Present
The pages in my portfolio from the start of the semester appeared buoyant. Colored in bright, loud strokes of excitement and new beginnings. Then, as I turned the pages, it dulled. Everything after that seemed to lack any heart at all. Unless heartbreaking and depressing depictions counted.
I reached the most recent pages, finding two drawings I’d done in charcoal after I’d crossed paths with Alexis last week. They didn’t need color to have my heart beating with pride. To anyone else, they might appear a hot mess, even ugly. Something that made no sense. To me, they represented the anger and injustice that had been feasting on my insides, begging me to unleash some of it. Harsh lines of rain over a football field of shattered stars stared back at me. Each shard glittering or melting into the soft earth in puddles or between blades of grass.
A mess that made complete sense to me.
With a small smile, I closed my portfolio and looked over at Pippa, who had her head stuck in a word search book, belly down on her bed. “Now that my muse seems to have made an angry reappearance, I realize how bad the work I’ve been doing these past few weeks really is.”
She snorted, rubbing something out with the end of her pencil. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.” I threw on my work shirt, buttoning it up and tucking it into my black slacks.
“Daisy, you create art like you do everything else. Full of emotion and honesty.”
My hands paused in tying my hair into a topknot. She laughed, glancing at me over her shoulder. “So shut up and get out of your head. You’re going to be late.”
How she always knew the time was kind of freaky, but picking up my phone, I realized I was indeed going to be late. “Shoot, okay. Going.”
Grabbing my bag, I stuffed my phone inside, then stuffed my feet into my Chucks on my way to the door, almost tripping. Pippa’s snickering followed until the door shut behind me and I was racing down the stairs.
I hit the sidewalk, still trying to right my hair as I hustled past groups of students smoking and talking near the campus exit. A head full of long dark hair across the street almost had me freezing on the spot, but thankfully, it wasn’t her. I kept walking, pushing open the door to the parlor and smiling at Tim, who was serving a couple of freshman girls I recognized from my English lit class.
They smiled at me briefly before heading outside with their ice cream, and I put my bag away in the small office. “Sorry, I’m a bit late.” I quickly tied my apron on.
Tim leaned against the door, one eye on the parlor and one on me. “You’re one minute late, hardly late at all.” He winked as I walked past him to wash my hands at the sink. “I’ll be back here for a while.”
“No problem,” I said, already grabbing a cloth to wipe up some spilled milkshake from a recently vacated table. After making myself a milkshake, I washed some of the empty tubs next to the sink while it was quiet. It seemed to only get busy after lunch and dinner, which made sense. I guessed most people followed the rule of dessert after a meal.
Not me. I sucked back more of my strawberry milkshake and hummed under my breath to the old sixties song that was playing softly through the surround sound speakers.
A while later, the bell over the door jingled, and it only got busier from there.
It was nearly closing time when a bunch of guys from the football team came in. Their laughter was the first thing I heard, my head snapping up from sorting the register.
Callum grinned at me. “Daisy, right?”
I nodded, slowly closing the drawer and righting my messy bun, which I could feel tilting to the side of my head with its weight. “Um, Callum?”
I didn’t forget his name, but it seemed important that I didn’t admit that fact. Still grinning, he leaned over the counter as a few of his friends stood near the door, chatting and laughing at something on their phones.
“What can I get you?” I asked after a few awkward, drawn-out seconds.
“Huh?”
“Ice cream? Milkshake?” I offered, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose.
“Oh.” He chuckled. “Nah, I heard talk of a hot freshman with messy blond hair working here and thought I’d stop by. Check her out.”
Heat tingled over my neck, slowly climbing up into my cheeks. I ducked my head. “Well, I haven’t seen any, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out.”
His laughter was nice, deep and a little raspy. It had me looking at him once more, noticing the tiny dent in his chin and his white teeth. They were all straight except for the bottom two, which overlapped each other. It was kind of cute.
“You’re funny,” he said.
My nose wrinkled. “Not really.”
Still leaning over the counter, he reached out to touch a spiral of my hair that had come loose and was dangling near my neck. I couldn’t help but shiver, and stayed so still, I feared I wouldn’t breathe until he backed up.
“Welsh! Hurry the hell up.” That voice. I stepped back, causing Callum’s hand to fall away.
Quinn was there, standing in the open door with an unreadable expression on his face. It was too blank.
Callum turned around. “One minute. Jesus.” Turning back to me, he asked, “Movies this weekend? My treat.”
“You … you’re asking me out?” I stammered, trying to keep my eyes on him and not on Quinn. Just knowing he was there had tiny ping-pong balls bouncing into each other in my stomach.
“I sure am. Now that I’ve found you again, I’d be stupid not to.” He frowned, dark eyes taking in my no doubt stunned expression. I hoped I didn’t look as panicked as I felt. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to?”
“No,” I found myself blurting. Why did I say that? He was good looking, really good looking. And maybe it was because I could feel Quinn’s gaze on us, but I decided to hell with it. “That’s not it.”
He continued to stare at me, his top teeth sinking into his bottom lip and dragging. I blinked, following their every move as he murmured, “Well, I just thought it’s the least you can do after leaving me hanging at that party I invited you to weeks ago.”
“What?” I lifted my eyes to his.
“The first time I met you? I invited you to a party.”
Well, crap. He did. “Sorry.” I shook my head, laughing quietly. “I haven’t done much of that since I started here.”
“I’ll forgive you. If you come out with me on Sunday.”
Not being able to stop them, my eyes slid over Callum’s shoulder, soaking in the sight of Quinn in his gym shorts and team hoodie. He wasn’t looking at me, though. He was staring at the back of Callum’s head with his eyes narrowed slightly and arms crossed over his broad chest.
Callum started to turn, and I panicked, blurting, “What time?”
His smile was slow to spread across his face, but it was nice. His full lips curving and his eyes lighting up in a way that held my attention. “Eight. Girls dorms, right?”
Nodding, I smiled shakily at him, thinking he’d leave now.
Before he did, he reached over the counter and gently grasped the side of my head, planting a kiss on my cheek. “See you then, beautiful.”
He swaggered to the door while I held the counter with a death grip, trying to figure out what just happened.
Quinn stood by the door as the other four of them moved out onto the sidewalk, laughing and slapping Callum on the back. I didn’t know what to do, or if I should do anything at all. So I just stared. He stared back, and my heart thumped its way into my ears. I wondered what he was thinking. If that slight tic in his jaw still meant he was annoyed about something. And if the otherwise tense, immovable stance of his body had something to do with me.
I wondered and wondered, and I opened my mouth, breath sifting through my parted lips as I battled the urge to ask him what he was doing. To ask him anything at all.
When it became too much, I cleared my throat and could only settle on, “Your friends are gone.”
He didn’t respond but seemed to snap out of whatever daze he was in by shaking his head. The door shut behind him, and I watched as he tucked his hands into his pockets, walking by the windows with one last glance at me through them before disappearing.
After my shower, I padded down the dingy hall to our room, still thinking about the events of tonight. Pippa had just gotten in from her study group and was unpacking her backpack as I put my toiletries away in the little stand on my dresser.
“So Callum came into the parlor tonight.”
“That tall guy on the team from the diner a while back?”
“Uh-huh.” I flipped my head forward, running the towel through the wet ends of my hair.
“What happened?” She plugged her phone into the charger and sat on her bed, rummaging through a notebook.
I hung my towel up and grabbed my moisturizer. Squirting some into my palm, I smoothed it over my face. “He asked me to the movies.”
“For real? You said yes?” She didn’t sound enthusiastic. But then again, I guess I didn’t either.
“For real. And I did. But … Quinn was there.”
She gasped. “Oh, get fucked.”
Capping my moisturizer and tossing it onto my dresser, I admitted, “It was awkward, to say the least.”
“He say anything?”
My bed bounced as I jumped onto it. “Nope. Not a damn thing. Oh, he did call out to Callum to hurry up while he was talking to me.” Pippa’s silence had me turning my head, looking at her pinched lips. “What?”
“Did he seem annoyed?”
Thinking about it, I said, “I don’t know. A little maybe.”
“Figures,” she scoffed. “He’d better not be pulling the whole ‘I can’t have her but neither can anyone else’ bullshit.”
“I doubt it.” I yawned. “You’ve seen Alexis. Besides, if he wanted me, I was right there, arms open and dumb as hell, all his for the taking when I first saw him again.” Laughter from out in the hall broke the silence that followed, and I sighed. “I don’t even know why I said yes.”
“You do,” Pippa said, getting up to get her pajamas out of her dresser.
My brows furrowed as I gazed at the ceiling. Maybe I did. Still, I asked, “Why do you think I did?”
She slammed the drawer. I could feel her eyes probing me but kept my own facing upward. “Because Quinn was there. Because you’re too nice to say no to someone’s face. Because the guy is gorgeous. Oh, and let’s not forget, because Quinn has moved on.”
“Ouch. Say it, don’t shank me with it.”
“You know I’m right. And I think you did the right thing by saying yes.” She walked out of the room, leaving me with only her departing words for company.