The University stretched along the north bank of the river, with the older buildings closer to the water. The older dorms--the quad--were available only to honors students and lottery winners. New dorms were either at the west end of the campus, or uphill, past the sciences complex, and abutting town.
Zach sat on a bench overlooking the placid waters of the river, the smoothly swirling eddies and ripples of the clear, cold water flowing endlessly eastward. All his troubles were behind him: literally. In the dorms around the quad, and in the bio-center somewhere beyond.
He found peace in the dappled sunlight sparkling from the water, and in the rustling of the late-spring leaves. He didn't want to think about any of it. Maddy. Ava. Sara. Professor Enkins. His dreams.
So: he watched the water. People jogged along the asphalt path behind him, or swish-swish-swish rollerbladed it. Birds chattered, flitting from tree to tree.
He leaned back into the bench, letting his awareness float on the crisp spring air.
He felt himself being watched and reluctantly opened his eyes.
A squirrel was perched on the edge of the bench, just out of arm's reach, watching him.
"Hey little guy," Zach said.
The squirrel blinked, and rubbed its hands and cleaned its face, then resumed watching him.
"Sorry pal, I don't have any food for you."
The squirrel turned and hopped off the bench and scampered to the nearest tree trunk. It paused, peering back at Zach.
"Maybe tomorrow," Zach said.
He had walked Sara back to the quad, and in parting, he had let her go. Completely. He had felt all the extraordinary power singing in every molecule of his being swirl away with her as she waved goodbye. Now he was empty. Exhausted. Depleted. And afraid of what would come next.
He sighed. He pulled himself to his feet. He had laundry to do.
* * *
The quad was almost stereotypically collegiate: ivy-covered brick walls, carved wood details worn by decades of rough use. Stairs and floors tended to creak, but other elements had been modernized. The laundry room was somewhere in-between. Hulking coin-operated washers and driers were scattered in dim rooms throughout the extensive basement complex that connected the four sides of the great quad, as well as extending and interconnecting to the older buildings of the humanities complex. At first it had felt somewhat like a labyrinth, with unexpected turns and branches, and sub-basements, but Zach knew his way to the laundry room well enough. It was empty when he arrived and loaded a washer. Jeans, crew necks, boxers, socks. He tossed in a gelpack of detergent, fed the coins, and set it going. He had it down to a science: one hamper: 35 minutes for the wash, six rounds of 7.5 minute cycles in the dryer, five minutes of folding, and the whole ordeal was over in an hour and a half.
On a beautiful spring day there was absolutely no reason to babysit the wash, but Zach didn't feel like going outside.
He plopped into a plastic chair and pulled out a book.
Five minutes later a strikingly tall girl came in to switch her laundry from washer to dryer. He didn't know her name, but he had seen her around. Hard to miss her, as she was well over six feet in height. Intensely curly hair, dark around a pale, freckled face. She had strong features, not very attractive to Zach, and he turned back to his book.
He was here to ignore humanity, perhaps even to hide from humanity.
But he couldn't help himself. He closed the book in his lap and tuned in.
For a moment he wavered on the border between thinking and feeling, was he imagining? Projecting? Or was he really receiving.
He found a sharp edge of efficiency. Warm, wet cloth heavy against the palms. The lift and heft and release into the cavernous drier.
Zach felt around the corner of his own resistance and found her energies. Bored, lonely, irritated. So tired of being looked at like a freak. So tired of not being seen as a girl. Here's a perfectly decent looking guy, and he doesn't even glance at her. (
Decent looking! That's something!
)
Zach looked up from his book. She was frowning, shoving heaps of clothes into the dryer, not looking at him. He saw she was wearing a heavy sweat shirt and by the motions induced by her vigorous handling of the laundry, he concluded she wasn't wearing a bra.
He tuned back in: Well ok, he's looking at me. Pervert. (
True!
)
He sighed audibly and went back to his book.
"What?" she asked, confrontationally.
He looked up. He must have sighed pretty meaningfully! She was staring at him, a tangle of dark cotton cloth in her hand.
"Ah? I'm bored of my book?" he said. But he also tuned back in.
He's lying. Guys are such fucking liars. Zach didn't get the words, exactly: he could tell his own mind was interpreting what he felt from her. Pulses of emotion, waves of cognition, images; flashes of men who she considered liars. Her father. He was finding it surprisingly easy to tune in and out, although doing anything with this was clearly another story. She wasn't in an absolute frenzy, and he could see where the kernel of her desire could be, but it was negligible, as was his own.
"Hey," he said.
"What?"
"You're right. I was lying."
She looked at him sharply.
"I saw it on your face. That look of contempt. Scorn. But you're totally right. It has nothing to do with the book. I'm just... having a fucking day, is all. It doesn't have anything to do with you, though. I want you to know that, in case, a screw it, I'm just digging this hole deeper. Anyway, yeah, I was lying."
Unexpectedly he felt her interest suddenly pique. Honesty was her aphrodisiac?
"I'm having that kind of day, too," she said. "Didn't mean to make faces at you."
"You're kind of sexy in that sweatshirt," he said, having absolutely nothing to lose, and in fact, rather hoping he
would
lose.
Her softened expression hardened immediately and Zach couldn't help see the leap of distrust, disbelief, and interest. She didn't feel even remotely sexy, and didn't believe it was possible, but she felt a surge of hope, and a fear of that hope all tangled in one muddy reaction.
"Didn't mean to offend you," Zach said. "Maybe got carried away with my honesty. I think it's just going braless. I'm a guy. It's not rocket science."
She crossed her arms over her chest, but also burst out laughing.
He just likes boobs, any boobs will do. Get over yourself.
"It
is
laundry day," she said.
"Cheers," he said, lifting his book as if it was a glass of wine.
Before things could go somewhere, he opened the book back up again and pretended to read.
She was disappointed. He could see that he had disarmed some of her defenses. She wasn't actually attracted to him, he wasn't her type at all. Something at the edge of his mind, something he couldn't see in himself, and something he knew wasn't Enkins needled at him. He couldn't totally let it go. It was important.
He snapped his book shut.
"Who am I kidding, I've read that paragraph five times and I still don't know what it said."
She closed the door to the dryer and started feeding it quarters.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was just being braless. I mean, that's exactly what I said, but I was deflecting. And now I don't want you to think I just hang out in the laundry room hoping for braless women to come do their laundry. You," he said with emphasis, "are sexy."
She looked at him, speechless.
"You're not my type," he added. "And I sure as hell aint yours. But I just feel you should know it: you have elegant proportions, you ..."
She held up a hand. "Save it. I don't need a man telling me whether I'm sexy or not. I'd honestly rather not hear your connoisseur's opinion as to my shape or demeanor. Appreciate what you're trying to do, but just... don't."
He saw the ways she was at war with herself. Her mind loathing his clumsy attempts at compliments, but other layers, animal layers, wanting more of them. And he saw the hook. The hook Enkins had used. He consulted the elusive, niggling sensation in his mind. Having noticed it, apparently it disappeared completely.
Zach tried to exert control without committing himself by saying anything. He tried to influence her to stop. He tried to touch that layer, that thread, that threshold of her mind.
She started the drier.
"Stop," he said, pushing there, on that edge, focusing his will.
She picked up her laundry basket and put it on top of the machine, but neither did she react to him. All his attention on her layers of energy, he didn't shift his attention to her expression.
