite a bit in the San Diego sun.
She pulls out a tube of strawberry lip balm and reapplies.
I cannot believe she still uses those, but she swears the scents are better than any other brand. I think it tastes like candle wax.
“Can you bring me dinner tonight when you come to the show? I won’t have time to pick up anything because I need to set up my stall,” Chloe says, scooping a portion of beans in her mouth.
“Sure, you want a bean and cheese burrito?”
Chloe winces and looks at me like I said something dumb. “Cheese is not vegan.”
“Well, then, what, beans only?”
“Yes, actually, that’s perfect.” She nods and smiles.
I’m looking forward to when she starts incorporating more foods in her diet, or at least less beans.
“What time should I come by, and do you need help setting up?” Chloe has her second art show tonight.
She’s been taking an art elective that I’m pretty sure she spends more of her energy on than her actual major.
She’s an amazing artist. I thought she should’ve majored in fine art, but she said she could never do that.
I get it. What kind of jobs can you get with a degree like that?
Even though she’d probably enjoy studying it more than Marketing.
I have a painting Chloe gave me when we graduated high school hung above my desk in our dorm.
It’s a painting of two girls sitting on the beach, looking out at the water.
It makes me so happy and relaxed whenever I look at it.
Chloe is her best self whenever she’s painting.
She zones out as soon as a paintbrush enters her grasp, and she’ll paint for hours like it’s meditation.
“Can you come by around five? It starts at six pm. You can help me hang the canvases.”
“Sounds good,” I say, adding a reminder on my phone.
“Oh hey, I ran into Isaac. He invited us to his birthday party this weekend.” I reluctantly bring up my interaction as I push around my mac and cheese on my plate, hoping that Chloe will say she planned something else for us to do this weekend instead.
“Oh yea! He texted me about it. We should totally go! I know you never want to go but come onnnnn, Anni, how are you supposed to enjoy all the hot dudes who go to school here if you don’t get out there.”
Dammit.
Chloe has been so hung up on me finding “the one” ever since she started flirting with the barista at the campus coffee shop nearest to our dorm.
She dreams of having double dates with our significant others.
But then she also reminds me to play the field.
It’s all so confusing. I don’t know what I even want, let alone if I want to date anyone right now.
Besides, it's not like I haven’t tried. I went out with a boy from my Intro to Marketing class a couple of months ago.
We went to get ice cream at the boardwalk by the beach, and twenty minutes into the date, he said I would look prettier with a boob job, so suffice it to say, he wasn’t the one for me.
“I don’t know if I want to date any of the ‘hot dudes’ at a frat party. I’d rather be flipping through the vintage rack at one of my favorite thrift stores. I look up and catch a cute boy’s eyes. We buy matching T-shirts, and the rest is history.” I look up, and Chloe’s mouth is agape.
“Wow, you’ve put some thought into this.”
“Not really, just random fantasies. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind dating someone tolerable, but I haven’t had much luck.”
“Well, keep an open mind this weekend. You never know who might steal your heart.” She clutches her chest like she’s been shot by Cupid’s arrow.
I may regret this later.
“Fine, fine, we can go to his party, but you need to promise not to leave my side. We need to keep the buddy system. I don’t trust any of those frat guys.”
Chloe shimmies in her seat. “Yay! I’m so excited. I’m bringing Dane.”
She bats her eyelashes at the mention of her current fling.
The barista boy. She flirted with him endlessly since we started the second semester, hoping he’d get the hint.
He didn’t, so Chloe just gave him her phone number one day because she was sick of waiting.
So far, he seems nice. I haven’t talked to him much, but I can tell Chloe is having fun.
Who knows, this party could be amusing. I am already feeling stressed from school, so it will be a nice break from constantly thinking about all the assignments that are due soon. Maybe we’ll go shopping for new outfits beforehand.
Shopping is one of those moments for me where I’m completely in bliss.
I love bopping around Gaslamp and seeing what new items arrive at the vintage shops each week.
The thrill of putting an outfit together or stumbling upon a vintage band T-shirt gets me eager to run out of this cafeteria just thinking about it.
I’d never admit it to Chloe, but a part of me is a little excited to go.
It feels like this party might be different from others.