Davy Harwood

chapter sixteen

"We have seven different types of chairs in the room. Why do we have seven different chairs? It's insane. It's a complete lack of chair-efficiency. I can't handle all these chairs."

This is what greeted me as I stepped inside my dorm room.

Emily was frantic. She had placed every chair in a line, which wasn't long because our dorm room wasn't big. Now she paced with frantic hands in the air.

I frowned and shut the door. "What's going on?"

"He called! Can you believe it? He called. He's downstairs. Right now!"

"Who?"

"That guy from the bar. The one that..." It was endearing how my roommate hung her head and blushed. "...I made out with. I've never done that, Davy." Her eyes were wide and horrified. "I can't believe I did that and now he found me. He's downstairs."

I wasn't sure what my role was here, but I improvised. "What does he want?"

"Dinner," she blurted out.

Horrifying. A slow smile started to spread on my face. "Dinner?"

"Can you believe it? He wants to sit and eat and talk. I don't know what to do."

"Apparently you're categorizing our chairs." I frowned as I looked over the room. There was an inordinate amount of chairs. Both of us had desk chairs. There was a pink bean bag that sat beside an inflated purple bean bag. Not to mention the couch, plus another lawn chair—I wasn't sure where that came from. Then there were our regular desk chairs that came with the dorm room. She was right. I counted seven.

"I still feel like crap. Why do I feel like this? I hate being sick. I have too much work to do." Emily moaned and fell into one of the chairs.

A thought occurred to me. "You can come with me and Adam."

Disgust first flashed over her features, but then a bright smile lit it up. "You're right. It's not awkward then. I won't even have to talk. You like to talk. You and Adam can talk, but no mushy stuff. I don't think I can stomach that tonight." She pressed an open palm over her stomach and I feared she was going to actually throw up.

I remembered my night of vomiting and grimaced. My stupid body had been changing and I felt a tingle in my palm. My body was still changing.

When I turned towards the closet, I muttered to myself, "I don't know if I could stomach it either."

"What's he wearing?"

"Who?"

"The guy!"

"I didn't go through the lounge. I snuck up the back stairs." I shrugged and grabbed my shower bag. Then I toed off my shoes and slid on my flip flops.

"Where are you going?" Emily gasped with a hitch in her voice.

"I'm going to take a shower and then get ready. Adam can wait."

"What about the guy?"

"He can wait too. We're worth it." Then I proved how overjoyed I was with a long yawn.

Emily narrowed her eyes, but didn't comment.

Was I overjoyed? Not anymore. Could I be overjoyed with the idea of a date with Adam? I was hoping. I wanted normalcy before and I still wanted normalcy. What was messing it all up was Roane and the Immortal stuff. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I was a human now. I'd be the Immortal another day. Human. Date. But first, a shower.

When I entered the room after a quick cleaning, I saw that the chairs all remained the same and Emily was dressed now in a pair of khakis and a red sweater. I considered making a joke about Target, but thought better of it. In her state, Emily wouldn't register the joke or she would've been even more horrified.