Love Songs

Chapter Three

Jessica - Saturday 7:00pm.

Allie and I showed up at our floor's common room right on time, despite the fact that she had changed at least a hundred times beforehand. We'd even beaten Shay and whoever her co-counselor was, not that that was surprising, as Shay's laissez-faire attitude towards everything she ever approached made her late more often than she was on time.

We made ourselves social enough to say hello to a few people, but mostly Allie and I stuck to ourselves. We were sitting on a couch in the corner of the small room, when a guy about our age walked up to us, or, to put it more accurately, to Allie.

"Hey," he said, pulling up a chair to face us. "I'm Matthew."

"Hi," I said, trying to be cordial. "Jessica."

Allie's eyes seemed to be trained on the door, her mind somewhere else, though I wasn't sure where. 

"This is Allie," I said for her, not knowing why her expression was so vacant.

"Nice to meet you, Allie," he said, joining me in my endeavor to pull her out of her random trance.

"Yeah," she said, snapping her eyes around to look at him though still looking somewhat distant. "You too."

"What are you guys studying here?" he asked.

Again, it looked like I'd be doing the talking. "We're dancers," I said. "What about you?"

"I'm in theater," he said. "And no, I'm not gay."

I laughed, and Allie joined in half-heartedly, pretending to have been listening. "I wasn't going to ask," I said, trying to explain myself. He was cute, though not the type of guy I'd date. Mostly, the type of guy I'd date seemed to be asshole, but that was a story for a different day.

Finally, the door opened and in walked Shay. She wore a lot of black and a mischievous expression. Moreover, she had an empty bottle in her right hand. 

My eyes were trained on the bottle, wondering if she'd been drinking, when I felt Allie beating the crap out of my left arm. "Jess!" she was repeating in a loud whisper. "Jess, it's him!"

"It's who?" I asked, tearing my eyes off of Shay, finally letting them fall on the guy behind her. "Oh," I said, getting it. "It's him."

"Hey," Shay said, sauntering in, owning the room. The fifteen or so teenagers in the room all turned to look at her. Silence fell. She had that kind of presence about her that demanded attention. "I'm Shay," she said.

"Nice to meet you," I teased somewhat loudly.

"And this is Jessica," she introduced to the whole room. "She's a loser."

I rolled my eyes at her, somewhat embarrased, though I'd brought it upon myself. 

"I'm Darius," Allie's crush said in a deep voice. "We're your counselors this summer."

"Which means you all do what we say," Shay added, only half-kidding. 

"Dude, shut up," he said, hitting her playfully.

"So, we can do this one of two ways," Shay continued, ignoring him. "You know that this meeting is to get to know each other. So, we can do that the boring way, where we circle up and share our feelings and shit..."

"Or," Darius said, taking the bottle from her hand and raising it above his head like a trophy. "We can do it the interesting way."

Some people gave ooh's and aah's, some even cheered, and some still were too shy to do anything. The general consensus in the room was, "Let's do it."