Darkroom [18+]

04 | Daunt

AURORA

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It is Friday afternoon, a quarter to six. I sit in my car on the fourth floor of the university's parking garage, tapping my fingers against the steering wheel, watching the dots between the hour and minutes on the digital clock blink, and blink, and blink. I've been sitting here for a half hour, letting my car run, songs shuffling quietly on the radio. I've never been an anxious person because it feels like I don't have the right to be, but at this moment, I wear the label as a second skin. The idea of starting something new when everyone else has already learned the rules, the tells of the professor, and their peers breeds a headache, pulls my body into a misery pit.

At some point, I get out of the car. My body moves for me, slinging my bag over my shoulder, shutting the door, hearing the beep echo through the parking garage when I press the lock button. I take the stairs down to the ground floor and walk halfway across campus to Ekko Hall, but I bide my time doing it, counting the three steps I take between each crack in the concrete.

The campus doesn't exist in the evenings. Apart from the flickering lampposts, the maple trees in the courtyard, and the whistle that passes through them, there's barely anyone around, only another person now and then who crosses from where they came from to wherever they're going. Classes are my favorite at this time. It's as if I'm learning in a different universe, somewhere dark and quiet, where I can feel the oxygen pumping into my brain, keeping me alive and going. This feeling is one of few that keeps me from toppling over, nerves swarming me like wasps.

Eventually, I make it to the studio building and get into one of the elevators. As the doors close, I hear a voice ricochet throughout the lobby into the box with me. "Hold the elevator!"

I could've let the door close, let whoever's out there wait a minute for the next one to meet them, but I don't. I stick my foot out, tripping the sensor, and the door stops, jerking back open. Footsteps sound along the tile floor, jogging closer until they slide right in beside me.

"Thanks," a girl says on an exhale as the doors close.

I make a noise and nod, side-eyeing her. I'm glad it's only another girl. She doesn't do anything to curb my anxiety, but she doesn't add to it. At some point on the ride down, I sort of look over, noticing her. She's nonchalant, casual. Pretty in a way that's so soft, it makes me want to cry. She's taller than me, wearing a cropped-long sleeve, a pair of overalls, and worn-out chucks. I make out short curl-perfected hair with a whitish streak through her fringe that breaks through from a birthmark in the middle of her temple, a contrast against her sepia skin. When she glances my way, my eyes snap ahead, rivet at steel. I can feel her looking at me now, and maybe I've stared a little longer than I should've.

In my peripheral, I see her mouth open, close, and open again. "Hey... don't you work for the Gazette?" she asks.

I turn my head fully this time, regard her as if I haven't already outlined her face in fine detail. I don't say anything, my lip just twitches. She's asking me a simple question, but it's revealing. I don't know her, but it seems she knows me, which is never good. I make another noise and nod again.

"I'm Rowan," she introduces. A soft smile. "I also work for the newspaper. One of the photographers."

I think I smile back. "Aurora."

"I know."

There's a crease in my forehead, the space between us grows dense. It doesn't seem she knows me; she definitely does. To what extent, I don't know. I don't dare think to ask. Rowan, this girl, sees my apprehension and tries to clear it up.