Chapter 37
Mia
It’s always quiet in the library on a Sunday. Sundays are for pretending Mondays don’t exist, at least until around ten p.m. when the Monday dread sets in, so why lock yourself away in the library when you could be literally anywhere else?
I’d only managed a couple of hours of sleep, tossing and turning for most of the night before watching dawn break over the dome of the Hazelwood Library.
It was barely daylight when I ran out of Carpenter House, deeply unready to speak to Ethan about what had happened, and what didn’t happen, between us.
It was all such a shitshow. How does someone manage to fuck up a relationship, alienate their friend and complicate an already complicated relationship with their roommate all in one night?
So here I am, confused, alone, sitting in the library while everyone else sleeps off an all-night party.
Coming to Hemden hasn’t changed anything after all.
My spread of Dickens research stares back at me from the desk.
Just like everything else in my life, it makes less than zero sense but I’m determined to crack it.
One thing Ethan said filtered through. I might be struggling now but that doesn’t mean I’ll be struggling forever.
I’ve wasted so much time on Oliver and was too quick to accept his stories about Dr Quinn, how it’s impossible to pass his class, how I’ll never get on top of it.
Why would I believe that? It’s never been true before.
I try to soothe myself, thinking of all the incredible writers and great thinkers who might’ve sat in this very spot before me, but I doubt any of them walked away from a group hook-up then tried to bang their roommate by the river wearing nothing but a towel and a pair of Adidas slides.
The complexities of nineteenth-century literature have nothing on what I’m dealing with.
Pushing away The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens, I open my journal to record the delusional thoughts of Mia Meyers instead.
Pen in hand, I start scribbling, trying to wrangle my thoughts into some kind of order.
Oliver behaved like an ass but I could’ve handled the situation better.
He was angry with his bandmates, probably embarrassed that I’d overheard their conversation.
I didn’t have to walk out on him or take out my frustration on Jenna.
And then there’s Ethan. If he hadn’t put a stop to it, there’s no doubt in my mind I’d have woken up in his bed this morning, full of regret.
Whatever sanity check made me walk out of his room on my birthday was a million miles away and I should be thrilled he didn’t let me make that mistake.
But when I think about the things he said …
Smart, okay, that’s one thing, but funny?
And beautiful? No one has ever accused me of that before.
Did I make a move on him because I felt bad about the Oliver situation or because of the way he looked at me?
The way his eyes glowed, making me feral.
I truly don’t know the answer and it’s killing me. I always know the answer.
I flip back to the beginning of my journal, scanning entries until I reach the date that I found out I’d been accepted to the junior year abroad program.
There it is, written right in bright blue ink.
All the qualities I wanted in my dream Hemden man.
Smart, creative, loves to read, passionate, makes me laugh, taller than me, dreamy eyes, incredible kisser, good in bed, thoughtful, makes me feel safe, really wants to be with me.
A lump rises in my throat as I read it over and over.
Oliver doesn’t tick every box.
Ethan does.
He’s passionate about soccer, he’s killing it in his classes and he’s so thoughtful he learned how to bake for my birthday.
He makes me laugh, he’s tall, and then there’s his eyes.
Shards of jade and emerald with shooting stars of gold, held together by that intense ring of black around the iris.
I don’t need any more convincing he would know exactly what to do with me in bed.
Ethan Taylor is not who I envisioned when I described my perfect man, but he is exactly what I wanted.
‘I thought we’d find you here.’
Slamming the journal shut, I look up to see Alice leaning against a bookcase, Jenna by her side . My blood runs cold. I’m not ready. I don’t have my apology practised yet and I don’t think I’ll survive another fight.
‘I come bearing gifts.’ Jenna holds out a paper bag I recognize from The Snug and my stomach rumbles. ‘A peace offering.’
As soon as she lays the bag on the table, I know what it is. I can smell it. Even though eating and drinking is technically forbidden in the library, I’m powerless to resist a freshly baked candied ginger chocolate chip cookie. It’s my favourite and she knows it.
‘And,’ Alice sets her backpack down on the desk and pulls out three travel cups, placing one in front of me and handing one to Jenna, ‘coffee.’
‘Thank you?’ I don’t let myself touch the cookie or the coffee as Alice grabs a chair from a neighbouring table and sits at the side of my table. Jenna doesn’t sit, instead she clutches the back of my chair, pursing her lips.
‘Mia, I’m sorry about last night,’ she says. ‘I was bang out of order.’
‘What?’ I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing but her brown eyes shine with genuine remorse.
‘Hear me out, please,’ she says, misinterpreting my confusion. ‘You were right, no one wants to hear I told you so, I shouldn’t have said it.’
I cover her hand with mine and squeeze it tight.
‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off.’
‘Or,’ Alice interjects, ‘I’m about to make a bold suggestion so bear with me, Oliver fucking Jenkins should be sorry for his existence and we should all be snout-deep into bacon sandwiches by now.’
‘Sure but I truly am sorry,’ I say again. ‘Really—’
‘No, you needed someone to listen and be there,’ Jenna interrupts. ‘I’m the arse.’
‘Argh, enough!’ Alice groans, before reaching for the paper bag. ‘Can we agree you both accept each other’s apologies and please can I have a bit of this cookie? I’m starving.’
I twist off the cover of the travel mug she placed in front of me and breathe in the venti mocha, my comfort drink and exactly what I would’ve ordered for myself. Alice breaks the cookie into three pieces and hands them out before devouring her chunk in one bite.
‘Have you spoken to the turd?’ she asks, hand over her full mouth.
‘Not yet. Do you think I should?’
‘I think you should kick him in the balls and turn his scrotum into a snood,’ she replies. ‘But that’s just me.’
‘You don’t have to take my side, he was your friend before I was.’
‘Was he though?’ Jenna tilts her head to one side and wrinkles her nose. ‘Or is he just someone we met in the first week and kept hanging around? Because if he is our friend, we need to tighten up our admissions process.’
‘Either way,’ Alice says, dusting off her hands. ‘I’m very happy to be done with him.’
Jenna nods. ‘Agreed. He’s nothing but proof that manic pixie dream girls come in all genders and we don’t need it.’
‘I’ll bet you any money he comes crawling back with a shitty apology,’ Alice adds. ‘Which I personally would decline and tell him to shove his head so far up his rectum he can see the back of his teeth, but obviously, whatever you decide to do is up to you. I know how much you like him.’
I take a long drink to avoid answering because in spite of everything, there is still part of me that wants him. Or wants him to want me.
Alice tucks her red hair behind her ears and gives a thoughtful sigh. ‘Did I ever tell you that when I got accepted to Hemden, I was so worried I wouldn’t fit in with all the posh kids.’
‘Like me,’ Jenna cuts in with a cheesy grin.
‘Exactly like you,’ Alice agrees. ‘But I convinced myself, if I had all the right stuff, if I looked like I belonged, I’d be okay.
So, I opened a student bank account, got a credit card and spent a fortune.
I genuinely thought I was going to be one of those girls, you know, lululemon, Parke sweatshirts, rhode lip balms, the whole bit. ’
‘But I’ve never seen you wear that kind of stuff,’ I say, my hand curling around the rhode ribbon lip balm in my own pocket.
‘And you never will,’ she replies. ‘Because it’s not me. But it is who I thought I would become when I got here. Turns out the university you go to doesn’t change who you are, only how you see yourself.’
‘You’re saying Oliver is my lululemon?’
‘I’m saying coming here with some preconceived notions of what you want or need is completely understandable, we all did the same. But it might be worth reevaluating some of them before you make your next move.’
Jenna slurps her coffee and nods in agreement. ‘Unless your next move is punching him in the nuts, in which case we’re on board.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, bowing my head gravely. ‘For the cookie and the coffee and the wise counsel. And for the mental image of Oliver with his head up his own ass.’
‘Might be difficult to get off with him if you’re thinking about that.’ Alice pouts thoughtfully. ‘Now, can you please stop being so incredibly boffy and come out to play? You’re putting the rest of us to shame.’
I’m smiling, truly smiling, for the first time since Oliver stepped off stage.
‘I’d love to,’ I tell them as Alice swipes Jenna’s piece of the cookie and stuffs it in her mouth before her friend can protest, ‘but I really do have a lot of work to do. The Bleak House paper is due on Wednesday and I’m still not done.
Oliver loaned me his notes but they’re not really helping.
’ I leaf through the pages of notes covered in his elegant, looping handwriting.
‘To be honest, I’m not even sure he read the book. ’
‘Don’t feel bad,’ Alice says, playing with the heart-shaped clasp of my bracelet. ‘We’ve all been had by a pretty face.’
‘And it is pretty,’ Jenna admits. ‘But we must be strong and learn to resist. There are other pretty faces that don’t come attached to such a twat, you know.’
And maybe I’ve been wrong about those too.
‘There’s a boat race at two,’ she says, planting a kiss on the top of my head. ‘We’ll be down by the boathouse. If you don’t come and find us, we’ll hunt you down like you’re in a Liam Neeson movie.’
Once they’re gone, I push all my notes away, and open up the novel.
The illustration on the cover is as bleak as the title, a grey and dreary painting of the London skyline, distorted by fog.
But inside, even though it might seem dull at first, the story is complex and layered, kind of funny, definitely challenging.
This is what they’re talking about when they say you can’t judge a book by its cover.
If you only looked at the jacket, you might think you already know this story and leave it on the shelf.
Write it off without reading a single page.
But when you dig in, dedicate time to understanding it, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.
It reminds me of something else.
‘Charles Dickens’s longest and famously most complex novel now,’ I tell myself as I open my notebook and uncap my pen. ‘Figuring out the inner workings of a twenty-year-old guy’s mind later.’
It’s always better to get the easy task out of the way first.