Now he wondered if she had been right.
He headed right, down the boring concrete sidewalk, parking lot on one side, fake-looking grass and stones and stupid landscaping on another. Brick building after building stretched before him. They all looked the same. Still, he figured circling the complex a couple of times was better than sitting in the tiny apartment and waiting to snap.
He was about halfway around when his eyes caught a bright orange flyer taped to a lamppost.
SILVER SCREEN SCREAMS
An exploration of the horror genre—and Americans’ deep
affinity for it—from the 1920s until now.
Monday, October 29, 7 P.M.
Murphey Hall
Horror, he thought. Sammy’s favorite. And at UNC, no less.
It was just the thing to make it up to her. She’d been a good friend to him over the last couple of weeks, and he didn’t want to lose that, no matter what happened with Cara.
And the flyer, being all the way out here, so far from campus. It was strange, he thought. Almost like he was supposed to see it for one reason or another.
(Strange, indeed, Gael. Strange, indeed. strokes imaginary goatee maniacally)
Before he could stop himself, he took out his phone and called Sammy Sutton.
fifth period, third degree
On Monday in chemistry, Mason was again early, but he didn’t have an extra-credit project with him this time. He was sitting back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs, hands resting on the desk, beaming.
Mason leaned forward in his chair as soon as Gael threw his backpack down, the legs making a powerful thunk.
“So who was that?” Mason asked gleefully.
Gael felt himself blush. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Mason said.
Gael shrugged. “She’s just a friend.”
“Right,” Mason said. “A friend who you go out to dinner with on Friday night and hold hands with.”
Gael bit his lip and lowered his voice as more people shuffled into class. “I actually met her on my birthday after I left the restaurant, but she’s just out of a relationship, too, and she thought we should just be friends until November.”
“November’s just around the corner,” Mason said, moving his eyebrows up and down comically.
Gael took a deep breath. “I know.”
“Well, I’m happy for you, dude. And Anika is, too, even if she was a little awkward.” Mason’s face looked a little hesitant, but Gael didn’t ask why. It seemed safer to not talk about Anika right now. Well, not too much, at least.
“I gotta say, though,” Mason said, just as their teacher, Mrs. Ellison, came in. “I don’t know why, but I thought you and Sammy were going to end up together.”
Gael blushed again.
And he felt his heart beat a tiny bit quicker at the prospect of seeing Sammy that night.
But Mrs. Ellison quickly began her lesson, so he didn’t have time to ask Mason why he said it. All he could do was pretend to pay attention to chemistry and try not to get ahead of himself.
They were friends. That was it.
It was exactly what he wanted from her.
And even if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted, he was pretty sure that that’s what she wanted, at least.
it wouldn’t be a good love story without at least one scene in the rain
On monday night, Gael found himself sitting in a hard chair in a dusty lecture hall, watching the ubiquitous vomit clip from The Exorcist, and pretending not to obsess about Mason’s offhand statement (or potential truth-bomb?) while Sammy sat straight up in her chair so she didn’t miss a thing.
The professor rambled on about absurdist horror and the heyday that was the seventies and early eighties as he cued up clips from Re-Animator, a psychedelic Japanese flick called House, and, of course, Poltergeist (which Gael had never found scary at all).
It all would have been very enlightening and thrilling if he hadn’t spent most of the lecture trying to remind himself that, no matter what Mason had said, he was well on his way to dating Cara. Halloween was in two days. November 1 was in three. Now was not the time to be wondering about his romance potential with his little sister’s babysitter.
Not to mention with someone who had become a good friend.
He’d lost his friendship with Anika to dating. He didn’t want that to happen with Sammy, too.
The professor finished up with a clip from Phantasm, and then the lights flickered on and people shuffled out.
Sammy grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. She was wearing a vintage-y dress with polka dots, green tights, and a denim jacket. He couldn’t help but think that she looked great.
“So awesome, right?” she asked. “I mean, the way he connected seventies horror to German Expressionism? It seemed so obvious once he said it, but I never thought of it that way before. Totally makes me want to rewatch all those slasher films.”