Page 192 of Finding Us
I’m annoyed by the interruption, my mind left wondering what exactly Garret planned to do to me in the shower.
The guy puts his hand out toward Garret. “I’m Tyson. We just had class together. I sat in the back so you probably didn’t see me.”
Garret shakes his hand. “Hi, I’m Garret.”
I swear. I don’t understand this. Garret has people coming up to him, trying to be his friend, and I can’t even get someone to talk to me. I must be doing something wrong.
“Are you new here?” Tyson asks.
“Yeah, I transferred here.”
“That’s cool. You from California?” The guy takes a big bite of his burger. He has two burgers and a pile of fries.
“No. I’m from Connecticut. This is—” Garret was about to introduce me but the guy interrupts.
“I’m from Orange County. Born and raised there. You surf?”
“Yeah.”
“We should go surfing sometime. You want to go tonight? A bunch of us are going. Like eight guys. We have a spot we like just north of town.”
“Thanks, but I’m busy tonight.”
“Garret, it’s fine.” I say it quietly to him. “Go ahead.”
Tyson looks at me. “Are you the girlfriend?”
“This is Jade,” Garret answers. “She’s my wife.”
The guy laughs. “You’re joking, right? Wife. That’s hilarious.”
I hold my hand out and show him my ring. “He’s not kidding. I’m his wife.”
“Holy shit. What are you, like 19?” he asks Garret.
“I’m 20.” Garret’s angry. I can hear it in his voice. “Maybe you should go sit somewhere else.”
He gets up, still laughing. “I think I will. No offense, man. You can do what you want, but I’m not interested in hanging out with married people.”
Once he’s gone, Garret says, “So we’re probably not going to have many friends here.”
“We need to find a couple to hang out with, like Harper and Sean. I really miss them. Maybe we could convince them to move here.”
Garret puts his arm around me. “It’s only the first day. We’ll find people to hang out with. It just takes time. And if we don’t, we always have each other.”
The tables around us are filling up with people and I see that it’s getting close to 1. I need to get to chem lab, so I leave Garret there, telling him I’ll meet him after class at that coffee shop he went to this morning. I’m done at 2 today but he has class until 3.
Organic chem lab is uneventful. Emily, my lab partner, does all the work while I just stand there and watch. Every time I try to help, she takes over again. I can tell she thinks I’ll screw up the experiment. She informed me that she wants an A in this class and when I told her I did, too, she acted like she didn’t believe me. Since it’s only the first day, I didn’t want to argue with her so I just let her do the experiment.
After lab, I walk down to the coffee shop. It’s right by the entrance to campus. It has a bright red awning out front that says ‘Campus Brew’ and a sign on the window that reads ‘Students welcome. Show your ID for a discount.’
The inside of the place has an open, loft-like ceiling with exposed pipes. There are lots of different seating options; booths, small tables, long high tables with stools, and some lounge chairs scattered around. I take one of the soft chairs. They look relaxing and I need to relax. I feel tense. I sink into the chair and close my eyes for a moment.
“Long day?”
I open my eyes to see a girl standing there. She’s tiny, maybe 5 feet tall, with short dark hair and deep brown eyes. She has a t-shirt on with the coffee shop name so I’m guessing she’s a waitress. I didn’t know they had waitresses. I thought you just ordered at the counter.
I sit up a little. “Yeah. The first day of class always kind of sucks.”
