Chatoyant College Book 4: The Flicker

Chapter 59: Friendship

They waited in the hallway of Troy's dorm while he changed; he'd offered to let them in if they would all close their eyes and didn't mind fitting into a three-foot space, but Edie was pretty sure that was a joke. Troy's hair was a mess when he came out--he must have rubbed it with a towel--but at least now no one would give them strange looks for having a half-soaked guy in their midst. Edie would be surprised if they didn't get strange looks anyway, but she was used to that.

It was still early, so the dining hall was not very crowded. Edie took two pieces of pizza, then thought better of it and put one back, replacing it with a small salad. It didn't seem like enough, but she could always go back later. Almost everyone was already sitting down when she got back to the table they'd chosen. She looked at her food again, then determinedly picked up her fork and stabbed a forkful of lettuce and tomatoes, deciding to at least eat half her salad before she got started on the pizza.

"So do you have any dietary restrictions, Troy?" Dawn asked, gesturing with her fork toward his plate. Edie looked and saw that he had a plate of spinach lasagna, which did not seem like something he would eat as a Djanaea. Did they have pasta underwater? No, that wouldn't make any sense. They wouldn't be able to make flour. Spinach she could see growing under a lake, though.

"You mean as a human?" Troy asked.

Dawn shrugged. "I was thinking as a human, but I am kind of curious about what you eat underwater, too."

"Well, I can eat anything a human can eat. I think I digest it differently, but I don't know how that works." He picked up a forkful of cheese mixed with spinach and stared at it. "Though I have to say, dairy is just weird. It didn't seem that weird when I was reading about it, but now every time I have any I just think, this was supposed to be what a female mammal fed to her children."

Corrie, on his other side, burst out laughing. "I think if humans thought about it that way we would be weirded out, too. But we're so used to it that we don't. I see that you're going to eat it anyway, though."

Troy shrugged. "Well, I'm hungry." He stuck the forkful in his mouth and chewed. When he had swallowed, he said, "Of course, my diet is much different as a Djanaea. Most of the food humans eat is completely unavailable underwater. And there's no fire, of course, so cooking is a pretty foreign concept. My mom loves that. She says my dad is the only man she could possibly have married who wouldn't expect her to cook every day."

Roe laughed. "I can't blame her! So do you eat like sushi?"

"Actually, yes, if you imagine sushi without the rice. We mostly eat fish and plants that grow underwater. In fact, the first time my mom and I went to visit her family, she took me to a sushi restaurant."

"That's probably a very healthy diet," said Rico. "Just fish and vegetables. Sort of macrobiotic."

Troy shrugged. "I don't know what macrobiotic is, but I think humans are the only species who eat food that is bad for them on purpose."

"That's because for pretty much every other species, stuff that's bad for you either can't be digested or kills you outright," Corrie pointed out. "Being able to digest a wide variety of food is probably part of the reason humans managed to become the world's dominant species."

"That's probably true," Troy said. "I still think you're all crazy, though." That made everyone laugh.

Toward the end of the meal, in a pause in conversation, Troy said, "Thanks, all of you. I don't think I've said that enough. Having you as my friends has made me feel... not exactly normal, because I don't think I'll ever seem normal in human society, but at least I think I can actually handle this. I was afraid I would never make any friends and I'd be an outcast from human society forever."

"And to think, all it took was crazy Jasmine and an idiotic group project," said Corrie.

"We're glad to have you as our friend too," Edie assured him. She'd never had so many friends before. College was turning out worse than she'd expected in some ways, but much better than she had hoped in so many others. As she looked around the table at her friends--and this wasn't even all of them!--she was happy.