One thing was for sure, though; being at Gardner was not going to automatically stop my nightmares. I woke up on the first day of classes to Brianna shaking my shoulder so hard my teeth rattled. “What is wrong with you?” she asked. “Is this going to be a thing every night? Because this is totally not okay.”
I felt tears drying on my cheeks. It had been a variation of the classroom dream this time, which made sense given that classes started today. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can fix this.” That was only sort of true, but I’d brought all my prescriptions with me, and I’d try them all again if there was any chance they’d help.
“You better,” Brianna said.
I hadn’t exactly won the roommate lottery.
But to my surprise, I soon discovered I had won the class schedule lottery. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone who wanted to be a lawyer would probably take the same kinds of classes I did, but the first person I saw in my first class the day after orientation (Intro to Political Science) was the red-haired guy. To my even greater surprise, he recognized me immediately. “You busted me at Assassin!” he said, and took the seat right in back of me, which guaranteed I’d spend the whole year self-conscious. I learned his name was Hunter Fredericks from roll call; when he turned up in my class on the American Revolution and sat in front of me I learned the freckles that dotted his face also covered the back of his neck. And when we got assigned to be partners for our European History class and had to move our desks together I learned he smelled green—some combination of mint and grass, maybe—and I knew I was doomed.
We didn’t have all our classes together—he was taking Spanish, while I was taking Chinese, and I was in a higher-level math class than he was—but we did have the same lunch period. “Save me a seat!” he said, and I watched him head straight for the sandwich station. It took me less time to make my peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-whole-wheat-toast than it did for him to put together a massive and truly disgusting-looking roast beef sub, complete with four different kinds of cheese and every condiment in the world. “What?” he asked, when he saw me eyeballing the mess on his tray. “I haven’t even put the potato chips in it yet.”
“I don’t even know where to start,” I said, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore; his eyes had wandered to some vantage point behind my head, and his mouth had gone slack. I turned around, and in less than a second I knew exactly how things were going to go.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Game Night crew!” It was the fashion influencer, because of course it was. She was wearing a flowered sundress as if she were headed to a garden party, her Honey-Nut-Cheerios hair bundled under a floppy sun hat. I, in contrast, was wearing my usual uniform of black leggings, plaid shirt, and red Converse, and I wondered whether the fact that I’d noticed her outfit meant I was starting to care more about my appearance, like my mother always told me I should. Somehow I doubted it.
Hunter couldn’t stop staring, and his obvious admiration was a huge downer. Since he didn’t seem capable of speech, I’d have to take over. “Come sit,” I said. “I’ll scooch.”
The girl didn’t hesitate for a minute, plunking her Instagram-ready salad down on the table in front of her. “It’s so great I ran into you guys! I was afraid I’d have to sit with my roommate. She kept me up all night talking about how much we were going to love it here—her brother graduated already—and honestly I’m exhausted.”
“You don’t look exhausted,” Hunter said, which was true, and also enraging. “But we’ll do our best to keep you awake. I’m Hunter.”
“I’m Chloe,” she said, and smiled so we could see her mouthful of almost-perfect white teeth. Her bottom two teeth had a teeny overlap that even I had to admit was adorable. This lunch was turning out to be a disaster. The two of them were just going to stare at each other until little cartoon hearts started dancing around their heads.
But then Chloe turned to me. “And you are?”
“Amina,” I said. “Nice to meet you.” I waited for her to give me the up-and-down look I’d expect from someone who clearly cared about fashion as much as she did, but to her credit, her eyes stayed on my face.
“Nice to meet you too,” she said. “How are your classes so far?”
From there things got easier. Hunter and I took turns telling her what we were discovering about our shared schedule; we agreed that our poli sci class was sure to be the favorite, given that our teacher was a former State Department official who’d quit after the latest election. I admitted how nervous I was about taking a Chinese class and showed them the vocabulary flash cards I expected to be carrying around with me until graduation. “What about you?” I asked. “Do we have any classes together in the afternoon, maybe?”
“I’m going to guess no,” Chloe said. “My schedule is super specialized—I’m taking an intro course in 3-D design, and it’s got a geometry add-on, plus anatomy, economics, journalism, Italian, and French.”
One of the things I had to admit (grudgingly) was exciting about Gardner was how many classes were available. The school was committed to preparing us for whatever our future career plans might include, though I had no idea what that meant for the non-scholarship kids. Chloe’s schedule sounded kind of all over the place, but she seemed to have a plan. “When you say specialized . . .”
She laughed, and I noticed her lipstick hadn’t so much as smudged, even though she’d made it most of the way through her salad while Hunter and I geeked out over our classes. “I want to start my own clothing line. I’ve already got a pretty good internet presence, so now I need to go next-level and learn more about the business. The major players are all still in Europe.”
I was starting to see how the pieces fit together. “So the design classes and anatomy are about the clothes themselves, economics is about the business, and the language classes are so you can talk to the big guns. What about journalism?”
“Everything’s happening online now,” Chloe said, “and the fact that I’m good at taking Instagram pics isn’t enough. I need to learn how to talk to people through my writing.”
Hunter was practically drooling. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Chloe laughed. “You have no idea. But I have to say, it’s really nice to be around people who get it. My family totally doesn’t.”
“Mine either,” I said, though we were talking about completely different things. “They made me come here.” The words slipped out before I even had a chance to think—I hadn’t meant to share that with anyone, let alone people I’d just met.
“Really?” Chloe’s eyebrows shot up. “I had to fight my way here, all claws out.”
“Me too,” Hunter said. “My family was super not into it. They wanted me to stay closer to home.”
“Where’s home?” Chloe asked.
I hadn’t asked him this yet, I realized, and I had no idea what the answer would be. I definitely wasn’t expecting what he said. “Texas. Houston, specifically.”
“Where’s your accent?” I sounded more skeptical than I intended.