Returning To You

By the time the Thai food arrives, I’m shocked by how much fun I’m having.
“You go get it,” Paige tells Karen after the delivery guy calls up to the room.
“No way,” Karen says. She’s lying on the floor, waving her legs around in the air in an effort to dry her pedicure. “I went last time.”
“Karen, my nails are still wet,” Paige says, waving her bright purple fingernails. “If I have to root through my purse for cash, they’ll be ruined.”
“Should have thought of that before you painted them, shouldn’t you?” She looks up at where I’m perched on the edge of the futon. “The fetching schedule is sacred,” she tells me, her voice serious. “It’s a simple rotation whenever we need to go down to the front desk. My turn, her turn. If we turn away from the schedule over something so common as painted nails, it will be mass chaos. We cannot have mass chaos.”
I laugh. “I’ll go.”
“Oh, no,” Paige says. “You’re our guest. Besides, she’s right. It’s my turn.”
I stand, holding up my hands. “Yeah, but my nails aren’t painted."
I arrived in the middle of their mani-pedi schedule. Paige squealed when she saw me, apparently having been convinced that I would be a no-show. They offered to paint my nails as well—”I’m, like, totally an expert manicurist, Daisy!”—but I declined. They might be nice girls and all, but there was no way in hell I was going to let one of them touch me. I never let people touch me. Instead, I sat and watched, more entertained than I thought possible, as they finished their tasks, gossiping and laughing the entire time. They kept the door open, and loud giggling could be heard from their dorm mates up and down the hall. I had imagined being there would overwhelm me, but so far, I was handling it well. A break, however, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Paige looks like she’s going to argue some more, so I grab my purse and take off before she can say anything else. Paige and Karen live on the third floor. There are no elevators, so I head down the hall to the staircase. A few girls pass me, and I keep my eyes firmly on my Converse so I don’t have to make eye contact with any of them. Safely in the stairwell, I breathe a sigh of relief.
When I reach the first-floor landing, I nearly stumble into another girl coming through the door. I tense, certain she’ll be annoyed.
But she merely pats my shoulder and grins. “Sorry!” Her voice is cheerful as she squeezes past me. “Not watching where I’m going.”
I shake my head. Not all girls are bitches. You need to relax.
I make my way toward the front desk. As I near the end of the hall, a familiar voice drifts out from an open door, and I freeze. Andy.
He’s singing a song I don’t know, probably something off the new album they wrote after leaving home. But I’d recognize that voice anywhere. My chest tight, I rush the remaining distance to the lobby to grab our food.
I still feel shaken when I get back the girls’ room. It’s crazy how the sound of his voice can take me back so quickly. It almost feels, for just a moment, as if no time has passed, as though I can just head next door and see his face, hear him sing, and watch him and his brothers play.
“You okay?” Paige asks.
I realize I’m standing motionless in their doorway and force my feet to move. “Yeah,” I say, trying to smile. “You guys hungry?”
Karen takes the bag of takeout from me and plops down on the carpet in the center of the room. “Mmm,” she says, opening a carton of pad thai. “Yummy.”
I join her on the floor while Paige grabs sodas from their mini-fridge. As we dig in, I take the opportunity to look around their room. When I first entered, I was immediately assaulted by a Black Veil Brides poster over Karen’s bed. I’ve done my best to keep my eyes down since then, but I figure the worst is over. Besides, this is my first time in a college dorm room, and I’m curious.
There are no other BVB posters, thank God, and as long as I avoid looking above Karen’s bed I don’t have to see Andy's piercing blue eyes. Instead, I check out the myriad of photos of Paige and Karen, both together and with other groups of people, lining the wall by the door. Paige has a series of what appears to be hand-drawn pictures around her desk, and I remember her telling me that she likes to draw.
They both have bright and cheery-looking bedspreads, Paige’s is a vivid purple with geometric shapes, while Karen’s is multicolored and flowered. A fuzzy hot-pink throw is balled up on the futon amid several yellow pillows. Candles are scattered all over Paige’s side of the room, and Christmas lights are strung along the ceiling. Shoes and clothes overflow from the closet. The place is messy and cozy—basically the exact opposite of my apartment. I’m surprised by how much I like that.
“We’re T-minus ten minutes,” Paige says, looking at her phone. “Just FYI.”
“Oh, good,” Karen says. “I almost forgot in my foodgasm.”
“Gross.” Paige kicks at her. “Don’t say foodgasm. We have company. And Daisy isn’t used to your dirty gutter mouth.”
Karen rolls her eyes. “If Daisy is offended by my potty mouth, I apologize.”
“I’m not,” I say. “The food is pretty orgasmic.”
Karen cackles. “That’s my girl. I knew you weren’t a prude.”
Her praise fills me with warmth, which I know is ridiculous, but I can’t help it. I didn’t have a lot of experience hanging out with girls even before everything got so messed up. My best friend was a boy ever since I was in preschool. And that particular boy’s good looks and ridiculous talent didn’t do much to endear me to the female population once I got to junior high. I learned at a very young age that girls can be awfully jealous. I should have remembered that lesson.
“Are you a fan, Daisy?” Paige asks.
I look at her blankly, thinking she’s talking about BVB again. But she points at the TV, and I realize she means whatever it is they’re counting down to. “Uh, I’m not sure. What’s going to be on?”
They both gape at me.
“Eight o’clock on Thursday?” Paige says. “Do you honestly not know what’s about to happen?”
I rack my brains and come up with nothing. “Sorry.”
Paige shakes her head. “It’s the finale of Engaged. We’ve only been waiting for this for, like, months.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Karen says, leaning over me to grab the gang gai carton.
I immediately tense at her proximity, and spend the next thirty seconds trying to relax and barely listening while Paige explains the premise of Engaged. From what I manage to take in, it’s a dating show where the male finalists compete for the affections of the female lead. If they decide to get married in the finale, they’ll win a grand prize of a hundred grand each.
“Uh, with that much money at stake, what’s to stop them from getting married and just divorcing later?” I ask.
Karen snickers. “Exactly.”
Paige makes a face. “You guys just aren’t romantic enough. I bet she picks Aiden in the end, and they don’t take the money.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t they take the money?” Karen asks.
“Because they’re really in love.” Paige’s face is lit up with a dreamy little smile.
It’s kind of funny—if I just look at her without talking to her, I would probably think she was a certain way, with her piercings and leather clothes and wild hair. But so far, she strikes me as really sweet, almost innocent. Karen, on the other hand, looks like the epitome of the corn-fed, girl-next-door, Midwest beauty. Yet her personality has a much sharper edge
“You’re fucking naive, Paige,” Karen says, pointing her chopstick at her friend.
“Whatever. Just you wait and see. I’m totally right.” Paige catches me watching her, and her face falls a little. “Of course, we don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to, Daisy. When I invited you, I just assumed you’d be a fan because, like, everyone I know is. But we can do something else if—”
I hold up my hand. “No, it’s fine. We can watch.” I usually avoid reality television. The cattiness and downright nastiness of many of the contestants reminds me too much of my senior year. But I figure it’s a night for trying new things.
Watching a show with Paige and Karen turns out to be nothing like I expect. From the way Paige was so excited, I figured she’d watch in rapt attention. But she doesn’t. Instead, they talk constantly. Every word said by the contestants must be discussed, every action analyzed, to the point that I’m surprised they can follow what’s happening at all. Karen keeps up a running commentary of how stupid all the men are, making fun of them with glee, and Paige laughs along with her.

Notes

This chapter is like, long. And that's not even all I wanted to put in it XD So I'll make a part 2 cx