Delayed (16 page)

Just finished moving in
 

She sent the text right as Kate, her roommate, swung the door open. They’d met only a few days before, neither one of them had known what to expect.
 

“The line at the dining hall is insane. There are freshmen everywhere.” Kate jumped into the bottom bunk. The wooden frame rattled, making Olivia’s laptop shake.
 

She could hear her roommate but no longer see her.
 

“We’re freshmen you know,” Olivia said.
 

Kate popped her head out from under the bunk; her sleekly cut auburn hair moved with her.
 

“I know that, but it’s not really a choice. We are the well-behaved kind. Not the shoving and pushing and catcalling kind.”
 

Olivia sat up. She shut her laptop; the Internet in Smith Hall wasn’t working. “We can drive out to a fast food place if you want.”
 

Kate shook her head. She stood up and began to rummage through the setup that was meant to pass as a closet. It was one of two nooks in the wall, an iron rod hung on top, and a curtain served as a door.
 

“I’m meeting some girls at the dining hall in a few minutes. The bigger the group, the easier it is to skip in line. Do you want to come?”
 

Olivia shook her head. She had a feeling there would be a lot of time to get to know her roommate through the semester.
 

“I kind of made plans with someone. You go ahead. We can grab breakfast tomorrow.”
 

Her roommate slipped on a sweater. “Okay. Suit yourself. I’ll have to meet your boyfriend eventually.”
 

She felt her cheeks flush. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
 

Kate grinned as she made her way to the door. “Not yet.”
 

Olivia’s phone buzzed as the door shut.
 

What floor of Smith Hall did you say you were on?
 

Third. Room 305

Her heart leapt a little. She jumped off the top bunk, smashing her toes on the green carpet. The pain subsided quickly. She strode to the mirror and realized she hadn’t even thrown makeup on. It was the first time she was seeing Nick in three months and… she stopped. When had she even worn makeup around him? He’d seen her during her braces and lanky limb phase.
 

Olivia stepped away from the mirror. Simon had texted her that morning. He’d finished moving in too, and he wanted to meet for dinner. She hadn’t texted him back yet. They weren’t officially anything, but they’d kissed already. He’d taken her to watch a student play in Glensford a few weeks before, and then romantically kissed her at intermission, in front of a room full of strangers. They hadn’t talked much after that. He didn’t know about Nick. Nick didn’t know much about Simon.
 

A knock came from the door. Olivia took a breath. She swung it open to reveal, a tanner version of Nick than she was used to. He had on a t-shirt with the school’s robin mascot and as always his usual pair of jeans. His black hair was overgrown, covering the top half of his ears.
 

“Hey,” she said.
 

He smiled, his cheek contorted into creases. “Hey.”
 

“How weird is this?” she managed.
 

Nick paused, and pulled out something from behind his back. “I got you something, from Mexico.”
 

Olivia squinted. It was a pin in the shape of the sun calendar. “Airport gift?” she asked. Words had a way of escaping her sometimes.
 

“Yeah. They lost one of my suitcases. It had your real gift in it.”
 

“Oh,” she took the pin. “I like it. I’ll have to do more research on it though, so I can understand it’s true value.”

Nick smiled. “Can I come in?”
 

She nodded, stepping to one side. “My roommate’s out. You’ll probably meet her later on, when we come back.”
 

He walked about the room, all twelve feet of it. “It’s cozy. And you have your own bathroom. We have to share one on our floor.”
 

“Gross.”
 

“It’s the traditional college experience.”
 

Olivia slipped on her flats. “So, where do you want to go eat?”
 

Nick shrugged, in a way that didn’t indicate total indifference. “I was thinking we could go to the dining hall.”
 

She bit her lip. The thought of making her way past another place packed tight with freshmen and their parents made her want to run. Her mom had helped her move in a few things the day before, but her dad hadn’t called.
 

“Let’s just walk around and get to know the campus, maybe we can find a vending machine.”
 

He nodded, already opening the door, “After you.”
 

They made it out to the congestion that rattled the hallway. Two guys walked past Olivia, balancing a mini fridge that didn’t look mini enough for the dorm standards. The edge of the appliance hit her in the hip.
 

“Ow,” she muttered. Her key was jammed into the deepest part of her pocket. She turned to Nick. “Sorry. My key’s just really stuck in here.”
 

He wasn’t standing where he had been before. She turned, realizing he had taken the spot where the refrigerator guys had passed through. He seemed to be using his body as a block between her and everyone else.
 

Olivia turned, finally locating her key, and locked the door. She pushed down on the doorknob to double check. Then turned back and tapped her human shield on the shoulder.
 

“We can go now.”
 

Nick jumped back around; his long arms went back to his sides. “Oh. Okay.”

She smiled, leaning in toward him. “Thanks for acting like my silent body guard. Dorm halls can be dangerous.”
 

His cheeks became pink at her words; no tan could hide the color. They walked toward the back stairs. The elevator wasn’t even an option.
 

Olivia stretched her arms out at the top of the steps. It felt good to finally leave her cellblock-sized dorm. The air was fresh and they sky was a peaceful shade of blue. She yawned a few times, taking in the scenery. From the inside, Smith Hall was colorless and suffocating, from the outside, the brick exterior added on to its presence of a penitentiary.
 

Nick stood by, pretending to busy himself in the moving crowds around them. Olivia stopped stretching.

“You can see the whole campus from here,” she noted.
 

He nodded. “Where should we start our tour?”
 

“Anywhere. Everywhere,” she said throwing her hands to the sky, then quickly regretting her attempt at humor.
 

But Nick laughed, and it wasn’t a pity laugh. “We should narrow down our options.”
 

“How about the Lawrence Theater? I think they’re having a convention on all the clubs and future performances.”
 

They began to walk to the bottom of the steps. “Are you going to try out for anything?”
 

“Will you come watch my performances?” she asked, a bit too casually. It felt strange to have such a long gap of time to talk with him in person. It was only the fourth time they were physically meeting. Nick seemed different, more open and forward, in his emails. The way he had spent paragraphs describing Mexico, and everything he had learned about his family history, it made it easy to forget he wasn’t as casual in conversation.
 

“Of course. If you want me to,” he added.
 

“You’ll go? Even if I’m a terrible actress?”
 

“You’re not a terrible actress.”
 

“How do you know? You’ve never seen me perform.”
 

Nick stopped walking, and he looked directly at her. “I can’t picture you being terrible at too many things.

Olivia cleared her throat. She looked around, trying to let the flush that her traveled to her cheeks go away.
 

“Olivia. Hey Olivia,” someone called out. She turned back toward the top of the stairs. Nick followed her gaze. The two of them watched in silence as Simon ran down to meet them.
 

He ran right up to her, holding his phone in the air. “I stopped by your dorm. I’ve been texting you. Do you want to grab dinner?”
 

He kept his eyes on her.
 

“I was going to answer back. And I can’t grab dinner, I’m heading to the main campus with Nick.”
 

He tilted his chin. “Who’s Nick?”
 

Nick took a tiny step forward, still hiding behind her. “I’m Nick. Olivia’s friend.”
 

Simon raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know she had a friend already. I’m Simon, her boyfriend.”
 

Olivia felt something rise in her chest. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how she could undo what he had just said. Why would she want to, though? Hadn’t it been what she wanted? The boy she had been pining over since last October had just moved her into girlfriend status, but something didn’t feel right. There were no butterflies or fireworks, not that she had expected there to be. There had never been any of those things with Michael.
 

Nick took a step back. “So you guys are going to attend Glensford College,
together.
”
 

Simon nodded. “We met last year while taking one of the tours around the campus. I took her on a paddleboat ride and everything.” He gave a cocky smile, reminiscing about a day Olivia barely thought about. She remained silent.
 

“You should go have dinner with him,” Nick said to Olivia.
 

She shook her head. “I said I would have dinner with you.”
 

Simon shrugged. “He’s right. Boyfriend trumps friends, at least on the first day of college. Come on. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I want to tell you. And I want to stop by the Lawrence Theater too. You can see Nick later.”
 

Olivia felt like throwing a punch across her body, maybe not directly to his face, Simon’s weakest spots were his shoulders.
 

“I’m not cancelling plans,” she said to him.
 

“Olivia. Go. We can talk later,” Nick’s tone had grown quiet, so that only she could hear him. “I’ll text you,” he finished.
 

She felt her heart drop. She managed a nod before he walked away. With clenched fists, she turned back to Simon.
 

“What was that for? And since when am I your girlfriend?”
 

“Since…” Simons struggled with his mental timeline, “Since today I guess. When you didn’t text or talk to me, I realized how much I missed you.” He tried to wrap an arm around her, but she pushed his hand away.
 

“I’m not your possession. You don’t get to call me your girlfriend because you see me with another guy.”
 

He held his hands up in surrender. “I know the timing makes it seem like that. But Olivia, I really do want to be in a relationship with you. Why do you think I wanted to see you today?” His tone carried a bit of humor in it.
 

Olivia felt herself calming down. The way he pretended to make cutesy eyes at her was something she couldn’t fight against. Nick was her friend, but Simon, he was something more. She intertwined a hand around his.
 

“Buy me dinner first. Then we’ll talk about the whole girlfriend thing.”
 

He nodded, smiling. “Whatever you want.”
 

Olivia tried to walk off the fact she had just ditched Nick. They would text. Things would be better tomorrow. They were friends, after all.
 

19

Spring Semester 2009
 

Friends. That’s what they remained. The word had bothered Nick once, but he realized it was a happy medium. He’d rather have Olivia’s friendship over having to wait years to see her again. Simon hadn’t warmed to him, at least not for the majority of the Fall Semester, but now he seemed indifferent to Nick. Whenever he dropped Olivia back off at her dorm and Nick was there, waiting so they could go about their friendly plans, Simon would pat his back.
 

“Don’t keep her out too late,” he’d say. “She has an audition in the morning.”
 

Sometimes it felt like Simon was Olivia’s manager, and not her boyfriend. Nick didn’t mind. It made it easier to hang around her. They went to a performance at the Lawrence Theater most weekends, and they carpooled when it came time to buy groceries.
 

They watched movies in her dorm sometimes, but Nick only stayed if Kate was there. Olivia’s roommate had asked him out first, sometime in October, to which he had agreed. They’d gone out to a Halloween Carnival back in town. It turned out they didn’t have anything in common, and as an added bonus, their views on everything were different. They spent the afternoon debating, and agreed to never talk about the date again.
 

He’d gone home for winter break, and his Abuela had flown back from Mexico. For once, his dad hadn’t been too busy to spend Christmas Eve with the family. They’d had a traditional Noche Buena, opening the gifts at midnight, and watching old Mexican Christmas specials. Mimi gave Nick an album filled with pictures of all the matching outfits their mom had made them wear in childhood.
 

“Why would you unearth these?” he had asked, in between laughs. There was picture of him dressed in a yellow spotted shirt, to match a then two-year-old Mimi’s dress.
 

Mimi smiled, something she rarely did anymore.
 

“Looking at them helps me to remember her. Sometimes I’m jealous, “ she’d added.
 

“Why?” Nick asked, closing the album.