Death May Disagree

Chapter 10

I wait all week for Milo to come back with a good grade on his paper. I don't have the highest confidence in my essay writing abilities, especially now that I'm done writing my paper for Philosophy. I skipped lunch to make last minute revisions at the library, sprinkling a few pages with flowery words to reach the 7,000-word count. I get in line for the printer with just fifteen minutes to spare. It sounds like a lot of time, but Philosophy is at the other side of campus and I just know I'm going to be walking into class late.

"Miranda!" says the girl behind me. I turn around and recognize Bella Yu.

"Bella! I didn't know you go here," I say, hugging her from the surprise of seeing someone from highschool.

Bella bounces up and down. "How have you been?" she asks.

"Good, and you?" The person in front of me picks up his papers at the printer and steps aside for me to have a turn. Thankfully, he started printing his huge ream of papers way before I came to line up, because if he had booted up the printer a second ago, I'd have to find another printing station with a short line.

"Great!" Bella exclaims. "UCP's the best. What's your major?"

"Philosophy. I mean Psychology! Sorry, I'm printing a paper for my Philosophy class in fifteen minutes."

"Isn't Philosophy on the other side of campus?"

"Mmm-hmm," I say hurriedly because the printer isn't printing fast enough.

"God's speed! Hey, can I have your number? We should catch up sometime."

"Oh yeah, definitely." Bella hands me her phone and I input my phone number. "It's crazy running into someone from highschool."

"No, not really, if you think about it. UCP has a student population of forty thousand. You're bound to know at least one person," she says.

I hand Bella back her phone just as the printer spits out the fifteenth page of my Philosophy paper. "You're right. Hey, text me so I'll have your number 'cause I got to run."

"Okay!" she says, and having stapled my papers together, I hike up my pants and bolt out of the library.

Later, Bella tells me that she's spotted four other people from highschool at UCP, people with whom she hasn't said hello to because of their higher social status. Because I was mostly a ghost in the last four years, with the first two years in active avoidance of everyone and the last two getting my act together, I never bothered with knowing the hierarchy of highschool. I mostly stuck with AP classmates and choir kids, none of which Bella was a part of. We know each other through Eric, but even then, we weren't that close.

I invite Bella to join my friends and I to the club for a pre-Valentine's Day celebration, hoping to find something else to bond us besides Eric. We don't talk about him, but it's for my own peace of mind, to prove to myself that contact with Bella isn't based solely on us mutually knowing Eric. I'm already experiencing that kind of secondary friendship with Lacey, the unknown girl at Annie's Friendsgiving party and Kai's girlfriend of three weeks. She asked me to make her a wallet-sized Animadorables painting like the ones I gave Kai and the others for Friendsmas, and although I don't know Lacey that well, I like Kai enough to oblige.

After a week, Bella backs out of going to the club at the last minute, which works out well because now Kai and Lacey can carpool with me, Olivia, and Natasha in one of the three cars we take to the club. Annie, DJ, Dominique, Fiona, and Ethan follow us in the second car, and Demi, Milo, Dustin, Tristan, and Collin, the third member of Milo's band, are in the third car behind them.

Because we are a big group, Annie bought us glow stick bracelets to wear so that we don't lose each other. They're festive red to keep with the Valentine's Day theme, and apart from the different articles of red clothing we've got on, they make me feel like part of a family. A few people comment on our outfit coordination, and some ask me if we're selling merchandise. Then there are men who don't say a word but dance behind me unsolicited. I didn't think that going to an 18+ club would mean sharing the floor with older club patrons. The city only has two or three of these. Why couldn't they go to regular clubs, for those 21 and over, and let us have this one?