Plié and Clout

Chapter 8: Steph-ahn

surprise chapter because I'm home for covid-19

MUSIC: blame it on the kids - AViVA

-rabid

***

AUGUST-

Jilly doesn't look great when she walks in the door to the studio. I watch her disappear into the bathroom and change into her practice clothes, and when she reappears she seems sniffly.

"Jilly?" I pull her to the side. "I know I don't know you all that well, but are you okay?" She looks up at me with big blue eyes.

"Yeah, I'm just," She sighs. "Can I tell you something?"

"Go for it,"

"I hate school here." She mumbles. "It's,"

"Take a deep breath,"

"I miss Maine."

I smile a bit at this. "You're from the east coast?"

"Yeah?"

"Me too," I say. "And hey, I moved here to go to college, and it was horrible, nobody talked to me for the first six weeks, not even my roommate."

She lets out a small laugh. "Not even your roommate?"

"Not even my roommate," I confirm.

"It feels like that's happening right now, but my roommate is Steph, and he talks to me."

"Well, you've got one thing going for you." I laugh.

"That's what he said," She leans in so nobody hears the next part. "But I'm not sure I like Steph as a roommate, he smells."

"Brothers smell." I snort. "I had twin younger brothers and when they hit fifteen I went smell blind."

"Steph's nine years older than me, I don't remember when he started getting smelly, but now that I live with him? It's gross." I do quick math. Nine years older than fourteen makes him twenty-three, the same age as me. Score.

Wait.

Did she say that like she didn't live with him before?

"Tell him to get dryer sheets, those things are lifesavers."

"I'm going to have to." She laughs. "It's just his gym bag though, it makes the whole house reek, I don't think he notices."

"They tend to not."

"He always lived with dad, then went to college, so I didn't notice before, but, ugh, it's so nasty." Dad? Okay, separated parents, that's playing in. "Brothers are weird."

"Brothers are weird," I confirm. "They're really funny though."

"That they are," She starts to laugh a bit to herself. "Steph has this plant, it's above the kitchen sink, and he's got this watering regime, it's so specific and aggressive, but I don't have the heart to tell him it's plastic." And that's adorable, Steph is getting more intriguing.

"My brothers ordered five pizzas at three am about a month before I left and ate them all in one night, they didn't even leave me a single slice."

"Five?" one of the students leans into the conversation.

"Yeah Belle, two seventeen-year-old boys, five pizzas."

"That's like two and a half pizzas per person!" One of the other girls yells from across the room. Jilly laughs.

"How did they live?" Belle asks.

"All teenage boys do is eat, they were just fine."

"Last night my brother ate four whole boxes of vegetable tempura, it was disgusting." Jilly laughs. I'm an absolute sucker for vegetable tempura, this will be interesting.