Lessons in Love by Emily Franklin Read Free Book Online Page B

pulls me into the center of the room.
    “I thought about it — and you’re right. About this room, I mean. For four years I’ve gotten here and just settled into my random room and dealt with everything. But now — it’s senior year.” She had one of those wide smiles that highlights her pretty features. “Two things. No, wait, three.”
    “First?” I say, putting my backpack on my bed so it doesn’t seem like I’m rushing out the door, despite being totally obsessive about not being late.
    “First — we meet back here after school, before my practice to rearrange the furniture.”
    “Is that, like, Fruckner code for something or do you really mean…”
    “I really mean — bed there? Table here? We’ll set it up just right.”
    “And the other two things?”
    “Oh,” Mary says, a slight blush creeping into her tawny cheeks. “I guess I just wanted to say that I’m glad — you know — that out of all the other girls in Fruck, that you’re the one I’m Frucked with.” She laughs.
    “Nice,” I say and laugh, too. Then, because I never said it last night I add, “And thanks — by the way. I’m not sure if you’re fully aware of the extent that you saved my ass — and the rest of me — from a year of hell, but you did. So thanks.”
    Mary nods. “I get it.”
    I pull my bag from the bed, wondering where all the items in the room will find homes later. “So, I’ll see you later?”
    “Wait.” Mary tugs at the front of my hair and then walks with me over to the front window which are blocked by our desks. Over the summer, the handymen and women, the campus clean-up crews, come into the dorms and repair anything that’s damaged. They also apparently rearrange everything so that it’s in the least convenient position. As is, my bed is blocking the non-working fireplace (my head was in a chimney last night), Mary’s bed takes up an entire wall, the bureaus are shoved together and these desks — which I’ve yet to even touch — are in front of three large windows.
    “What?” I ask. “I know — I’m messy with my desk. It’s a fault.” I flash to Charlie and his immaculately arranged workspace on the Vineyard, how I bet his dorm room at Harvard is the same. The thought of that difference somehow makes me more weirded out than it should — but it’s as though his perfectly organized desk is a reflection of his too-compartmentalized brain. And which part am I in?
    “No, not that,” Mary uses her body weight to slide one desk to the right and jam herself between both. “Let me move them.”
    I help her, not knowing why, and we succeed in creating even more displaced furniture, with both desks at an angle. “What exactly are we doing?” I check my watch. It will have to be breakfast on the go. Normal people would probably sit and eat and not worry about the first bell, but I’m not like that. I want to take my toast and be the first to arrive.
    When you get to class first, you can just sit there and wait, watching people stream in while you’re already comfortable in your chosen chair. None of those awkward where will I sit moments. Maybe it’s that — or maybe — it occurs to me now — maybe I just like to see each class, each encounter at the student center, as a plot unto itself. So I’m there form chapter one, from the first page. I check my watch again.
    “Who knew you were such a clock-watcher?” Mary smirks.
    “Who knew you were of the laid back variety?” I respond. The only time I’ve been with Mary for more than a few minutes in line at the dining hall was watching her play for Hadley — where she’s most definitely not mellow.
    “Guess we’ll learn,” Mary says. “But before you go? What I didn’t show you last night and the primary reason for my psychage?”
    “Psychage?”
    “I like to make up words,” she says, unapologetic and grinning.
    “Me, too.”
    “Anyway…you should know that room fourteen comes with its privileges. Other than just the