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1
RACHEL
It’s a bright, uncharacteristically warm day in late September. The plastic grip of my camera is hot beneath my fingertips as I squint into the viewfinder.
In the view of my lens is the University of Aurora.
It’s a pretty campus, pretty in that Colorado way. The mountains loom in the distance, the very tips of them painted white. Large, tan buildings around me, square and flat-roofed, the glass of each window covered with a marine reflective film. The blue-silver shine is too blindingly bright to look at. The quad’s lawn is perfectly manicured, but it barely matters; the grass is drowned in red and orange leaves, flying from the trees that surround the lawn. The breeze turns direction and blows directly at me. It’s freezing cold compared tothe blazing sun overhead and asmall flood of red-gold leaves drift around my sneakers, crackling like fire.
My head is hot from the sun. I tilt the camera this way and that, trying to find my image. The buildings, the trees, the mountains, the leaves; they’re all very pretty, all very Colorado, but I can’t find the way to make it all work together.Trees in the foreground, mountains in the background? Buildings foreground, trees background? Leaves foreground, quad background?It’s like trying to complete a puzzle without an image of the final result. I know it goes together somehow, but I can’t see what should connect where.
The windows of the buildings around me are starting to dazzle me. I sigh and lower the camera with no photos taken. I can’t find my angle today, it seems.
Like most days.
I deposit the camera back in its case, put the case in my overfull backpack, and heft it over my shoulders, wheeling my suitcase behind me. It’s getting towards midday anyway and I’ve been travelling since five this morning. I need to get to my new home.
Every route I take I can see new students, just like me, wandering in the same direction toward the dorms. I’m pretty much the only one walking in the opposite direction. A suitcase bumps against mine, sending them both skittering. I wrench mine back under control and wheel it closer to me only to have the same thing happening again. Trying to walk against the tide is humiliating. It practically screams: ‘Hey, look who got a late acceptance!’ ‘Hey, guess who got in too late to get a dorm room!’
In truth, I hadn’t wanted to go to the University of Aurora. Beautiful as it was, it wasn’t an art school. I had one of those vision boards on my wall, all the pictures tacked on neatly among fairy lights and washi tape. I liked the idea of going to art schoolsurrounded by artists and great thinkers, who could by increments nudge me to greatness. I dreamt of art school. I daydreamed of art school.
But I couldn’t make the art come.
I had always been artistic.Talented, even. Art school was the natural next step, but I had never really found that ‘thing’. Call it a niche, an inspiration, a reason to be. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it. I had, in the end, settled on photography for my portfolio only because there was no time left for anything else. It was so rushed that I received rejection after rejection. Finally, I applied to Aurora’s underfunded and poorly considered art department, and I only did it because Colorado was as far as I could get from my disappointed New York family.
No, Aurora isn’t an art school. If anything it’s a sport school. Getting a sports scholarship to Aurora U is basically a ticket to greatness. I’d seen on the website- a quarter oftheir sports teams went on to become professionalwhateversat the sport they did. And they seem to outnumber anyone else here—half of the students shoulder-checking me as I walk through the mass look as though they live at the gym. Sweatpants, polo shirts, and varsity jackets are practically the uniform here. The girls all have practical, high-scraped ponytails, perfect smiles on perfect bodies as they heft overstuffed carryalls like they weigh nothing. The guys wear shirts way too small at the bicep-or maybe their biceps reallyarethat big? I squint at them against the glare of the noonday sun, all these perfect silhouettes and beautiful bodies—
Something crashes into my back, hard and fast, and I go sprawling, my suitcase clattering to the ground behind me. The oncoming students walk around me, not bothering to look down.Thanks, assholes!
I turn around. Above me loom two of the tallest guys I’ve seen on campus.
One of them has to be at least 6’2”, his bright blond hair glinting where it just brushes his shoulders; and those have the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen on an actual human being. Under one arm, he’s carrying what must have knocked into me; a long set of Kayak paddles. Under his other arm, he’s holding some football shoulder pads.
The other guy is even taller than that, maybe 6’6”, and he’s not got the Thor-like build of the blonde guy, but his biceps arehuge, practically bursting out of his navy polo shirt. He’s scowling down at me, his dark hair falling in strands across his eyes.
“Watch where you’re going,” Tallest Guy says, face screwed up in disdain, before walking fully around me and my suitcase. I splutter in infuriation-you should be looking where you’re going, your friend knocked me over with his dumb paddle!-and turn where I’m sprawled on the ground to yell after him, but a large, strong hand yanks me up by my arm. I turn, now unceremoniously standing, back to Broad Shoulder Guy.
“Keep a look out, yeah?” he says, before hefting the shoulder pads a little higher under his arm, picking up his kayak paddle where he’d put it on the ground, and walking past me as well. I’m so shocked I don’t even yell after him.He picked me up like I weighed nothing.
When I pick up my suitcase from the ground, the hard plastic is scuffed all over. I grimace.
What a welcome to Aurora.
The students thin out the further I get from campus, wandering the wide sidewalks with my phone open in my hand. I’m getting close. This had been the only affordable place I had found in Aurora, and I’m kind of surprised it was so cheap to rent. Sure, I’m getting one room of four, and I’ll apparently have to live with three guys, but even then. I’ve seen the pictures on the website; it’s a reallyniceapartment, big windows and modern furnishings, and it’s barely a fifteen minute walk from the campus.
Or, itshouldbe. The phone dings to tell me I’ve arrived, but the block I’m stopped by is one building with no doors. I circle the block, and the only places with doors are businesses, not apartments. I grimace down at my phone, and zoom out to check the map properly. I really am at the right place, as far as I can tell, but how do I get in? I circle the block twice more before admitting defeat and opening up the email chain with the guy who had advertised the room on the student bulletin board.
From:[email protected]
Subject: Room for Rent
Cool! Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. Give me a call if anything goes wrong.
303-555-0195
I dial the number. It rings for a really long time, so long I almost consider hanging up, before clicking through.
