Alex Faulkner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
videokilledme) wrote2017-09-26 06:51 pm
videokilledme) wrote2017-09-26 06:51 pm
Entry tags:
- character: alex faulkner,
- character: bianca jackson,
- character: chisomo ryelle-houston,
- character: connor katou,
- character: lia tuala,
- character: peony mckinney,
- genre: general,
- label: short story,
- label: side character exploration,
- rating: pg-13 (language),
- senpai plz notice peony,
- series: persona dreamscape (private rpg)
'The Kindness of Strangers.' Peony, Alex. (Persona Dreamscape)
~
“The Kindness of Strangers.” Peony, Alex. (Persona Dreamscape)
“...Hey, Mom? Um...I think...we’re lost.”
Carrington University wasn’t huge, as colleges went. It wasn’t small, by any means, but it wasn’t as large as some of the sprawling state schools they’d visited before. But even so, apparently it was just large enough that Peony McKinney and her mother had managed to get separated from their tour group, and thus also thoroughly lost.
The tour group leader’s badge had read Bianca Jackson, and her most noticeable features had been her blonde ponytail, her mischievously sparkling sea green eyes, and the playful, joking tone she’d taken while showing them around campus. “Just like Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did backwards, in heels, I’m gonna show you guys the abridged version of ‘everything worth seeing here at Carrington University’--while walking backwards the whole time. Thank you, but please, hold your applause.” Peony had found herself smiling at the other girl’s energetic running commentary, even enjoying it, but Peony’s mother had huffed and snorted and asked questions designed to trip her up. Bianca had just smiled and fielded each of the questions easily, or else deflected them with a humorous response. She’d seemed unaffected by the would-be ill intent behind the questions, and kept the tour rolling and the group moving from place to place (literally) without breaking stride.
...Although, Peony thought with a quiet sigh, that’s probably why she didn’t have any problem ‘accidentally’ leaving us behind when Mom took too long back in the library...
“Mom?” Peony tried again, taking a hesitant half-step closer to her mother. Peony looked like a younger, smaller, bespectacled version of Helene McKinney. They both had long brown hair, though Helene’s was generally swept up in a fancy, curly updo that required a lot of hairspray while Peony left hers down, the better to hide behind. Both had denim-blue eyes (not that anyone could see Peony’s behind her hair or the thick lenses of her glasses), both had a curvy body type, and both had the warm olive skin, the dark, pronounced brows, and the long, straight nose of Helene’s Greek forebears. Their likeness was even more pronounced today since both wore floral-print skirts paired with a matching cardigan over a plain white collared shirt. But appearance was where their likenesses ended; while Peony was shy and quiet almost to the point of muteness, Helene was loud, talkative, and opinionated, the classic example of ‘mother knows best’--which was the polite way of saying that she was more than a little bossy.
“...Mom...we’re totally lost…”
Helene only briefly looked up from her examination of the ornate plaque bolted to a fountain sculpture. “Nonsense, sweetie,” she said with a careless wave, returning her attention to the time-and-elements-darkened bronze. “They might have expanded things a little bit since I graduated twenty years ago, but I’m sure I can still find my way around. After all, wouldn’t you much rather see the places your parents spent time together when we went here instead of wherever that snippy little tour guide wanted to take us?”
No, Peony wanted to say, I wanted to stay with the group and see the whole campus, and also not have to worry about missing the next point on the college visitation schedule. She didn’t say any of that aloud, though--she knew that even if she did, her mother wasn’t listening any more. That was just what life was like for Peony: no one really listened to her, or even particularly noticed her, not even her own parents.
Case in point, the way she’d been bumped into at least half a dozen times already just this morning, twice hard enough that the folder she’d been clutching to her chest had been knocked out of her arms. Thankfully, the papers inside it hadn’t fallen out-
As if on cue, another careless shove from a guy the size of a small gorilla sent her stumbling again, and this time--of course--the folder happened to open as she dropped it. An errant breeze hit it at just that moment, at just the right angle, sending her scampering after the scattered papers as her mother called over to her, “Peony, honey, come on now, hurry up! I’m going to look at that map over there and figure out where we need to go next. We were supposed to meet up with all the other tour groups in about five minutes, and we don’t want to be late!”
The sidewalks, nearly empty moments before, were suddenly packed with students hurrying to and from their classes--all of them seemingly in too big of a hurry to stop and help an obviously floundering visiting high school student. Peony’s face burned as she scooped up the gathered papers and stuffed them back into the folder, standing and scanning the area for some sign of her mother. I don’t even go here yet, and I’m already an invisible loser. Maybe this is where I belong...
“Are you looking for your tour group, or the Welcome Center?”
Peony gave a startled squeak when the unexpected voice came from right behind her, narrowly avoided dropping both her folder and the newly gathered papers, and spun around so quickly that her glasses nearly slipped right off her face. A bit shakily, she pushed them back up her nose and blinked owlishly through the thick lenses at the person who’d spoken.
It was a short, slim boy who looked to be about her age, if not younger, and he was undeniably good-looking, though ‘pretty’ was a much more suitable descriptor than ‘handsome’. He had pale skin and large grey eyes fringed about with unfairly dark, thick lashes, as well as a spattering of freckles that stood out across his cute snub nose and cheekbones, but none of that was the most striking thing about his appearance. What really caught her attention was the light, shaggy hair halfway-escaping from under a beanie, hair that somehow looked white, grey, and blue all at once, followed by the rings in his lip, one eyebrow, and spiraling down his ears. The low-cut v-neck of his black and white striped shirt revealed a few inky letters twisting their way across his collarbones, there were an alarming number of buckles and straps and chains on his pants, and a battered pair of combat boots that looked like they might’ve actually been through a real war completed the stranger’s rather daunting appearance.
He looked, Peony concluded with a sharp pang of anxious dismay, exactly like some of the worst troublemakers at her high school--the type who turned sullen glares on everyone who met their eye, always gave the teachers a hard time, and often skipped class entirely (to drink and smoke weed behind the school, vandalize cars, or sometimes to do even worse things, according to the student rumor-mill). They mostly left people alone, and she hadn’t seen or heard of them ever bullying anyone for money or answers to homework or other things, but they still spooked her with their defiant fashion style and unapproachable attitudes. She’d succeeded in avoiding contact with them for all of her almost-four-years of high school, and they’d left her alone as well.
Until now. Now, Peony found herself caught between the desire to freeze in place, to back away slowly, or to simply turn and run, regardless of how rude that might be. The strange boy must have seen the rising panic on her face, however, and he must’ve been used to that kind of reaction to his appearance also, because both his pale eyes and the sudden crooked smile he gave her were unexpectedly, arrestingly kind--enough so that Peony’s initial urge to bolt faded away completely.
“Whoa, hey now,” he said with a low chuckle, spreading his hands in gesture of reassurance. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I’m a student here, so if you’re lost I can probably help.” His voice was a rich, calming tenor with just a hint of gravelly roughness to it, and Peony found herself relaxing as she listened to him speak. “Is that your mom over there?” he asked, nodding to one side.
Peony followed his gaze over to a signboard that sported an extra-large map of the campus, and sure enough there was Helene, pacing back and forth and peering up at the map and then down at the sheaf of papers in her hands with obvious agitation. Flushing red to the tips of her ears, Peony gave a silent, sheepish nod, then concentrated on staring down at the toes of her shoes, willing herself to sink into the ground and disappear rather than face this sort of embarrassment any longer. It shouldn’t be hard to stay with a tour group, but somehow they’d still managed to get lost. If only she hadn’t let her mother get sidetracked by that fountain, or those flowerbeds, or that new piece of modern lawn art, or especially the old photos in the library...
There was no way that the strange punk boy could have missed her self-conscious mortification; but for some reason, he didn’t say anything about it, or even tell her to look up at him.
“Let me see that informational folder you’ve got while you go get your mom. Okay?”
Peony gave her shoes another nod before swiftly ducking away towards the signboard, where she tugged at her mother’s sleeve until Helene turned to look at her. Peony hesitated then, unsure how exactly to explain that a kindly-seeming delinquent had offered to guide them to the Aserinsky Auditorium, wherever that was. As it turned out, though, she didn’t have to explain anything: instead of waiting for her back where they’d first spoken, the boy had followed after her, standing only a few feet away and watching her attentively, her informational folder in his hands, though he stepped forward (rather boldly, Peony thought) to address her mother a moment later.
“Ma’am? According to this schedule, you’re headed for the Aserinsky Auditorium next, right?” Without waiting for an answer from either of them, the boy handed the folder back to Peony and beckoned for them to follow him, absently shifting the messenger bag slung across his lean body as he went. “That’s in the Kleitman Building, right this way. I’ll show you.”
Peony’s mother gave the delinquent-looking boy’s retreating back a startled blink, her eyes moving from him to Peony and back, obviously confused about what was going on, but (would wonders never cease) she followed after him without protest. Peony could see Helene examining the boy’s outfit more closely with something of a mystified expression, though that didn’t stop her from hurrying to walk beside him (Peony noted with something like bemusement that in her best heels, Helene had a good four inches on their student-saviour), peppering him with inquiries about other places and points on their itinerary. The boy answered her rapid-fire questions easily and with a great deal more patience than Peony would’ve expected from someone with his kind of appearance, though she still breathed an inward sigh of relief when Helene’s phone buzzed, pulling her attention away from their self-appointed guide. The punk boy took that as an opportunity to turn another of those crooked smiles over his shoulder at her, and Peony couldn’t completely hide the way she flinched reflexively when his attention settled on her.
Even though he undoubtedly noticed her reaction, he didn’t seem to hold it against her, his half-smile remaining composed and gentle as he said, “You’re headed to lunch after this, right? Here, let me see your campus map.”
Unquestioningly, Peony dug it out of the folder and passed it over to the pale-haired boy, who had produced a pen from some pocket hidden amongst the chains and straps and buckles of his pants. Taking the map and uncapping the pen with his teeth, he unfolded and then re-folded the large rectangle of paper back down to a smaller, more manageable size--but with the path between the auditorium they were headed towards and the cafeteria now clearly marked in blue pen. The boy shifted the map a bit, making it rest a bit more firmly on the textbook in his arms as he scribbled a few more notes on the map, all without breaking stride or really slowing down.
“So. In the cafeteria, you’d think that pizza would be a safe bet, right? Wrong. Here, it can easily range from ‘unbelievably great’ to ‘utter garbage’. So unless you do choose to come to Carrington University and learn which of the pizza station cooks are the best ones, take my advice and steer clear of that one.”
He suddenly turned a glance sideways at her, giving her a small but shockingly warm full smile as he handed the map back to her, and Peony felt a strange flutter in her chest as her blue eyes met the boy’s pale grey ones, as their hands briefly touched during the map exchange.
“My recommendation would be the build-a-burger station. They have meat and vegetarian options, they keep the freshly-made patties in a fridge behind the counter, and they only take them out when someone asks for one. You get to watch them fry it up for you right there, however well done you want it, then you can take your pick of buns and toppings and condiments.” His eyes dropped back to the map in her hand, and he pointed at what he’d written as he went on, “The sandwich station is also pretty good--they have great turkey wraps, five different kinds of peanut butter, and about twelve kinds of jelly. But!” Here he leaned in just a bit, and there was a playful glint in his eyes as he stage-whispered, as if to keep Peony’s mom from overhearing, “The soft-serve ice cream is the one thing you shouldn’t miss. It’s almost as good as what they’ve got at the local mom-and-pop ice cream place, Fifty Ways To Sundae, and here it’s all-you-can-eat for free, which makes it perfect for poor, starving college students. And soon-to-be poor, starving college students. And probably former poor, starving college students also,” he added with a brief look over at Helene.
Peony dipped her head to signal understanding and attempted a smile, which she was certain came out more like a nervous, uneven grimace, but the punk boy had already moved on, striding forward down the sidewalk as confidently as if he owned it, and Peony had to hurry to make sure she didn’t fall behind again.
It turned out that they weren’t nearly as lost as it had seemed: less than a minute later, they were entering the Kleitman Building. The punk boy held the door for her and her mother and few other people too before slipping inside to guide them down a long hallway and around a corner, stopping before the open double-doors of an amphitheater-style room, full of descending rows of chairs that looked like movie theatre seating. Peony instantly recognized their tour guide standing down at the front of the room, Bianca’s blonde ponytail bobbing energetically as she answered questions from the mob of parents and prospective students surrounding her and a few of the other badged campus tour guides.
Peony’s mother saw her, too. “Finally! Come on, Peony, I’m going to give that girl a piece of my mind for leaving us behind! Oh, and I want to know more about the dorms also. We missed that part of the tour, and I won’t have you put up in some shoddy co-ed place when I know they were supposed to have completed a nice new girls-only dorm last year! Unless you do end up joining my sorority, that is...” With a curt nod towards the punk boy, Helene bustled off down the aisle, still muttering to herself. Peony winced inwardly as she imagined all the questions her mother would doubtless ask Bianca, most of which the girl probably had no way of knowing. Swallowing hard, she gave the punk boy a shamefaced nod, then turned to start the long trudge down the center aisle, following after Helene.
“Hey, wait a sec.”
Peony hadn’t been expecting the delinquent-looking student to say anything else--after her mother’s constant questions and her own shyness-induced silence, he should be glad to be rid of them both by now, shouldn’t he?--and stumbled a bit as she stopped midstride. A black-nailed hand reached out and caught her elbow, steadying her and making her freeze again in the same instant, and she turned a startled look back at the punk boy.
His hand didn’t linger, maintaining contact only long enough to ensure that she wasn’t going to fall before drawing away to be casually shoved back into a pants pocket; the sensation of his touch lingered on her skin, however, in a most puzzling fashion.
“Steady there, still not gonna bite. You okay?”
Though she was starting to feel like a bobblehead doll, Peony gave yet another nod, this time managing to look somewhere besides the toes of her shoes, focusing with difficulty not quite on the punk boy’s eyes, but on his eyebrow ring. (That was still an improvement, right? At least it was somewhere on his face...)
The punk boy huffed a quiet laugh, and she couldn’t keep herself from looking him in the eye then, too startled to remember to keep her focus on that bit of jewelry instead.
“Hey, keep your chin up.” The boy inclined his head towards the cluster of people farther into the room, into which Peony’s mother had by now disappeared. “The tour leaders aren’t always as attentive as they should be, so don’t feel bad about getting separated from the group and turned around. You’re the fourth one Jackson’s lost this month. And it’s only the 8th. The month is young, so I’m sure she’ll manage to misplace many, many more prospective students before the campus visits are over…” He shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips as his eyes found the ponytailed tour guide. “I’d make a blonde joke, but it’s not true in her case. Which makes the lack of responsibility even worse, really.”
Shaking his head again, he flicked those pale eyes back onto Peony, and once again she found herself freezing in place, like a rabbit hoping to avoid the attention of a wolf. But once again, instead of calling her on it, he just flashed her another crooked smile, his hands moving to the headphones hanging around his neck, poised to place them over his ears again. “See ya around, maybe. Good luck.”
Turning, he took two steps, then pivoted back around suddenly, lowering his headphones again as he called back to her, “Also...word of advice. Learn to be a little more confident in yourself. It’s a big world and there’s a lot to see, and it’s all a lot brighter and more interesting if you’re looking at something other than your shoes.” He gave another faint smirk, paired with a careless-seeming shrug. “I mean...really. What are you so afraid of?”
And without backward glance, he slipped his headphones on and melted away into the crowd of people moving past the auditorium’s open doors, vanishing completely within seconds.
Only minutes later, after she’d settled into a chair beside Helene, did Peony realize that she hadn’t thanked him, or even so much as asked his name.
Peony had never really paid enough attention to boys to have a type. Of course, she’d ogled members of her school’s various sports teams and had celebrity crushes, the same as any teen or pre-teen. But she was timid and withdrawn, and very nearly friendless because of it. She’d never been asked out or given any real thought to having a boyfriend--she’d been far too busy with school, homework, various extracurriculars, cello lessons, and helping her mom and two older sisters by babysitting her three nephews. Still, she was pretty certain that scary punk boys weren’t her type, whatever it might be. Even if they had gone out of their way to be helpful, and had an unexpectedly kind smile, and really beautiful eyes. Even then, she definitely, definitely wouldn’t let herself get hung up on wondering what it would be like to kiss someone with a lip ring, or finding out whether his short, shaggy hair was still soft despite being dyed that strange blue-grey, or absently imagining tracing a finger over the tattooed letters curving along his clavicles.
Hey, keep your chin up. Those words echoed through her mind the whole rest of the tour and the entire three-hour drive home, though the rest of what he’d said resounded even louder, especially that last line: What are you so afraid of?
It was a good question.
Being noticed, was her first, immediate answer, but on further contemplation, Peony knew that wasn’t actually the truth.
The truth, she thought to herself as she methodically packed her bag for school the next day, is that I’m afraid of putting myself out there...and not being noticed at all, by anyone. It was safer to hide, to pretend she didn’t want anyone to see her. At least then it was her choice to be ignored.
Learn to be a little more confident in yourself. Easy for him to say--even without his stand-out style of clothing, the punk boy had had an air about him that drew her in. Something about his voice made her want to listen to him, to pay attention to what he was saying.
It’s a big world and there’s a lot to see… That much was definitely true, though. Nevermind the rest of the world, there were a lot of things she hadn’t done in just her small corner of it, a lot of things she honestly wanted to do. A lot of things...that were probably within her grasp, if she’d only try to reach for them.
...And it’s all a lot brighter and more interesting if you’re looking at something other than your shoes. She was tired of always looking down, Peony realized belatedly. She wanted to take the punk boy’s advice and keep her chin up. She wanted to see the bright, interesting things all around her, not just the small, dull space of ground in front of her where her foot would land next.
And so finally, she asked herself again: What are you so afraid of?
And this time, she decided to change her answer. This time, she decided to say to herself: Nothing that’s worth being so unhappy.
The very next day, Peony joined the drama club, signing up for the spring play try-outs as well. Telling herself to be brave, she put everything she had into that audition, and to her lasting surprise, she managed to land a decent role, despite the fact that she was an unknown senior who’d never so much as posted a flyer for the drama club before. She switched from glasses to contacts--they were much more comfortable, she found, even if putting them in was a pain; she also went to get her hair cut at a real salon for the first time in years and started painted her nails bright colours, all steps toward making it more difficult to let herself blend into the background, if she did fall back into her old habits. She started to choose her own clothes instead of letting her mother pick everything for her, got her driver’s license, and started to raise her hand in class instead of sitting in silent dread and waiting to be called on. She finally managed to strike up a conversation with two other senior girls in her study hall who she’d always wanted to talk to, but had always been too shy and scared to approach. She successfully asked her lab partner to prom, and they went with a group of people from the drama club, which had accepted her with open arms. She didn’t get named prom queen or anything so dramatic--she wasn’t even in the running--but she felt like a princess that night, which was all that mattered to her. Peony felt particularly proud about that day, because aside from looking down to unbuckle and kick off her shoes (the better to dance more freely), she spent the whole night without looking down at her feet even once.
Peony did choose Carrington University in the end, as it turned out. They’d offered her the best scholarship, and considering that her parents were both Carrington alumni, she had more interesting options there than she’d had anywhere else.
It had nothing at all to do with the fact that there was a certain delinquent punk boy who went there. Nothing at all. (Well, maybe it had a little to do with that, but it definitely wasn’t the deciding factor--just a bonus in addition to all the other pros Carrington could offer.)
Once she was actually there, on campus, fully moved into her dorm room and registered for her classes and everything, Peony realized that finding one person on a campus of thousands was easier said than done, even if he was an eye-catching delinquent-looking punk boy. Just asking around about a punk guy with blue-grey hair wasn’t likely to get her very far, and she didn’t know how to do that anyway without sounding weird or stalkerish (which...it kind of would be, really). Plus, it was a big campus, so there were probably a fair number of guys with blue hair--and who even knew if that punk boy’s hair was still blue now, of it he’d dyed it some other color? It could be pink, green, purple, any color really, or maybe he’d just gone back to his natural hair color, whatever that was. Additionally, she couldn’t be certain that he still went to Carrington at all. He could’ve transferred, or dropped out, or even graduated, though he’d looked more like a highschooler than she, the actual highschooler, had, so she kind of doubted that last option. Still, stranger things had happened, and she had no real way of knowing anything for certain.
Really, her only choice was to give up on him. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for him--she might get lucky and run into him again that way--but the odds were against it, and Peony knew that she couldn’t really even let herself hope that it might happen. College life was a new “world” that was full of new, bright, interesting things and people; she couldn’t let herself be hung up on some guy she’d met once and had no way of contacting, no real hope of ever seeing again. It didn’t matter that his words had stuck with her, challenging her until they’d become the catalyst for a pretty significant change in her life, that they had been exactly what she’d needed to hear at exactly the right time. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t gotten the chance to thank him.
No. She’d started to move on from who she’d been when she’d met him. Now she had to move on from who she’d been when she’d had a misplaced crush on him, a definitely-not-her-type guy who had been nothing more than a kind stranger. She had to let him go.
It was pure chance, the way she finally found him again.
Stumbling back to bed after a late night trip to the bathroom, Peony happened to turn a bleary glance at the cheerfully-decorated “announcements” corkboard that covered a large part of her dorm wing’s hallway. The centerpiece was a year-long calendar that they could flip through to write in dates that were important enough to each of them and that they wanted to share them with their floor-mates, but there were all sorts of other flyers, posters, and notices pinned to the board as well: art exhibitions, classical concerts, frat parties, rock shows, tutoring, feng shui consultations, and more. Peony looked it over dutifully most every day when she came back from class, but although the flyer advertising a casting call for the campus theatre troupe’s winter play caught her eye, she knew better than to overextend herself during her first semester of college. She was already “rushing”--attending various parties and events, trying to get into her mother’s sorority--and that took up a lot of her free time, so she’d promised herself that she could try out for the spring musical, even though she couldn’t really sing. That brief break should let her find her stride here at Carrington, to know what she could and couldn’t fit into her schedule without letting her grades suffer.
If her sleep-blurred, wandering eyes hadn’t turned up to cast a reflexive, longing look at that theatre troupe flyer as she passed the board, she might never have seen it. But something else had been pinned to the board since she’d last looked at it, something that hung at a slightly haphazard angle, crookedly clipping over a portion of the theatre poster and a few other notices. It was a little crumpled on the bottom edge, and it had obviously been folded into quarters at one point before being half-heartedly smoothed out and pinned in place, but even in the dim light of the hallway, the bold lettering across the top--ALEX TELLS IT LIKE IT IS--was easily legible. The picture of the person beneath it was easy to see, too, though the rest of the poster was hard to make out...not that Peony was looking at the rest of it, or anything at all save that unexpectedly familiar face.
For a long moment, Peony could only gape up at the poster--it was so sudden, so utterly unbelievable that she would find him again like this, and here, of all places. But it was unmistakable: the large, expressive eyes with their dark lashes, the snub nose and its smattering of freckles, the blue-grey hair, the wry half-smirk that twisted his mouth, the various facial piercings, and especially that tattoo curling across his collarbones, all of it made her certain that it was without a doubt the same punk boy from college visitation day.
...So his name is ‘Alex,’ huh...
Turning a furtive glance down the hallway, Peony hurriedly un-tacked the poster, then darted back to her room as quickly and quietly as possible. Lia, her roommate, muttered something in her sleep and rolled over as Peony carefully closed the door, then moved to the window, taking advantage of the moonlight to get a better, longer look at the poster she’d stolen.
It was an advertisement for the college radio station, specifically for the late-late-show time slot, which the punk boy--Alex--apparently filled with a mixture of music and some sort of talk show. Midnight to 2:00 a.m., Peony read, then looked at the glowing green numbers on her digital bedside clock: 1:17 a.m.
Which meant that he’d be there, at the campus radio station, right now.
Peony hardly remembered getting dressed--slipping into her nearest pair of jeans, throwing a cardigan on over the tank top half of her pajamas, grabbing her glasses, scooping up a pair of ballet flats, grabbing her keys, all of that was a blur--and she was halfway across campus when she realized that she wasn’t wearing any make-up, or her contacts, and that her hair was probably a mess. But it was too late to worry about any of that--the eerily-lit face of the campus clock tower read 1:26, and if she went back now and tried to fix herself up the way she usually did, it would be well after 2:00 a.m. by the time she reached the campus radio station. The poster had said that the show was a live broadcast, and that it was on-air every weekday night, plus an every-other-Saturday special that focused more on campus events and personalities. Tonight was a Tuesday (or Wednesday, technically), so he’d be there again the next night...but Peony couldn’t let herself put it off. This intriguing stranger, the subject of her absurd, impossible, half-year-long obsession, was abruptly and unexpectedly within her grasp, and even though she knew it was more than a little crazy, she couldn’t stop herself. She’d waited too long for this, told herself to stop hoping for too long, and waiting another day would drive her even more crazy.
When Peony finally stepped into the radio station, panting a little and still clutching the poster in both hands, she found herself standing in front of what looked like a battered receptionist’s desk in a smallish room that felt--and looked--rather like a waiting room at a doctor’s office. There were a few low chairs and tables with magazines strewn across them, though they were titles like Rolling Stone, Billboard, MixMag, and AMP! instead of healthcare-related things. Three of the walls were covered in neatly framed posters advertising various past and present radio shows and pictures of all sorts of musicians, many of which had obviously been taken on-campus; the far wall, behind the desk, was entirely taken up by shelves and shelves of CDs and vinyl records. Peony could only stare, though her attention was soon drawn sideways to a poster that matched the one she held in her hands, albeit in much better condition.
...Also, she only now noticed, frowning slightly as she looked down at the poster in her hands, it looked like someone had drawn devil-horns on Alex’s head, though the graffiti had stopped there, without giving him a mustache or an eyepatch or any of the other usual photograph defacements. They had written a message across the bottom in thick black sharpie, though, and she was surprised that she hadn’t noticed it until now: If the Devil Himself ran Dear Abby. Peony’s frown deepened, her expression going pensive. That didn’t make any sense. He’d seemed more than nice enough to her...so why would-?
“Can I help you?”
Peony gave a start, jerking around towards the desk, which she was certain had been empty a moment before. Now a tall, statuesque girl with ebony skin and stylishly close-cropped hair stood behind it, arms crossed loosely over her chest as she looked across the room at Peony. The girl arched an elegant eyebrow just slightly as her gaze dropped to the poster Peony still clutched to her middle, and a hint of a smile turned the corners of her full lips upwards just slightly.
“Not the most artistic edit of that poster I have ever seen, but definitely one of the most fitting.” She shook her head with something like disapproval, or perhaps annoyance, and the almost-smile disappeared. Then her other eyebrow joined the first as she studied Peony more closely. “We do not usually get visitors here this late. Did you need something?”
“N-no...well, a-actually, I…”
The dark-skinned girl was beautiful, easily one of the loveliest people Peony had ever seen, which was more than a little intimidating. Before she’d set out to find her real self, Peony had often felt mousy and plain, if not outright dumpy even at the best of times; she’d improved in that area, but sometimes it was hard not to go right back to feeling that way when she was around someone as stunning as this tall, model-thin girl. Still, she forced herself to put that feeling aside and took a steadying breath, pushing down her excitement and nervousness and the sickish feeling that they made when combined, and squared her shoulders determinedly.
“I’m here because I wanted to talk to him! To Alex, I mean.”
“You want to talk to him? Huh. Well, that is definitely a first.”
Peony blinked, her confusion showing on her face, and at that, the other girl gave her a companionable smile.
“Heh, not really. He’s got all the callers he can fit into his time slot, with more to spare, damn him.” Crossing the room, the girl held out her hand with the casual ease of a veteran businessman. “I am Chisomo, the student program director here at the Carrington campus radio station. In plain English, that means I am in charge of organizing all the programs we air, which makes me sort of, but not exactly, Alex’s boss.”
From Chisomo’s tone of voice and the thinning of her lips, Peony could tell that neither party was particularly thrilled with that arrangement. “Peony,” she said simply by way of introduction, taking the other girl’s hand, “Peony McKinney.” Then her curiosity won out against her better judgement, because she found herself saying, “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
Chisomo gave a softly-snorted chuckle, a glint of something like admiration for Peony’s bold line of questioning in her dark eyes. “Yes. Not exactly, because we are also classmates, and this is a work study program, so it is not like I actually hired him in the first place. That was all Dr. de Forest’s doing...and Connor’s, too.” Those last few words were muttered to herself, almost quietly enough that Peony didn’t catch them, and this time her tone of voice told Peony that if she’d had her way, Chisomo wouldn’t have hired Alex in a million years.
“Dr. de Forest? Who’s that?” Well, he was clearly a professor, Peony thought with an inward wince at asking such a stupid question, and he was also clearly someone who had a lot of say there at the campus radio station. She didn’t ask who Connor was, since she got the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to have heard that at all, but she filed the name away for future reference.
“Dr. de Forest is one of the Communications professors here, and the station manager,” Chisomo answered, and to her credit, there wasn’t so much as a hint of condescension in her tone. She glanced down at the watch on her wrist, then back up at Peony with a faint smile. “The half-hour commercial break is over, so I need to get back to the control room, but...since you are such a big fan,” her eyes lingered on the poster in Peony’s hands meaningfully, “Maybe you would like to join me for a sneak peek behind the scenes...on the condition that you touch nothing and stay completely silent.” The tall girl’s voice had gone cold and hard as iron, a sharp light in her dark eyes reflecting the same as they searched Peony’s face. “You can talk to Alex after he is off the air if you like, but there will be no interruptions during the program, or I will toss you out of here myself. Deal?”
Peony swallowed hard as another wave of excitement and nausea rippled through her--but she stopped herself from simply giving a silent nod in reply. “Deal,” she said stoutly, and with as much gravitas as she could muster.
Chisomo flashed her an approving smile and led her back through the door behind the desk, down a short, dark hallway, and into another dimly-lit room that was obviously the control room. A huge console with a dizzying number of switches, buttons, and faders took up a good half of the small space, the rest of it filled with filing cabinets, a computer console, and two rolling chairs, presumably for whoever was working the console. That other chair was empty, but Chisomo moved to the console with confidence, seemingly unconcerned about not having anyone there to help. She gestured for Peony to sit on a small stool back by the door, then put on a set of radio-operator-style headphones and turned her attention through the window into the next room.
Peony sank onto the stool obediently, momentarily unsure about what to do with the poster in her hands--would rolling it up count as making too much noise?--but then she followed Chisomo’s gaze and looked through the glass, into the live studio...and for a moment, everything else faded into the background, because there, at long last, was Alex.
His body language was a study in relaxation, his lean, compact frame draped almost casually over the chair, the posture of someone who feels completely at ease in their current situation. A headset identical to the one Chisomo wore was clamped over his ears atop that artfully messy blue-grey hair that was, this time, half-hidden by the hood of a black jacket with extra long sleeves. He was also wearing a plain charcoal-grey scoop-necked shirt with several uneven holes riddling the neckline, matching lip rings on either side of his mouth, and a studded leather collar-like choker. His expression was one of faint, sardonic amusement, one eyebrow raised, one corner of that perfectly-shaped mouth pulling upwards just slightly as he listened to whatever his current caller was saying. He was seated at a console like the one in the control room, though it was a little smaller, and there was a microphone fixed prominently in front of him. Black-nailed fingers moved with assurance, adjusting something here, lowering something else there, and he filled the space in between by silently tapping the pads of his fingers on the desk in front of him, as if he were mentally playing a piano.
Peony could only stare at him with a look approaching reverence, hardly able to believe that she’d really and truly found him again.
Chisomo happened to glance back at her at that moment, gave a roll of her eyes and a tight-lipped shake her head at the girl’s moonstruck expression, then waved a hand in front of her face until Peony blinked and looked her way. Beckoning her closer, the student program director plugged in another headset, then held it out to her. Peony hesitated for only the briefest of seconds before taking them with almost fumbling eagerness, slipping the headset on just in time to hear a familiar voice say in a completely unfamiliar sarcastic drawl:
“...Oh-hoooh yeah, I’ve been listening, and I have just three words for you, ‘girlfriend’: Totally. Fucking. Pathetic.”
Peony felt herself stop breathing for a second, as if her current lungful of air had gotten caught in her chest somehow. Breathing didn’t get any easier as she listened to the rest of what Alex had to say to his latest caller, hands coming up to press the headset tighter against her ears:
“You can’t just follow someone around all the time and expect them to magically notice and fall in love with you, especially if you never talk to them. Also, since you don’t seem to get it, let me explain stalking to you. It’s one thing if you know he’s probably gonna be some place and you go there too because of that--it’s toeing the line a little, sure, but you’re just creating a possible opportunity. On the other hand, it is definitely about ten steps beyond that line if you literally follow after him when he heads somewhere after class, even if it is somewhere public and popular like the student union or the racquetball courts. Also, choosing your classes based on what you know his major to be, when your major is something completely different? Changing dorms--and then your room inside that dorm--just so you can be on his ‘sister floor’? And being jealous whenever he happens to talk to another girl? Sweetheart, lemme tell ya...you’re batting 0-for-3 there.”
The voice that came over the phone in a huff was defensive and too-cutely feminine. “But--but, I love him! I just don’t know what to say! Or, um, like, how to talk to him without sounding creepy-”
Though the glass of the sound booth, Peony saw Alex roll his eyes, the side of his mouth quirking up higher in a clearly cynical smirk. “Well, for a start, don’t tell him...oh, any of this, that you just told me. Because it sounds HELLA creepy.”
There was a crackle on the other end of the phone, and what sounded like a choked sob. “B-but-”
“No. No ‘buts’. Not about this. Look, you can’t love him if you don’t actually know him, and even if you’ve read his entire goddamn Spacebook page back until he was thirteen years old, and go through his garbage regularly--and I sincerely hope you have done neither of those things--you can’t actually know him until you’ve at least talked to him a few times. So, I don’t know what your hang-up there is, if you’re just literally painfully shy or whatever, but here’s what you have to do: get over it. And what I mean by that is, either get over your crippling shyness or social anxiety or homeschooler-itis or whatever the hell it is that’s keeping you from talking to his guy like a normal person, or...get over your feelings for him. Because if you keep going on like this? He’s not going to notice you in a positive way, if he ever notices you at all, and someone else is gonna walk right up to him and ask him out, maybe right in front of you, and you’ll be shit out of luck.”
“But he should be able to FEEL my-”
Hand moving so fast that it blurred, Alex punched a button on the glowing console in front of him, and Peony jumped as a thoroughly obnoxious ‘wrong answer’ buzzer noise sounded, cutting off the caller’s words.
“NNNNNOPE. Sorry, sister, that ain’t how feelings fuckin’ work. And if you’re really so insanely delusional as to think that it is, then you know what? I’d say this guy is pretty goddamn lucky that you haven’t managed to drum up the courage to talk to him. No one needs that level of drama and ‘inevitable train wreck’ in their lives.” The caller started to sputter something indignant-sounding, but Alex pressed another couple buttons on the console and cut her off again, shaking his head as he did so, disbelief and disdain mingling in his expression. “All right, thanks for calling, but that’s all the time we have for listening to you ramble about your Fatal Attraction-level creepy crush on the supposed love of your life...whose name you probably only know from looking at the seating chart in whatever classes you share. Next caller!”
Peony felt rooted to the spot, unable to move, much less remember how to form words and put them together into coherent sentences. Her eyes had gone saucer-wide as they’d listened to Alex’s decidedly one-sided conversation with that last caller, and it was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping, literally hanging open. Chisomo let out an amused chuckle at that, and Peony slipped off the headset as she turned her astonished and half-glazed expression up at the student program director.
“Yes, that is classic Alex for you. He’s a real piece of work, both on and off the air, but his show is one of our top-rated and most-listened-to features, despite the ridiculously late time slot. It also does not hurt that he is pretty talented and mentally quick on his feet, or that his advice, while harsh, is generally exactly what the person on the other end of the line needs to hear--not that I would ever admit as much to his face. He is sure enough of himself without me adding any fuel to that ego’s fire.”
Peony swallowed hard once, then a second time, her mind reeling as she tried to equate the kind smile and friendly advice of the gentle-seeming boy who’d helped her and her mother half a year ago with the sarcastic, sharp-tongued jackass on the other side of the glass.
“...I have to go,” she finally managed to get out, her voice so low that it was nearly a whisper. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the headset again, this time for a completely different reason, passing it back to Chisomo with the care of someone handling blown glass or spun sugar--or a venomous snake.
The older student was frowning at her, confusion clear on her face, tempered with concern. “Is something wrong? I thought you wanted to speak with him?”
But Peony had already vanished out the door without another word.
It wasn’t until Peony was back in her room, sprawled out loose-limbed her single bed, that she figured out exactly why she was so upset.
It had been a shock, certainly, to see another side of him--but then, she hadn’t even known his name before tonight. Back during that fateful college visit last year, she’d spent maybe five minutes with him, total, which wasn’t enough to get to know someone even in passing. And yet, here she’d been convinced that she did know him, that he was a kind-hearted, good-natured person who would immediately agree to be her friend...and maybe more.
She’d been a fool. A naive, stupid, child who’d written him into the role of some romantic hero, all because he’d done one nice thing, one time.
But what had really gotten to her was...some of what Alex had said to that caller hit home with her, too. A lot of it. Far more than she wanted to admit to herself even now. She’d chosen this college for a lot of reasons, but the fact remained that one of those reasons was because she’d hoped to see him again. Which...was kinda a little bit stalkerish. And weird. And probably more than a little obsessive. She could deny it all she liked, but Peony knew she’d only be lying to herself, and that didn’t help anyone, herself least of all.
Heaving a long, low sigh, she started to roll onto her side--then stopped when she heard crinkling paper. Sitting up, she found with some surprise that she still had the poster of Alex she’d swiped from the bulletin board. Funny, she hadn’t remembered picking it up again before she left the campus radio station. Then again, everything from the time she’d taken off that headset in the control room up until to the moment she’d slipped back inside the front entrance of her dorm was little more than a blur.
Holding it up again, this time she found herself staring at the messily drawn-on horns and the sharpie-subtitle that was, she’d learned tonight, extremely accurate. (What was it Chisomo had said when she'd seen it? ‘Definitely one of the most fitting’? Well, that was for sure.) But even so… Even so, he hadn’t been wrong. His advice had been harsh, and condescending, and utterly unsympathetic, but...not wrong.
His advice to her half a year ago hadn’t been wrong, either. And thinking back on it now, it had also been blunt and unsolicited, which was actually pretty rude coming from a complete stranger… But she’d taken it to heart regardless, and it had given her the shove necessary to better herself, for the sake of her own happiness and self-satisfaction. She wouldn’t’ve had half as much fun--no, not even a quarter, probably not even a tenth as much fun--during the last part of her senior year if she’d never run into him, if he’d never said those words to her.
Still, her first impulse was to rip the poster in half, crumple it up the rest of the way, then toss it in the garbage--satisfyingly symbolic, since her expectations of Alex had gone through something similar not even half an hour ago. And yet, as her hands settled side by side at the top of the poster, some part of her wavered. Unbidden, her eyes found that familiar (and honestly too-pretty) face, and the half-smirk that looked a lot more arrogant and cavalier now that she knew what his true personality was like.
No, she decided at last. The poster would be a good reminder, a private and personal reality check. She wouldn’t throw it away. But she couldn’t exactly hang it up on her wall, either, for several reasons…
In the end, she settled for putting it up on the back wall of her closet--a place where she would see it at least once every day, but no one else should ever see it. That done, Peony wearily climbed back into bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin and lying still, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander. Unsurprisingly it decided to hover on the events at the radio station tonight, specifically that call...at which point she wished she could pull the covers higher, the better to hide from everyone, including herself. The more she thought about it, the more her insides shriveled up and withered away at the unfortunate parallels she could draw all too easily between herself and that stalkerish caller.
Maybe she should just suffocate herself with her own pillow and be done with it.
...Or maybe she should take his advice again instead. Maybe she should just get over it.
Her eyes snapped open again, staring up at the ceiling unseeingly and unfocused, as she considered that idea. Get over it...either get over my self-consciousness once and for all and actually talk to him, or...get over it and stop thinking about him entirely. In any capacity, for any reason.
She wasn’t certain which was the better option. On one hand, distancing herself from the whole thing was tempting, the secret burial of a past private shame. On the other hand, there was nothing to be afraid of here. She’d grown so much in the past few months, and this was (probably) just the sort of difficulty that would help her grow even more: facing a previous mistake head-on and owning it before discarding it completely.
Yes, that decided it. Between her classes tomorrow, she would look into applying at the radio station as support staff. Chisomo had been running the control room by herself late at night, after all, so there were probably some openings, and while Peony’s family was comfortably upper-middle class and Peony had gotten a generous scholarship, a few work study hours wouldn’t hurt either. Just like her choice to attend Carrington in the first place, it was just a bonus that she’d have the chance--or excuse--to talk to Alex.
Although that possibility brought up a whole new set of questions and things to consider. What was it, exactly, that she had wanted from him in the first place? Or if not ‘in the first place,’ then what did she want from him now? It wasn’t that she wanted to date him or anything of the sort, regardless of those idle fantasies she’d had a few months back; he’d simply been an interesting and attractive (and also completely unreachable and therefore non-threatening) older boy, which made him prime daydream material. His unapologetically edgy style had only fed into the fantasy, lending a thrill of danger to it all, and his unexpected kindness had settled him in the stereotypical ‘bad boy with a heart of gold’ role.
But she hadn’t known him. And now that she did...no, she definitely didn’t want to date him. (Even if part of her did have to admit even now that he was unfairly attractive...looks weren’t everything. Besides, new and more self-confident outlook on life or not, Peony didn’t know if she could deal with having a boyfriend who was prettier than she was, and with minimal effort on his part, too.) She wasn’t interested in anything temporary and casual either--one night stands had never held even the most remote bit of romance or allure for her. She wanted something solid and steady, like what her parents and older siblings had.
Truthfully, she wasn’t certain that she even wanted to be his friend anymore. Someone that sharp-tongued and dismissive probably didn’t have many friends anyway, no matter how clever they were, or how popular their radio show might be. Chisomo clearly spent a lot of time around him, and if her attitude towards Alex was anything to go by, being on that short list would be more of a mixed curse than a mixed blessing.
Really, it was more like...she wanted his approval. His acknowledgement of how drastically she’d changed herself. She wanted him to recognize just how far she’d come, to commend her for growing up and for not letting herself be so afraid of nothing.
She wanted him to smile at her, like he had before, and tell her that he was glad she was looking forward now instead of looking down.
More than likely, that was another impossible dream...but then again, finding him again at all had been ‘impossible’ too, hadn’t it, and she’d managed that despite the crazy odds stacked against her. In any case, she was too young and had too much untapped potential still to let herself believe anything like that was 100% impossible.
It could happen. It could. It might not be likely, but this wasn’t something that she was ready to give up on.
...And after all, Peony told herself as her eyes drifted closed once more, I can’t let this go just yet. I mean, I still haven’t ever thanked him.
“...Hey, Mom? Um...I think...we’re lost.”
Carrington University wasn’t huge, as colleges went. It wasn’t small, by any means, but it wasn’t as large as some of the sprawling state schools they’d visited before. But even so, apparently it was just large enough that Peony McKinney and her mother had managed to get separated from their tour group, and thus also thoroughly lost.
The tour group leader’s badge had read Bianca Jackson, and her most noticeable features had been her blonde ponytail, her mischievously sparkling sea green eyes, and the playful, joking tone she’d taken while showing them around campus. “Just like Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did backwards, in heels, I’m gonna show you guys the abridged version of ‘everything worth seeing here at Carrington University’--while walking backwards the whole time. Thank you, but please, hold your applause.” Peony had found herself smiling at the other girl’s energetic running commentary, even enjoying it, but Peony’s mother had huffed and snorted and asked questions designed to trip her up. Bianca had just smiled and fielded each of the questions easily, or else deflected them with a humorous response. She’d seemed unaffected by the would-be ill intent behind the questions, and kept the tour rolling and the group moving from place to place (literally) without breaking stride.
...Although, Peony thought with a quiet sigh, that’s probably why she didn’t have any problem ‘accidentally’ leaving us behind when Mom took too long back in the library...
“Mom?” Peony tried again, taking a hesitant half-step closer to her mother. Peony looked like a younger, smaller, bespectacled version of Helene McKinney. They both had long brown hair, though Helene’s was generally swept up in a fancy, curly updo that required a lot of hairspray while Peony left hers down, the better to hide behind. Both had denim-blue eyes (not that anyone could see Peony’s behind her hair or the thick lenses of her glasses), both had a curvy body type, and both had the warm olive skin, the dark, pronounced brows, and the long, straight nose of Helene’s Greek forebears. Their likeness was even more pronounced today since both wore floral-print skirts paired with a matching cardigan over a plain white collared shirt. But appearance was where their likenesses ended; while Peony was shy and quiet almost to the point of muteness, Helene was loud, talkative, and opinionated, the classic example of ‘mother knows best’--which was the polite way of saying that she was more than a little bossy.
“...Mom...we’re totally lost…”
Helene only briefly looked up from her examination of the ornate plaque bolted to a fountain sculpture. “Nonsense, sweetie,” she said with a careless wave, returning her attention to the time-and-elements-darkened bronze. “They might have expanded things a little bit since I graduated twenty years ago, but I’m sure I can still find my way around. After all, wouldn’t you much rather see the places your parents spent time together when we went here instead of wherever that snippy little tour guide wanted to take us?”
No, Peony wanted to say, I wanted to stay with the group and see the whole campus, and also not have to worry about missing the next point on the college visitation schedule. She didn’t say any of that aloud, though--she knew that even if she did, her mother wasn’t listening any more. That was just what life was like for Peony: no one really listened to her, or even particularly noticed her, not even her own parents.
Case in point, the way she’d been bumped into at least half a dozen times already just this morning, twice hard enough that the folder she’d been clutching to her chest had been knocked out of her arms. Thankfully, the papers inside it hadn’t fallen out-
As if on cue, another careless shove from a guy the size of a small gorilla sent her stumbling again, and this time--of course--the folder happened to open as she dropped it. An errant breeze hit it at just that moment, at just the right angle, sending her scampering after the scattered papers as her mother called over to her, “Peony, honey, come on now, hurry up! I’m going to look at that map over there and figure out where we need to go next. We were supposed to meet up with all the other tour groups in about five minutes, and we don’t want to be late!”
The sidewalks, nearly empty moments before, were suddenly packed with students hurrying to and from their classes--all of them seemingly in too big of a hurry to stop and help an obviously floundering visiting high school student. Peony’s face burned as she scooped up the gathered papers and stuffed them back into the folder, standing and scanning the area for some sign of her mother. I don’t even go here yet, and I’m already an invisible loser. Maybe this is where I belong...
“Are you looking for your tour group, or the Welcome Center?”
Peony gave a startled squeak when the unexpected voice came from right behind her, narrowly avoided dropping both her folder and the newly gathered papers, and spun around so quickly that her glasses nearly slipped right off her face. A bit shakily, she pushed them back up her nose and blinked owlishly through the thick lenses at the person who’d spoken.
It was a short, slim boy who looked to be about her age, if not younger, and he was undeniably good-looking, though ‘pretty’ was a much more suitable descriptor than ‘handsome’. He had pale skin and large grey eyes fringed about with unfairly dark, thick lashes, as well as a spattering of freckles that stood out across his cute snub nose and cheekbones, but none of that was the most striking thing about his appearance. What really caught her attention was the light, shaggy hair halfway-escaping from under a beanie, hair that somehow looked white, grey, and blue all at once, followed by the rings in his lip, one eyebrow, and spiraling down his ears. The low-cut v-neck of his black and white striped shirt revealed a few inky letters twisting their way across his collarbones, there were an alarming number of buckles and straps and chains on his pants, and a battered pair of combat boots that looked like they might’ve actually been through a real war completed the stranger’s rather daunting appearance.
He looked, Peony concluded with a sharp pang of anxious dismay, exactly like some of the worst troublemakers at her high school--the type who turned sullen glares on everyone who met their eye, always gave the teachers a hard time, and often skipped class entirely (to drink and smoke weed behind the school, vandalize cars, or sometimes to do even worse things, according to the student rumor-mill). They mostly left people alone, and she hadn’t seen or heard of them ever bullying anyone for money or answers to homework or other things, but they still spooked her with their defiant fashion style and unapproachable attitudes. She’d succeeded in avoiding contact with them for all of her almost-four-years of high school, and they’d left her alone as well.
Until now. Now, Peony found herself caught between the desire to freeze in place, to back away slowly, or to simply turn and run, regardless of how rude that might be. The strange boy must have seen the rising panic on her face, however, and he must’ve been used to that kind of reaction to his appearance also, because both his pale eyes and the sudden crooked smile he gave her were unexpectedly, arrestingly kind--enough so that Peony’s initial urge to bolt faded away completely.
“Whoa, hey now,” he said with a low chuckle, spreading his hands in gesture of reassurance. “Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I’m a student here, so if you’re lost I can probably help.” His voice was a rich, calming tenor with just a hint of gravelly roughness to it, and Peony found herself relaxing as she listened to him speak. “Is that your mom over there?” he asked, nodding to one side.
Peony followed his gaze over to a signboard that sported an extra-large map of the campus, and sure enough there was Helene, pacing back and forth and peering up at the map and then down at the sheaf of papers in her hands with obvious agitation. Flushing red to the tips of her ears, Peony gave a silent, sheepish nod, then concentrated on staring down at the toes of her shoes, willing herself to sink into the ground and disappear rather than face this sort of embarrassment any longer. It shouldn’t be hard to stay with a tour group, but somehow they’d still managed to get lost. If only she hadn’t let her mother get sidetracked by that fountain, or those flowerbeds, or that new piece of modern lawn art, or especially the old photos in the library...
There was no way that the strange punk boy could have missed her self-conscious mortification; but for some reason, he didn’t say anything about it, or even tell her to look up at him.
“Let me see that informational folder you’ve got while you go get your mom. Okay?”
Peony gave her shoes another nod before swiftly ducking away towards the signboard, where she tugged at her mother’s sleeve until Helene turned to look at her. Peony hesitated then, unsure how exactly to explain that a kindly-seeming delinquent had offered to guide them to the Aserinsky Auditorium, wherever that was. As it turned out, though, she didn’t have to explain anything: instead of waiting for her back where they’d first spoken, the boy had followed after her, standing only a few feet away and watching her attentively, her informational folder in his hands, though he stepped forward (rather boldly, Peony thought) to address her mother a moment later.
“Ma’am? According to this schedule, you’re headed for the Aserinsky Auditorium next, right?” Without waiting for an answer from either of them, the boy handed the folder back to Peony and beckoned for them to follow him, absently shifting the messenger bag slung across his lean body as he went. “That’s in the Kleitman Building, right this way. I’ll show you.”
Peony’s mother gave the delinquent-looking boy’s retreating back a startled blink, her eyes moving from him to Peony and back, obviously confused about what was going on, but (would wonders never cease) she followed after him without protest. Peony could see Helene examining the boy’s outfit more closely with something of a mystified expression, though that didn’t stop her from hurrying to walk beside him (Peony noted with something like bemusement that in her best heels, Helene had a good four inches on their student-saviour), peppering him with inquiries about other places and points on their itinerary. The boy answered her rapid-fire questions easily and with a great deal more patience than Peony would’ve expected from someone with his kind of appearance, though she still breathed an inward sigh of relief when Helene’s phone buzzed, pulling her attention away from their self-appointed guide. The punk boy took that as an opportunity to turn another of those crooked smiles over his shoulder at her, and Peony couldn’t completely hide the way she flinched reflexively when his attention settled on her.
Even though he undoubtedly noticed her reaction, he didn’t seem to hold it against her, his half-smile remaining composed and gentle as he said, “You’re headed to lunch after this, right? Here, let me see your campus map.”
Unquestioningly, Peony dug it out of the folder and passed it over to the pale-haired boy, who had produced a pen from some pocket hidden amongst the chains and straps and buckles of his pants. Taking the map and uncapping the pen with his teeth, he unfolded and then re-folded the large rectangle of paper back down to a smaller, more manageable size--but with the path between the auditorium they were headed towards and the cafeteria now clearly marked in blue pen. The boy shifted the map a bit, making it rest a bit more firmly on the textbook in his arms as he scribbled a few more notes on the map, all without breaking stride or really slowing down.
“So. In the cafeteria, you’d think that pizza would be a safe bet, right? Wrong. Here, it can easily range from ‘unbelievably great’ to ‘utter garbage’. So unless you do choose to come to Carrington University and learn which of the pizza station cooks are the best ones, take my advice and steer clear of that one.”
He suddenly turned a glance sideways at her, giving her a small but shockingly warm full smile as he handed the map back to her, and Peony felt a strange flutter in her chest as her blue eyes met the boy’s pale grey ones, as their hands briefly touched during the map exchange.
“My recommendation would be the build-a-burger station. They have meat and vegetarian options, they keep the freshly-made patties in a fridge behind the counter, and they only take them out when someone asks for one. You get to watch them fry it up for you right there, however well done you want it, then you can take your pick of buns and toppings and condiments.” His eyes dropped back to the map in her hand, and he pointed at what he’d written as he went on, “The sandwich station is also pretty good--they have great turkey wraps, five different kinds of peanut butter, and about twelve kinds of jelly. But!” Here he leaned in just a bit, and there was a playful glint in his eyes as he stage-whispered, as if to keep Peony’s mom from overhearing, “The soft-serve ice cream is the one thing you shouldn’t miss. It’s almost as good as what they’ve got at the local mom-and-pop ice cream place, Fifty Ways To Sundae, and here it’s all-you-can-eat for free, which makes it perfect for poor, starving college students. And soon-to-be poor, starving college students. And probably former poor, starving college students also,” he added with a brief look over at Helene.
Peony dipped her head to signal understanding and attempted a smile, which she was certain came out more like a nervous, uneven grimace, but the punk boy had already moved on, striding forward down the sidewalk as confidently as if he owned it, and Peony had to hurry to make sure she didn’t fall behind again.
It turned out that they weren’t nearly as lost as it had seemed: less than a minute later, they were entering the Kleitman Building. The punk boy held the door for her and her mother and few other people too before slipping inside to guide them down a long hallway and around a corner, stopping before the open double-doors of an amphitheater-style room, full of descending rows of chairs that looked like movie theatre seating. Peony instantly recognized their tour guide standing down at the front of the room, Bianca’s blonde ponytail bobbing energetically as she answered questions from the mob of parents and prospective students surrounding her and a few of the other badged campus tour guides.
Peony’s mother saw her, too. “Finally! Come on, Peony, I’m going to give that girl a piece of my mind for leaving us behind! Oh, and I want to know more about the dorms also. We missed that part of the tour, and I won’t have you put up in some shoddy co-ed place when I know they were supposed to have completed a nice new girls-only dorm last year! Unless you do end up joining my sorority, that is...” With a curt nod towards the punk boy, Helene bustled off down the aisle, still muttering to herself. Peony winced inwardly as she imagined all the questions her mother would doubtless ask Bianca, most of which the girl probably had no way of knowing. Swallowing hard, she gave the punk boy a shamefaced nod, then turned to start the long trudge down the center aisle, following after Helene.
“Hey, wait a sec.”
Peony hadn’t been expecting the delinquent-looking student to say anything else--after her mother’s constant questions and her own shyness-induced silence, he should be glad to be rid of them both by now, shouldn’t he?--and stumbled a bit as she stopped midstride. A black-nailed hand reached out and caught her elbow, steadying her and making her freeze again in the same instant, and she turned a startled look back at the punk boy.
His hand didn’t linger, maintaining contact only long enough to ensure that she wasn’t going to fall before drawing away to be casually shoved back into a pants pocket; the sensation of his touch lingered on her skin, however, in a most puzzling fashion.
“Steady there, still not gonna bite. You okay?”
Though she was starting to feel like a bobblehead doll, Peony gave yet another nod, this time managing to look somewhere besides the toes of her shoes, focusing with difficulty not quite on the punk boy’s eyes, but on his eyebrow ring. (That was still an improvement, right? At least it was somewhere on his face...)
The punk boy huffed a quiet laugh, and she couldn’t keep herself from looking him in the eye then, too startled to remember to keep her focus on that bit of jewelry instead.
“Hey, keep your chin up.” The boy inclined his head towards the cluster of people farther into the room, into which Peony’s mother had by now disappeared. “The tour leaders aren’t always as attentive as they should be, so don’t feel bad about getting separated from the group and turned around. You’re the fourth one Jackson’s lost this month. And it’s only the 8th. The month is young, so I’m sure she’ll manage to misplace many, many more prospective students before the campus visits are over…” He shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips as his eyes found the ponytailed tour guide. “I’d make a blonde joke, but it’s not true in her case. Which makes the lack of responsibility even worse, really.”
Shaking his head again, he flicked those pale eyes back onto Peony, and once again she found herself freezing in place, like a rabbit hoping to avoid the attention of a wolf. But once again, instead of calling her on it, he just flashed her another crooked smile, his hands moving to the headphones hanging around his neck, poised to place them over his ears again. “See ya around, maybe. Good luck.”
Turning, he took two steps, then pivoted back around suddenly, lowering his headphones again as he called back to her, “Also...word of advice. Learn to be a little more confident in yourself. It’s a big world and there’s a lot to see, and it’s all a lot brighter and more interesting if you’re looking at something other than your shoes.” He gave another faint smirk, paired with a careless-seeming shrug. “I mean...really. What are you so afraid of?”
And without backward glance, he slipped his headphones on and melted away into the crowd of people moving past the auditorium’s open doors, vanishing completely within seconds.
Only minutes later, after she’d settled into a chair beside Helene, did Peony realize that she hadn’t thanked him, or even so much as asked his name.
Peony had never really paid enough attention to boys to have a type. Of course, she’d ogled members of her school’s various sports teams and had celebrity crushes, the same as any teen or pre-teen. But she was timid and withdrawn, and very nearly friendless because of it. She’d never been asked out or given any real thought to having a boyfriend--she’d been far too busy with school, homework, various extracurriculars, cello lessons, and helping her mom and two older sisters by babysitting her three nephews. Still, she was pretty certain that scary punk boys weren’t her type, whatever it might be. Even if they had gone out of their way to be helpful, and had an unexpectedly kind smile, and really beautiful eyes. Even then, she definitely, definitely wouldn’t let herself get hung up on wondering what it would be like to kiss someone with a lip ring, or finding out whether his short, shaggy hair was still soft despite being dyed that strange blue-grey, or absently imagining tracing a finger over the tattooed letters curving along his clavicles.
Hey, keep your chin up. Those words echoed through her mind the whole rest of the tour and the entire three-hour drive home, though the rest of what he’d said resounded even louder, especially that last line: What are you so afraid of?
It was a good question.
Being noticed, was her first, immediate answer, but on further contemplation, Peony knew that wasn’t actually the truth.
The truth, she thought to herself as she methodically packed her bag for school the next day, is that I’m afraid of putting myself out there...and not being noticed at all, by anyone. It was safer to hide, to pretend she didn’t want anyone to see her. At least then it was her choice to be ignored.
Learn to be a little more confident in yourself. Easy for him to say--even without his stand-out style of clothing, the punk boy had had an air about him that drew her in. Something about his voice made her want to listen to him, to pay attention to what he was saying.
It’s a big world and there’s a lot to see… That much was definitely true, though. Nevermind the rest of the world, there were a lot of things she hadn’t done in just her small corner of it, a lot of things she honestly wanted to do. A lot of things...that were probably within her grasp, if she’d only try to reach for them.
...And it’s all a lot brighter and more interesting if you’re looking at something other than your shoes. She was tired of always looking down, Peony realized belatedly. She wanted to take the punk boy’s advice and keep her chin up. She wanted to see the bright, interesting things all around her, not just the small, dull space of ground in front of her where her foot would land next.
And so finally, she asked herself again: What are you so afraid of?
And this time, she decided to change her answer. This time, she decided to say to herself: Nothing that’s worth being so unhappy.
The very next day, Peony joined the drama club, signing up for the spring play try-outs as well. Telling herself to be brave, she put everything she had into that audition, and to her lasting surprise, she managed to land a decent role, despite the fact that she was an unknown senior who’d never so much as posted a flyer for the drama club before. She switched from glasses to contacts--they were much more comfortable, she found, even if putting them in was a pain; she also went to get her hair cut at a real salon for the first time in years and started painted her nails bright colours, all steps toward making it more difficult to let herself blend into the background, if she did fall back into her old habits. She started to choose her own clothes instead of letting her mother pick everything for her, got her driver’s license, and started to raise her hand in class instead of sitting in silent dread and waiting to be called on. She finally managed to strike up a conversation with two other senior girls in her study hall who she’d always wanted to talk to, but had always been too shy and scared to approach. She successfully asked her lab partner to prom, and they went with a group of people from the drama club, which had accepted her with open arms. She didn’t get named prom queen or anything so dramatic--she wasn’t even in the running--but she felt like a princess that night, which was all that mattered to her. Peony felt particularly proud about that day, because aside from looking down to unbuckle and kick off her shoes (the better to dance more freely), she spent the whole night without looking down at her feet even once.
Peony did choose Carrington University in the end, as it turned out. They’d offered her the best scholarship, and considering that her parents were both Carrington alumni, she had more interesting options there than she’d had anywhere else.
It had nothing at all to do with the fact that there was a certain delinquent punk boy who went there. Nothing at all. (Well, maybe it had a little to do with that, but it definitely wasn’t the deciding factor--just a bonus in addition to all the other pros Carrington could offer.)
Once she was actually there, on campus, fully moved into her dorm room and registered for her classes and everything, Peony realized that finding one person on a campus of thousands was easier said than done, even if he was an eye-catching delinquent-looking punk boy. Just asking around about a punk guy with blue-grey hair wasn’t likely to get her very far, and she didn’t know how to do that anyway without sounding weird or stalkerish (which...it kind of would be, really). Plus, it was a big campus, so there were probably a fair number of guys with blue hair--and who even knew if that punk boy’s hair was still blue now, of it he’d dyed it some other color? It could be pink, green, purple, any color really, or maybe he’d just gone back to his natural hair color, whatever that was. Additionally, she couldn’t be certain that he still went to Carrington at all. He could’ve transferred, or dropped out, or even graduated, though he’d looked more like a highschooler than she, the actual highschooler, had, so she kind of doubted that last option. Still, stranger things had happened, and she had no real way of knowing anything for certain.
Really, her only choice was to give up on him. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for him--she might get lucky and run into him again that way--but the odds were against it, and Peony knew that she couldn’t really even let herself hope that it might happen. College life was a new “world” that was full of new, bright, interesting things and people; she couldn’t let herself be hung up on some guy she’d met once and had no way of contacting, no real hope of ever seeing again. It didn’t matter that his words had stuck with her, challenging her until they’d become the catalyst for a pretty significant change in her life, that they had been exactly what she’d needed to hear at exactly the right time. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t gotten the chance to thank him.
No. She’d started to move on from who she’d been when she’d met him. Now she had to move on from who she’d been when she’d had a misplaced crush on him, a definitely-not-her-type guy who had been nothing more than a kind stranger. She had to let him go.
It was pure chance, the way she finally found him again.
Stumbling back to bed after a late night trip to the bathroom, Peony happened to turn a bleary glance at the cheerfully-decorated “announcements” corkboard that covered a large part of her dorm wing’s hallway. The centerpiece was a year-long calendar that they could flip through to write in dates that were important enough to each of them and that they wanted to share them with their floor-mates, but there were all sorts of other flyers, posters, and notices pinned to the board as well: art exhibitions, classical concerts, frat parties, rock shows, tutoring, feng shui consultations, and more. Peony looked it over dutifully most every day when she came back from class, but although the flyer advertising a casting call for the campus theatre troupe’s winter play caught her eye, she knew better than to overextend herself during her first semester of college. She was already “rushing”--attending various parties and events, trying to get into her mother’s sorority--and that took up a lot of her free time, so she’d promised herself that she could try out for the spring musical, even though she couldn’t really sing. That brief break should let her find her stride here at Carrington, to know what she could and couldn’t fit into her schedule without letting her grades suffer.
If her sleep-blurred, wandering eyes hadn’t turned up to cast a reflexive, longing look at that theatre troupe flyer as she passed the board, she might never have seen it. But something else had been pinned to the board since she’d last looked at it, something that hung at a slightly haphazard angle, crookedly clipping over a portion of the theatre poster and a few other notices. It was a little crumpled on the bottom edge, and it had obviously been folded into quarters at one point before being half-heartedly smoothed out and pinned in place, but even in the dim light of the hallway, the bold lettering across the top--ALEX TELLS IT LIKE IT IS--was easily legible. The picture of the person beneath it was easy to see, too, though the rest of the poster was hard to make out...not that Peony was looking at the rest of it, or anything at all save that unexpectedly familiar face.
For a long moment, Peony could only gape up at the poster--it was so sudden, so utterly unbelievable that she would find him again like this, and here, of all places. But it was unmistakable: the large, expressive eyes with their dark lashes, the snub nose and its smattering of freckles, the blue-grey hair, the wry half-smirk that twisted his mouth, the various facial piercings, and especially that tattoo curling across his collarbones, all of it made her certain that it was without a doubt the same punk boy from college visitation day.
...So his name is ‘Alex,’ huh...
Turning a furtive glance down the hallway, Peony hurriedly un-tacked the poster, then darted back to her room as quickly and quietly as possible. Lia, her roommate, muttered something in her sleep and rolled over as Peony carefully closed the door, then moved to the window, taking advantage of the moonlight to get a better, longer look at the poster she’d stolen.
It was an advertisement for the college radio station, specifically for the late-late-show time slot, which the punk boy--Alex--apparently filled with a mixture of music and some sort of talk show. Midnight to 2:00 a.m., Peony read, then looked at the glowing green numbers on her digital bedside clock: 1:17 a.m.
Which meant that he’d be there, at the campus radio station, right now.
Peony hardly remembered getting dressed--slipping into her nearest pair of jeans, throwing a cardigan on over the tank top half of her pajamas, grabbing her glasses, scooping up a pair of ballet flats, grabbing her keys, all of that was a blur--and she was halfway across campus when she realized that she wasn’t wearing any make-up, or her contacts, and that her hair was probably a mess. But it was too late to worry about any of that--the eerily-lit face of the campus clock tower read 1:26, and if she went back now and tried to fix herself up the way she usually did, it would be well after 2:00 a.m. by the time she reached the campus radio station. The poster had said that the show was a live broadcast, and that it was on-air every weekday night, plus an every-other-Saturday special that focused more on campus events and personalities. Tonight was a Tuesday (or Wednesday, technically), so he’d be there again the next night...but Peony couldn’t let herself put it off. This intriguing stranger, the subject of her absurd, impossible, half-year-long obsession, was abruptly and unexpectedly within her grasp, and even though she knew it was more than a little crazy, she couldn’t stop herself. She’d waited too long for this, told herself to stop hoping for too long, and waiting another day would drive her even more crazy.
When Peony finally stepped into the radio station, panting a little and still clutching the poster in both hands, she found herself standing in front of what looked like a battered receptionist’s desk in a smallish room that felt--and looked--rather like a waiting room at a doctor’s office. There were a few low chairs and tables with magazines strewn across them, though they were titles like Rolling Stone, Billboard, MixMag, and AMP! instead of healthcare-related things. Three of the walls were covered in neatly framed posters advertising various past and present radio shows and pictures of all sorts of musicians, many of which had obviously been taken on-campus; the far wall, behind the desk, was entirely taken up by shelves and shelves of CDs and vinyl records. Peony could only stare, though her attention was soon drawn sideways to a poster that matched the one she held in her hands, albeit in much better condition.
...Also, she only now noticed, frowning slightly as she looked down at the poster in her hands, it looked like someone had drawn devil-horns on Alex’s head, though the graffiti had stopped there, without giving him a mustache or an eyepatch or any of the other usual photograph defacements. They had written a message across the bottom in thick black sharpie, though, and she was surprised that she hadn’t noticed it until now: If the Devil Himself ran Dear Abby. Peony’s frown deepened, her expression going pensive. That didn’t make any sense. He’d seemed more than nice enough to her...so why would-?
“Can I help you?”
Peony gave a start, jerking around towards the desk, which she was certain had been empty a moment before. Now a tall, statuesque girl with ebony skin and stylishly close-cropped hair stood behind it, arms crossed loosely over her chest as she looked across the room at Peony. The girl arched an elegant eyebrow just slightly as her gaze dropped to the poster Peony still clutched to her middle, and a hint of a smile turned the corners of her full lips upwards just slightly.
“Not the most artistic edit of that poster I have ever seen, but definitely one of the most fitting.” She shook her head with something like disapproval, or perhaps annoyance, and the almost-smile disappeared. Then her other eyebrow joined the first as she studied Peony more closely. “We do not usually get visitors here this late. Did you need something?”
“N-no...well, a-actually, I…”
The dark-skinned girl was beautiful, easily one of the loveliest people Peony had ever seen, which was more than a little intimidating. Before she’d set out to find her real self, Peony had often felt mousy and plain, if not outright dumpy even at the best of times; she’d improved in that area, but sometimes it was hard not to go right back to feeling that way when she was around someone as stunning as this tall, model-thin girl. Still, she forced herself to put that feeling aside and took a steadying breath, pushing down her excitement and nervousness and the sickish feeling that they made when combined, and squared her shoulders determinedly.
“I’m here because I wanted to talk to him! To Alex, I mean.”
“You want to talk to him? Huh. Well, that is definitely a first.”
Peony blinked, her confusion showing on her face, and at that, the other girl gave her a companionable smile.
“Heh, not really. He’s got all the callers he can fit into his time slot, with more to spare, damn him.” Crossing the room, the girl held out her hand with the casual ease of a veteran businessman. “I am Chisomo, the student program director here at the Carrington campus radio station. In plain English, that means I am in charge of organizing all the programs we air, which makes me sort of, but not exactly, Alex’s boss.”
From Chisomo’s tone of voice and the thinning of her lips, Peony could tell that neither party was particularly thrilled with that arrangement. “Peony,” she said simply by way of introduction, taking the other girl’s hand, “Peony McKinney.” Then her curiosity won out against her better judgement, because she found herself saying, “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
Chisomo gave a softly-snorted chuckle, a glint of something like admiration for Peony’s bold line of questioning in her dark eyes. “Yes. Not exactly, because we are also classmates, and this is a work study program, so it is not like I actually hired him in the first place. That was all Dr. de Forest’s doing...and Connor’s, too.” Those last few words were muttered to herself, almost quietly enough that Peony didn’t catch them, and this time her tone of voice told Peony that if she’d had her way, Chisomo wouldn’t have hired Alex in a million years.
“Dr. de Forest? Who’s that?” Well, he was clearly a professor, Peony thought with an inward wince at asking such a stupid question, and he was also clearly someone who had a lot of say there at the campus radio station. She didn’t ask who Connor was, since she got the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to have heard that at all, but she filed the name away for future reference.
“Dr. de Forest is one of the Communications professors here, and the station manager,” Chisomo answered, and to her credit, there wasn’t so much as a hint of condescension in her tone. She glanced down at the watch on her wrist, then back up at Peony with a faint smile. “The half-hour commercial break is over, so I need to get back to the control room, but...since you are such a big fan,” her eyes lingered on the poster in Peony’s hands meaningfully, “Maybe you would like to join me for a sneak peek behind the scenes...on the condition that you touch nothing and stay completely silent.” The tall girl’s voice had gone cold and hard as iron, a sharp light in her dark eyes reflecting the same as they searched Peony’s face. “You can talk to Alex after he is off the air if you like, but there will be no interruptions during the program, or I will toss you out of here myself. Deal?”
Peony swallowed hard as another wave of excitement and nausea rippled through her--but she stopped herself from simply giving a silent nod in reply. “Deal,” she said stoutly, and with as much gravitas as she could muster.
Chisomo flashed her an approving smile and led her back through the door behind the desk, down a short, dark hallway, and into another dimly-lit room that was obviously the control room. A huge console with a dizzying number of switches, buttons, and faders took up a good half of the small space, the rest of it filled with filing cabinets, a computer console, and two rolling chairs, presumably for whoever was working the console. That other chair was empty, but Chisomo moved to the console with confidence, seemingly unconcerned about not having anyone there to help. She gestured for Peony to sit on a small stool back by the door, then put on a set of radio-operator-style headphones and turned her attention through the window into the next room.
Peony sank onto the stool obediently, momentarily unsure about what to do with the poster in her hands--would rolling it up count as making too much noise?--but then she followed Chisomo’s gaze and looked through the glass, into the live studio...and for a moment, everything else faded into the background, because there, at long last, was Alex.
His body language was a study in relaxation, his lean, compact frame draped almost casually over the chair, the posture of someone who feels completely at ease in their current situation. A headset identical to the one Chisomo wore was clamped over his ears atop that artfully messy blue-grey hair that was, this time, half-hidden by the hood of a black jacket with extra long sleeves. He was also wearing a plain charcoal-grey scoop-necked shirt with several uneven holes riddling the neckline, matching lip rings on either side of his mouth, and a studded leather collar-like choker. His expression was one of faint, sardonic amusement, one eyebrow raised, one corner of that perfectly-shaped mouth pulling upwards just slightly as he listened to whatever his current caller was saying. He was seated at a console like the one in the control room, though it was a little smaller, and there was a microphone fixed prominently in front of him. Black-nailed fingers moved with assurance, adjusting something here, lowering something else there, and he filled the space in between by silently tapping the pads of his fingers on the desk in front of him, as if he were mentally playing a piano.
Peony could only stare at him with a look approaching reverence, hardly able to believe that she’d really and truly found him again.
Chisomo happened to glance back at her at that moment, gave a roll of her eyes and a tight-lipped shake her head at the girl’s moonstruck expression, then waved a hand in front of her face until Peony blinked and looked her way. Beckoning her closer, the student program director plugged in another headset, then held it out to her. Peony hesitated for only the briefest of seconds before taking them with almost fumbling eagerness, slipping the headset on just in time to hear a familiar voice say in a completely unfamiliar sarcastic drawl:
“...Oh-hoooh yeah, I’ve been listening, and I have just three words for you, ‘girlfriend’: Totally. Fucking. Pathetic.”
Peony felt herself stop breathing for a second, as if her current lungful of air had gotten caught in her chest somehow. Breathing didn’t get any easier as she listened to the rest of what Alex had to say to his latest caller, hands coming up to press the headset tighter against her ears:
“You can’t just follow someone around all the time and expect them to magically notice and fall in love with you, especially if you never talk to them. Also, since you don’t seem to get it, let me explain stalking to you. It’s one thing if you know he’s probably gonna be some place and you go there too because of that--it’s toeing the line a little, sure, but you’re just creating a possible opportunity. On the other hand, it is definitely about ten steps beyond that line if you literally follow after him when he heads somewhere after class, even if it is somewhere public and popular like the student union or the racquetball courts. Also, choosing your classes based on what you know his major to be, when your major is something completely different? Changing dorms--and then your room inside that dorm--just so you can be on his ‘sister floor’? And being jealous whenever he happens to talk to another girl? Sweetheart, lemme tell ya...you’re batting 0-for-3 there.”
The voice that came over the phone in a huff was defensive and too-cutely feminine. “But--but, I love him! I just don’t know what to say! Or, um, like, how to talk to him without sounding creepy-”
Though the glass of the sound booth, Peony saw Alex roll his eyes, the side of his mouth quirking up higher in a clearly cynical smirk. “Well, for a start, don’t tell him...oh, any of this, that you just told me. Because it sounds HELLA creepy.”
There was a crackle on the other end of the phone, and what sounded like a choked sob. “B-but-”
“No. No ‘buts’. Not about this. Look, you can’t love him if you don’t actually know him, and even if you’ve read his entire goddamn Spacebook page back until he was thirteen years old, and go through his garbage regularly--and I sincerely hope you have done neither of those things--you can’t actually know him until you’ve at least talked to him a few times. So, I don’t know what your hang-up there is, if you’re just literally painfully shy or whatever, but here’s what you have to do: get over it. And what I mean by that is, either get over your crippling shyness or social anxiety or homeschooler-itis or whatever the hell it is that’s keeping you from talking to his guy like a normal person, or...get over your feelings for him. Because if you keep going on like this? He’s not going to notice you in a positive way, if he ever notices you at all, and someone else is gonna walk right up to him and ask him out, maybe right in front of you, and you’ll be shit out of luck.”
“But he should be able to FEEL my-”
Hand moving so fast that it blurred, Alex punched a button on the glowing console in front of him, and Peony jumped as a thoroughly obnoxious ‘wrong answer’ buzzer noise sounded, cutting off the caller’s words.
“NNNNNOPE. Sorry, sister, that ain’t how feelings fuckin’ work. And if you’re really so insanely delusional as to think that it is, then you know what? I’d say this guy is pretty goddamn lucky that you haven’t managed to drum up the courage to talk to him. No one needs that level of drama and ‘inevitable train wreck’ in their lives.” The caller started to sputter something indignant-sounding, but Alex pressed another couple buttons on the console and cut her off again, shaking his head as he did so, disbelief and disdain mingling in his expression. “All right, thanks for calling, but that’s all the time we have for listening to you ramble about your Fatal Attraction-level creepy crush on the supposed love of your life...whose name you probably only know from looking at the seating chart in whatever classes you share. Next caller!”
Peony felt rooted to the spot, unable to move, much less remember how to form words and put them together into coherent sentences. Her eyes had gone saucer-wide as they’d listened to Alex’s decidedly one-sided conversation with that last caller, and it was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping, literally hanging open. Chisomo let out an amused chuckle at that, and Peony slipped off the headset as she turned her astonished and half-glazed expression up at the student program director.
“Yes, that is classic Alex for you. He’s a real piece of work, both on and off the air, but his show is one of our top-rated and most-listened-to features, despite the ridiculously late time slot. It also does not hurt that he is pretty talented and mentally quick on his feet, or that his advice, while harsh, is generally exactly what the person on the other end of the line needs to hear--not that I would ever admit as much to his face. He is sure enough of himself without me adding any fuel to that ego’s fire.”
Peony swallowed hard once, then a second time, her mind reeling as she tried to equate the kind smile and friendly advice of the gentle-seeming boy who’d helped her and her mother half a year ago with the sarcastic, sharp-tongued jackass on the other side of the glass.
“...I have to go,” she finally managed to get out, her voice so low that it was nearly a whisper. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the headset again, this time for a completely different reason, passing it back to Chisomo with the care of someone handling blown glass or spun sugar--or a venomous snake.
The older student was frowning at her, confusion clear on her face, tempered with concern. “Is something wrong? I thought you wanted to speak with him?”
But Peony had already vanished out the door without another word.
It wasn’t until Peony was back in her room, sprawled out loose-limbed her single bed, that she figured out exactly why she was so upset.
It had been a shock, certainly, to see another side of him--but then, she hadn’t even known his name before tonight. Back during that fateful college visit last year, she’d spent maybe five minutes with him, total, which wasn’t enough to get to know someone even in passing. And yet, here she’d been convinced that she did know him, that he was a kind-hearted, good-natured person who would immediately agree to be her friend...and maybe more.
She’d been a fool. A naive, stupid, child who’d written him into the role of some romantic hero, all because he’d done one nice thing, one time.
But what had really gotten to her was...some of what Alex had said to that caller hit home with her, too. A lot of it. Far more than she wanted to admit to herself even now. She’d chosen this college for a lot of reasons, but the fact remained that one of those reasons was because she’d hoped to see him again. Which...was kinda a little bit stalkerish. And weird. And probably more than a little obsessive. She could deny it all she liked, but Peony knew she’d only be lying to herself, and that didn’t help anyone, herself least of all.
Heaving a long, low sigh, she started to roll onto her side--then stopped when she heard crinkling paper. Sitting up, she found with some surprise that she still had the poster of Alex she’d swiped from the bulletin board. Funny, she hadn’t remembered picking it up again before she left the campus radio station. Then again, everything from the time she’d taken off that headset in the control room up until to the moment she’d slipped back inside the front entrance of her dorm was little more than a blur.
Holding it up again, this time she found herself staring at the messily drawn-on horns and the sharpie-subtitle that was, she’d learned tonight, extremely accurate. (What was it Chisomo had said when she'd seen it? ‘Definitely one of the most fitting’? Well, that was for sure.) But even so… Even so, he hadn’t been wrong. His advice had been harsh, and condescending, and utterly unsympathetic, but...not wrong.
His advice to her half a year ago hadn’t been wrong, either. And thinking back on it now, it had also been blunt and unsolicited, which was actually pretty rude coming from a complete stranger… But she’d taken it to heart regardless, and it had given her the shove necessary to better herself, for the sake of her own happiness and self-satisfaction. She wouldn’t’ve had half as much fun--no, not even a quarter, probably not even a tenth as much fun--during the last part of her senior year if she’d never run into him, if he’d never said those words to her.
Still, her first impulse was to rip the poster in half, crumple it up the rest of the way, then toss it in the garbage--satisfyingly symbolic, since her expectations of Alex had gone through something similar not even half an hour ago. And yet, as her hands settled side by side at the top of the poster, some part of her wavered. Unbidden, her eyes found that familiar (and honestly too-pretty) face, and the half-smirk that looked a lot more arrogant and cavalier now that she knew what his true personality was like.
No, she decided at last. The poster would be a good reminder, a private and personal reality check. She wouldn’t throw it away. But she couldn’t exactly hang it up on her wall, either, for several reasons…
In the end, she settled for putting it up on the back wall of her closet--a place where she would see it at least once every day, but no one else should ever see it. That done, Peony wearily climbed back into bed, pulling the blankets up to her chin and lying still, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander. Unsurprisingly it decided to hover on the events at the radio station tonight, specifically that call...at which point she wished she could pull the covers higher, the better to hide from everyone, including herself. The more she thought about it, the more her insides shriveled up and withered away at the unfortunate parallels she could draw all too easily between herself and that stalkerish caller.
Maybe she should just suffocate herself with her own pillow and be done with it.
...Or maybe she should take his advice again instead. Maybe she should just get over it.
Her eyes snapped open again, staring up at the ceiling unseeingly and unfocused, as she considered that idea. Get over it...either get over my self-consciousness once and for all and actually talk to him, or...get over it and stop thinking about him entirely. In any capacity, for any reason.
She wasn’t certain which was the better option. On one hand, distancing herself from the whole thing was tempting, the secret burial of a past private shame. On the other hand, there was nothing to be afraid of here. She’d grown so much in the past few months, and this was (probably) just the sort of difficulty that would help her grow even more: facing a previous mistake head-on and owning it before discarding it completely.
Yes, that decided it. Between her classes tomorrow, she would look into applying at the radio station as support staff. Chisomo had been running the control room by herself late at night, after all, so there were probably some openings, and while Peony’s family was comfortably upper-middle class and Peony had gotten a generous scholarship, a few work study hours wouldn’t hurt either. Just like her choice to attend Carrington in the first place, it was just a bonus that she’d have the chance--or excuse--to talk to Alex.
Although that possibility brought up a whole new set of questions and things to consider. What was it, exactly, that she had wanted from him in the first place? Or if not ‘in the first place,’ then what did she want from him now? It wasn’t that she wanted to date him or anything of the sort, regardless of those idle fantasies she’d had a few months back; he’d simply been an interesting and attractive (and also completely unreachable and therefore non-threatening) older boy, which made him prime daydream material. His unapologetically edgy style had only fed into the fantasy, lending a thrill of danger to it all, and his unexpected kindness had settled him in the stereotypical ‘bad boy with a heart of gold’ role.
But she hadn’t known him. And now that she did...no, she definitely didn’t want to date him. (Even if part of her did have to admit even now that he was unfairly attractive...looks weren’t everything. Besides, new and more self-confident outlook on life or not, Peony didn’t know if she could deal with having a boyfriend who was prettier than she was, and with minimal effort on his part, too.) She wasn’t interested in anything temporary and casual either--one night stands had never held even the most remote bit of romance or allure for her. She wanted something solid and steady, like what her parents and older siblings had.
Truthfully, she wasn’t certain that she even wanted to be his friend anymore. Someone that sharp-tongued and dismissive probably didn’t have many friends anyway, no matter how clever they were, or how popular their radio show might be. Chisomo clearly spent a lot of time around him, and if her attitude towards Alex was anything to go by, being on that short list would be more of a mixed curse than a mixed blessing.
Really, it was more like...she wanted his approval. His acknowledgement of how drastically she’d changed herself. She wanted him to recognize just how far she’d come, to commend her for growing up and for not letting herself be so afraid of nothing.
She wanted him to smile at her, like he had before, and tell her that he was glad she was looking forward now instead of looking down.
More than likely, that was another impossible dream...but then again, finding him again at all had been ‘impossible’ too, hadn’t it, and she’d managed that despite the crazy odds stacked against her. In any case, she was too young and had too much untapped potential still to let herself believe anything like that was 100% impossible.
It could happen. It could. It might not be likely, but this wasn’t something that she was ready to give up on.
...And after all, Peony told herself as her eyes drifted closed once more, I can’t let this go just yet. I mean, I still haven’t ever thanked him.