Page 11 of Sunrises & Salvation

HUNTER

“ Y eah, Mom. School is great! Everyone has been so nice and I like all my classes,” I lie jovially through the phone.

My mom called for her weekly check-in. I can hear my dad in the background watching football on the TV.

A feeling of homesickness washes over me; at least there, I have my mom and my dad. Here, I have no one.

“That’s great, honey! Anything else new?”

“I got a few more sales on my bookmarks. It’s not much but…” She blows a raspberry through the phone.

“Do not sell yourself short! It might not be much, but anything is better than nothing. What kind do they want?” That’s one thing I love the most about my mom—besides her homemade cookies—no matter what I do, I know she’ll support me.

Even if it’s nothing lucrative, I’m not going to become the next millionaire off this, but knowing that my mom cares enough to ask makes me feel like I’m doing something worth my time.

I explain the design, dried out flowers that I’m going to have to collect this week.

I’ll probably snag them off a few of the plants blooming around campus.

They won’t miss a few petals too much… hopefully.

“Do you want us to come there next weekend, or do you want to come home?” She asks, and I pause for a minute.

My birthday is next weekend, the first weekend of September.

Normal people probably celebrate with their friends by going out and doing whatever it is college students do.

I’m going to be celebrating my nineteenth birthday with my parents and a dozen chocolate chip cookies.

“I want to come home. Does Dad mind picking me up?” I don’t have my car here, mostly because the cost of parking passes is outrageous, and anything I need is within walking distance of the campus.

“I don’t mind picking you up, son, just let me know when and where.

” Discussing the pick-up plans, our conversation slowly dries out until I’m ready to hang up and go back to my room to work on homework.

It’s been three weeks since the first day of school, and the professors are starting to increase the homework and reading load.

That’s fine by me, I’ll take anything I can to distract myself from the loneliness.

“We love you, honey. Let us know if you need anything. We’re so excited to see you. It’s been too long since I’ve squeezed your neck.” I laugh into the phone.

“Mom, it’s been one month.”

“It’s also the longest you’ve ever been away from home!” Granted, that’s true.

“I’ll see you in a week, Mom, love you.”

Both she and Dad reply with their own love you and hang up.

It’s Sunday, and that means I need to finish the reading for English tomorrow.

The Epic we’re on is about power, and how having too much leads to the destruction of friendships along the way.

I prefer romance, but deep-seated feelings aren’t bad either.

Love, longing, and loss, even in platonic ways, are hard to swallow down and accept when they don’t work out the way you want them to.

“Hey!” a feminine voice calls out, and I keep walking. She’s not talking to me, and it would be embarrassing if I looked around to see who yelled.

“You! Hey! You!” A hand wraps around the strap of my backpack, my trek to the library interrupted.

“Jesus, you walk fast. Slow down next time I yell at you, ’kay?

” I glance down… Barely. Because the girl who just snatched me is almost as tall as me, with red hair and light green eyes.

They almost hurt to look at, the light color pales in comparison against her tanned skin.

“Okay,” I respond, because what the heck else am I supposed to say?

“Where are you going? You’re not going to the library, are you? I see you there all the time.” I huff, pulling the strap of my backpack tighter.

“You totally were, but that’s okay. I’m there all the time, too. I’m a pre-med major, so I spend every moment I can studying, unless my friends want to hang out.”

“Pre-med? Sounds hard,” I offer awkwardly. This is why I don’t have friends, I don’t know how to talk to people.

“It totally is, but I like it. I want to be a doctor one day, but we’ll see. My mom wants to mold me into a trophy wife, but that sounds so boring. Imagine staying inside day in and day out and only going somewhere when your husband wants to.”

“That’s awful, she should support you.”

“Yeah, but it is what it is. Wanna study together? There’s a coffee shop like four blocks off campus, and they have the best lavender coffee.

And it’s free refills.” Is she… Inviting me to hang out with her?

I look around to see if there’s someone standing off to the side, waiting to point and laugh at me for getting my hopes up.

“Me?” I ask dumbly.

“Well, yeah. We might as well study together, keeping each other accountable, you know?” I smile what feels like my first real smile in weeks.

“Sure, yeah. Lead the way.”

She talks the whole way to the coffee shop, explaining how the ordering system works and the best drinks to get there.

I appreciate the details because there’s nothing worse than trying a new spot and not knowing the right etiquette for ordering.

She ranks all of her favorites and tells me the ones to stay away from.

“And whatever you do, do not get the chai. I love this place, but their chai tastes like dirt. It’s supposed to be made fresh, but just trust me,” she stage whispers before she opens the door, the AC blowing hard and gracing us with its presence when we walk in.

It’s busier than I expected for a Sunday, most of the tables filled with students with their laptops out and headphones on.

It looks like the library with the number of students here, but that makes sense, being so close to campus. It’s probably their main demographic.

“I’ll grab us a seat, and you just order me whatever you get,” I offer, noticing that there’s only one table left open, and I want to snatch it before someone else comes along. This is my chance to make a friend, and I’m not going to let anyone take it from me.

“Sounds good,” she chirps, turning toward the front counter where the barista is waiting.

He’s cute, and I’m staring at him awkwardly, willing my feet to move.

He glances up from my friend, who I just realized never gave me her name, and he winks at me.

Actually winks. My face heats, and I quickly turn on my heel and go to the open table.

I set my stuff down and pull my laptop out of my bag. Well, not only have I made a friend, but I’ve openly gawked at an attractive man in public.

Could I get any more embarrassing? I rub the palms of my hands into my eyes, trying to alleviate the tight feeling in my chest.

“What are you working on?” she asks, sitting across from me and placing her bag on the table. A variety of pins are tacked on there. Horror characters, music pins, even one of a uterus, but the quote is too small for me to read.

“English. We’re reading an Epic, and my professor likes to ask questions about the text as soon as they walk in. If they call on you, and you don’t know the answer, they mark you absent for the day.” She whistles.

“Pain in the ass?” I nod my head, pulling up the text and reaching for my pen and paper in my bag so I can take notes.

“I guess it could be worse, though, I could be studying pre-med,” I joke, and she cracks up, laughing loud enough for people at other tables to turn and look at us. Her laughter spurs me into my own, both of us cackling loudly over something that shouldn’t be this funny.

“I guess I had that coming. So, what’s your name? I never asked.”

“Hunter, and yours?”

“Danielle.”

A throat clears, and the barista who winked at me is holding two cups of coffee.

“Two iced, lavender oat milk lattes?” his deep voice questions, and I have to keep my composure while Danielle moves her stuff around to make room for the two drinks. “If you need anything else, just let me know.” He turns and walks away as quickly as he came.

Wide-eyed, I look at Danielle, and she has a devious twinkle in her eyes. “He’s cute right?” she offers, and I shrug, not knowing if this is about to be a witch hunt for me to accept my sexuality.

“You don’t think?”

“He’s okay,” I affirm, taking a sip of the cold drink, glad I took her suggestion because the hint of lavender with the creamy taste of oat milk is good.

“So I guess since you think he’s just okay, I’ll throw away my receipt with his number on it.”

“What? No, absolutely not. Give it here.” I extend my hand, waiting for her to put the receipt in it, knowing that I just outed myself to the one person who could be my friend. But if he’s interested, that means he might also want to be my friend, and I would be dumb to pass that up.

She passes it over, and right there on the top is his name, Thomas, and his number right underneath with a smiley face. Oh. The smile on my face dims, and I hand it back to her.

“I think it’s for you.” She makes a psshh sound and tries to give me back the receipt.

“He’s in my organic chemistry lab, we talk all the time. I have his number.”

My fingers twitch with the need to steal the receipt back again and put the number in my phone before she changes her mind and actually throws it away.

After the receipt is in my grasp, I insert the number quickly into my phone. I’m not going to text him yet because that would make me look desperate, and nobody likes desperation.

We fill the time with Danielle talking out loud to herself about her science experiments, her reasoning is that talking out loud helps her learn faster. I want to make the joke that she just likes to hear herself talk, but I think that would be pushing it.

I finish my reading and my cup of coffee.

I have a new email from my website, and I skim through it, feeling my body shiver in anticipation.

It’s one of my biggest orders for bookmarks yet.

It might not be much, but knowing that people want to buy my stuff makes me feel like the real deal, and not a sham.

“Hey,” I say loud enough for Danielle to hear me over her ramblings.

“What’s up?” She tilts her head to the side, some of the red tresses falling over her shoulder like waves.

“Are you busy tonight? I just got a huge order in, and if you want to come back to my dorm, you can study there while I work.” It sounds cheesy and weird. I’m convinced she’s going to tell me no.

“Hell yeah. And on the way there, you can tell me all about what this order is.”

And that’s what I do. I tell her about making bookmarks and how I sell them. My favorite books, my least favorite books, and everything in between. She says she hasn’t picked up a book that wasn’t a textbook since middle school, when she was forced to read, and even then, she hated it.

“You just haven’t found the perfect book yet, but don’t worry. We’ll find one for you.”

The night is filled with her telling me about her mom and all the issues that come with her. I confide in her about the troubles I went through growing up, and how I turned inward and started relying on books.

To the core, we’re a lot alike. Two people who are fighting against what society is trying to force on them, and doing what they can to make it out with their happiness still in check.

When my roommate comes in, I offer to walk Danielle to her dorm, but she politely declines. So with a hug goodbye, she leaves.

And for the first time, I have a friend.