Chelsea M. Cameron - My Sweetest Escape

“Joscelyn Archer?”

“Here,” I said, listening to my voice echo in the large room.

She looked up from the clipboard and searched me out. “You’re new to us, yes? Transfer?”

“Uh, yeah.” I could feel the blood rushing to my face and ears.

“Do you go by Joscelyn, or is there a nickname you’d prefer?”

“Um, Jos is fine.”

She smiled, showing the most perfect set of probably real teeth I’d ever seen.

“Jos. Lovely. Nice to have you with us.”

She moved on to the next name, and I slumped down in my seat.

“I hope you’re not going to do that all the time. She’ll call on you more if she knows how much you hate it,” Hannah whispered as someone else said, “here!”

“Great. Just fantastic.”

Hannah was right. Since I was new, the teacher, who went by Pam, didn’t call on me, but everyone else was fair game. She fired questions out like bullets, and if you answered too slowly, she’d move on to someone else. There was a lot of stuttering, a lot of red faces and a lot of people shooting their hands in the air to be called on so they could show everyone just how freaking smart they were.

And then there were some, including Hannah, who gave the answers when called and didn’t elaborate unless Pam asked them to. Everyone sort of turned to look at Hannah when she talked, and I could see that more than a few people’s gazes skittered away from the burned side of her face, but she didn’t seem to notice or care.

I didn’t get out my headphones the entire class. It was just too interesting. How she could make something as potentially boring as Colonial government riveting was beyond me.

When the class was over, we all sort of walked out like we were in a trance.

“Is it always like that?” I couldn’t help myself from asking Hannah as she crumpled up the empty Skittles bag.

“Pretty much. Awesome, huh?”

“It probably will be less awesome when she starts calling on me.”

“Just do the reading. You seem like the kind of person who doesn’t have her head up her ass, so you should be fine. So, where did you transfer from?”

“UNH.”

“Boo, hiss. Don’t say that too close to anyone connected with hockey, or else you might get your ass handed to you.” So I’d heard. The hockey rivalry between the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire had been going on for as long as they’d been playing hockey. I’d never gone to a game, but campus pretty much shut down so everyone could go to the games, and I bet UMaine wasn’t any different.

I had some time before my next class, and I was already starving, so I headed toward the Union.

“Do you have another class right now?” Hannah said as we got to the doors. “Because, although that bag of Skittles was totally satisfying, I could go for something else. Why does this sound like I’m asking you out? I’m totally not.” She shook her head.

“Um, no. I’m available. For eating. Not the dating.”

Her dark eyes went wide. “Because I like boys. I swear.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

We shared one of those nervous giggles that turns into full-on laughter, and by the time we got to the Union, I was wiping tears away.

“I swear, I’m not normally this weird,” she said as we joined the lunchtime throng and descended into the food court. Only a second later she said, “Okay, that’s a complete lie. I am normally this weird.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I whispered as we scoped out what was available. The longest lines were for pizza and burgers and the pseudo “Taco Bell,” so we headed to get wraps since those were the quickest. I happened to be on Hannah’s “good” side, but I was more than aware of the stares she got. It was one of those things. You saw her, realized there was something different about her, did a look again to check and then couldn’t look away.

She just smiled and giggled and acted like a normal girl. She got a hummus wrap and I ordered the special, known as the “Winslow,” which was basically a chicken caesar wrap with the addition of crushed croutons, which was such a brilliant idea that I couldn’t believe someone hadn’t thought of it sooner.

Finding a seat turned out to be a challenge, but we found a table for the two of us in a corner. I was about to say something, but Hannah beat me to it.

“So, in light of wanting to get things out in the open, yes, it’s a burn. It happened when I was a kid and it’s a long story and I’d rather not go into it because it’s a bit of a downer and a bit of a conversation killer and usually after I tell it I never see whoever I told it to again. Which is my weird way of saying that I don’t want to make you uncomfortable this early in our relationship. Wow, why do I keep doing that? I am so sorry.”

“No big,” I said, unable to stop laughing. “How about you tell me something else? Where are you from?”

She chewed and swallowed before she spoke. “Up north. The boondocks. The sticks. The butthole of Maine. Whatever you want to call it. I couldn’t afford to go out of state and this was the biggest school in Maine. Great place to get lost in, you know?”

I did.

“What’s your major?” she said after taking another bite of her wrap.

“Poli-sci.”

“Me, too. Although, that’s only because it sounded better than history and I’m a bit of a law junkie. I have no idea what I want to do, but I figured it was as good as anything else. Plus, in the upper level classes we get to debate and that’s kind of one of my favorite things. You?”

“I used to want to be president, or a senator or something,” I said. I hadn’t decided quite what yet. I figured I’d start out in local government and work my way up.

“Used to?”

“Another one of those long stories that’s a bit of a downer that I’d rather not tell.”

Hannah nodded. Honestly, the burn wasn’t that bad once you’d been looking at it for a while. You got used to it, and the fact that Hannah didn’t seem bothered about it helped.

“I hear you, girl.” We finished our lunch and talked more about the class, and Hannah told me that as long as I did the reading and had a reasonable grasp of the current political climate, I’d be fine. I wasn’t so sure, but I took her word for it.

“Are you on campus?” she asked as we dumped our trays and made our way upstairs to the Starbucks. Hannah said she needed her next caffeine fix.

“No. I live in a house in Bangor with my sister and a bunch of her friends.” Hannah let out a dreamy sigh.

“That sounds awesome. I’m stuck on campus. Yay, scholarship.” She sounded so enthused. “I’ve only lived with my roommate for a few weeks, and she’s already stopped talking to me. Luckily, she has a boyfriend with an apartment, so she usually stays there.”

Once again, been there, done that.

“It’s awesome if you feel like having three sets of parents always watching your every move.” I hadn’t meant to share so much about myself, but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t talked to anyone like this in a while, and there was something about Hannah. I’d known her less than a few hours, but it was like we’d met before, even though that was impossible.

“That sucks,” she said as she got in line. I decided to get my second round of tea just for the heck of it. The line was crazy long with everyone jonesing for their next fix like a bunch of junkies standing in line for methadone. Actually, the methadone was probably cheaper.

By the time we got our drinks and found a table crushed in a corner and two seats, it was almost time for my next class. I downed my tea and told Hannah I’d see her on Wednesday. We hadn’t talked about the rest of our class schedules, but the chances of me seeing her in another of my classes were actually pretty good, and I had the feeling I would.