Chapter 6
Mia
Back in my room, late Sunday night, two things are true.
One, I am completely wiped out and two, I am totally wired.
Hyped up on new friends and jet lag, I swap my dress for my pyjamas, shoot my mom a text to let her know I’m okay but too tired to talk, then set to fixing up my room.
Rushing out to meet Alice meant I didn’t get a chance to unpack and even if my brain and body weren’t on completely opposing time zones, I wouldn’t be happy until all my belongings have an official home in my new room.
I’ve always been someone who feels calmer when everything has its proper place, somewhere it belongs.
Even when I don’t. Especially when I don’t.
My room is beautiful, exactly like the ones in the brochure I’ve been toting around for two years.
Low ceilings, freshly painted walls and the wooden floorboards set in a herringbone pattern underfoot, worn to a warm brown with age.
The twin bed is small, but the mattress bounces under my palm when I press down to test it, and a dark wood closet slid in next to an actual fireplace looks like it might lead me to Narnia if I’d only step inside.
Best of all, tucked into the bay window that looks out over the campus, is an old, leather-topped desk, perfectly positioned for daydreaming.
Kneeling on the floor, I open up my suitcases and wonder about the people who might have stayed in this room before me.
Hemden was established in the eleventh century, these halls originally built in the sixteenth.
Someone could’ve sat at this exact desk, writing an essay on Shakespeare’s tragedies, before South Carolina even existed.
‘And now it’s me,’ I whisper, looking around in awe, before the sound of a slamming door next door echoes through my room.
Ethan.
Pushing soccer boy out of my mind, I try to distract myself by concentrating on the task at hand.
Clothes in the closet, toiletries in the bathroom, pens, pencils, notebooks on the desk, framed photos of my parents and two brothers on the shelf.
Once everything is where it’s meant to be, I step back to appraise my work.
It’s good. Orderly. I feel calm. At least I do once I’ve adjusted the small stack of emotional support books I couldn’t bring myself to leave at home to make sure their spines are in perfect alignment.
The rest of my library stayed behind, dozens if not hundreds of second-hand books bought at thrift stores and yard sales, along with a few special editions I convinced my parents to buy me for birthdays and Christmas.
As non-readers, they always baulk at spending so much money on a single book, but nothing sets my heart racing like foiled boards and fancy spredges.
As much as I love my Kindle, the feel of a book in my hands, the weight of it, the tangible excitement of turning each page, knowing you’re getting closer and closer to the end? There’s nothing like it.
‘Mia, you need to get laid,’ I mutter to myself.
It’s a deeply, deeply true statement. I haven’t had sex in more than two years and that was the kind of experience that was more of a haiku than an epic love story for the ages.
I can’t count the numbers of nights I’ve laid awake fantasizing about my future Hemden lover.
Will he be stoic and complex like Edward Rochester or wild and passionate like Heathcliff?
Hopefully, not quite so fatally flawed as either of my favourite Bronte heroes, or the kind of man who tries to neg me into submission like Mr Darcy, but someone smart and thoughtful, funny and caring.
Loving books as much as I do is a non-negotiable, and even though I’m sure Jane, Cathy and Lizzie would all say looks don’t matter, I want my man to steal my breath away, to stop me in my tracks every time I see him.
Just like Oliver had. If only he’d shown up to Members tonight, I think, trailing a fingertip down Jane Eyre’s spine and shivering as if it were my own.
A huge yawn rolls through me and all at once, I’m so tired even hauling myself onto my bed feels like an effort.
‘This is it,’ I murmur to myself, eyelids flickering already. ‘This is your chance.’
In middle school, I thought things would be different in high school.
In high school, I was convinced college would be my dream come true, but when my parents refused to let me move into the dorms, my life barely changed at all, except for how quickly I lost touch with my high school friends.
Everyone I was close with either moved away or started work, while I stayed exactly where I was, stuck in some kind of middle ground purgatory.
But I’m here now. Turning onto my side, I press a pillow over my head when my neighbour’s door bangs again. I’m here now and nothing can ruin it.
On my desk, I hear my phone ping.
Mom.
Hey sweetie, sleep tight! Love you!
As soon as I put it down, it pings again.
Did your luggage make it? Dad was tracking your AirTags but they’ve disappeared from the app. Just checking in! Love you xoxoxo
‘Yep, you’ve checked in four times already,’ I say, tapping out a response to say as much, deleting it then starting again.
All good, I have my bags. It’s super late – call you tomorrow? Love you too xo
Three dots hover on the screen then disappear. Then come back and disappear again. I hold my breath, staring at the screen, chances of falling asleep racing away with every second. Right as the screen goes dark, Mom’s name pops up again.
Don’t worry about us. As long as you’re having a good time.
No Xs or Os this time, no ‘I love you’. Just good old-fashioned Meyers family passive aggressive behaviour.
I slide my phone facedown on my desk and stare at the ceiling, regretting the tone of my message, until I finally fall asleep.
When I hear a knock on my door at nine a.m., I’ve already been up for hours, showered, shampooed, deep-conditioned and I’ve checked the contents of my bag three times.
I’m so ready to go. Most importantly, I’m happy in my carefully selected first-day outfit.
Cute plaid mini, oversized blue sweater and screw you, Breanna Kershaw, I will have my academic-chic redemption.
Throwing open the door, I see Alice, sleepy-eyed, in drawstring pants and an enormous sweatshirt, the kind of outfit that would make me look like I was wearing a sleeping bag, but on her, looks chic and intentional.
‘Hi!’ I grab my bag from the bed and slip out into the hallway. ‘You came!’
‘Said I would.’
We had agreed to walk down to the enrolment centre together but I’m all too aware people don’t always do what they say they will. She ruffles her short red hair and gives me a once-over.
‘Love the outfit.’
As if she wasn’t my favourite person on campus already.
‘Be warned, I am not a morning person.’ Alice yawns, covering her mouth with her whole arm. ‘I need coffee. Lots of coffee.’
I lock the door, hitch my leather tote up on my shoulder and point towards the kitchen. ‘You want a cup before we leave? I brought some instant from home.’
She pushes my hand down, then links her arm through mine. ‘Lesson number one on my unofficial guide to everything-you-need-to-know-about-Hemden. Everyone gets coffee from The Snug. There’ll be a line a mile long but it’s worth it for the pumpkin spice mochaccino, believe me.’
‘You’re sure we shouldn’t enrol first and get coffee after?’
She stares like I’ve just suggested we sacrifice ourselves to the lesser gods rather than wait five extra minutes to get a drink.
‘Don’t make me regret adopting you,’ she says, pulling me down the hallway towards the front door. ‘Coffee first, everything else second.’
‘What do you mean you can’t remember my name?’
A girl’s voice carries through the heavy wood of the door next to mine, followed by a crash, a bang and muffled male cursing.
‘Someone had an exciting evening,’ Alice says when another loud thud is followed by a high-pitched shriek. ‘Bold move to break the no-overnight-guests rule on the first night.’
‘We should go get that coffee,’ I say, desperate to be gone before Ethan or whoever he has in there make a dramatic exit. ‘Didn’t you say there would be a line?’
‘Yes but—’ She stalls, right as something smashes against the wall, and winces. ‘Is it me or did that sound expensive?’
‘Yes, and I don’t want to be here when campus security shows up.’
I grab her hand and we’re out of the flat, the front door slamming shut behind us.
‘Is there really a no-overnight-guests rule in the dorms?’
‘Yep.’ Alice nods as we stroll across the quad, the grass still wet with dew and sticking to my boots.
‘If you get caught with someone in your room after eleven, you both get fined. They claim it’s a fire safety thing.
Everyone ignores it, obviously. What kind of idiot lets hundreds of students live together, puts a subsidized bar on campus, then expects them not to shag? We’re all adults, it’s absurd.’
‘The logic does seem kinda flawed,’ I agree. ‘How do they enforce it even? Wait, the rooms aren’t monitored, aren’t they?’
‘With cameras?’ She shakes her head. ‘No, they’re much more devious.
Every few weeks, they’ll set off a fire alarm in the middle of the night and do a head count.
Someone always gets caught out. Bit of a giveaway that you weren’t in your own room if you’re stood outside in nothing but your knickers at three in the morning in the middle of January. ’
The thought alone fills me with dread.
‘Every hall has a JCR, or junior common room, where they’d like us to hang out.
They’ve all got a big telly, sofas, vending machines, that sort of thing.
Some of them have a snooker table or table tennis donated by a former student but no one ever hangs out in them.
Probably because they all smell a bit like wet dog. ’
‘You mean there are pets on campus?’ I ask, excited.
Alice frowns.
‘No, which only makes it all the more baffling.’
Despite my mom lecturing me daily on the terrible weather in the UK, the sun is shining again and everyone we pass looks happy to be here, the first day energy palpable.
The start of a new school year has always been more compelling to me than the beginning of a new calendar year.
New Year’s is nothing but lame parties and too much pressure, with three months of crappy weather on the other side.
January is not the time to reinvent yourself, but September?
End of summer, beginning of fall – which everyone knows is the best season – changing leaves and holidays on the horizon. One hundred per cent better.
‘So, coffee first, enrolment second, then what?’ Alice asks. ‘Do you have your schedule?’
I fish around in my tote for the printout I brought with me, even though I’ve had it committed to memory since the school emailed my info packet two months ago.
The no internet access on campus thing is going to take some getting used to, but it’s not as though I didn’t know about it before I arrived.
Hemden literally brags about its offline culture on its website, which is a contradiction I don’t even want to think about it until I’ve had at least three coffees.
‘There’s a junior year abroad welcome meeting at eleven,’ I say, reading from my mini laminated schedule, grateful for my mother’s frequent but brief crafting obsessions. ‘Then I really need to think about finding a job before I get caught up in classes.’
‘Shouldn’t be too hard. Best place to start is the union, they’re always recruiting.
One of the few upsides to all the rich kids who come here, the rest of us can find a job on campus easily enough.
’ Alice pulls up her sweatpants and tightens the drawstring at her waist. ‘First year, I worked at The Snug, but being a barista is not my calling. I broke the espresso machine so many times I had to move to Members last year. I could have a word with the manager for you if you’d like? ’
Sliding my schedule back into my bag, I ask, ‘Members? You mean working in the bar?’
‘It’s honestly so easy.’ Alice nods. ‘They basically pay you to hang out with your friends. Happy to put in a good word for you.’
‘Thanks, I’ll think about it.’
But I’m already thinking about it. If my folks found out I’d even been inside a bar, they would have a meltdown. If it got back to them that I was working in one, they’d be on the next flight out.
‘When you say rich kids,’ I say, changing the subject before she can push harder. ‘How rich are you talking?’
Alice lets out a low whistle. ‘I mean rich-rich. A very healthy mix of proper poshos with old money and your more recent billionaire babies, the odd member of the aristocracy. Jenna’s mum owns a tech company, something to do with data orchestration and please don’t ask me to explain any more than that because I can’t.
She has disgusting amounts of cash but you’d never know.
Jenna’s totally cool. Michael’s parents, on the other hand, do nothing because they’ve never had to.
His dad is like, third cousin twice removed to the king or something.
Of course, he never talks about it, that would be incredibly crass. ’
‘But we’re talking about it now?’
‘That’s because I’m crass.’ She pulls her shoulders up in a shrug. ‘It’s easier to talk about money when you haven’t got any. Both my parents are teachers, I’ve had a part-time job since I was old enough to do a paper round. Both my parents are teachers.’
‘My dad is in real estate, just went into business for himself last year so money hasn’t exactly been flowing at home,’ I say, flashing back to all the sales boards up in our neighbourhood, Dad’s smiling face watching everywhere I went.
‘The good thing about Hemden is no one really cares who your parents are or how much money you have, as long as you can get a round in when it’s your turn.
Hey, look!’ Alice snatches my wrist in her hand and gasps before I can reply, pointing at a glass-fronted building ahead of us.
‘No line at The Snug! It’s a first day back miracle. What do you want?’
The smell of cinnamon and hot coffee fills the air and I inhale deeply, suddenly homesick for the drive-thru Starbucks off Highway 9.
‘Something hot and something strong.’
‘Same,’ she says with a sigh. ‘But for now, we’re going to have to settle for coffee.’