university stud follow up pt. 3
“Rose!”
Luisa sprints after her as soon as she sees her. It’s a good thing that college doesn’t have that stupid stupid stupid rule that her high school did about not using backpacks and having to carry their books everywhere (which, to be fair, might have partially been her fault, even if they did have that rule in place before she’d started going there. But having a backpack would make it far too easy to smuggle in more booze. As it was, she got by with water bottles and vodka. Or the shiny metallic ones that had other stuff in them. She could always think around having booze. Not that it matters anymore). Her backpack thuds against her back as she runs – it’s a little looser than it’s probably supposed to be but, ugh, it looks bad from an aesthetic trying to be attractive (and if you think people can’t be attractive in a backpack then you have not met Rose Ruvelle, who admittedly rarely wears a backpack and instead prefers to keep her stuff in a much bigger, much fancier bag on her shoulder. But when she does use a backpack – and Luisa has seen it, weighted down with what looks like tons of library books, particularly after that first day when she asked to use her pen – somehow she looks just as attractive with it)—
Speaking of which, Rose is attractive now. It’s an entirely different look from the one this past weekend, one that’s much more natural and normal and more…alluring, in Luisa’s opinion, than the dress and the wavy hair and the whole dressed to stun (or kill) look. She actually – it’s not a better feeling, but she feels much more comfortable around Rose this way, even though she’s rarely talked to her like this. Less than she had in the dress, which was even less than she had in nothing at all.
Okay, if she could speak to Rose in nothing at all, then certainly she could speak to her in jean shorts, certainly she could speak to her in a white peasant blouse with rose accents, surely she could speak to her with her hair pulled back in a frizzy ponytail and glasses and a bright smile as she speaks to someone who must be from one of her other classes.
It’s a fake smile. It’s a fake smile!
Either that or the smiles Luisa had seen in her bed this weekend were fake, and in her opinion, those were a lot harder to fake. Besides, she’s good at the whole sex thing, so there’s no way those were fake smiles, which means this one – this one! – had to be fake. Had to be. She couldn’t let herself think otherwise.
Luisa stops next to her and the other girl – a blonde almost Rose’s exact height, if Rose weren’t wearing shoes with the slightest heel to them, giving her the slightest height advantage, with brown eyes and a weird sort of smile – which means it had to be real and not faked – turns to her. She tilts her head to one side. “Looks like you’ve got a lady caller.”
Her accent’s kind of cute.
“Can you give us a few seconds, Suze?” Rose’s smile freezes. Now Luisa knows it’s fake, even if she hadn’t been uncertain before (there’s no way it isn’t!) – real smiles don’t freeze like that. They just don’t!
The blonde – Suze, which has got to be short for something – waves one hand. “I’ll see ya at practice later.”
“Of course.”
Then there’s no time to keep considering what Suze is short for because the blonde is gone – fine with Luisa, she’s here to talk to Rose anyway – and Rose is fully focused on her, bright blue eyes taking in her shorter stature – and Luisa’s not super short by any means, but she is shorter than Rose, which is…well, it’s cute, she thinks they’re a cute couple – they’re not a couple yet, but they’re cute together, she thinks they’re cute together, wouldn’t Rose think that? Of course she does – but she feels herself trying to pull up to her full height, straightening the straps of her backpack, and she meets the other woman’s bright blue eyes as clearly as she can. “Hey.”
Rose nods at her. “Hey.”
That’s it. Just. Hey. No indication of anything going on between them, no indication of anything from this weekend, no indication that Luisa – she hadn’t cheated on her girlfriend because she and Allison weren’t – aren’t! – really together just sometimes, you know, it’s complicated and she’s not thinking about it, especially not right now, not when she’s with Rose—
Luisa takes a deep breath. “So. About this weekend.”
Rose’s eyes grow steely, and her head tilts to one side. “What about it?”
“I thought it might be nice to do again,” Luisa says all at once, and she regrets it as soon as she says it because that is not the way she meant to be having this conversation or starting it or anything like that but there it is, all out, all at once, and she swallows and keeps herself standing firm in front of her and meeting her eyes no matter how steely and cold they now seemed.
“I don’t think so.”
Rose begins to walk away, and Luisa runs after her, taking her arm. “Why not?”
“I’m not in the mood for a relationship. Or did my leaving not explain that enough for you?”
Rose doesn’t even look back to face her again. Okay, so this isn’t going so well. Luisa can feel her stomach clench. “We don’t…we don’t have to be in a relationship,” she says, quickly once she gets started, because it’s something and she wants Rose to give her more of her time. “We could just…every now and again. When you want to—”
“Look.” Rose still doesn’t look back to face her. “We had a nice time. Why don’t you leave it at that? If I wanted anything else from you, I’d know where to find you.”
Luisa nods and bites her lower lip. “Oh. Okay.” She brushes her hair back out of her face. “If that’s really the way you feel.”
“If I felt otherwise, I would have left my number for you.” Rose finally looks back, glancing over her shoulder. “Did I leave my number for you?”
Luisa knows the answer. She knows the answer is no. She doesn’t have the heart to say it. She lets out her breath and stares at the ground. When she finally looks back up, Rose has walked off, ending their conversation, if it could even be called that.
Allison will be back later. She’s running later than normal. Something about important family stuff. She can’t really explain this to her, but she can…she can explain that she’s in a bad mood. That something’s wrong. She won’t want the kind of comfort Allison will want to provide, but it’s something.
It’s consistent, anyway.
She could use some consistent right now.