“You’re so weird,” she added when I dropped her hand.
“Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
I knew she loved me — just as certainly as I knew I loved her. Maybe we weren’t ready to say it yet — not seriously, anyway. But we both knew.
I soaked up every moment of that last day with B, not wanting to let her go, not wanting to leave her behind. But I took solace in the pact we’d made, stupidly believing it actually mattered, that we could make a promise at seventeen and eighteen and somehow keep it as the adults we didn’t even know we’d become in twelve years’ time.
But I also knew that in one year, my little surfer girl would find her way to California. There was no way she wouldn’t, not with her mind made up.
And so I’d go to California, get through freshman year, and wait for her.
For when we could finally be together.
IT WAS OVER A year later before I saw B again.
My life had completely changed — as it often does when you go to college. I was already through my freshman year, excited about getting into more major-specific courses as a sophomore, and thoroughly enjoying student activities on and off campus… if you catch my drift.
It was move-in week, the Alder campus crawling with students and parents unloading U-Hauls and heaving boxes across campus to the dorms. I was already moved in and settled, and so I spent the pleasantly warm afternoon on the basketball court, flirting with freshmen as they walked past.
Everything in my life finally felt on track.
I loved Alder — which I’d been accepted into last minute, thanks to my uncle knowing someone who knew someone in the admissions office. Truthfully, I hadn’t worked hard in high school to impress on my college applications, so I’d been waitlisted, at first. I was fine going to UC San Diego, even though my dad and uncle graduated from Alder.
But my uncle wasn’t having it.
And once he pulled the strings and got me in, I realized why he was so adamant about it.
Alder was every new adult’s wet dream. The campus was gorgeous, close to the beach, and one of the only universities that allowed alcohol on the grounds. I was on an intramural basketball team, never had a class that was more than forty students, and my professors knew me by name. Add that to the fact that you actually had your own room in your dorm, as opposed to sharing bunk beds with a stranger, and I was sold.
Fortunately, my roommate my first year had been so cool, we’d decided to room together again. He was entirely too smart for me, and far more motivated to become someone than I was, but I liked his spirit — and the girls he brought around.
I don’t want to say I’d forgotten about B because that would be a lie. I obsessed over her all summer after graduation, and it wasn’t until I was a couple months into my freshman year that the obsession subsided. But even after, she was always there, like a buzzing presence in the back of my mind, in the barrel of my chest. I felt her. I longed for her.
I waited for her.
And when the universe was finally ready to reward me for my patience, it delivered her right to me.
Sweat dripped down from my hair into my eyes as I walked across campus, basketball tucked under my arm and shirt sticking to my skin. I chuckled to myself at the mixture of personalities as freshmen scurried about, their parents fretting behind them.
To get to my dorm, I had to walk right by the rows of tables set up to help freshmen find their dorms or sign up for clubs or get connected to tutors, and I weaved through the anxious crowd with an amused smile.
I saw her hair first.
Those lush, wild curls flowed in the gentle breeze, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds and shining a ray of light right on those freckles I could probably chart by memory, if I tried. Her legs stretched on for miles in the white shorts she wore — modest, but short enough to make me stare a little longer than was appropriate. One look at the baby blue tank top she wore with it told me she’d somehow toned up even more, and I wondered how much of the summer she’d spent on her board.
My heart was a bass drum as I watched her, not believing my eyes. I knew she wanted to go to school in California, but I never guessed she’d end up here.
She was smiling softly, looking around as she adjusted the JanSport bag on her shoulder and the student in an Alder University polo searched for her dorm information. My feet moved me toward her automatically, even though I had no idea what I was going to say or do once I got to her.
I knew only one thing for sure.
I needed her in my arms.
Tucking the basketball I had under a nearby bench, I made my way toward where she stood, chest tight with anticipation.
The student helping her was a girl I recognized — Melanie Baroque. She was a sophomore now, like me, and one of those girls who loved to be involved in every aspect of campus life that she could be. She was perky and sweet, and when I’d taken her back to my dorm after a basketball game last fall, I’d learned she was also eager to please.
Melanie snapped her fingers as I approached the table behind B. “Ah! Found it!” She plucked a folder out of the stack in front of her, checking its contents before looking back up to B. “Brecks, right?”
My stomach soured at the sound of the name, the one so tainted for my surfer girl, and I saw the way it affected her. B’s smile slipped, her shoulders deflating, but she forced a breath and opened her mouth to answer.
I beat her to it.
“It’s B,” I said.
I saw her freeze, her body stiff as she turned to face me. She looked as if she’d seen a ghost, her eyes wide, lips slightly parted. Her eyes trailed every inch of me, and need surged inside me at the blush that found her cheeks as she did. When her eyes met mine again, I slid up beside her, crooked smile in place as I held her gaze.
“Just B.”
B was still frozen in place, her eyes drinking me in, and I noted how hard it was for her to swallow, to speak.
“You cut your hair,” she finally breathed.
I chuckled, and I couldn’t help myself from reaching out to touch her, my fingers gliding along her cheek before I tapped her nose. “And you got a nose ring.”
She smiled, still in a trance as she watched me, and I knew she wasn’t paying a lick of attention to Melanie as she gave her her dorm information. With a smirk, I reached over the table to take the envelope and keys from Melanie with a wink.
“Good to see you, Jamie. How have you been?” she asked, batting her lashes at me.
“Oh, you know, same old same. I think I got this,” I told her, holding up the envelope. “Take care, Melanie.”
I ignored the way Melanie tried to tell me she still wanted me with that look of hers, steering B away from the table and toward a clearing in the crowd.
“I take it you two know each other?” she asked, nodding back to where Melanie was still staring at me.
I shrugged. “You could say that.”
The tease worked, and B rolled her eyes so hard I was pretty sure she saw brain matter.
I laughed — the most genuine, heartfelt laugh I’d had in a long time — pure joy at her being close enough to breathe the same air as me overwhelming. When I finally stopped, I just shook my head, looking at her like a miracle before I opened my arms wide.
“Come here.”
“Ew,” she said automatically, shaking her head and walking the other way. “You’re sweatier than two rats fucking in a gym sock.”