Chatoyant College Book 9: Sundered

Chapter 22: Swapping Stories

There were a few people in the hallway, but no Roe, so Corrie slipped past them to get to the end where Roe's door was. She knocked, and it was answered quickly. "Corrie!" said Roe. "You're back too?"

"Actually, I've been back for a few hours now," Corrie said. "But it looks like right now is the time for everybody to show up."

Roe leaned through the doorway, looked down the hall, and laughed. "I guess Edie and I just beat the rush. We met in the parking lot and walked up together."

Corrie nodded. "She told me you were here. That's why I came down the hall. I got my work done and I'm bored, but she doesn't want to talk right now."

Roe grinned. "Well, I'm certainly happy to chat. I don't want to have to start my homework. So how was your break?"

"Parts were fun, parts were misery. But I can deal with the misery, since I have some cash now."

"Cash is good. I take it the misery part was Black Friday retail work. I did some of that last year, saving up money for college. I don't think anyone could pay me enough to do it again."

Corrie smiled wryly. "You are so correct, and I wish I could find something better to do, but I'm not supposed to have a job at school, according to the terms of my scholarship, and it's hard to find anything else to do during breaks."

"You should try waitressing," Roe said. "You'd be good at that—it involves a lot of smiling and being friendly to people. Plus, food."

"Maybe I will look for something like that," Corrie said. "I wouldn't mind taking after my grandmother and going into food service. She is pretty awesome, after all." She told Roe about her grandmother's Thanksgiving, and then about the two days she'd worked retail. Roe laughed and made sympathetic noises at all the right times.

Roe was telling Corrie about an argument two of her uncles had gotten into during Thanksgiving dinner when they heard the door at the end of the hallway open next to them. They both turned to look and saw Dawn, just coming through the door with her bags. Corrie leaned over to hold the door open so Dawn could drag her wheeled suitcase in.

"Thanks!" Dawn said, a little breathlessly, and bumped it over the dip in the carpet where the door rested. "What's up?"

"We were just swapping ridiculous stories about our Thanksgivings," Corrie said.

"Oh, yeah?" Dawn leaned on the handle of her suitcase. "Well, when you're done, I can cheer you up by telling you about my Thanksgiving."

"Really? What did you do?" Roe asked.

Dawn grinned. "Tell me your stories, and maybe I'll tell you mine!"

Roe finished the story, which ended with one uncle dumping champagne on the other's head and consequently being banned from her grandfather's Thanksgiving, then insisted on hearing about Dawn's. Corrie listened enviously to Dawn talk about being spirited off down to Florida to spend time with her grandmothers and go swimming. "I got some new clothes, too," Dawn said, gesturing to her shirt. "Black Friday shopping."

"I wish I'd had time to go shopping!" Corrie said. "I like the shirt, though. Very sexy." It was a deep red, and rather low-cut. She suspected Dawn had a new bra, as well, because it seemed to be showing more cleavage than usual.

Dawn giggled. "I expected compliments from Rico, not from anyone else."

"Well, you do look nice," Roe said. "I'm sure Rico will appreciate it. I haven't seen him yet, though."

Dawn nodded. "He's not supposed to be back until tonight. I should probably get some homework done before that, so we can hang out. I missed him."

Corrie grinned and poked her. "Be sure to invite us to the wedding."

Dawn grabbed her around the shoulders for a hug, laughing. "Don't worry, you'll be my bridesmaids!"

"Did either of you practice magic over the weekend?" Roe asked. "I tried to set a fire, but it was really hard."

"Really?" Dawn said. "I did some water magic when I was swimming, and it didn't seem any harder than usual. But that might have been because I was in a swimming pool."

"I made some water to drink," Corrie said. "I think it was a little bit harder than usual, but I'm not sure. I didn't try any trance magic—I think that would be the one that was really different. What was hard about it?"

"I could find the magic like usual, but it wasn't as easy to get the fire started. Actually, I barely got a spark." Roe shrugged. "It's okay. It probably wouldn't have been very safe to get the fire started anyway. And Professor Lal did say it would be harder off campus."

"That's true," said Corrie. "And I guess none of us really need to practice. You have a handle on it in general."

"Yeah, I think I'll be okay. I'm looking forward to this week's classes. It's going to be all divination type stuff."

"That will be fun," said Dawn. "And it's nice not to have any homework to worry about for that class."