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The sun had faded, giving way to the deep blue twilight. Night would be settled above the trees long before he returned home.
6
HIGH-STRUNG
Baby snow flurries descended upon Ponderosa’s campus, livening its seasonally decimated scenery. Flakes landed on Kenna and dissolved as she crossed the lawn toward Duniway Hall. Her biological psychology class started a few minutes earlier. She channeled all of her energy into her legs and willed them to move faster but she found herself traveling at the same pace. Her feet smacked against the pavement and that force shot into her calves. Biking between buildings would’ve been a better solution.
Alas, her bike was chained up by Markham Hall, where she had spent an excruciating morning with Dr. Merino.
Observing his daily routine sans the exposure to patients had grown stale. Kenna had shot her mouth off and demanded something to do and he’d tasked her with cleaning his office, top to bottom.
He was the reason she was running late.
“Kenna,” someone called.
Audible footsteps quickened as the caller jogged to close the distance between them. She kept her movement brisk but the chaser materialized beside her, falling in step.
He was easily identifiable out of the corner of her eye by the signature short thatch of curls that he combed upward and hair sprayed until it was stiff and he’d inhaled enough xylene to knock him unconscious. Will Morris, fellow psych major and annoying leech.
“You ignoring me, Red?”
She despised nicknames in reference to her heritage, and ‘Red’ was the worst of all.
It was almost enough to make her halt dead in her tracks and unleash years of pent-up torture caused by the many jokes she’d been the butt of growing up. She was American, a third-generation immigrant, but no one cared about the details of her lineage. They saw her hair and transparent skin and made their own assumptions.
She didn’t have the luxury of stopping to berate Will, even though she would have loved nothing more.
“You’re giving me the cold shoulder, is that it? C’mon, lighten up. It’s cold enough out here.”
Much to Kenna’s dismay, they were heading for the same place. She would have to suffer through the conversation until they reached their class. Redistributing the weight of her bag, she pressed forward, determined not to speak to him.
“It’s because I called you ‘Red,’ isn’t it? I didn’t mean to offend you. It honestly just slipped out,” Will pseudo-apologized. He threw up his hands as they went. “You don’t have to talk to me, I get it, that was pretty rude, but at the very least hear me out.”
Kenna was confident he didn’t have anything of interest to discuss, but listening wasn’t a choice.
“Me and some other seniors—Brandi, Liam and Rebecca—all get together for trivia on Thursdays at The Rusted Monkey. 8 o’clock. You know the place?”
He casually omitted the last names as if there weren’t 1,400 students at their university.
“Brandi Wright?” she asked.
“That’s the one.”
Brandi had been part of her study group for elementary statistics during sophomore year. She had brought some much-needed cheer to the abysmal cloud that hung over them as they toiled over regression analysis, possessing a smile that lit up whatever room she entered. Kenna could hardly fathom how someone like Brandi could stand to be in the company of Will, let alone voluntarily hang out with him on a weekly basis.
“You realizetodayis Thursday? If that was an invitation then sure, I’ll go. I’ve had a few classes with Brandi. It’d be nice to catch up.”
“Awesome. We need all the help we can get beating Rorschach’s Sheets.” He exhaled in a whistle while consulting his smartwatch. “Coleman is going to give it to us for being late. I had to drive over from my mentor’s office downtown. You took the only spot on-campus, didn’t you? With Dr. Asshole? What’s that like?”
Will held the door open for her when they reached Duniway Hall. Had they not been in danger of missing their class, she would’ve rejected the kind gesture.
“He’s,” she struggled to find the right word, “unconventional.”
“Right, well, I don’t envy you.”
With the exception of the two men, Markham’s faculty lounge was empty. A faint note of cigarette smoke, that banned indulgence, hung in the air, mixing with the hodgepodge of uneaten leftovers lurking in the garbage. Dayton had considered, on more than one occasion, donating his diffuser to the lounge so that he and his colleagues wouldn’t be subjected to the stench of smoke and rancidity. He sat at a round table, rolling a clementine beneath his palm.
Professor Nathan Scott, his colleague turned friend, idled by the communal microwave. He was the natural accompaniment to Dayton’s tall and broad. Shorter, rounder.
