university stud follow up pt. 2
Luisa wakes refreshed. More than refreshed. Luisa wakes excited. She’d been with…with Rose. Finally. She’d been following her for months – okay, not following, she’d been very clear about that not following people and specifically about not following Rose they really had just been in the same place at the same time frequently she hadn’t been analyzing her schedule she hadn’t—
Okay, there was a time to be honest with herself and maybe this was it.
Still – Rose had been here when she fell asleep. Rose had assured her she would fall asleep soon, too. But when she looks around—
Rose is nowhere to be found.
Luisa pushes a hand through her rumpled brown hair – it’s all frizzy now, frizzy and frumpy and not tangled but it’s that sex hair more than it is bed hair, even though really it’s a little bit of both; Rose was good with her hands – and her lips – and her teeth – and her—
Luisa. Get a grip.
There is no beautiful redhead laying in bed next to her. There is no indication that there was anyone other than herself in the dorm room at all. There is no dress scattered on the floor from the dramatic disrobing (although Luisa’s skirt is still draped over her television, which is a much better place for it than the floor, where her blouse lies crumpled into a heap. She can’t see her shoes. They must have been kicked under the bed. She could believe that they’re under the bed. Or maybe Rose took them with her. Ew, no, why would Rose steal her shoes? No one was like that. Actually, that’s not true, there are definitely people like that, but Rose didn’t strike her as a foot kink person. No, no, bad train of thought, let’s focus Luisa).
The important thing is that not only is Rose not there but there’s no indication that she’s ever been there. Which, you know, is odd because after the moving and shaking and bumping into things there should be some indication of something somewhere—
Luisa climbs out of her bed, off of the bunk, and starts to examine the room. Ah, there, something. Even if it is just a scratch in the wood. Rose had a very firm, very strong notching nail. Speaking of which—
Luisa scurries, still nude, into the bathroom. It isn’t as big of a deal as it might have been in her last room; she may not have this dorm to herself, but her roommate has taken the weekend to go back to her parents and her family and everything—
Roommate is a…interesting term. Allison isn’t really her roommate. Or she is or was or something to that effect but now they’re…something that isn’t…really…roommates.
They technically haven’t broken up yet. Maybe it’s a good thing that Rose hasn’t left any reminders that she’s been here.
Except—
Luisa stands in front of her full length mirror, angling it across from the mirror that hangs over the sink, and then turns so that her back is facing it, so that she can see her back in the opposite mirror. And there, there, of course, there are marks. There are red lines, pricked with smeared blood that had dried probably on her sheets so she should probably wash those. Even more to the point, now that she’s staring in a mirror, Luisa can see the deep purples and blues of bites and sucking marks and the hickeys like jewels around her neck. Rose was definitely here. She was just very good at cleaning up her other tracks.
Luisa takes a deep breath. Not a hallucination, then. That is the important thing. Rose was real and really here and left her marks and it wasn’t just a wet dream but something that actually happened and she hadn’t just imagined the beautiful redhead literally walking up to her in the bar and talking with her and drinking with her and then coming back with her here.
She brushes a hand through her hair again. Okay, first thing’s first, if Rose isn’t here and is gone, then that means she’s got time to clean up and make herself seem a little bit better before trying to track the redhead down.
It’s the weekend. Rose is here in the little town where their college is situated instead of spending the weekend going home to visit people or going on a short trip or anything like that. She was here. Somewhere.
Probably holed up in her apartment like a good, productive student. Like maybe Luisa should be, if she wasn’t so intent on trying to find her again.
Actually – better idea – take the weekend to think all of this over and then go find Rose on Monday. It’s not like she doesn’t know where she’ll be on when her classes are. Not because she’s been following her, because that’s not the word she’s using, and don’t you dare say she’s stalking her, because she’s not – but because their classes just happen to be in the same building and they both usually happen to enter from the same side and look, they’d probably been doing this for a very long time but Luisa hadn’t noticed Rose before because she hadn’t noticed Rose before and now that she had noticed her, it was impossible to not notice her. That’s just the kind of person Rose was.
Is.
And she’d slept with her.
Luisa takes a deep breath as the shower’s hot water pelts her back. It stings when it hits the marks Rose has left behind, but it’s a good feeling. A nice feeling, no matter how painful it is. It’s just a constant reminder that it’s real, that it happened, that—
Luisa takes another deep breath of the steam now surrounding her and feels herself relaxing even more than she already has. She feels good. Very good. A little bit worried about Rose leaving without a word or without leaving her number or anything, but maybe if she looks around later, she’ll find it on her desk or somewhere.
She doesn’t think to check the empty photo frame.
Why would anyone mess with that?