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A little nostril-sucking might’ve livened up this ceremony.
Blackfriars University is very into religion. The campus used to be a Benedictine monastery before King Henry VIII went on a bit of a beheading spree. There’s a whole story about the so-called ‘Black Monk,’ Benet of Blackfriars, who made a last stand against the king before the monastery was closed. Since it reopened as a school, Blackfriars has stubbornly held onto their Catholic heritage despite numerous attempts to convert it to Church of England. As far as I can tell, there’s not much difference between the two churches except that a CofE matriculation ceremony would be five minutes long instead of three hours, and in English. And my father never made a movie about it – not demonic enough for his tastes.
Not that I spent my summer memorizing the school’s history. Not at all.
Because that would be a dorky thing to do. The sort of thing the old George would do – the George who got straight A’s and whose only friends were dead punk rock musicians. The George who ate her school lunches in a bathroom stall and never said two words to anyone in case they landed her with her head down a toilet.
And I’m not that George anymore.
New school, new country, new me.
I can be whoever I want to be. And if the students at Blackfriars – the most insane, over-the-top liberal arts school in the world – can’t accept me, then I’ll have a blast anyway.
That sounds depressing. I swear it’s not. I’m so excited about this year.
All around me, students whisper to each other or stare at their phones as the priest drones on. I try to talk to the girl next to me, but she wrinkles her perfect nose as if I smell bad. I probably do smell bad. I arrived by train from London with only minutes to spare before the ceremony, so I haven’t even been able to take my bag to my room before they called us to enter the church. So I stare straight ahead with my suitcase wedged awkwardly on my lap and think about all the classes I’m excited about this semester.
Not semester. Term. I’m learning the lingo.
We’re finally dismissed, and I discreetly massage my numb ass as we shuffle outside. The main quad – Martyrs’ Quad – fills with students, leaning against the historical fountain and snapping selfies with their friends. How do they have friends already? We only just got here. The porter barks at one group to get off the immaculate green lawn, but they ignore him.
“I don’t know who he thinks he is, trying to tell Orpheans what to do,” a girl scoffs to her friend as she walks past. They throw the lawn-ruining students an admiring look.
Now I’m curious. Orpheans?
There are ten of them – five guys, five girls – standing around on the grass and completely ignoring the porter as he hops about angrily and jabs his finger at the STAY OFF THE GRASS sign. I’ve never seen anything like them before, and I come from Emerald Beach, so I have seen a lot.
They look like characters from a story – some twisted gothic tale of crumbling estates and rich widows filled with longing. The girls wear floaty, calf-length dresses and blazers with the sleeves rolled up. The boys’ trousers have pleats that could draw blood. Their tailored jackets and wing-tipped shoes drip with a certain kind of wealth and power. In Emerald Beach, if you’re wealthy, you shove that wealth in everyone’s face. But this lot look like they couldn’t care less about fashion. They’re pale with flushed cheeks, like they’ve just come from tending the horses or whipping a recalcitrant servant.
Two of the guys in particular stand out. One leans against the fountain, his arm slung casually around the waist of the prettiest girl. Angular and elegant, he has one of those petulant mouths with a full lower lip that my friend Claws would say is begging to be bitten, and eyes the deep blue of the ocean at midnight. The other, despite his starched shirt and black tie, has a kind of messy, sloppy look, with a mop of golden hair falling over one eye and a smile that might be called cheeky if not for the cruel twist at the edges. He takes a long drag from a cigarette and – with carbon grey eyes trained on the porter – grinds the butt into the grass with his heel.
The girl who called them Orpheans catches me staring, and breaks off into giggles.
I hurry away. The hope that’s fluttered in my chest since graduation takes a beating. It’s going to be exactly the same as high school. If people like that are the norm, I’m out of my league. Everyone here already knows each other. They met at their fancy boarding schools or yacht races or private clubs or wherever the fuck rich people make friends.
I’m on the outside.
Again.
But you know what? That’s fine with me.
I squeeze the handle of my suitcase as I think about my best friend, Claws. I need to channel her attitude. She wouldn’t give a fuck if no one liked her – but then, she runs a crime empire so she’s probably not the best example.
It took me until senior year to make a single friend, and I left them all to come here. I left my mom, my house, the Brawley theatre – all the places in the city that remind me of Dad. And I deluded myself into believing things would be different. Despite its Catholic leanings, Blackfriars is supposed to be a bohemian, artsy-fartsy college. There’s got to be at least a few kids here like me – the lonely, weird outsiders…
Yes, I know you want to hear about the naked priest. I promise I’m getting there. Existential crisis stuff first, okay?
I can’t bear another minute in the quad, being the weird American who’s laughed at by strangers. I know it’s only in my imagination because I’m tired and raw, but it’s ruining my new school buzz. So I do something I’ve never done in my life. I slip away into the shadows, and bunk off the orientation seminar.
Claws will be so proud.
As the students are being herded into the dining hall, I dart along a covered walkway, peering into the open doors of small lecture theatres and classrooms beneath gothic stone arches. Everything is so old and grand and cool. I wonder what kind of ghosts linger in these walls. My bright-red New Rocks make a clomping sound on the cobbles.
I pass under an archway and along a rose-lined walk into St. Benedict’s Quad, thinking I’ll head toward the college meadow for some fresh air, when I spy a narrow gap in the towering hedge. I step closer. An iron gate hangs open an inch, revealing a secret garden.
A covered walkway of gothic arches frames the hidden courtyard, which bursts with tall herb bushes and scraggly orange trees that obscure my view across to the other side. It’s so different from the neat roses and manicured lawns of the rest of Blackfriars. There’s something forbidden about it, something wild. Somewhere deeper in the garden, I hear water trickling and splashing.
I can’t contain my curiosity. I push the gate open and step through.
