“Just batshit, then?”
“Stressed?”
“Everyone here is stressed. I’m … I don’t know. Extra stressed.”
“See, you wanting to be special is kind of entitled.”
His mouth flinched into a smile. “Sorry. You were heading up to the library and I stopped you like a rambling troll. You’ve paid your listening toll for the day. Thanks for letting me rant.”
“I wasn’t going to the library,” I said. “I was saying hi.”
“Oh.”
I wished that I could mine that single syllable for more meaning, but it was too quiet and his eyes were mostly obscured by his hair. The scuffed toes of his high-tops tapped against the brick.
“Do you want to study together?” he asked.
“Like, the two of us?” I asked.
Farce, farce, farce, said my brain.
A shadow passed over his face, a darkening of disappointment or hurt. This boy wanted to kick it with me and help me prep for this huge contest that we were in. Was I really going to turn him down because I was scared of a mostly dead form of theatrical comedy? He was cute and presumably very smart and, unlike so many other white dudes, he’d never told me how much hip-hop meant to him like my melanin made me a rap ambassador.
“I mean, three’s a crowd,” I said, my voice too loud, too jokey. God, I was already one foot into a bad community theater production of Earnest. “So you’re gonna have to choose between me and the typewriter.”
He sighed, but the corners of his lips quirked. “Everyone hates the typewriter.”
17
I stood alone in the sci-fi section. The edges of my binder bit into my forearms as I hugged it to my stomach. Leigh hadn’t been in the room when I had stopped in to grab my study supplies, so I had seized the opportunity to mop off my shiny forehead and reapply my deodorant, unquestioned. But I probably could have given my face another blot, now that the nervous sweats had fully set in. I was going to dampen my fresh shirt soon, and then how would everyone know how cool I was for owning a Tor Books shirt?
I couldn’t choose between the armchairs and the study table. Sitting in the armchair might send the wrong message—like I was more into lounging than studying. But sitting at the tables could make me look like a joyless study-loving robot. And my normal spot—flat on my belly with Octavia Butler’s books looming over me like a shrine—was clearly out for about a dozen reasons.
Hearing footsteps outside of the room’s arched entryway, I threw myself down in the closest chair, which happened to be at one of the tables. I had enough time to set my binder down before Brandon shuffled into the room, unencumbered by his typewriter case. He smiled at me, almost surprised to find me sitting in front of him. His eyes slid up to the massive travel posters framed on the wall above us.
“Magrathea?” he read. “That sounds familiar.”
“It’s from Hitchhiker’s Guide,” I said.
“Right. Very cool.” He gave an approving bob of his head. “Don’t hate me, but I’m actually more of a sword and sorcery guy. Like Patrick Rothfuss and Robert Jordan?”
“Long books by middle-aged white guys?”
“Long books about worlds where no one cares what grade you got in calculus-level general physics.”
“Was that a brag?”
“Not at all. Especially not if you knew what grade I actually got in calculus-level general physics.” He took the seat across from me. He angled his chair to the side and stretched his legs out. “I’ve only been back here once. Wesley Chu did a book signing here last year. He gave a really good talk before it—did you read the Time Salvager series?”
Uh-oh. Was that my heart skipping a beat? I was literally wearing the shirt of the publisher that put him on the map.
“Now you’re bragging,” I said. “Wes Chu is freaking amazing. My jealousy is physically painful right now.”
He cut his eyes at me and grinned. “If it makes you feel better, I missed it when N. K. Jemisin came to campus.”
“That does make me feel better,” I said. “Because if you told me that you’d met N. K. Jemisin, we couldn’t study together because I would be stuck in a rage blackout for the rest of my life. She’s one of my all-time favorite authors, hands down. No question. I literally brought the entire Inheritance Trilogy with me for the summer.”
He snorted. “For all your downtime?”
“And the twelve-hour train ride from California.”
He pulled a face. “Twelve hours? You should get the scholarship based on time commitment alone.”
“If only it were that easy.” I looked over at the rows and rows of redwood bookcases, each packed with literally every book I had ever wanted to read. “I really love it here. The campus, I mean. It’s gorgeous. And the weather is so much better than at home, I can’t even get over it.”
“Have you found any of the tree houses yet?”
I turned back to him. “The what?”
“Tree houses,” he repeated, pushing the hair out of his eyes as though maybe that was why I hadn’t heard him. It was strange to glimpse his eyebrows. They slashed across his forehead, about as wide as my thumb. “The students build them during the school year. The administration has them taken down whenever they find them, because they’re made of scraps and are structurally unsound. But there’s usually a few around. It’s not something they list in the brochure or anything, but you run a lot, so I figured you’ve seen more of campus than I have.”
I felt a sting of shock that he knew that I was a runner, before realizing that I was literally wearing running shoes and running shorts—and that I was basically always wearing running shoes and running shorts. I hadn’t even bothered to bring jeans with me, since back home it wouldn’t be comfortable to wear long pants until at least October.
Get it together, Beast Mode.
“I haven’t seen any,” I said. “I guess I should look up more when I run. How do you know they exist if they aren’t listed in the brochures?”
“I live here, remember?”
“Right. You have much Oregonian knowledge.”
“Buckets of it. Did you know that Eugene was originally called—”
“Skinner’s Mudhole?” I interrupted. “I’ve heard.”
“Then I have nothing left to teach you.”
“Well, shit,” I said, snapping my fingers. “I was hoping you’d bring some of that genius school juice to this study session.”
Juice? my brain screamed. Please tell me you did not just ask this boy for his genius juice.
He frowned at me. “You know that you have to be a genius, too? By virtue of being here.”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same. I go to public school,” I said, grateful to be past the juicing part of this conversation. I resisted the urge to actually sigh with relief.
“There’s nothing wrong with public school.”
“I’m sorry,” I laughed. “Say that again and then remember that we’re in America.”
“Okay. Fair enough. I get it. It’s just—Really, the Mess isn’t that great. We call it the Mess for a reason.”