“Are you okay?”
The voice belongs to a guy. Awesome. Today can suck a set of old man balls.
“Yeah, being top-heavy makes walking tough,” I mumble. Of course those are the first words out of my mouth. Sometimes I wish I were still as tongue-tied as I was when I was younger.
“Pardon? I didn’t catch that.”
“I’m fine, thanks. Just embarrassed.” I smooth my skirt and tip my head back. I’m short. I always have to look up. At everyone. Except for small children and pets.
The guy in front of me is only mildly blurry. It’s possible he may be cute. He’s tallish, maybe around six feet, although to be fair, almost anyone seems tall to me. His dark hair is cropped short and he’s wearing thick-rimmed black glasses. And a Hufflepuff T-shirt.
He bends to retrieve my glasses with a grimace. They’re in two pieces, and the lenses are scratched to hell. “I think you have a casualty.”
“I have spares at home.” Because I’m clumsy and this isn’t the first time I’ve landed on my own glasses—not that the spares are going to help me during this class. At least I have a break between this one and the next, so I can go home and grab a backup pair. I shove the broken glasses in the front pocket of my backpack. I don’t know why I don’t toss them in the trash. It’s not like there’s any hope of fixing them.
“Are you heading in?” My savior inclines his head toward the doors.
“Oh, yeah.” I slip my hand into my skirt pocket—all my dresses have pockets, because it’s convenient and prevents me from hand-talking—and pull out my phone. I have to bring it right up to my face to make out the time. “Crap, I have four minutes to get to class.”
“What’re you taking?”
“Costume and set design.”
“Really? Me too. We can go together.”
“Sure. Great, thank you. I’m so freaking blind without my glasses, I can’t read the numbers on the doors unless my nose is almost pressed against the wall.” That’s a slight exaggeration, but not much.
My new friend taps his glasses. “I’ll be the eyes for both of us. I’m Josiah, by the way.”
“I’m Lavender.”
“That’s a cool name.” He smiles blurrily. “It’s nice to meet you, Lavender.”
“You too, Josiah.”
We rush the rest of the way up the steps. Thankfully, our class is close to the entrance, and we slip in with a minute to spare. It smells like rich fabric and the metallic tang of electricity, sewing machines, wood, and paint.
“Oh my God,” I half moan in a whisper. “I wish I could see this room clearly. It smells like heaven.”
I follow Josiah to the blob of students arranged in a semicircle on one side of the room. We take the last two seats at the edge, and Professor Martin starts calling names. As usual, I’m last on the list.
Once roll has been called, our professor reviews the syllabus. Luckily, I have a tablet, and Josiah lends me his glasses for a minute so I can make the font huge enough to take notes I can read. Basically it’s a sentence a page, but it’s better than nothing. We spend half the time playing icebreaker games, and in the last twenty minutes, we have to write a couple of paragraphs on what we hope to get out of this class.
Most of the students in this course are super outgoing. I’m the exact opposite, since all I ever want to do is hang out backstage or work behind the scenes, but I survive.
“Are you a theater major?” Josiah asks when we’re on our way out the door.
I shake my head. “I’m undeclared until next year.”
“Really? How’d you manage to get in that class? It’s supposed to be for drama majors only.”
“Uh, usually that’s true. I have special permission. I did a lot of costume and set design in high school and community theater, so they let me take it.” It’s partly the truth.
“Oh, well that’s . . . cool. What other classes are you taking?” He sounds genuinely interested.
“Um, hold on . . . I’ll show you my schedule, and you can tell me if we have any together, since I can’t see anything right now.” I set my bag on a bench, retrieve my binder, and pass it over to him. It would be nice to know someone in more than one class. The whole getting-to-know-people thing is stressful, and I’m always inclined to say dumb, embarrassing things when I’m nervous, which is a lot of the time.
“Looks like this is the only class we have together. But I’m meeting some friends for coffee now, if you want to come?”
“Oh, I would really love to, but I have to go home and pick up my spare glasses. Otherwise I’m going to have a killer headache by the end of the day.” I tap my temple. “Maybe if you’re going after class on Wednesday, I could come with you?”
Josiah smiles. “Yeah, sure. Should we trade numbers?”
“That’d be great. You’ll have to add yours for me, though.” I pass my phone over as it vibrates.
“Uh, Twinsie is texting you?”
“That’s my twin brother.”
“You have a twin? That must be kind of cool.”
“It can be. It can also be a giant pain in my ass.”
I use the text-to-speech function to find out where River is hanging out between classes. He’s all the way on the other side of campus, still with his football buddies, and Maverick has my car keys.
Thank the Lord for speech to text. Mav is in the quad, which isn’t far away, and Josiah, being the nice guy he is, offers to walk me over since I can’t see well enough to make out the names of buildings, or read any of the posted signs unless I’m six inches away from them.
As we draw near, Maverick’s laugh can be heard through the entire quad, along with the sound of simpering girls. At least River isn’t around to act like a rabid, angry guard dog, snapping at Josiah’s heels. He’s adept at scaring off guys.
“Thanks so much for being my guide,” I say.
“It’s really no problem. I’d be in the same predicament if I broke my glasses.” Josiah pushes his up his nose.
“Holy shit, Lav!” Mav shouts and is suddenly all up in our personal space. He grabs Josiah’s hand and starts pumping it. I half expect water to come spraying out of his mouth, it’s so vigorous. “This is so exciting! You made a friend!”
“Oh my God, will you shut the hell up?” If I could see properly, I’d kick him in the nuts.
He finally lets go of Josiah’s hand and wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I’m just so proud of you. I’m Lavender’s embarrassing-as-fuck older brother Maverick.”
“I’m sure he’s already figured out the embarrassing-as-fuck part. Can you lower your voice and turn your younger-sister-humiliation dial down from a ten to a more respectable two or three?” As annoying as this outburst is, Maverick is probably the least overprotective of my family members.
“I can maybe take it down to a five, at best. You gonna stage a formal introduction, or what?”
“Maverick, this is Josiah. I tripped this morning and broke my glasses, and Josiah has graciously lent me his eyes so I could find you, although I’m sure he’s very much regretting that now.”