When We Write the Stars

Chapter 3: Cassie

"No, I prefer to be unsociable and taciturn. Makes it all so much more enjoyable, don't you think?" - Pride and Prejudice (2005)

     After quite possibly the worst start to a class I'd had in all of college, I was desperate to just go to my lab and get some work done. Currently, all I was doing the mundane task of going over and analyzing data, but there was something peaceful about it as well. There wasn't anything glamorous about astrophysics research, but I loved it just the same. 

     I left the lab to head for my next class with a better mindset, besides, there was no way I was going to let some arrogant hockey-playing meathead ruin my last first day of class, and I was successful. I managed to not think about him again until I got back to my apartment and could rant about it to my roommates.

     "He sounds like such a dick," Lyra says as I explain what had happened in class while we got ready to go out. One of the local bars, the Lighthouse, was doing a half-off night as a welcome-back thing, so we'd decided to really celebrate our last first day.

     "He has such a nice ass though," Alyssa piped up holding up a picture on her phone that was clearly from an Instagram deep dive. Lyra and Adrianna immediately crowded around the phone to inspect. They were all silent for a few moments as they scrolled through pictures that I had no interest in seeing.

     "Oh yeah he's fine," Adrianna said blushing deeply as she turned back to doing her hair. Adri was originally from Brazil, and had the most gorgeous dark curly hair, and an intense hair routine to go along with it. The label on the product she was currently using was completely in Portuguese, so I had no idea what it did, but it seemed to work pretty well. 

     "Adri you're gay, I thought at least I'd have you on my side." It doesn't matter how hot he may or may not be if he's just an asshole.

     "I can be into women and still appreciate a nice ass, plus his hair is long enough that if I took out my contacts I'd probably assume he was a girl," she giggles.

     "I hate you all," I call out but with a slight smile on my face, "Please let's talk about literally anyone else."

     "Thomas Gibbs is kind of fine," Alyssa says immediately showing a picture of what I assume must be one of West's teammates. Not exactly what I had in mind when I asked for a topic change.

     With a sigh, I walk over with the others to see a closer look at who she's talking about. And I hate to admit it, but he's also pretty good-looking. Not as good looking as... Nope, he's awful I am not thinking about that.

     "Oh we did an article on him for the paper a few years ago, he's like one of the only black guys playing d1 hockey," Adri said after a minute of scrolling through his feed. Before settling on computer science, Adri had been planning on being a journalism major. She'd changed her major plan sophomore year but was minoring in journalism so she could keep working on the school paper which was restricted to journalism students.

     "That's insane but makes sense, you don't really see anyone but white guys playing hockey," Lyra says thoughtfully, "My dad only started watching Seattle's team after he found out there was a Chinese American guy playing for them."

     "It's probably because like every hockey player ever is from like Canada or like Minnesota, there's basically no diversity in the Midwest" Alyssa says.

     "Okay, this is officially too much hockey talk for four people who've never even been to one of the school's games," I say turning out of Adri's room where we'd been doing our hair and makeup to change into a better outfit.

     "We could change that," Alyssa calls out after me, "Don't you wanna go cheer on your new bestie?"

     I pop back into the door frame to flip her off, then head back into my room to get dressed. My room was probably my favorite part of our apartment. My room back home hadn't been updated since I was 12, so moving in here and having nice white walls instead of the horrible teal I'd picked out then was nice. I'd covered my walls here with a collage of photos of my friends and me, and of course space prints. I was an astrophysics student, it would've practically been a crime to not hang up a space poster or two. Then there was a little window I had my desk in front of that overlooked the bay making studying so much less painful.