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Maybe I should warn her about Hudson and Asher. Nah, not my business. I should literally walk away. I start to turn toward the gate. Maybe she won’t look in my direction. Shit, she just did.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I call out to her.
“Good.”
She looks even less happy to see me, like rain clouds are rushing in. At least we’re on the same page. My shoulders loosen as I approach her. I match my pace to hers, and we walk toward the dorm together. She slows her steps and looks at the people congregating by the main doors into Wingate. She steps off the path, and I follow her lead.
“You mind if we don’t go in there?” she asks.
“Have a relative waiting for you?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, and I don’t feel like acting happy to see anyone else’s.”
I sigh. “Me neither.” We head off down the path. “I’m thinking of switching majors.” It’s the only thing I can think of to change the subject.
“We’re freshmen,” she replies vaguely, “We’re all taking the same classes, and so it shouldn’t be difficult.”
I shrug as we walk, losing sight of the dorms. “Yeah, but originally I was going to study premed.”
She sighs. “My dad’s a doctor.”
“My dad wanted me to study medicine.”
“Wanted?” she asks, taking an interest in the conversation.
I didn’t mean to let that slip. “He’s dead,” I explain.
She looks at the ground again. “I’m sorry to hear that. My mother’s gone.”
“I heard your dad is dying?” I ask.
She nods, and my lack of sensitivity is even appalling to me. That’s what happens when your father commits suicide. Everything else seems minor in comparison, especially other people’s problems.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I say softly.
“Thanks. How long ago did your father die?” she asks, unaware of the circumstances.
“When I was a kid,” I reply, staring off into the distance, but she doesn’t pick up on my body language.
“How?” she asks.
“It wasn’t an accident. Let’s talk about something else.”
Charlotte looks at me with soft blue eyes. “Sorry. I’m trying to focus on other people and less on myself.”
I give her a pass for actually caring. “We match today,” I tell her, smiling, “One parent is gone, and the other one won’t be showing up. Sorry, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say either.”
“It’s true,” she says, smirking, “Even if my dad was okay, he wouldn’t show up here.”
“The two of you aren’t close?” I ask.
She eyes me, sizing me up, wondering if she should say more or should keep her mouth shut. Her gaze is as impenetrable as mine, like a wall of stone.
“Not like we used to be,” she says.
Charlotte doesn’t dress like the girls in our dorm, but I’m not sure if that’s entirely her wish. That bag she’s carrying from the cafeteria is filled with free food meant for the parents. I asked around if she was a scholarship kid. Hudson corrected me—she was the queen of Stonehaven. But she looks like she might have taken a tumble off her throne.
Charlotte watches as my eyes move along her fit body. And when my eyes do reach her face, I realize then that I was checking her out. Again.
