Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
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Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
noun. a sub-unit in the band, e.g. pit crew and field crew.
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IN THE MORNING, I WALK back to my residence hall completely unaware of the light speckles of rain, the damp air, everything.
I've never had memories so good that I want to replay them over and over. That's why I make up daydreams, those wonderful impossibilities, sweet falsehoods, like being a drumming rock star and discovering my mother is alive and meeting the Irvings again, my favorite foster family. And now, weaving himself around my impossibilities and falsehoods, there's Callum, who is possible and true. I just wish he wasn't.
There's no affection in my heart for him, but he makes my body sing, so. I don't try particularly hard to push the memories of last night away; his hands around and underneath my body, the way I even like the way his sweat smells, how his lip trembles before he orgasms, and before he kisses me, as if those things feel equally good.
I take the stairs instead of the lift, somehow filled with enough energy to endure the climb. When I slip into my and Renata's bedroom, she's already up and working at her overcrowded desk. Soft K-Pop music streams from her laptop, and there are reaction scheme worksheets scattered in between her stationary. We usually tell each other if we are spending the night away from the hall, for safety and just for an update, but I haven't this time.
She, gracious beautiful angel, doesn't push me to admit more even though I can tell she's increasingly curious and worried.
"It's Callum," she says before I shut the door.
I'm stunned. "What?"
"Your mystery lover," Renata says, as if I need reminding. "I was wondering."
I could lie. Callum and I agreed not to tell anyone else—but I didn't tell Renata, technically. She figured it out for herself. She's watching my reaction, and I could pssh and no way this all away, but I told myself I wouldn't ever lie to her. I'm afraid if I start, I'll find it so easy to keep going, and then I'll lose my closeness to her. Instead, I sigh and kick off my sneakers. "How did you know?"
Renata's jaw drops open at my confession, a confounded grin painted across. Then she clears her throat, "You tell me about all your hookups. The only reason you wouldn't is if you didn't want to talk about it—but what would make you, a liberated and detached woman, not want to talk about sex? Someone who embarrasses you. Or someone who hurts your pride." She's twiddling her gel pen between her index and middle finger. "Or someone we both know, thereby transgressing your social compartments. Ergo Callum, who fits all of that."
I'm impressed. "Screw Chemistry, become a detective."
"Also I accidentally saw a notification from him when I went to plug my phone in yesterday, before you left."
