Page 4 of Tangled Up In You

Ren turned back to her parents, whispering, “Do you want to stay for the campus tour I have in a half hour?”

“Nah.” Steve shoved his hands in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. “We’ve got the drive home to make.”

It felt so abrupt, after everything, for them to leave so unceremoniously barely five minutes after arriving. But Ren knew her parents too well to see it going any other way. They hardly spoke to people in town back home; they sure weren’t going to draw out a sentimental goodbye with Miriam sitting right there. Ren’s excitement shaded bittersweet as she rushed to hug each of them in turn. “Okay. Be safe. Thanks for bringing me.” She stretched to kiss each of their sun-weathered cheeks. “Don’t worry, I remember the rules.”

With one more “Be smart, Ren,” and a final look to caution her against the dangers of city life, Steve gestured for Gloria to lead them back outside.

Ren knelt on her bed, staring out the window to watch her parents climb into the truck and disappear back the way they came. Apprehension swarmed inside her chest like bees on honeycomb. She was here. She turned, ready to dive into college life. A hundred more questions for Miriam popped up, each begging to be answered.

But her roommate spoke first: “Your parents seem pretty chill.”

There was a weight to her words that Ren couldn’t quite translate. “Chill?”

“Easygoing.” Miriam moved to sit on her bed, crisscrossing her legs. She pinned her elbows to her knees, rested her chin on steepled fingers. With her black T-shirt, black leggings, even chipped black polish on her toes and fingernails, Miriam looked to Ren like a beautiful shadow stepping right out of Bram Stoker’s world and into the modern day.

Ren smiled. “Oh, they are very easygoing. I mean, with everything going on at home, I’m lucky they let me do this.”

Miriam’s dark brows furrowed, bloodred lips flattening. “I was being sarcastic. They seemed seriously intense.”

“Oh.” Sarcasm. Right. Ren had never been good at spotting it. “They don’t like the city much,” she explained.

Ren wasn’t unintelligent. She’d read enough contemporary literature to know that her upbringing was unconventional, and she was sure Miriam wouldn’t be the last person at Corona to notice or even call her out on any perceived weirdness. Ren didn’t dress like other women her age; everything she wore was handmade or purchased secondhand. She didn’t watch live television or listen to the radio; she wouldn’t catch many of the slang or cultural references at school. She knew most college freshmen weren’t twenty-two years old, and she knew even fewer would be obligated to go home to their parents on the weekends. Modern-day freshmen gained fifteen pounds and learned their limits with alcohol. They flirted and “hooked up” and lost their virginities to people who broke their hearts afterward.

But Ren also knew that most freshmen couldn’t build a bug zapper using a six-volt battery, some wooden dowels, and a black light, or craft a portable generator out of a solar panel recovered from the county trash heap and a twenty-dollar inverter. There would be more ways than one that Ren wouldn’t fit in. Her goal was to show every person she met that she had something unique to offer, and that she wanted to learn from them, too.

Miriam stretched out and rolled to her stomach, swiping her thumb across a small screen. Ren craned her neck to get a better look at the person Miriam was watching do their makeup.

“Do you have your own mobile phone?”

Miriam went still before slowly turning her head. A flat “What?” floated out of her mouth, carried on a disbelieving smile.

“In your hand. Is that yours?”

Her roommate blinked. “Yes…?”

“I’ve seen some people with them at the farmers market, and I’ve read about them. But I’ve never held one. The technology is amazing.”

“They told me you were coming from a farm,” Miriam said. “I—” She mimed an explosion coming out of her temple. “Like, I do not even know how to process that you’ve never held an iPhone before.” But even so, she didn’t offer to hand hers over, and Ren mentally logged this: People are protective of their devices.

“Have you lived here all year?” Ren asked.

“Yup.”

“Who was your roommate before?”

Miriam didn’t look up. “Her name was Gabby. She flunked out.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that she failed her classes.”

Okay, so basically what Ren thought. “How?”

Miriam laughed. “Uh, by never going?”

“Oh.” Ren studied the other woman, trying to puzzle this out. Someone would enroll in school to…not go to school? “Why didn’t she go?”

“How would I know?”