All Things Considered [🗸]

10. coffee break

DION REYES AND CAYDEN MCCARTHY are on a break.

Not sure when or how this was established, but it occurred sometime over the weekend. It's not something that has been outwardly announced to the entire school, more so a subliminal message that everyone has managed to catch onto.

I've never really completely understood the idea of a break. I can understand needing time apart from your partner, but breaks to me have always seemed like an weird phenomenon. Like a buffer or a ticking time clock.

And how are breaks structured? Do they have terms and conditions? Do they function like a temporary break-up? My eyebrows knit together. I'm still lost on how the fuck breaks operate?

My fingers refresh my phone screen, eyes darting down to the pending application page. My eyes flick up the screen to the lion emblem on the top right. 

Even when I was a kid, I had this draw to Lowell. No other college hit the same. Ironic, because I would be the last possible person that anyone would assume to want to go to college. Thing is, my mom had gone to Lowell, and somehow, I wanted to follow right in her footsteps. There's always been this shine to her eyes whenever she talked about her college years. 

Really, it seems like a basic-ass reason. Mom still happens to be alive and well, so I'm not doing it to preserve her legacy. Really, I'm doing it because of the time in tenth grade that she'd taken me to the campus. I fell so fucking hard for it.

So, when application season rolls around in January—not too far from now— it'll be among the first on my list. It's strange as fuck, really, that I of all people would apply for college. After all, I bitch about student loan debt 25/8 and I'm essentially guaranteed to be suffocated by it.

My eyes rest on the screen and the lion emblem staring back at me, ever-so-consistently. Still, I can't disappoint the lion, which is why I'd applied for a Lowell scholarship. Fingers crossed it doesn't go to shit.

That being said, I'm not exactly the only person vying for a Lowell scholarship. 

From across the hall, Dion Reyes holds his phone up to his face, bottom lip brought beneath his teeth as his eyes rest on the screen. This is one hundred percent, definitely not the first time he's refreshed the screen.

Me neither.

I glance at him from the corner of my eyes. He's in layers, because he seems to be an addict to the style. Oversized black t-shirt, long-sleeved white undershirt. He's tugging at his Deathly Hallows necklace with his free hand.

"What're you looking at?"

My eyes flick away from Dion and to the person who pops up next to me, wearing baggy flannel and a half grin.

"Nothing," I say, eyes darting to Adair whose eyebrows fly upwards, their pink-orange eyeshadow brought out by the school lighting.

They hum for a moment before falling into step with me, words leaving their lips, "alright. Where we going?"