CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: HALF-ASSED SALUTE
I want to say déjà vu at the first mention of midterms, but I can't because it's not. These are all new classes with all new professors and all new stress. The idea of studying in a couple of days is enough to make me squirm.
The incessant buzz in the student center is also making me squirm. I don't know what's louder. The music or the chatter. Both keep my head ping ponging between all the other people in line for Starbucks.
Someone slaps my butt, but I don't even flinch. I just glance over my shoulder.
Savannah's adorned in her practice clothes and an all too cheeky grin that reminds me of my little sister. She slurps on her black cold brew while she waits for me to order my iced chai before we meet back up with Megan and Stephanie to order food.
Once we all have our trays filled, we search for a place to sit together. I keep a death grip around my tray as I get bumped in the shoulder a few times and skirt around chairs.
"Sorry," a guy mumbles after pushing his chair out on Stephanie's leg.
"It's okay." She gives him a thin line of smile before turning her head over to me. "I love this game," she grumbles and kicks the leg of his chair as she passes.
Her mass of curls moves out of my line of vision and is replaced by the group of guys all crowded around the rectangular table. There must be four or five conversations going on between them as they choke down their food, but what makes me stop in my tracks is the fact that Trent's sitting on the opposite end of the table than the guy that bumped Stephanie. Him and his red sweatshirt are slouched in his seat as he nods along to the conversation. I smile because that's the same nod he pulled in philosophy class. It's his pretending to listen posture.
His eyes flicker up to mine, and I lift my hand up in a quick wave. A smile breaks out across my face before I can help it, but nothing breaks out across his dull countenance. No puppeteer in sight. His eyes remain on my chin as he just lifts his forearmup and half-heartedly throws me a peace sign.
The other day, up in his dorm room, the corner of his eyes crinkled with laughter.
"Show me."
"No!" I laughed.
"Please." He pulled out a pout. "I showed you."
I passed a glance up at the ceiling. "Curling your tongue is not really a hidden talent."
His shoulders stopped shaking in silent laughter just long enough for him to mock gasp. "Is too."
"I really need to focus."
"I know." He crossed a finger over his heart. "I promise I'll stop."
"Fine." I wiggled around on the grey fuzzy blanket, getting myself into a more comfortable pretzel position. "Ready?" I faced him and his glittering eyes. I clamped my lips shut and inhaled sharply through my nose, making my spine spring up and my chest expand. It only took another second for both my nostrils to flatten against my nose.
Our laughter returned only this time it bled into hysterics as I folded over into myself, while Trent silently kept slapping his thighs.
"What . . ." I inhaled after a while. "Are we doing?" I exhaled.
"I don't know." Trent's smile remained even after all the crinkles and creases on his face faded away.
I sat up straight again. "You know, fun fact, I also had my tonsils taken out when I was seven."
"You were one of those kids?" He mocked before lifting his hand. "Let me see."
I stuck my tongue out as if I were at the doctor, and Trent eyed the inside my throat as if he actually was a doctor.
"Yup, looks like no tonsils in there."
I wiggled my tongue around before closing my lips. "Why, thank you, Dr. Trent."
Trent's smile was closed-mouthed as his fingers grazed the bottom of my jaw. His gaze lingered on my mouth for an extra beat, still seemingly fascinated, before his eyes flickered back up. I found myself leaning the slightest bit forward as if he's magnetic, mirroring his actions. My eyes went from his to his lips and back again. He came closer and closer until I could smell the powder of his cologne mixed with the peppermint of his Chapstick.
I reached my fingers up to feel the smooth skin beside his eyes, wanting nothing more than to burn his laugh lines into memory before his lips fell on mine. All warm and gooey, the way honey melts into a cup of tea. After a while it was easy to forget where he ended and where I began. The same way snow melts into black pavement and rainwater rushes into the same stream.
Any other day the hardwood floor would be way too hard to lay on, but there I was. I mean, after a little while I couldn't stop wiggling my head, and my shoulder blades kind of hurt, but everything else around me was so soft. Trent's lips, his freshly shaven cheeks, his hair sans gel, and his white t-shirt. I couldn't decide whether I preferred to run my hands through the spike in his hair or keep my own personal fistful of his shirt.
I sat up a little and cracked my eyes open as if to make sure our backpacks and books were still sitting there on the floor, abandoned like our homework. I guess it assured me that I was awake, and it was real.
"We should stop," I managed to say in between kisses.
"Yeah, we should," Trent agreed but only continued to nudge his mouth against mine.
It all felt like a dream. Too good to be true, too good to stop, until Trent's hands slid a little lower. I was fine with the ways he mimicked me, taking fistfuls of my tank top and cardigan. What made my head fall back a little too hard against the floor is the way both his hands cupped the sides of my hips. His fingers weaved into my belt loops and settled just over the hem of my jeans, searing my skin.
"We really should stop." I sat up, pulled at my tank top, and fixed my hair. I didn't even need to look up to know that Trent was confused. His frozen state was a dead giveaway.
"Lacie." He reached out to me, but I drew back.
Legs, move, backpack, phone. I wanted to start working on that jumbled up list, but I barely moved an inch before Trent grabbed my hand.
"Hey," he whispered.
I froze, but all I could see were the wrinkles I made on his t-shirt.
"I would never," he started, but then he took my hand and placed it on his chest. The same way he did when he was drunk only this time, he really squeezed my hand as he held it there. "I would never force you to do anything."
Now he's using that same hand to throw me another gesture. A gesture that leaves me just as frozen, but cold and hollow opposed to warm and mushy. I don't know how or when my feet start moving again.
"I thought he was, like, your boyfriend?"
I don't know who asks, but my mouth still opens. "No, it's not likeâhe's not likeâ"
"Like!"
I flinch as we finally plunk down at a table.
"Still," Savannah says, or maybe even continues, "that was barely a peace sign, it was like a salute, but a half assed one."
"Maybe he's just busy." Megan shrugs as she pokes at her salad with a fork.
Savannah's head whips around. "That's the best philosophy you got, Meg?"
Megan pierces her with a glare, and the seemingly tough girl's shoulders slump.
"Sorry, I'm sorry." Savannah rubs at her temples for a quick second before pulling half of her wrap out of the plastic container in front of her. "I'm tired, sweaty, and'âshe takes a big biteâ"hangry."
"Is that why you're still wearing your knee pads?" Stephanie asks, but only gets a nice shove to her shoulder in response. Stephanie's the one pointing and laughing though when lettuce ends up falling out of Savannah's mouth.
I have a similar wrap sitting in front of me, but I can't bring myself to open it yet. I run my finger along the condensation on the outside of my chai cup instead. My phone vibrates in my bag, and I pull it out to read the text.
Let me guess . . . you have vanilla tea in that cup.
"Is that him?" Stephanie leans over.
"Yeah." I shrug and even opt for the shrugging emoji in response to Trent's text.
Savannah's back to teasing Megan, but since they share a room, Megan easily matches the verbal blows without even batting an eye.
Savannah's hands flatten against the table. "Does anyone want to go for a run?"
All our eyebrows rise, but Stephanie speaks around the food in her mouth, "I thought you were tired from practice."
"I was, but I can't concentrate when I'm feeling bitter." Savannah pouts.
"I'll go," I say, and an hour later my flashlight ends up guiding the way.
Megan and Stephanie create a makeshift finish line to an agreed race finish. Savannah not only ends up beating my ass, but she also slaps my ass when she passes me. She cackles the last few sprints over to Stephanie while I have to stop and breathe in the night air. No matter how much air my lungs gulp down, my laugher remains. It's that perfect stomach clenching, cheek hurting, silent kind of laughter. My worries about a certain green-eyed boy cease to exist until I wake up the next morning and, once again, replay the way my hand waved, and his only half-assed saluted.
****
"Bless you," I say in response to Stephanie's sneeze.
"Thank you," she says before laughing at something on her phone.
The red Netflix logo pans across my laptop screen as I wait for it to load. I tap my fingers against the keyboard trying to think of a movie to watch. I lock eyes with myself in the black screen before rows of movie covers take over my line of vision.
I scoot back up against my pillows and readjust my laptop over my blankets and legs. Just when I deem myself comfortable enough to stay for the rest of the weekend, and until I need to study for my next midterm, my phone starts ringing. I go stretching and digging around only to finally realize it's on my desk.
Stephanie laughs again, and I don't know if it's because of what's on her phone or if it's because of all my huffing and puffing. All I know is our dorm feels cold when I finally abandon my blankets and stretch my arm out from the very end of my bed.
Trent's name flashes across my phone screen, but my finger hovers over the answer button. Not only because its late, and I'm in my pajamas, but also because my brain reminds me of all the laughing and snorting about hot fudge sundaes from the last time Trent called.
I curl my legs into a pretzel position and push my shoulders back before bringing the phone to my ear. "Hello?"
"Lacie!" Trent coos.
My muscles relax, and I breathe out a laugh. "Hi."
"Lacie, Lacie, Lacie . . ." He hums, and my mind conjures up the way he teetered against the dorm basement wall, all dazed and flustered. "Did you know that if you put our names together it equals Lent? Ohâor Tracie?" I breathe out another laugh as he continues calculating. "You see Trent plus Lacie equals Tracie."
"And Lacient and Trencie," I add on for no other reason than because I can.
"Exactly." Trent clicks his tongue. Then there's a pause. "You know what I could use right now?"
"What?"
"Some cake and some cuddling. Lots and lots of cuddling." Another pause. "Come cuddle with me!"
I shake my head. "Maybe another time . . ."
"Please?"
I can hear the pout in his voice but continue to trace my finger over the flowers on my comforter.
"Not even"âhe's pulling a whiny little kid voice nowâ"not even on my birthday?"
My posture straightens once more. "It's your birthday?"
"Mmhm," he hums.
I pick at my pajama pants as I contemplate what I'm about to say nextâwhat I want to ask next. He's obviously been drinking, so the answer will either be the utmost truth, or a waste of time. Either way, I find it softly falling from my lips. "You wanted to shut off your brain on your birthday?"
"Yeah . . ." He sighs. "I usually get really sad."
Truth. I got the truth, so I keep pushing. "But why?"
He hums a few more syllables before sighing again. "Because getting old has always . . . has always scared me." Another truth.
"My dad travels a lot." Trent had used his fingers to make quotation marks over the word travel, and that made my head tilt, but he only shrugged. "So, it's always just been my mom and me." He cracked a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "And my dog, of course."
Another time Trent sat up further on his bed because he could tell I wasn't paying attention to the movie we were watching.
"Sorry, it's just my sister," I started, but when her texts kept flooding in all caps and with crying emojis, my own eyes welled up. "I just feel bad sometimes because I know what she's going through, but I can't help her. Like, I just wish I could stop it all, prevent all the same things that happened to me from happening to her, but I can't. And it doesn't help that I'm not there."
"Zack's not always like that," Trent had said after Zack barged into one of our study sessions and left in an all joking and laughing flourish like he always does. "I mean, he's like that. He wouldn't be Zack if he wasn't goofy," Trent continued with a laugh when I only gaped at him. "It's just he's also had his own fair share of the world."
"Sometimes I wish I could," I said one time when we were walking across campus. Trent caught up to me after one of my classes and asked if I saw a recent newspaper headline. "I wish I could heal the world."
"Me too." He smiled down at me and nudged my arm with his before we kept walking and talking about other general, yet seemingly meaningless things.
All those little truths that continue to leave my lips or fall into my ears. All these little things that seep into my skin and settle in my bones.
Yet there's something about this truth spewed off drunken lips into the quiet of the night. I find it settles straight into my heart.
"But that's why you need to get your butt over here and cuddle with me."
"Go find Zack." I laugh out the words. "I bet he'll cuddle with you."
"No," Trent drags out the word. "He doesn't smell good. He's not my vanilla!"
A flush resounds as if a toilet is pressed up against my ear opposed to a phone. I'm frozen once more as the silence returns.
"That wasn't me, I swear," Trent says and that's all it takes for me to double over in laughter.