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Millie (see, I’m getting it now) had indeed been really cool about the bro code. Some girls you bang aren’t into the idea of coming back to the same place to get with the next guy in the house, then the next: they want to be in a relationship, they think it’s gross to be just there for fun. Some girls, like Millie, figure out they’re getting a three-for-one deal and get with the program pretty enthusiastically.

And then there’s some girls like Ra- psycho roommate, who are cute enough to get on my radar, but are enough of an asshole to drop right off it again.

Cute? I frown at myself. I need to get this train of thought back to the other girl. The one I actually fucked.

“Great boobs,” I say, stretching and standing up, checking my keys are still in my pocket.

“Fantastic tits,” Hunter agrees. “You gonna go work for a living?”

“Someone’s gotta. You gonna go to any classes this year?”

Hunter laughs. “They gonna cancel football this season?”

“Alright, alright. Hey, clean some of your dishes while we’re out.”

“Nah.”

That’s no surprise. Hunter’s not cleaned a single dirty dish he’s ever made. I shrug my shoulders, make a point of kicking one of Hunter’s shoes across the kitchen, pick up my varsity jacket off the floor of the corridor, and make my way to the front door.

“And move your shoes! It’s like a goddamn maze in here!”

“Nah!”

“Asshole!”

With that loving farewell, I’m on my way to class. I take it at a slow jog: I’ve got practice later, after all. The air has lost that clean, crisp quality I love to run in: it’s warming up and it smells of exhaust fumes instead of mountains and leaves. Of the colleges to do track and field in, this had the most rural setting, but it’s still unfortunately more urban than I’d want. Every day I consider moving out of the bro house and setting up in a shack in the woods. More so now that the bro house is now the ‘bro house plus Rachel’.

I make it to class with less than a minute to spare, and drop down in the front row. Most people have shit with them to take notes, but Seth Garcia doesn’t walk around with a backpack, because Seth Garcia doesn’t go to kindergarten anymore. What I can’t remember, I won’t put in the assignment. I’m not the best in the class, but I’m good at bullshitting essays at the last minute, and that’s good enough to keep me at Aurora U while I do the whole varsity athletics gig. The jacket’s basically a badge of: “I’m not here to be asked questions, I’m thinking about how to improve my ten mile pacing, don’t bother me.” I settle in and put on my ‘don’t talk to me’ face, bouncing one leg up and down impatiently.

It works every time. I’m the best it gets at being an asshole.

3

RACHEL

Most of Aurora, and anything outside of Aurora like Denver, is going to be easiest to get to if I had a car, but thankfully it’s only a half-mile walk to campus. It’s a pretty walk, too: I pass by no less than three candle stores on my way (oh God, I need a job so bad), and the air is really clean and sharp compared to New York. Plus, no matter where you look, the low-built beige buildings are towered over by the nearby mountains, topped with picture-perfect snow. I can already sense how much film I’m going to waste on getting the perfect picture of those mountains. In fact, why wait?

I take out my camera (today, to not look like a tourist or a dumb junior, I’m not carrying one around my neck: I’ve got my smallest camera perched precariously in my jacket pocket. I always have my Retinette ready in the backpack, but this is just a quick snap for experimenting with angles and composition, not an award-winning photo or anything. I pull it out and have a look through the viewfinder.

The sun has already crested above the mountains, and the mountain top is lit so brightly that I’m not sure how to take this image without it getting washed out. Plus, no matter which way I place the camera, there’s someone in the way: I’m part of a slow-but-steady stampede of students going to campus, and they’re not going to stop for some photography student. I give up, pocket the camera without a single photo taken, and keep walking.

If I keep this up, I muse fatalistically, I can fail out of Aurora U in probably a record time. What kind of art student can’t even get enough inspiration to hit the shutter button on their stupid camera?

The campus is still as pretty as it was the day before: the wide brown buildings, the billowing spray of red-gold leaves over the quad, and a sea of students. Today, though, there’s a kind of energy there wasn’t the day before: everyone’s excited. A lot of my excitement for college had kind of been dampened by my unfortunate living situation and unfortunate (if good-looking) jock roommates, but I’m actually getting excited just by being around all my fellow brand new students.

Yesterday meant nothing, I remind myself. Today is when I really get started with my new life at Aurora U. For the first time today, I smile, really smile, and take everything in. It’s not a big art school; hell, it’s a sports college if anything: but I can make it my own. I can find friends in the art department, maybe even a guy, and move in with them as soon as possible. It’ll be a little Aurora art commune where people keep the kitchen clean and don’t call me a bitch. It’ll be heaven.

Not as much musculature on show, something traitorous comments. Those three are practically anatomy models. You strip them down, you could do a life study, see