Walk Among Us, page 3
“But we could totally play,” she said hastily, shooting Jade a look. “Right? One round isn’t going to kill us.”
Jade pulled a face but stowed her Switch back in her bag and said, “Fine. Just remind me how to play. I haven’t even seen this game since I was like six years old.” She stood up and walked around the table to sit next to Finn and across from Clea.
Finn smiled at them, and the sparkle in his blue eyes made Clea smile back. It felt unfamiliar on her face, and Finn seemed to sense this, because he smiled even bigger, the corners of his eyes crinkling again.
“All right, then,” he said, shimmying the lid off the ancient box and examining its contents. He pulled out four warped game pieces, barely recognizable as plastic gingerbread men. “I’ll be blue.”
“I call green,” Jade said immediately, extending her palm, and Finn put the green piece on her hand.
Before Clea could say anything, she heard the screech of a chair being pulled up beside her.
“Red,” said Ingrid as she snatched up the corresponding game piece and sat down.
Clea looked at the three of them and sighed as she held out her hand to Finn. “Well, then. Guess I’ll be yellow.”
“Aren’t you guys carrying anything out?” Clea asked several hours—and several different board games—later, as the four of them exited the building and Finn locked the door behind them.
“Ah no,” he said cheerfully as he turned the key. “We left it in the back room for next week.” He gave her and Jade a hopeful look. “You will be back next week, right?”
“Same time?” Jade asked before Clea could respond.
Finn nodded.
“I’ll be here, I guess,” said Jade. “This actually wasn’t terrible.”
“Why do I feel like that’s a pretty high compliment coming from you?” Finn said jokingly.
“Because it probably is,” said Ingrid. Her face also attempted to rearrange itself into a genuine smile but failed so spectacularly that Jade just gave her a dark look.
“Clea, you too?” Finn turned to her, eyebrows raised.
Clea hesitated for just a moment before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.”
“It was wonderful to meet you both, and thanks for staying. We promise next week won’t be so boring,” said Finn.
Clea and Jade smiled uncertainly, and an awkward silence ensued.
“North Campus or South?” Jade asked all of them, shifting on her crutch.
Finn nodded to his right. “East. We’re off campus in the University District.”
“North Campus,” said Clea.
“And South for me,” said Jade. “Well, Clea, wanna walk with me as far as the Oval?”
It was a longer route than her usual shortcut, but Clea nodded, and they waved goodbye to Ingrid and Finn as they crossed the street.
Once they were across and back on campus, they walked for a couple yards in silence before Jade said under her breath, casting a brief look over her shoulder, “Does any of this seem weird to you?”
“Weird?” Clea asked. Jade walked surprisingly quickly, and she was already struggling to keep up. “You mean Finn and Ingrid?”
“I mean the whole thing, but yeah, them most of all.”
“They seem nice to me. Well, Finn does, at least.” Clea looked back and saw that Ingrid and Finn were still standing in front of the building, deep in conversation, but Finn noticed her staring and smiled and waved. Clea flushed and waved back before turning around.
“You like him,” Jade said.
“I do not,” Clea huffed. “He’s just . . . nice and paid attention to me. Those aren’t the only two qualifications for liking someone. At least not the way you’re talking.”
Jade’s eyebrows shot up as if she hadn’t expected Clea to say something so perceptive.
“My clinical depression comes with a side of extreme cynicism,” Clea added dryly at the look on Jade’s face. “Probably the only good thing about it. Otherwise, I’d just go around getting my hopes up all the time.”
It was then that she realized that she’d just told a total stranger she was mentally ill, but Jade didn’t seem particularly surprised about her big reveal.
“I mean, you’re not wrong,” Jade said. “But the guy is too nice. He probably just wants to get in your pants.”
The thought made Clea uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Even if he did, I’d say no. I just . . . don’t feel that way about guys.”
“You’re into girls?”
“No, I don’t . . . I don’t think so?”
“Oh. ’Cause I am.”
“Oh. Uh, cool.”
Clea wished she could just roll with people telling her things like this, just as seconds earlier when she’d let it drop that she was depressed, but she couldn’t think of anything more to say. And as the silence stretched on, Clea wondered if Jade was taking her response the wrong way.
“So,” said Jade, shifting awkwardly on her crutch, “who are you into?”
“No, I’m just—I’m not into anyone,” Clea blurted. “Not like that. I mean, I imagine myself falling in love, but anything like—anything physical doesn’t do much for me, if I’m being honest.” She shut her mouth abruptly. Did I just make things worse?
But Jade was giving her a crooked grin. “You’re ace.”
“If you mean asexual, I mean, I’m not comfortable calling myself that because to be honest, it’s hard for me to feel anything these days.”
“Because of depression?”
“Yeah.”
“It happens. Well, see you next week.”
“See you,” Clea said awkwardly as Jade veered left toward South Campus.
Why am I so awkward? she thought at Jade’s retreating back. “Oh. Uh, cool.” Seriously, Clea? Could you have sounded any less enthused? She probably thinks you hate her now.
Clea had her bag packed for her nightly wanderings around campus and would’ve been happy to walk with Jade a little bit farther—if only to make up for that comment—but she was already too far to call after her, so Clea trudged off into the night on her evening trek around campus.
But after an entire evening of interacting with other human beings and feeling halfway comfortable among them, the cold, empty streets seemed even colder and emptier than other nights. Clea stuffed her hands deeper into the pockets of her parka and put her hood up, keeping her head down as she walked, ever grateful for the somewhat comforting blue lights on the emergency posts she passed.
She didn’t know how long she walked, in circle after circle, from North to South and back again. She crossed paths with fewer and fewer people, and it was only when she stopped seeing clusters of students stumbling home from the bars that she decided it was probably safe to head back to her dorm.
She was about halfway there when she realized she was being followed.
Footsteps behind her—she could hear them. She came to a faltering stop in the middle of the sidewalk. The hair on the back of her neck prickled and goose bumps rose on her arms as she suppressed a shiver and whirled around to see a flash of deep red, almost like the color of—
The street was silent and empty behind her. The red she’d seen was just a sign for one of the buildings.
But I could’ve sworn . . . it looked almost like—like Ingrid’s hair.
Why would she be following me?
She stood frozen on the sidewalk and regarded her surroundings for a long moment—glancing at trees, light posts, benches, anything someone could hide behind. But they were all lit up by the bright lanterns that lined all the campus streets. There wasn’t even the shadow of a figure lurking behind any of these objects.
But I thought . . . never mind. It was probably nothing.
Steeling herself, Clea let out a long, shuddering breath and started walking home again as fast as she could.
Chapter Three
It took every bit of Clea’s willpower to leave her room the next day, as if going out the night before had spent all the energy—or spoons, as her therapist said—that she had. If it hadn’t been for the constant threat of Hannah’s friends dropping by in the evenings to get ready for the bars, she wouldn’t have mustered the will to set foot outside.
She fumbled on her nightstand for her meds and shoved the pills in her mouth with a grimace, swallowed them dry, and waited to start feeling things again, right on schedule.
She skipped class Tuesday morning and stayed in bed, staring at the ceiling. She heard Hannah’s alarm go off, heard her roommate rummaging around, getting dressed, collecting her things, and shutting the door behind her when she left.
Clea lay there for hours afterward.
Then, when it got dark, she got up, pulled on some clothes, and packed her own backpack for her nightly wandering. The flyer from the meeting the night before was still crumpled up in the pocket of her parka; she felt it as she reached into her pockets for her mittens and stilled as her fingers brushed the paper.
“You may feel invisible; you may even feel powerless . . . ,” Ingrid whispered in the back of her mind.
Clea took the flyer out of her pocket and tossed it in the trash.
Just before she zipped her backpack, she grabbed her sketchbook and stuffed it inside, not really knowing why she did it. There was a sort of fluttering feeling in her chest, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint, and it was that feeling that made her act.
She headed for the library, bought a pastry and a coffee shake at the café on the ground floor, and headed for the tenth floor overlooking the Oval. Lanterns dotted the crisscrossing paths across the grass, where students walked along like ants from where Clea had plopped herself down in one of the comfy chairs.
Settling in, Clea reached down to pull out her laptop and lose herself in Netflix shows for the next couple of hours, but her fingers found the sketchbook instead. She stiffened, having already forgot she’d packed it. Depression sure does a number on my short-term memory, she thought humorlessly. Nevertheless, she extracted the sketchbook and opened to the first blank page and pulled out a graphite pencil from where she’d stuck it in the book’s coils several months ago.
Several months ago, when she’d smiled and thanked her mom, and her mom had replied, “This isn’t to say I support you being an art major. I’m saying, I know it’s something you like to do, and you should stick with it. But on the side. Not as a career.”
So Clea had chosen psychology for her major instead, but her lack of interest in the subject was stifling. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her, either.
“. . . You may even feel powerless. We’re here to tell you that’s not so.”
She thought of Ingrid. The way she very clearly didn’t belong, the way she tried to pretend to empathize with people she couldn’t possibly understand, the way she tried to be normal. Her red hair and pale white skin. Her lilting accent, her forced smile, her cold eyes.
You’re being awfully judgmental of a person you just met, said a more sensible voice in the back of her head.
Clea ignored it and started to draw.
And so the week faded into the weekend and Monday dawned yet again, as Mondays do, and Clea found herself struggling to decide whether or not to attend her second Common Cause meeting.
Maybe Jade won’t be there, and I’ll have to sit all alone. I wish I’d asked for her number, she thought as she sat at her desk and half watched Netflix, freezing rain battering the window in front of her. Her eyes strayed to where her sketchbook sat atop the unread textbooks on the corner of her desk, and she sighed. As much as she’d wished that her inspiration, her will to create, would come back after that one night when she managed to draw for the first time in a year, it appeared to be a fluke.
Worthless, she thought as she took her meds.
She closed her laptop and managed to read through some of the chapters she’d been assigned by her English professor. Thus far in her college career, Clea had managed to eke out the bare minimum effort required not to completely flunk out, but by no means was she doing well in her classes.
Honestly, calculating how many points I need not to fail is almost as much effort as just doing the work, thought the part of her brain that was riddled with anxiety at the prospect of actually flunking out of school. But the thing about depression and anxiety—as with most mental illnesses, or so she heard—was that they tended to cover their ears and yell La-la-la! when logic reared its ugly head.
You should get a note from your therapist, and maybe your professors will give you extensions, her mom suggested after her first month of school, but Clea refused. It wasn’t how long she had to do the work; it was that she couldn’t make herself do it. Extending the deadlines for her assignments would only prolong the inevitable.
Lazy, her brain whispered to her. It’s just because you’re lazy.
After dinner, Clea packed up and went to the library to stall, and as eight thirty crept closer and closer, she hemmed and hawed and pulled out her sketchbook again. Looked at her drawing of Ingrid. Closing the sketchbook with a sigh, she made the executive decision to attend the meeting.
“I’m doing it,” she said under her breath as she took the stairs down from the tenth floor. “I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I’m doing it.” As if saying it aloud would make it true, would make sure she couldn’t turn back.
She crossed the Oval and made her way down High Street and crossed to the off-campus side of the street as she drew closer to the Community Space. The building’s darkened windows still made it look abandoned, and there was no sign of Jade. Once again, Clea hesitated before reaching out and opening the door, which was unlocked.
She took a deep breath and went inside.
“Clea!” Finn exclaimed as he bounded toward her like an excited puppy. “You made it. We’re so happy to see you.”
“We’re delighted, actually,” Ingrid drawled from behind him as she opened up several boxes of Buckeye Donuts.
Clea recognized a few familiar faces from last week, but she couldn’t recall any names; Jade’s was the only one she’d learned, she realized. Jade, and Ingrid, and Finn. The only people who’d stayed. But Jade was nowhere to be seen, and Clea’s stomach lurched at the thought of having to go through this meeting alone.
Clea sat down in the same place as she had last week and shrugged off her backpack and parka, placing the former beside her and draping the latter over the back of her metal folding chair as she covertly surveyed the room.
It was clear that a lot of people were just here for the free food—the reason Clea herself had stayed in the first place, of course, so she couldn’t judge, especially if those people were homeless—but the meeting was certainly less crowded than the week before. Had interest just dropped off, or had Finn and Ingrid not advertised at all this week?
Maybe they’ve already gotten what they needed, whispered a suspicious voice in the back of her head. A paranoid voice that told her Jade had been right at first, that this was a cult, a trap, and that she should flee as fast as she could.
But no, there were some new faces, Clea realized. More guys her age, looking more awkward than she felt. Wearing black band tees or geek shirts, baggy jeans, some gangly and loose-limbed, some chubby, but all with bad hair and scraggly, patchy beards.
One of the guys—of a similar build as she, wearing a stained anime T-shirt, with thick glasses and dark curly hair—caught her eye and gave her a small smile. Clea tried to arrange her face into a smile in return before turning away instead.
So judgmental, the sensible voice chided her. This guy wasn’t bad-looking. Maybe he was a decent person. But Clea could barely handle her own shit, so she didn’t want to give him even an inch.
Beggars can’t be choosers, her depression said scathingly, and Clea pressed her lips into a firm line. It occurred to her that if Jade didn’t come, Clea would be the only woman of her age group. And what then?
As if on cue, Jade breezed through the door. Her eyes landed on Clea, who gave a little wave, like Jade wasn’t going to remember her—and then Jade made her way over and sat down next to her.
Next to her. Like they were friends or something. Clea felt a flash of validation. She wanted to call her mom all of a sudden and be like, See? I did make a friend! Then she remembered that last week, she had been the one to sit at the opposite end of the table from Jade. But then, they’d been complete strangers at the time.
“How was your week?” Clea asked. She hoped if she just acted normal, Jade would forget the awkwardness of their parting the last time.
“Fine. I should’ve got your number, though,” Jade said as she shrugged out of her coat.
“My number?” Clea twisted her hands in her lap.
“Yeah, your number,” said Jade. She sat down and ran a hand through her short black hair. “Remember how we established last week that we could both use a friend to do stuff with? Or are you not tired of being alone all the time?”
“Right. I mean, yeah, I am.”
Jade studied her for a moment, and then her expression turned hard and she reached to pull her Switch out of her backpack. “I get it. I came out to you, and now we can’t be friends because you think I’m hitting on you.”
“That’s not it at all,” Clea said defensively.
“Man, Clea, and here I thought you weren’t just like everyone else.” She sank back in her chair and turned on her game.
I’m not, Clea wanted to scream. I’m not, I’m not—I’m so much worse, but not in the way you’re thinking.
Before she could open her mouth to say anything, Finn announced from the front of the room, “All right, everyone, come grab your cocoa and doughnuts—we’re about to get started with this week’s meeting.”
Clea made to get out of her chair and noticed Jade wasn’t moving.
“Do you want me to grab you—?” Clea offered.
“Not hungry,” Jade said without looking up from her game.
