“You’re welcome. There’s McDonald’s on the desk when you’re ready.”
She blinked the sleep from her eyes and enjoyed the strange familiarity of sitting in a crappy dorm bed with her best friend, one of them in pajamas, the other bursting with energy. In their four years at Hein, they’d done exactly this thousands of times: in Charlotte’s freshman-year double that she shared with an elusive chem student, and then in the two-bedroom suite she and Jackie shared sophomore year in Fuller Dorm. They lived together for three years at Hein, learning each other’s quirks and boundaries by heart, except the semester Jackie spent studying abroad in Paris. It was a strange miracle that they got along as well as they did, with their opposing personalities. Aside from the occasional fight about whose turn it was to clean out the mini fridge—Your takeout is spawning alien life, Char—they got along swimmingly.
Charlotte considered meeting Jackie to be the best thing that ever happened to her. Most of the time, at least.
Jackie leapt off the bed to fuss with her suitcase, flinging clothes everywhere, tank tops and boots and cute going-out jackets tossed haphazardly across the linoleum. She picked up a mound of shirts, refolding and organizing them on a bookshelf as she told Charlotte about her travel. “Hertz had already released my car because they’re awful, but lucky me, they only had a convertible left! So we are driving in style this weekend.”
Charlotte crawled down the bed and snatched the McDonald’s bag into her lap. Grease leached through the paper wrapper.
Hell yes, hash browns.
“Thank you for this, I didn’t eat dinner last night.”
“We can go to Stop and Shop for snacks.” Jackie moved on to sorting her pants. She rolled up a pair of familiar leggings with hein university stitched down the leg in blue. “I am too old for cheap beer, so we’ll get booze too.” She placed the leggings roll on a shelf beside a pyramid of balled-up socks.
Around a mouthful of potato, Charlotte garbled, “I don’t think you packed enough clothes.”
“It’s not all to wear. The clothing swap is tomorrow.”
Every year a senior hosted a big swap meet for graduating students to unload clothes they no longer wanted as they prepared to leave campus. Unclaimed items were donated to a nearby shelter.
“They still do that?” Charlotte asked.
“It’s in the schedule as an official R&C event! So cool, right?” Jackie preened. “They even have a lounge reserved. When it was my turn to host, everyone just threw their stuff on our living room floor.”
Charlotte smiled. “I remember.” Jackie had a knack for spotting potential through the chaos, from a vintage skirt buried under piles of used clothing to a new friend looking shyly through the accessories table. Jackie’s extroversion overwhelmed Charlotte sometimes, but her life was all the better for it.
“You’re coming, right?” Jackie fixed her with a hopeful stare. “We can treasure hunt like we used to.”
Charlotte ate the last of her hash brown as she thought through the weekend ahead. Tomorrow should be quiet. Roger wouldn’t arrive on campus until Sunday morning, so she had time. “I wouldn’t miss it,” she promised.
Jackie threw her a wide grin. “Good.” Then she turned back to her luggage, setting aside a pile to bring to the swap.
While Jackie puttered, Charlotte grabbed her iPhone from the bookshelf. She winced at the cracked screen. It wasn’t too bad: She could still read the avalanche of notifications from Roger. She could probably make the phone last another six months if she didn’t drop it again.
“You have an accident or something?” Jackie asked, nodding at the damage.
Charlotte threw the empty hash brown wrapper at her. Jackie swatted it away with an expert hand.
“How are you even awake right now? You must be exhausted,” Charlotte asked.
Aerial assault eliminated, Jackie resumed lining up bottles of nail polish on the bookshelf: red, mint green, black, a clear top coat with flecks of silver glitter. Charlotte eyed her own unpainted toes and resolved to give them a cleanup. Maybe a nice burning red to express her sexual frustration.
“I slept on the plane, and don’t change the subject.”
She cringed. Unbidden, the memory of Reece standing across from her in the hallway returned to her. The heat in his eyes, the way his jaw went slack…every inch of her skin alive with awareness of his body near hers.
And then there was Ben at the front of the lecture hall, eyes narrowed as he took in the room.
“Yesterday was eventful.” Charlotte gingerly lay back down and threw her arm over her face.
The comforting sounds of Jackie’s movement about the room stilled. “Do you have something to share with the class, Charlotte Thorne?”
Jackie was the closest thing Charlotte knew to actual family. Her best friend had the dubious honor of guarding her secrets. But some things were too complex and embarrassing to admit, even to Jackie. She didn’t know how to explain the tunnel-vision panic she felt at the career center when Ben took center stage, not after all these years. Nor did she want to share the gravitational pull she felt toward Reece, that selfish urge to distract herself with his smile. She didn’t know if she was ready for Jackie’s shrewd analysis of her friends’ love lives.
“Roger’s freaking out about his commencement address,” she said instead.
Jackie groaned. “That scumbag. Is he still calling at all hours?”
“That’s what I get paid for.” Charlotte sat up and took another swig of the Gatorade. “I don’t know how this speech is going to go; he’s not a great fit for Hein’s student body. I still can’t believe he went here.”
“I can’t believe he’s gonna be on campus. Can I meet him?” Jackie’s grin was devilish.
The idea of Jackie berating Charlotte’s narcissist megamillionaire boss threatened to break her brain. “For the sake of my job, absolutely not.”
Jackie pouted. “You’re no fun. We gotta get you out of there anyway.”
Her best friend loved to talk about how much Charlotte needed to quit her job. Jackie also liked to quit new jobs at the first inconvenience, so, as much as she loved her, Charlotte didn’t put much stock in her advice.
She skimmed Roger’s latest emails: more back-and-forth with the speechwriter, forwarded instructions from Hein’s R&C committee about social media coverage of the commencement ceremony, a reminder to reserve a taxi to pick up Roger at the train station. She cc’ed Aubrey into the thread about transportation and closed the app.
Jackie threw a clean towel on the bed. “Put your phone away and go take a shower, I want to get moving.”
Charlotte clambered out of bed. “Crap, I forgot to pack shower shoes.”
Jackie kicked a cheap pair of black flip-flops across the linoleum floor. “Me too. Bought these at CVS this morning en route here.”
“You have lived like five lives today.”
