Page 66 of June

“The lock is broken.”

“I’m sure there’s a hardware store somewhere in New Orleans. Buy a new one.”

Enid slammed the door behind her and headed to her room. She flopped onto her bed and pulled out her phone.

Enid Becker: You will never guess what I just caught my teenage brother doing.

She saw those three dots and waited.

Caroline Timothy: I feel like I know the answer to this one, but fill me in.

Enid smiled and texted her back.

Caroline Timothy: Gross. Was he doing it already?

Enid Becker: No, thank God. Maybe twenty seconds away, though.

Caroline Timothy: Are you traumatized for life?

Enid Becker: Yes. Can you make me feel better?

Caroline Timothy: If you’re proposingwehave video sex right now, the answer is not until we have real sex.

Enid smiled and sent her a message.

Enid Becker: I like that you saiduntilwe have real sex.

CHAPTER 16

Caroline had nearly fallen asleep in class, and she hadn’t even stayed up late the night before. The class was just that boring. She and Enidhadtexted, and she would’ve stayed up late doing that, but they had only gone on for a few minutes, and then, she’d gone to bed. Caroline wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, but shedidknow that she wouldnotbe spending time in a classroom like Viv. Classrooms felt claustrophobic to her, even when they were the giant lecture halls that could fit three hundred people. She needed open air and an easy escape. She usually sat in the back of every room just for that purpose, and the moment the professor or the TA said they could go, she was out the door, her bag already packed up and on her shoulder.

Today was no exception. The second she could go, she did so, and she ended up taking a long walk around campus for no particular reason. Ending up on a bench off the beaten path, Caroline pulled out her sketchbook and her pencil. She needed to start carrying a pack of pencils and a sharpener if that was going to be her new habit, but she hadn’t planned on stopping to draw. She looked around to find something interesting to sketch and found a girl and a boy sitting on a concrete wall that had a row of bushes behind them that led to a vine weaving up the side of one of the oldest buildings on campus.

Caroline started off by forming the concrete wall with her pencil in a shaded outline, giving it some definition, before she moved up and to the bushes behind it. They were all full and green and looked lush against the bare concrete. She normally didn’t apply any color to her sketches, but she pulled out her phone and took a photo of the scene so that if she decided to do that later, she’d have a way to remember the colors. It was muggy outside today, which made it uncomfortable. She thought about just using that photo to finish the drawing back in her room, but it would be hot and muggy there, too, because their fans could only do so much, so she just kept drawing. The people were moving too much for her to get a great likeness, though, so she left them to deal with later from the photo and merely gave them rough outlines before she moved on to the vines behind them. Finally, the red brick wall filled in the remainder of the space. Not completely satisfied but also feeling like she had done something she actually liked today, Caroline packed up her stuff, stood, and started to walk back to the dorm.

“Hey,” Jodie said as she caught up to her. “I thought we were grabbing lunch today.”

“We are. I thought we were meeting at the dorm,” she replied.

“Oh. I guess I spaced out that part. I thought you were going to wait for me after class since we were only a building apart.”

“You’ve been a little forgetful lately. Everything okay?”

“I’m not forgetful.”

“The other day, you forgot to get your tray when we got in line for dinner. You forgot your toothpaste when we ran into the bathroom, and you specifically went in there to brush your teeth. Didn’t you forget to go to class yesterday morning, too?”

“I fell asleep in your room. I was out of my routine,” Jodie argued.

“And you couldn’t get back into it when you rolled over and realized you were late for class?” she teased.

“No, apparently not,” Jodie replied.

Caroline laughed and said, “Where do you want to get food? Our dining hall?”

“Yeah, I kind of have to eat and run,” she said. “Project due.”

“Okay. We can get something to-go.”

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