5- Dorm
Dorm 8B’s hallway was empty. The RA must have already come through, but the three students kept their footsteps light. The first, a tall, athletic girl with an amber bob and dusted freckles, walked in careful, long strides ahead of the other two. The lookout. Behind her, a boy supported their friend-- another around the same age--who hopped awkwardly on an injured foot... At least, to his credit, he did so as quietly as he could. Luckily, no interference from patrolling RAs or campus security interrupted their stealth run back to Apartment 804. The girl nearly dropped her keys rattling the recycled lock open, but as soon as it gave way she stood aside and ushered her companions in. “Where’s Ashley?” “Where is she every night, Zaiah? She met some guy at the frat house and I’ll see her when they break up. Now just put Hayden on the couch.” Zaiah pressed his lips together and dumped his companion on the couch unceremoniously. Hayden groaned in protest, sitting up to gingerly work on getting his shoes off. “Erinn--” Zaiah turned to see where the girl had gone, trailing into the bathroom to find her rummaging in the cramped medicine cabinet. “Shouldn’t we be calling for... I don’t know.. backup or something?” She didn’t answer right away, producing a half-empty bottle of Ibuprofen and tossing it into Zaiah’s open hands. “My parents made me a med kit when I moved in, just gotta remember where I put it.” She breezed past him to the room she shared with Ashley. Zaiah followed, still protesting. “I don’t think bandaids and ibuprofen can fix this--” “We’ve bounced back from worse. Are you hurt?” “What?” “Are you okay?” “Wh--Yes, yes, I’m fine. Erinn--?” She shut the drawer she had been searching through abruptly, silencing the boy. His questioning glance remained, boring into her with that damn annoying concern. Friends since childhood, she knew that look all too well. “What we did was stupid. We can’t do this again. It could have been a lot worse.” she said in a low voice. She didn’t want Hayden to hear. “It’s nothing like the movies, ‘Zay. We can’t keep doing this.” He simply stood there as she brushed past him again, tiny sewing kit in hand.
