Owen
That morning, the janitor found Athena and I curled up against each other in the farthest corner of the news room.
He told us off for not alerting them sooner, but I didn't think much of it.
The entire day, and for the days after that, all I could think of was how warm Athena's body was as she slept with her head laying above mine, her small, petite hand soft as they wrapped over my own. My head swam with thoughts of how close she was to me, and how easily I slept when she was there by my side.
It was if she was a wave, calling me home to her calm seas. But I am most likely that drunken sailor, too confused to take the fucking hint.
Because of that, I was surprisingly in a good mood nowadays. Good enough to help Fitz with his calculus.
"I mean, you gotta give me some credit for that. I'm a genius." Fitz told me as he bickered on and on from the opposite side of the table here in the dorm's library.
We rarely go here since it's smaller compared to the other main libraries around campus but it was fine if my only purpose was to check Fitz's answers to his prep tests and do the necessary corrections if needed.
My head was bent low over his solutions, and I was a bit lost since his handwriting isn't exactly the cleanest one I've seen.
I shot my head up a bit to shoot him a glare, remembering how he was the reason Athena and I got locked in that other night.
"You made us sleep in the news room. On the floor. It was cold there." I said, turning my attention back to his indiscernible math scribbles.
This bloody bastard was an evil mastermind. The rotten brains behind all this commotion between me and Athena.
He knows I write now for the newspaper, but I didn't remember telling Athena any of it. And as it turns out, Athena needed a little help with typing, and Fitz must've thought, 'Why not shove those two together and let the magic happen?'
"I didn't tell you to sleep on the floor." he said with a shrug, his mouth curving into a playful smile.
I stopped checking his answers for a moment to look at him dispassionately.
"Would you prefer we didn't sleep at all?" I asked, putting on the kindest voice I can muster.
Fitz's face scrunched into a disapproving look and swatted a hand at me before he fiddled with my discarded gloves.
"I didn't say that. What surprised me the most was the two of you being locked in a room. Because of her. That was certainly better than expected." he muttered with a sheepish smile, flinging and flanging my gloves around his fingers.
I heaved out a sigh and shook my head, looking at him sternly.
"Fitzgerald--" I started.
"So we're using the full name trick now, aren't we? Okay Robert Owen Daniel, I hear you." he said with a laugh so full, I found it a bit annoying.
I audibly groaned and put down the pen I was holding on the table, watching it roll away to Fitz's side.
"Be quiet. Where did you even learn that?" I asked with a hint of poison in my tone.
I don't remember telling him my ridiculous name. I don't remember telling anyone here what it even was.
Fitz shot me a winning smile, throwing me back my gloves like it was a basketball. I caught the pair in my hands and simply shoved them into my pocket.
"Who else? Athena. She just wouldn't shut up about you." he said as he grinned wider and I immediately felt my face flush.
I frustratingly put my head down and continued checking his calculus but it was not soon until Fitz started making kissy noises as he stood from his seat and transferred to the unoccupied one beside me.
Fitz continued making indecent sounds as he sat and I had to shut him up by striking his side with an elbow. He shuts up and his head immediately turns to me, looking betrayed.
I could only shake my head at him.
"Do that again and I'll tell you about that, --thing with Maya." I said, looking away for a bit.
I was a bit surprised myself at how casually I can bring up that topic to someone, especially to a person who I knew had feelings for Maya.
I was expecting Fitz to be silent, to be despondent and doleful. I even feared he would despise me and ignore me, the same way I had continued to ignore Maya. Instead, Fitz pretended to throw up and turned to me, with a disgusted look on his face.
"Gross. After what happened, I don't think I can even look at her the same way. She's horrible." he said, still pretending to retch something out of his throat.
Confused, I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Really?"
He shrugged, and looked away for a moment, his gaze landing on a group of guys a few tables ahead of us. His dark brown irises settled on them for a few before they landed back to me.
"Yeah. I mean, her being a total bitch traumatized me so bad, I'm fending off women now." he said with a light shrug.
I could only nod.
"Girls really are terrifying, aren't they?" I said.
Fitz chuckled lightly, his cheekbones prominent as he laughed a bit, raising a hand for a high five. I raised my own and hit his hand with mine.
"Preach, bro. Even with Athena as a roommate, she's totally unpredictable. One time, she's badly singing along to eighties break up songs, and the next moment, she tells me she ordered hunks of food with the creepiest grin I've ever seen." he said knowingly, trying his hardest to conceal a laugh.
I scoffed and shook my head.
Athena really is something.
"Girls." I muttered, smiling a bit to myself, thinking of Athena.
Fitz and I went silent for the next few minutes. He continued trying out more problems and I checked them and did the necessary corrections. I wasn't the best at math, but I wasn't the worst either. It was Athena, the literal former child prodigy, who could do these even with her eyes closed.
"At least you guys talked, right?" Fitz asked as his head was still lowered over his calc work.
I sighed.
"Yes. We did."
Even the mere mention of Athena makes my head replay what happened when we were locked in overnight. I couldn't help but feel a tad hot all of the sudden because of it.
Her head above mine with her mess of blonde falling all over, her hand smooth and soft, fit almost as snug as a glove into mine.
"What did you two talk about?" Fitz asked.
Not much, but actions spoke louder than words, do they?
"Her paper." I answered.
Beside me, Fitz raised a thick, dark brow at me, and suspiciously looked at me, seemingly knowledgeable that I was withholding something from him.
"Nothing else?" he asked, pausing from math for a while, looking at me.
We talked about us. I told her stories. She listened, held my hand, and the last thing I remembered before falling asleep were her big, brown eyes, looking at me sleepily as they fluttered like the butterflies I felt in my stomach. It was one of the best nights I've had in a while.
"Nope." I said, shrugging.
Behind his glasses, Fitz narrowed his dark eyes at me and leaned back into his seat, almost facing me from my side with his arms crossed across his chest.
"Let me get this straight. You two were stuck in a room without signal or wi-fi for more than twelve hours, and all you talked about was her paper?" he asked disbelievingly.
No.
"Exactly." I answered.
Fitz blew a raspberry at me and went back to his sheets of mathwork.
"You suck." he said.
I smiled.
"Alright. If you were me, what could've we talked about?" I said, disregarding calculus for a while.
Fitz drummed his fingers on the table and seemed to think.
"Well, we could start with how her lady things are basically on display in our room. Or how extremely tired I was whenever she made me run back to the dorm to get her things. I mean, I know she's injured at the moment, but she can still run, right?" he said.
"You could tell that to her yourself." I could only say as I bent down again into Fitz's math solutions, trying to decipher the difference between a four and a nine in his handwriting.
"Are you kidding me? That's like a death sentence. You know, telling girls what makes them all weird and all." he said in a manner as if he knew the secret of the females or something similar. I wasn't sure.
"I guess there is some truth in that." I said, nodding at him briefly before I continued checking and understanding Fitz's calc.
He gave me a quick shrug before he completely ignored me and his prep tests yet again for his phone. He had now relaxed his posture and was slumping down on his seat, most likely checking his feed for something to pass time.
I don't blame him, though. We had been going on and on with calculus for almost an hour and even that equals a whole day studying for exams on three subjects. Time seemed to pass by slower than my mum returning to the cash register to pay for our groceries especially when she leaves me at the counter.
It was excruciating but then I remember, it was math; more so, calculus. Fitz needs a break, and somehow, I think I do too. Maybe I will after a few more problems. I still can't understand some figures he threw up on his paper.
"Hey, have you seen this?" Fitz suddenly said, nudging me as he still stared at his phone screen.
I put down another pen I had on the table and turned to look at him.
"Fitz, the only things I can see are your math hieroglyphics, which I can barely understand--"
He shook his head and spun me by my shoulder to peer over his phone.
"No, dumbass, this."
I stared into his dim screen and squinted a bit, since the smaller words seemed to be a bit blurry. God, my eyesight is terrible.
As I focused more on the contents of his screen, I fell into a deep realization that I was about to dread what Fitz had had his eye on for the past few moments.
"No way. I'm not going to another party again." I said, sitting right back up in my chair as I frustratingly grabbed my pen back and started scribbling the actual solutions to his prep tests.
A year-end party that invites all students to a camping ground for a night of so-called 'fun and dancing' was what had been on Fitz's phone. Like all parties, it starts at nighttime, and given the camping grounds and probable exposure to something with fire, I had low hopes for it even being accessible.
Fitz released a disgraced scoff, to which he later lightly held my shoulder to turn me to face him again.
"C'mon! You've been to one but I haven't. Dude, let's go." he pleaded, clasping his hands together in prayer now, looking at me.
I grunted and shook my head, remembering how the last party I went to ended up rather, disastrous.
"Go on your own. I'm taking a rain check." I said, memories of that party still playing through in my head like videos all lined up in a queue.
I don't want to go to another party if it entails being overly drunk and unwanted sex with someone you don't have any feelings for. Worse, if someone you barely know pulls you and the both of you start doing--
"Okay. You've officially lost it. This time, I'm making decisions and you're coming with me. Homie and homie." Fitz said, shooting me with a winning grin.
I frowned.
"No."
He smiled wider.
"Yes."
I shook my head and raised the volume of my voice a bit. I really don't think parties are even for me.
"Fitz, no."
He continued smiling, but what threw me off was how he playfully poked my side continuously, causing me to jerk up and hold in my laughter.
"OWEN, YES." He said laughingly, still poking me.
I swatted his hand away from my ticklish side with a grunt and sighed.
"Fine. What's in it for me if I'm going to this stupid party with you?" I spat, as I tried to recall my composure.
Fitz had an amused expression written all over his face as he shrugged and leaned a bit closer.
"If you hate it the first hour we get there, I'll get you pizza and a book. If you don't, then you get to experience actual college again." He said, emphasizing his point being that the external factors that come with college makes the experience more fun.
All I could think of now was how parties made me do something I'd rather forget if all it left me was regret.
Then I remembered, I could pretend to hate it just so I can get myself free food and a book. That part was worth bargaining, isn't it?
"Alright. But I'm getting the largest pizza and the most expensive book I can find if things get weird." I said, my voice sounding as if my mouth had betrayed my thoughts.
I really don't want to go to the party. But if it meant food and a book, it's worth the risk.
"Sounds like a plan." He said, raising his fist, and I bumped it halfheartedly with mine.
Yay parties.
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Hello!
I would like to quickly pop in and thank u all for taking your time to read this story! It has been around a year since I started this and it saddens me to announce that we are less than 5 chapters away from the end!
Thank u sm for supporting! Your reads, votes, and comments are so heartwarming, and I couldn't bear parting with u guys. Again, tysm!!!! Ilyyy<3333
With love,
ðBea