The First to Fall ⚢

𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 • 𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧

—Which is nothing like Cara.

context? I text back instantly.

Cara Jasper: Sorry, I meant do you want to have dinner with me and a guy I met in my class? He wants to introduce me to his roommate and invited you along too.

Of course it's not even her decision. She wouldn't go out of her way to hang out with me if her life depended on it.

what, like a double date? I respond short and stiff. If she's trying to get me to say yes, she could at least pretend to want me there.

Cara Jasper: No, no. Just meeting up and getting to know each other.

...kinda sounds like a double date to me

Cara Jasper: It's not, I promise.

i'll think abt it. I try to respond normally, though the idea that Cara's already met a new friend and it's only the first day of class just rubs me the wrong way. Aren't I supposed to be the social one? How is she getting guys to ask her out already?

She doesn't text back immediately so I put my phone away and get my bag ready to head to my first class, which includes eating the breakfast Norah gave to me. It's a fifteen-minute walk from the dorm, over in the Brewster-Daniels Music Building, which I'm ninety percent sure most people just call the Music Building. I make it easily with the help of Apple Maps and Spotify until I get to the building and can't seem to find the classroom it's in.

There's a guy lurking around the corner, seeming just as confused as me, so I take a chance and ask him if he's looking for the same class I'm supposed to be at in two minutes.

"Yeah, with Marcus Griffin?" the guy replies, furrowing his thick dark brows in confusion. I nod back.

"I think it might be in the basement?" I suggest, looking again at the classroom number. B-122.

"That would probably make more sense," he says, fixing the positioning of his black, wire-rim glasses on his nose. His eyes are a deep brown and his messy hair matches, making him look exactly the same as every other guy on this campus. Except he doesn't seem like a total douchebag. So far.

"We can walk down together if you want," I tell him and he nods. We start making our way to the staircase that leads to the next floor down and he keeps his eyes glued to his phone screen to make sure we're going the right way. "I'm Aspen, by the way."

He finally looks away to lock eyes with me, smiling. "I'm Theo. Aspen is a nice name."

I chuckle a little. "Thank you. So is Theo."

"Thanks. I feel like it's very... Barington."

"Oh?" I tilt my head, narrowing my eyes at him. "Is that a thing?"

"I kind of feel like it is," he says. "I think Aspen is also a very Barington name."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I tease him.

"I just think it's obvious through our names that we go to an art school," he explains, though I understood the joke the moment he made it.

"I think you're probably right," I tell him with a half-laugh. We make it to the classroom and he opens the door for me, where majority of the seats are already filled up.

It's a smaller classroom compared to the giant lecture halls sprawled around campus, only holding about fifty seats total. The class is Basic Music Theory, so I would assume many more people would be interested, but I guess it's not as popular as some of the other classes around here.

The classroom is set up with high school-style desks—the ones that have the chairs attached. AKA: the worst desks to ever have existed in mankind. One wrong move and the whole thing comes toppling down; nobody wants that.