"Hey, um, Lizzy?"
Lizzy looked up, and her face split into a radiant smile. "Oh, hi, Mary! How's it going?"
"Pretty good." Mary tried to focus on Lizzy, and not on Lizzy's two classmates exchanging wry glances. Lizzy had just come out of ensemble, and Mary could tell she was interrupting. Mary clutched her books closer to her chest. "Listen, um, I was wondering..."
Lizzy's head tilted to the side.
Mary could feel her cheeks getting hotter. "I could use your help with something," she squeaked.
Lizzy blinked. She glanced around them. "Right now?"
"Mm." Mary nodded quickly. "If--if you're not busy. I mean, it can wait."
"No! No, it's fine." Lizzy brushed a lock of hair behind her antenna and turned to face her two friends. "Hey, guys, I gotta go help my roommate. She's hopeless at figuring out the, uh, I think the fridge is on the fritz again, so it's kinda urgent."
"No problem," said one of them, a pretty apisae with her jet-black hair done back in a bun.
"Yeah, we'll see you later at the cafe, though, right?" asked the other, a lampyra dressed in all-black to help make up for her natural glow.
"Yeah! For sure." Lizzy flashed them a smile, then walked towards Mary and hooked her arm in hers. She caught Mary's eye. "Shouldn't be an hour."
Mary nodded weakly. She felt so pathetic.
As they walked off, she heard the lampyra murmuring to the other apisae, "People always get their polar opposites as roommates. She's so patient with her. If it were me..."
They rounded the corner before Mary could hear the rest. But Mary's antennae thrummed with shame.
Fifteen minutes later, Mary was mewling through her hand, pinned against the bed and grinding her hips against Lizzy's buzzing leg, and nothing mattered except Lizzy's beautiful, honey-gold eyes.
~ ~ ~ ~
She'd asked Lizzy to 'go flying' for her four times since that first night now. She was a month into the term, and she felt like she was going insane with the craving. Even the climax at the end didn't feel like enough anymore. Some nights she just wanted to grab hold and keep going, keep climaxing until she passed out. She was hopeless.
She needed to stop. She'd told herself that multiple times. The way Lizzy smiled knowingly at her whenever she asked, the snickers from her dormmates... there was no way she'd told any of them, right?
No. Of course not. They just thought she was a clingy codependent weirdo. Whatever... this was, Lizzy would get in just as much trouble as Mary would if they were found out. Wouldn't she?
Although Mary was the one constantly pressuring Lizzy into it.
She clenched her thighs together and buried her face in her hands. She was in the dorm restroom, locked in a shower stall. Lizzy was in the bedroom right now getting ready for an early bedtime, since she had some sort of big rehearsal going on tomorrow morning. Mary definitely could not risk being in the same room with an awake Lizzy. It was... too easy to ask.
So she'd just sit here and wait. It was easier than sitting out in the common room. She hadn't made any friends in the dorms. When everyone hung out, she always just sat there mutely and watched Lizzy, never knowing how to cut in.
She'd be able to go to bed soon. She just had to wait a few minutes longer, just to be sure Lizzy would be asleep when she got back. Lizzy was a deep sleeper.
~ ~ ~ ~
"... so, you in?"
Mary watched through the window as the squirrel scurried up the tree with its little half-donut prize fished from the trash. No wonder the squirrels on campus were so cute and fat.
"Hello? Mary?"
Mary jumped, realizing abruptly that Lizzy had been talking to her. She spun, staring wide-eyed at the whole cluster of dormmates eyeing her curiously. "What?"
"The concert this Saturday." Lizzy rolled her eyes with a giggle. "Wow, you were totally checked out, huh?"
"Mm." Mary nodded. "Sorry. I, um, didn't sleep well last night."
"Yeah, you came to bed late, didn't you?" Lizzy frowned. "You're staying out pretty late lately, huh?"
"Mm. Just been studying really hard."
"Good for you," chirped the red-haired vespinne, whose name Mary still didn't know. "You should come study out here sometime! Nessa and I do little work-ins sometimes."
"Yeah." Mary glanced surreptitiously at Lizzy, then ducked her head. As long as Lizzy never went, it might be a good way to pass the time. "Maybe."
Denise, the aranea, smiled. "Lizzy, she wants to ask if
you'll
be there."
Mary's cheeks went bright red. "Th-That's not--"
"Don't be a jerk," the vespinne cut in, glassy wings irritably buzzing. The sound made Mary's nails dig into her thighs. "It's normal to want to be around the person you know best when you're new. We aren't even halfway into her first term."
"Right." Denise nodded sheepishly.
"Especially since transitioning from homeschool is freaking hard!
You
were basically webbed to me in freshman year, remember?"
"Right, yeah, good point. Sorry, Mary."
Mary mumbled her forgiveness. Lizzy had been totally silent throughout the interaction. Mary didn't dare look at her.
"So, anyways," Lizzy declared, "who's going to my concert?"
"I wouldn't miss it," the vespinne said with a smile.
"I think I'm free," Denise added.
The culicin--another girl whose name Mary didn't know--gave a high-pitched giggle. "Should be able to!"
Lizzy turned to Mary with a bright-eyed smile. "So, how about it, Mary? Sounds like everyone else is going."
Mary swallowed. She hadn't heard Lizzy play yet, though she knew Lizzy played the piano.
She forced herself to meet Lizzy's gaze. Lizzy was sitting right next to her on the sofa, close enough for Mary's antennae to pick up some of her scent. Lizzy had such a cute, easy smile, a smile like she was genuinely so, so happy to see whoever it was she was looking at.
Mary could picture herself sitting in the front row with the other dormmates, watching Lizzy play. She already knew Lizzy would play beautifully, like she did everything beautifully. Maybe their eyes would meet. Maybe Lizzy would smile at her. Maybe Mary could bring a flower to throw to her, or hand it to her after the concert, and then Lizzy could take her hand and they could sneak backstage and
Mary stood up abruptly. "I think I'm busy that night, actually," she said, and retreated from her corner. "I'd better go. Paper due tomorrow."
She nearly tripped on the vespinne's long legs in the process. She heard a startled apology, which she reciprocated, but then she was out of the common room and hurrying for their door. She managed not to fumble with the key fob, at least.
Once safely inside, Mary leaned back against the door to close it behind her. She was breathing heavily, trying to clear her lungs of Lizzy. It wasn't working.
She wondered if Lizzy would follow. Maybe Lizzy would want to check in on her.
Lizzy didn't follow. Mary sat there alone in their room. After a moment, she went over to her desk and opened her laptop. She really did need to get some work done, anyways.
Lizzy would have all her friends already attending the concert, anyways. She didn't need Mary. Mary would just be a face in the crowd, one in many. She wasn't special. She was just the most... clingy.
She reached up and gently wafted air onto her antennae, trying to clear them out a little.
It was past time to get ahold of herself.
~ ~ ~ ~
Lizzy did come back to the bedroom a couple hours later. Mary was just finishing up her theology paper, and she had her headphones in, so she only noticed Lizzy was back when the apisae appeared in her peripheral to retrieve her razor. Lizzy wasn't looking at her.
