The Teddy Bear Agreement | Updating

9 - the agreement

I can see how he and William are friends. With a quick look to the ceiling, I grab my backpack once more to extract my wallet and keys in case they were planning on each taking their car. I'm not sure why they would, but I like to be prepared for anything when it comes to social events, you never know when everyone has to make a quick getaway.

Pausing mid-stride towards the door as Will and Daniel share some whispers, I feel inside my pocket, the folded-up square still there, reminding me I can't avoid this all night, but there is still the relief that I can at least push it until we are done with food.

"Whose car are we taking?" I ask once outside, turning over just to lock the door behind me.

"Mine," Daniel twirls his keys in his index finger.

As we descend the stairs, me hanging back, Daniel takes out a vape and takes a quick drag before slipping it back into his pocket. I'm hoping he didn't do that at home, but it didn't smell like anything inside. I'm not used to vapes, dad used to smoke all the time inside the home and out on the porch, the scent of Tabaco being a weird mix between comfort and hatred, if I close my eyes I can almost smell it all over again.

When I was little he'd ask me to go get him a new package from one of his desk drawers, he'd smack it against his hand before opening, as if that made any difference on how they tasted, as if he wasn't hurting himself by smoking so much.

"So you're the one who was forced into a dorm?" I ask at the bottom of the flight of stairs, the three of us falling into a line along the sidewalk.

"Yeah, mom and dad wanted me to have the full-on college experience, but I think it's because I didn't want to go to UT Austin and they got salty about it."

"Dani's parents have a lot of money." William glances at me.

"Not a lot of money, they're both doctors, dad's the head surgeon at the hospital back in Asheville, Mom is a Neurologist," Daniel shrugs, "Will likes to rub it in for some reason."

"I don't rub it in, I just thought to mention it why your parents were salty you didn't go to UT," William adds.

"Older sister went to MIT, older brother went to Rice, and so I can go wherever the fuck I want." Daniel's tone is still easygoing, but as someone who knows the pressure of living under your older sibling's shadow, I wonder if the only way Will's friend could liberate himself from his seemingly overachieving family's expectations was by coming to UET.

It's a strange form of finding liberation, but I get where he might be coming from.

We stop in front of a white Mustang, certainly nicer than my dumpster on wheels, and William's small Toyota.

"Nice car dude," I say as he unlocks it, William raises his brows at Daniel.

"Told you," Will tells him.

"Shut up, Anderson, it was used when I got it," then, nicer to me, "thanks, Liz."

He unlocks the doors and Will lets me climb into the back before fixing his seat in front of me. I've never been in a sports car before, but the entire interior is the nicest kept I've seen among my friends' cars.

"How old is it, if I can ask?" I continue the conversation once Daniel has also climbed in and set up his phone to the GPS location of Wing Stop.

"It's this year's model, it was a graduation gift, had like seven thousand miles on it or something. So yes, Will, still technically used." William laughs next to him.
Okay, yes, he got money, I wouldn't have known it was the new model, then again I don't know much about cars aside from the companies.