She combs the bangs out of her eyes and takes a pull from her cigarette. Pools of smoke swirl around her face as she exhales through her nose, bringing the filter to her lips for more. “This campus is so dark,” says the girl, “Even when the sun’s out, everything is so concrete and gray.” The boy she speaks to says nothing at all, nodding and looking at Mohawk Tower. The girl reaches for a pack of Newports out of the boy’s pocket, using the end of her last cigarette to light the new one. The boy sits still as she returns the pack to its place.
They don’t address each other for the next few minutes. Instead they sit on the dark wooden picnic table, still moist from last night’s storm. Occasionally her phone vibrates against the top of the table and she slides her bony fingers against the screen to see who’d texted or called or tweeted. She would giggle to herself when she opened the notification, bending over as her hair envelopes her face. Still the boy sits, only moving to breathe deeply and shift his shoulders for comfort.
The overcast becomes thicker and the sun hides behind the new stadium. “I like it though,” says the boy. The girl taps her thumbs against the glowing screen while balancing the burning paper between her first two fingers. “What was that?” she says. “I like the campus,” the boy says. The girl looks around her, first at the campus center, then the sports fields, then entrance of Indian quad. “Yea,” she says, shrugging her shoulders, “Maybe it grows on you.” The boy gets up and grabs at the knees of his jeans, pulling them down. He pats the back of his pants that were now wet from the table and stretches his back. “Yea, it does,” he says.
He walks to where the girl sits and grabs her cheeks. “Stop!” she yells, trying to push his arms out of the way. He kisses her forehead. “Love you,” he says. She wipes the spot where his lips met her skin, trying to hide her smile with a look of disgust. She throws the last of the cigarette to the pavement. “Hate you,” she says in reply. “Call Mom and Dad and tell them I’ve delivered you safely,” the boy says, opening the driver’s side door of a red Honda Civic. “I’ll tell them you’ve taken me to all the best drinking spots downtown,” she says as she steps down from her spot at the table. The boy smiles, “You’ll learn my yourself in time,” he says, “Call me if you ever need anything.” The girl walks over with open arms to where the boy stands by his car. She rests her head on his chest and lets out a heavy sigh. They move back and forth in their embrace and he scratches the back of her head with one hand, holding her shoulder with the other.
“I don’t hate you,” says the girl. “I know,” says the boy.
In Alina's Words 