Study Dates and Sweaters

Somewhere around the third time a student burnt popcorn in the common room at 3 in the morning sending the entire dorm to wait in the great lawn in their pajamas (or lack of pajamas) while everyone waited for campus security to confirm there wasn’t a fire, the alarm in our common room was destroyed. To an unsuspecting eye, it looked quite ordinary. But word spread around our floor that it was no longer connected to anything. Served no purpose but to look functional.

I follow rules. I always have, probably always will, and usually that has been to my benefit. Every boss I’ve ever had has loved me. In high school, even the principal loved me. This usually comes with certain privileges. The best shifts, special favors for the clubs I ran, and no one watching me too closely. It also meant I didn’t flout the “no candles” rule set forth in the residence life handbook. I wasn’t ever going to risk sending the entire dorm into the cold of the night. Not ever. But really, how is anyone supposed to study without burning a candle? Wax melting lamps just aren’t the same, and neither are essential oil diffusers. I need the ambiance of a candle.

That decorative fire alarm was my opportunity. The common room was always bustling and busy during the day, full of people microwaving food when they didn’t want to go to the dining hall, running through it to get to other rooms, smoking out the window because the HA’s wouldn’t care, but after midnight it was still. Quiet. And alarm free. I always did my best studying late at night anyway, so I made a habit of taking my textbooks and a candle to the comfiest chair in the corner by the radiator and setting up camp for a couple of hours before bed. I’m always amazed how much more productive I am outside of my room than in it, so I cherished those hours. Craved them, even. No people, no distractions, my candle, and my checklist that always ended the night half as long.

I can remember the first time she was there, too. Quiet. She was so quiet. I looked up from my Sappho and simply wasn’t alone anymore. She was curled up like I was on the chair farthest from mine, a textbook open in her lap. I had seen her, of course. There was only one bathroom on our floor. Sometimes we had even brushed our teeth at the same time, but we hadn’t ever spent any real time together. When I realized I wasn’t alone, I nearly had a heart attack. I had no idea when our how she got there. She noticed the slight movement, looked up, and smiled softly at me. Although it is unfair and almost mean to look cute at one in the morning, she was. Cute, that is. She had on a big knit sweater whose sleeves she had rolled several times to fit her hands through the ends, plain leggings, and what appeared to be Jack Skellington slippers. Her hair looked soft and warm, and her cheeks were pink, as if she were embarrassed or feeling more of the effect of the radiator than I was. I smiled back, my heart more in my throat than it ought to have been.

The next night, she was already there when I arrived with my candle and homework. She looked up from her book and smiled quickly. I asked if she’d mind if I lit the candle. She didn’t mind at all. The rest of the night was passed in silence. I would occasionally look up from my work to make sure she was still there, because like the night before, she was quiet. So quiet. And she was, every time I looked. Seemingly absorbed in her book, not nearly as distracted by my presence as I was by hers. That whole week she was there. I had grown to expect her. We didn’t wave in the hallway, and if I saw she was brushing her teeth, I’d wait in my room for half an hour before going to get myself ready for bed. It wasn’t as though we were friends, wasn’t as though we had even had a real conversation. I wanted to talk to her, wanted to be friends, wanted to see if her hair was actually as soft as it looked and know if she was actually as quiet as she always seemed to be around me, but it was scary. Except for our late night studying, I avoided her completely.

The first night she wasn’t there before or immediately after I settled in, I was more sad than I had any right to be. It was right around midterms, so of course no one was breathing air. They were breathing stress, sleep deprivation, and caffeine. I hadn’t realized it, but her company had begun to calm me down a little bit. Bring me back to Earth. Without her there, I felt aimless. Unmotivated. I was drafting my feminist critique of the Huainanzi on the table with the candle. I was agitated. Tired of women being death and doom and worthless, angry that they had been viewed as such for so long, I wasn’t paying attention to how close my paper of rants was getting to the candle. The fresh candle whose flame was at the very top of the glass container. She walked in, an hour later than usual, and in my utter distraction I let the paper drop just enough to dip into that small flame.

She saw what was happening before I even had a chance to realize anything was wrong. I couldn’t drop the paper for fear of burning the table, I couldn’t run to the sink because the wind that would create would cause the paper to burn faster, I was stuck. Water bottle in hand, she walked quickly over, and dumped it, thoroughly dousing the small flame.

In a small amount of shock, I thanked her. She apologized for not being there sooner, but she had accidentally fallen asleep after class and had just woken up. She sat in the seat closest to mine.

Maybe the adrenaline made me brave, maybe it made me stupid. I told her I was glad she was there. And also that she looked cute and was now kind of my hero.

She told me I was kind of cute, too. And that I could pay her back by getting lunch with her in the dining hall some time.

Neither of us did any work that night. We talked. For the first time ever, we talked. Her name was Hailey.

She was the first girl I ever kissed.