Ice Cold

04

Wren Ridley

Probably one of the dumbest things about college students was that they decided the weekend started on Thursday. It was somehow the start of the weekend even though we all had a whole other day of the week to get through. And my friends were some of the dumb ones, insisting that "Thirsty Thursday" was a real thing and that they were fine with going to class on Friday hungover. Or just not going at all.

No matter how dumb I found it, I still somehow ended up out at the bar on Thursday night. It was a favorite for all the college students in Providence because they didn't card.

James and Stella were already a couple drinks deep, but neither were drunk yet. It was only a matter of time before James started behaving badly and I would be the one stuck babysitting him. Stella always held her liquor better than he did.

"Wren," Stella called out, walking back over to our table with two drinks in her hand, some cocktail for herself and a water for me. "You keeping an eye on James?" She sat down beside me, placing the drinks on the table. I nodded and sipped the water.

"He's in the corner over there making out with some girl," I told her, nodding my head in the direction of James. "He's not even that drunk yet."

"He's just warming up, I'm sure," she said, taking a long sip of her drink then looking over at me with a wide grin. "He'll have his real fun tomorrow night."

I shrugged. "Maybe."

"You're not coming out tomorrow?"

I shook my head, resting my elbows on the table in front of me. "No, I have to go home."

I had already told my mother and Colt I would go home this weekend, and I wanted to make sure he was being less of a little shit for them anyway since I got him his phone. That kid has been FaceTiming me nonstop since getting it. Mom also told me that Fox was going to be home this weekend, since hockey was starting up full time soon and he wouldn't have time to visit for a while, probably not until Thanksgiving in a couple months.

Stella groaned. "You just went home last weekend."

"My brother's visiting," I explained, though I didn't really have to explain anything to her.

It wasn't like Stella and I were best friends. She might have thought we were, but that wasn't how I saw us. Stella and James were my school friends. I hadn't seen or heard from either of them much over the summer anyway. Stella was from South Dakota while James was much closer, being from New York, but still not close enough to casually hang out with over the summer.

"I can't imagine going to school so close to home," she said, taking another sip from her drink. "Not that I had many options anyway."

I couldn't relate. I had always wanted to go to Brown, no other options ever came to mind. This was always the end goal, so I spent my whole life knowing this was where I wanted to be. I didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse to be so close to home, going to school in a place I was already so familiar with, a place I had grown up around. A lot of people wanted to leave their hometown for school, explore what further away places had to offer. That just wasn't something I wanted.

I just hummed in acknowledgement at Stella's words and took another sip of water before returning to my people watching. I recognized some of the faces from Brown and around Providence. Some were even some of my other acquaintances that I knew through James and Stella. Others I had a harder time placing due to the dim lights with the red hue in the bar. It masked some people's faces better than others. But eventually my eyes settled on a face that I recognized immediately, one that I had been seeing too much of lately.