Ovenshine

10.

The next day, Monday, is the coldest it's been all semester, enough to prick tears from Indy's weary eyes the moment she slips into her thrifted loafers and steps out of the residence hall. The Commons are miraculously clean, no crushed plastic cups, silver confetti pieces, lost shoes or any other evidence of the fast-paced soiree that had played out over the weekend remaining in the yellow grass. The atmosphere has changed entirely. Proudley knows when to party, but Proudley knows when the party's over.

Though she has an hour before she needs to be anywhere, Indy has left early anyway, needing to walk and let blood rush to her limbs but also to be alone with her thoughts without distraction. After meeting Jude, she feels she's on the brink of something. If there were ever a time to focus, it would be now.

Like usual, she takes the stairs to the top of DuBois, rubber soles echoing dully against the ancient linoleum. Spider webs cling to the railings, gather in menacing clusters in the corners between the wall and ceiling. The air is not much warmer in here, either. She breathes into her palms to warm them.

When she rounds the corner at the top landing, what would have been a sigh of relief hitches in her throat instead. For once, the attic isn't vacant. Percy sits against the wall beneath the window, locs pushed back from his forehead by a thin white headband, a matching hoodie beneath that letterman jacket he seems to always be wearing yet looks as new as when he first received it. His eyes are trained down at his phone, a beam of sunlight from above him painting one abstract segment of his face in whitish-gold. Indy doesn't know where the feeling comes from, but an eerie sense of déjà vu startles her, almost as if she's looking at an image of him, of the two of them, from high school.

Then he looks up and notices her, and the moment is gone. "Yo."

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you," he says. He raises an exaggerated brow. "Ah. Found you."

So much for being alone with her thoughts. She slings her backpack from her shoulders, letting it fall with a thunk to the floor below. She waves away the shower of dust that blooms from the impact, stepping closer to the window. "We're supposed to be having progress meetings with Dr. Clover today. Have you talked to him yet?"

"No. My time slot isn't till later. You?"

She pulls her phone from her coat to glance at the time. "Not for another forty minutes."

Percy grabs a styrofoam coffee cup that's sitting beside him and hops to his feet, agile as an acrobat. "Are you going to mention—"

"Why would I tell him about the journal?" Indy says, looking at him like he's insane, because he is. "That's a one-way ticket to a mental institution."

"Maybe, but it is Dr. Clover. If anyone would take you seriously on this, it would probably be him. Let's just be real." Before Indy can protest—she wasn't really going to, as he is sort of right—he holds out the cup in her direction. "Cinnamon dolce latte?"

Indy looks at him, then at the cup, then at him again, skeptical. "Is it with—"

"Of course it's with whole milk, idiot. I only watched you order it every single fucking day in high school."

Indy closes her mouth. She takes the drink.

She's barely sipped at it when he asks, "Are we going to talk about Saturday?"

The drink's still hot, almost hot enough to scald her tongue, certainly hot enough to make her forget for a moment how frigid the air is around them. She glances up at Percy, leaning back against the windowsill now, his bottom lip slightly chapped. He never brings chapstick around, despite how dry he knows his lips get, and Indy has tired by now of reminding him.