ᴀᴅ ᴍᴇʟɪᴏʀᴀ ~ ᴅᴘꜱ (ꜱᴛᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴍᴇᴇᴋꜱ)

6 - juicy gossip

The trees around campus are entirely dead, and I'm about to join them in the afterlife.

It's barely 5 weeks into the semester and I'm already suffocating in school work. Assignment after assignment, project after project, it's exhausting.

"Just stop going," Amy offers between bites.

"Great idea Amy, I have no idea how I didn't think of that." I roll my eyes and reach for a bowl of broccoli across the table. A nearby teacher spots me, shooting me a dirty look.

I offer the teacher a fake smile and turn to the girl across the table from me. "Excuse me, can you please pass the broccoli?"

She gives me a once-over and glances at her friend.

"Uh, yeah, sure." Her arm meets mine halfway across the table and I take the bowl.

I look back to the teacher and she nods.

"That was the most awkward exchange I've ever seen," Amy cuts in.

"Yeah, yeah." I wave her off. "Worry about your own plate."

"Seriously, though," she adds, returning to our previous topic. "I don't get why you care so much. You've got good grades, just skip a day or two to catch up. It won't hurt."

"But then I get more behind from the days I miss. It's a never-ending cycle."

"It's homework, not an existential crisis. You'll be okay, Ivy."

I sigh, pushing around the food on my plate. "You're right. I'm getting tunnel vision."

"Damn right I am. I don't know what you're gonna do without me next year."

She pauses to swallow, then adds, "If they let me graduate. I don't think Coleman wants me around any longer, though, so my odds are good."

"I don't know either," I find myself agreeing. It's only been a few weeks, but Amy has become a prominent figure in my life. I expected it to take longer for her to like me, but I guess it only took about this long for me and Bee to become best friends.

Ouch. Bee. I almost forgot about her.

Maybe that's a good thing.

"You know," I say, breaking through the muddled chatter of other students around us, "I still haven't seen Bee at any meals."

Amy rolls her eyes. "Ivy, come on, you've got to-"

I cut her off. "No, no, I know. I'm just pointing it out. This is the only dining hall. Is she, like, not eating, or something?"

"Who cares," Amy responds. The conversation lulls until Amy finished chewing the food in her mouth. "Maybe, over the summer, she turned into a vampire."

I start to say something, but Amy cuts me off. "I'm serious. Now, over the summer, she turned into a vampire. What do vampires drink? Blood. Where does blood come from?" She pauses and looks at me expectantly.

I give in. "People?"

"Yes!" Amy slams the table, a little too hard, and receives a glare from the girls to her left. She mouths an apology before continuing, quieter this time. "And who better to feed off of than a roommate? She didn't want to use you as a blood bag. That's why she changed rooms."

"That's... definitely a theory."

Amy grins, proud of the story she spun. I peer at the clock across the dining hall and realize that dinner ends in 10 minutes. I quickly scarf down my remaining food, offering only nods in response to Amy's anecdotes for the rest of the meal.

-

"And so I told him, 'Neil, annuals are for losers. Your father is doing you a favor. If I wanted to remember someone, I would. I don't need a book for that.' He didn't like that very much," Amy recounts to me on our walk back to Maxine Hall. "Does Constantine even do an annual yearbook?"

"Yeah, since '37," I respond, not sure where the information came from.

It dawns on me quickly: Bee used to participate in it. She would always try in a few extra pictures of us, usually in nonsensical places. Her magnum opus was fitting us into pictures from our school's production of Macbeth the previous fall.

"For the future generations," she said, "to remember how cool we were."

Neither of us ever bought one.

"I'm not gonna ask why you know that," Amy says, pulling me back to reality. "Either way, it's dumb. I think Neil knew that too. He's more upset about the fact that his father stepped in than he is about missing out on the annual itself. Mr. Perry can be a dick sometimes."

"You've met him?"

"Well, no," Amy admits, "but I've only ever heard bad about him. Charlie hates him, probably more than Neil. If that's possible."

I groan. "Trust me, I know about shitty parents."

"Wow, goody-two-shoes has some family issues that she uses academics to compensate for? Never heard that one before," Amy sarcastically responds. I nudge her shoulder, but it doesn't shake the validity of her words.

"Am I that transparent?"

"Oh, no. I'm just observant. You pick up on things when you're with someone all day."

"All day? You show up at the dorm for meals and curfew, that's it. I wouldn't call that all day."

"It's more than usual. Last year, for dinner, I'd smoke a cig and call it a night at least 3 days a week."

"That's, like, obscenely unhealthy," I laugh.

"Oh, shut up. You're starting to sound like Cameron."

"Damn. I was going for Meeks, not Cameron. 'Obscenely' is a pretty big word," I rebut.

"Oh trust me, I know you're going for Meeks," Amy pesters, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

I scrunch my nose to hide the blush blooming on my face. "You're really determined to set us up. I've spoken to the boy once, Amy."

"...And we need to fix that," she tacks onto the end of my sentence. "I'll see if I can organize something else soon, hopefully with everyone this time."

We approach the doors to Maxine Hall, Amy pushing forward to open the door first.

"Charlie sees it, too," she adds as I slip in the door behind her.

"Oh, yes, because I trust Charlie Dalton to plan out my love life."

"...You've got me there."

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fun fact, i wrote this whole chapter on the same route that i originally came up with the idea for this story on. just like 3 weeks later lolz

also, i usually try to put out chapters on friday/saturday, BUT, we hit 100 reads today (9/23/21) so i'm putting this one out early. enjoy mi amors and ty for taking time to read my work!