She stands in the doorway, arms planted by her side, her neat hair still a mess from the September breeze. Her eyebrows furrowed and her jaw clenched, she pins me with a strange look.
“What have you done to her?” Kennedy asks from behind me, her tone bored and used to her daily antics. Scarlett might be rational and insanely smart, but she is so dramatic sometimes.
“Nothing,” I say, turning back to a puffy faced Kennedy as she removes her layers. “What’s wrong, Scar?”
“You can’t do a petition. I’m refusing to let you do that. Take it from the girl who wasted her whole final project last year on a petition which landed her a B. A fuckingBfor getting 18,000 signatures,” Scarlett groans, finally starting to walk inside. I close the door behind her as we make walk further in, shutting out the cold.
‘A B isn’t bad, Scar,” Kennedy says shrugging. I shoot her a look to shut it down, not having the mental capacity or emotional stability to get into the argument. Again.
Scarlett is the youngest and only daughter of three sons, so competition was always high in her household. She’s constantly trying her hardest to prove she was as good as them. You wouldn’t need to look at her twice to realise that she’s smarter than all of them combined. I just wish she could get that in her head. She’s confident around us until she’s around her family and shrinks in their presence.
“It’s bad for me,” Scarlett retorts shuddering as she walks into the open living room and kitchen. “A B is like asking for ketchup but getting homemade mayonnaise instead. Both disgusting and disappointingandmost likely will land you a few hours in the bathroom.”
“That literally makes no sense,” Kennedy concedes unconvinced. Scarlett and I take off our outside clothes and adjust to the warmth of the apartment. Autumn and winter here are hell but there is no better feeling than coming in from the cold. Once I'm free of my layers, I plunge down on the couch, defeated.
“I need to think of something, like, yesterday. If I can’t skate, I can’t do anything else,” I sigh into the air as the girls walk around me, probably looking for food.
“Why don’t you just do your creative writing course? Then you can actually get some feedback on the work you do outside of class. Instead of getting totally biased opinions from us and Gigi,” Kennedy suggests, flopping on the beanbag across from me. She tucks her legs beneath her, a box of Cheerio's in her hand.
Her suggestion makes me feel sick. It does anytime anyone mentions dropping skating and actually having to dorealschoolwork. The thought of being brave enough to do something I have always enjoyed but never really knowing if I was good at it makes my stomach turn.
Growing up, on my way to competitions or practice, I would always have a paperback in my hands, or I’d make up stories of my own. Creating a completely fictional and magical world while my parents went through their divorce was the best escape I could ask for. Their divorce was messier than their marriage, but I wasn’t the only thirteen-year-old who had divorced parents. So, I spent the time that wasn’t on the ice, nose deep in my own world. I’ve uploaded embarrassing stories onto Wattpad and other sites but even growing a little fandom, it has never felt like it would stick. I could snap out of inspiration at any moment and that dream could easily die That thought terrifies me. Whether I like it or not, I can always skate.
“Doing that would mean I would need to be a good writer. And that also means admitting defeat to my mother of all people,” I say with a shiver.
“Oh shit, I forgot. How did she take the news or was she in on it too?” Kennedy bursts out. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, not really wanting to talk about her. My mom's ‘encouragement’ amounts to the same force of tiny rats pulling at my hair, forcing me into doing things I don’t want to do.
“Well, the dean said that if I care enough about skating, I should be able to figure it out. But my mom said nothing, as always. She’s probably on the deans’ side,” I say, knowing it’ll get a reaction out of one of them.
“Ugh, Wren. You’re so annoying. Why do you talk about them as if they’re two separate people? It’s confusing,” Scarlett groans with a huff as she drops next to me on the couch. Bingo. I ignore her pouty face and look at Kennedy innocently.
In some ways, my mom has always been my own personal dean. Constantly on my case, pushing me and Austin to do better, giving me strict curfews and just breathing down my neck twenty-four seven. Since joining NU, there has been no difference other than now other students have to face her wrath as well. If it wasn’t for the responsibility, I would gain by moving out, I’m sure she would have made me stay closer to home somehow. Seeing her at school almost every day is enough mom-ness for me.
“Ken, areyouconfused?” I ask condescendingly. She shakes her head, her mouth stuffed with Cheerio's. I turn back to Scarlett who has the expression of a miserable child. “See, it’s only confusing you, my darling.”
Scarlett sticks her tongue out at me as I throw my head back onto the headrest, trying to centre all of the thoughts that are whirling around my brain and tugging on my lungs.I focus on breathing properly as I take in deep breaths thinking about how the hell I’m going to fix this.
I must have dozed off because before I know it, Kennedy is wheeling in The Whiteboard into the living room, taking up nearly all of her short stature. The Whiteboard - always with a capital T and W - has been a saviour in times like these.
Surprisingly, whiteboards are popular gifts for business students like Scarlett who, last Christmas, was gifted two mega whiteboards. Naturally, we decided that we could make use of one of them. Since then, we’ve used it for our iconic pros and cons lists for dates, breakups, changing shampoos or trying to find out a place to eat that isn’t Nero’s Pizzeria. No one has seen the contents of what we write on here as it’s something so sacred to us. Some people think it’s sweet but others thing it’s completely insane. If we didn’t have The Whiteboard our lives would have been derailed by now.
“Scarlett, would you take the honours of being our scribe?” Kennedy announces, holding out the oversized whiteboard pen as if it’s the holy grail. Scarlett’s face lights up, her green eyes squinting as her sharp cheekbones rise up.
“I would love nothing more,” she replies, jumping up and retrieving the pen. “Operation ‘Save Wren from dropping out of skating even though she secretly hates it’ is underway.”
I throw her a sarcastic smile, thinking twice before lobbing a cushion at her which she dodges.
“Maybe we should just paraphrase?” Kennedy suggests, unimpressed as she returns to her seat in the beanbag. Scarlett continues writing out the name on the whiteboard regardless.
“Ormaybewe should just not assume how much I absolutely love skating all together,” I counter, earning me unconvinced glances from the two of them.
I can tell it’s going to be a long day and it’s only four in the evening.
CHAPTER 2
MILES
“Sorry, what? Could you say that again?” I ask the dean, shaking my head to get my eyes to refocus from the brown walls in the office to her disappointed face.
