Jamie Drummond & Ash Mareino
After a bewildering encounter with the Soviet (Jamie considered himself mean enough to note her as that in his internal commentary since it was 100% correct but not enough to say it to her face) whose emotions he could barely taste – not enough to determine more than a simple ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ vibe from them – the Scottish boy continued on to his dorm room. People who his empathy didn’t work on fully weren’t unheard of, and he’d met more than enough of them in his life. Businessmen, politicians, compulsive and professional liars.
His own father, for one.
Jamie didn’t care a whit about her supposed ‘powers’ – if she had them, he had no doubt she would’ve been warned to keep them secret from, well, everyone as he had been. He didn’t want any trouble. He didn’t want to be outed as some sort of freak, and so when he saw anything unusual – like his aforementioned ex-roommate lifting entire beds with one hand – Jamie refused to make a big deal about it.
It was none of his business. Empathy was more… abnormal than anything else, and he was sure the thought of him fiddling around in others’ emotions would be enough to get him ostracised, in the same way that Miss Dubois’ (his telepathic guidance counselor) biggest fear was discovery.
But… enough of that. His colours were turning into the midnight sky – too contemplative and downward-spiralling for his own good. Jamie entered, surprised to see his roommate wasn’t around for some reason and dumped his backpack on the unclaimed bed. It was a fairly decent room, nothing special, save for the numerous musical instruments taking up half the floor space. A flash of irritation filtered through his system as quick as it came, since he wasn’t all too good at holding on to little things like that.
Lying out on his pristine white duvet with inky emotions spreading out to stain it (at least in his eyes), Jamie realised in a sudden flash of daffodil that he ought to go out and collect the rest of his luggage – all four cases of it – from his car before clouds concealed the bright sunshine they’d been having all day. With a groan, he rolled back up onto his feet.
He should go and find
Ash first… He did want to.
No, stuff first; best-friend-maybe-more later.
Yep.
As it turned out, after Jamie had carefully side-stepped past his roommate’s instruments, he could kill two birds with one stone (as unfortunate a metaphor that was when a girl had died last year…) Approaching his car, he could sense Ash’s presence before he saw her – happiness blooming out from her like ripples in a serene pond, albeit one with a flicker of salty irritation. Emotions were more difficult to discern from Ash than most other folk, if only because when he peeked into the outer layers of her mind it was as vast and inhuman as the ocean.
It was nice.
She was wearing shorts, and if Jamie tried to suppress the blush that surfaced at the sight of her leaning against his car
reading, well… It was impossible. “So. What d’you think of her?” He asked.
“She’s beautiful.” Ash grinned looking up from the paper back that she then shoved into her back pocket, badly. Despite noticing, he didn’t really care, enraptured. He unlocked the door, reaching around Ash to open it and lean in to the passenger side where the first dufflebag was.
“You got any luggage? I can help you carry it, if you’d like.” Yeah, that’s right Jamie – assert your masculinity by offering to carry stuff. He almost cringed at himself, and how obvious the rosy flush of… well, everything about him felt.
“Thanks, but I shoved it into my gym locker already. I’ll deal with it later.” Ash shrugged.
Jamie didn’t have much else to say to that, rubbing the back of his neck in a futile attempt to stop the heat from trickling down it like hot candle wax. He ran around to the boot to pick out yet another bag and then one of the luggage cases, one with most of his clothes. “I don’t suppose they’ve changed the rules on guests in dorm rooms, then?” Girls could enter the boys rooms, pre-curfew of course, but the reverse wasn’t true. “Welcome to come and save me from my new musical roommate, who I’m sure is gonna be a
hoot... And by a
hoot I mean noisy as all hell.”
“Sounds just as awesome as my roommate. The great and wonderful Katalina Hargraves.” Jamie cringed as the salinity of Ash’s fluid emotions just doubled, then tripled. The irritation, as inhospitable as drinking from sea water would be, dissolved the flicker of unease. It wasn’t jealousy (which he’d never felt from his friend, really, which was part of the reason why he l– liked her) but it was more primal, a natural nervousness brought about through threatening competition.
“Christ, put itching powder in her swimsuit or something, if she’s as bad as you say,” he suggested. Mean-spirited? Yes. But Jamie would willingly compromise his own morals for something like that, even if he’d have to absorb the resulting humiliation and all the horrible feelings that a prank brought out in others. “You’re always welcome up in my room – second floor, Room 4. See if you can like, climb up a drainpipe or somethin’ after curfew.”
Smooth.
“As long as goody-two-shoes doesn’t tattle on me.” Ash grinned, “Might as well try to get to the lake while we’re breaking rules.”
That was more like it. “Definitely. No risk of staying inside and getting your toenails painted by a frenemy, or whatever it is girls do,” Jamie said, infected by Ash’s grin. His own smile split from ear to ear. When she laughed, he felt all of his own nerve ending light up with saccharine delight.
Ash shook her head, still grinning, “Yeah I don’t see Katalina painting my toenails anytime soon. You never said, who is your roommate?”
“Eh… Ben Calebs? Does that sound about right?”
“He’s in music, has been all three years.” Jamie knew that Ash often complained about her elective, the one her parents damn near forced her into, but from what he’d heard over the past four years, she was
great at singing. “He’s good. Like really good.” Well, that was surprising – a compliment.
No jealousy. No jealousy, Drummond. “I think I heard him and his sister playing in the courtyard.”
“That definitely explains all the instruments in my room,” Jamie noted. “Hey – um, you know the chick from like, Russia or the Ukraine or whatever?”
“I’ve seen her, in class and such, but I’ve never talked to her. Why?”
“She’s batshit insane,” he said flatly, with a nod of dead-certainty, moving away from the car with his possessions and tilting his head as if waiting for Ash. Her eyebrow raised, impressed and curious as she followed Jamie. “I mean, I live in Glasgow – I’ve had more than enough people sayin’ they wanted to smash my head in, y’know? But I’m pretty sure she actually
meant it.” He put a finger up to his temple and ran it in a circular motion in the universal gesture for
cuckoo.
Jamie looked over his shoulder suspiciously before continuing in a much lower voice, “And then she went on and on about how she knew I had ‘powers’ and how she had some of her own. Like I said, batshit.”
He didn’t expect the stagnant uncertainty, nor the flash of clear-blue belief, and his gaze turned contemplative even as she spoke. “Yeah, that’s batshit indeed. Probably should avoid her. Oh wait we can’t because we all have classes together.”
Return it to the joking, light-hearted way it was before. “You’ll cover me if I have to run, right? Or, you know, get in a cat-fight for me with a crazy Soviet?” He stopped before the door of the dorm hall, where students were still filtering in and out. “This is my stop, I guess. Spread the word of the crazies for me?”
“I’ve got your back.” Ash said with a smile. “I should probably get my bag and get the inevitable over with and meet up with Kataline the Sunshine bubble. At least it isn’t Snow again.” Jamie laughed.
“Right, see ya.” Ash gave a little wave and walked off to the gym, and as she left, Jamie let out a sigh like a deflating balloon as he headed up to his already full dorm room.
