Fall Semester

a draft of the first chapter for a novel I may write

My dad helps me carry my mattress up the three flights of stairs. The mattress keeps slipping from our hands and we have to keep stopping to get a better grip, our arms straining, and sweat pooling at our hairlines. Dad says, “Should’ve made you stick with a twin,” and I fake a laugh. We both know this mattress is older than me, some hand-me-down that’s been lugged between houses since my parents were first married. It has that faint, musty smell of other people’s dreams.

We finally wrestle it inside the apartment, through the living room, and through the door of my new bedroom — “new” in the sense that the paint is still chipped from the last tenant’s posters and there’s a hairline crack running down one wall. But it’s mine. It’s the first time I’ve ever lived anywhere without my parents down the hall.

Dad gives the mattress a solid pat, adjusts the angle like he’s lining up a pool shot, and makes a low ‘hmm’ sound. My dad is not much of a hugger. He never has been. He’s the type who shows up with bungee cords and tools you didn’t know you’d need. Who teaches you how to hold a flashlight right so you’re not blinding the person actually doing the work. Who passes his truck down to you when you turn sixteen.

When he hugs me goodbye, it’s quick. He says, “You call if you need anything, alright?” I say I will.

He leaves, and I stand there for a second, staring at my mattress on the floor and the few cardboard boxes that hold my belongings. Down the hall, I hear Meg laughing. She’s telling Lexie some story about a customer who didn’t tip. They both waitress at different restaurants. They’re in the kitchen now, playing music off a phone speaker like we’re throwing a housewarming party even though there’s nothing here yet to warm.

I head back down to grab the last few things from my truck, my old burgundy Chevy pickup. The left headlight’s held together by a zip tie and the smell of motor oil is baked into the seats, but it’s carried me this far. Inside are the rest of my things: a milk crate full of vinyl records I never play, my clothes folded in trash bags instead of real suitcases.

I’m only half an hour away from home now, close enough that my mom will probably keep inviting me back for dinner and I’ll probably keep going, but far enough that when I wake up here tomorrow, with my mattress on the floor and my clothes still in trash bags, I’ll feel different. Maybe more grown. Or maybe just the same but in a new zip code.

When I’m done unloading, I stand by the truck for a minute. The cicadas are screaming their end-of-summer song, it sounds like a chorus of electric wires strung through the trees. I push the door shut and press lock, even though there’s nothing inside worth stealing.

When I head back upstairs, it hits me in a small, soft way: this is it. This is the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

I come from the kind of small town where the biggest cultural event of the year is a parade celebrating the railroad that splits the place in half. The kind of town where you can’t buy a Coke at the gas station or grab a loaf of Sunbeam bread at the Dollar General without someone recognizing you — or at least knowing who your people are.

Sometimes I say I hate my hometown. I don’t. Not really. I hate how it makes me feel too small and too known all at once. But there’s a comfort in it too though. Like the way the streetlights cast a soft amber glow at night. The way the roads crack under the weight of pickup trucks. The way the train sounds. It’s dirty, rough, and broken in all the ways a town can be, but it’s home, you know? Like a song you hate but can’t stop humming. How could I hate it? That’s where my family is. That’s where Sadie is.

Sadie is my best friend and has been since first grade. She’s everything I’m not. Confident, loud, and impossible to ignore, Sadie walks into a room like she owns it. In high school, we were inseparable. She’d pull up in her dented Toyota Corolla and we’d drive around until the tank was nearly empty. I miss her. Now that the semester’s starting, she’s back at her college in the city. Only an hour long drive from my new apartment. She keeps telling me to visit. I keep saying I will. And now I am thirty minutes away from the same old train whistle, the same old gas station, the same old town. But Sadie’s not here, and the summer’s over, and it feels like I’m supposed to be someone new now, someone who’s grown up enough to pay rent, grown up enough to say goodbye.

Lexie, my new roommate, reminds me of Sadie. I think they’d probably like each other, if they ever met. They even gesture the same way, hands always moving, like they’re worried the words won’t be enough on their own. They were born in the same month of the same year, which means their astrological charts are nearly identical. Astrology being something both Lexie and Sadie care deeply about, and something I pretend to care about when it comes up.

I met Lexie and Meg last year, my first year of college, which already feels like a lifetime ago. Meg is softer than Lexie, less likely to shout, more likely to roll her eyes behind someone’s back than to their face. But she’s got that same theatre-kid sparkle, like the world is just waiting for her to step into a spotlight.

We’re all theatre majors. Except they’re determined actresses, both of them. They have big plans: Chicago, New York, maybe London if they’re feeling romantic about it. I don’t really know what I want yet. I love acting, but I don’t know if I want to chase it forever. Sometimes I think I’d be better off building sets or working lights, something that lets me hide behind the curtain.

Meg pops her head around my doorframe while I’m tearing tape off another box. She’s holding a slice of pizza. “Hey, Evan — you want another piece before we eat the rest?”

“Yeah, thank you,” I say, and take it from her. The cheese slides off a little and I fold it back with my thumb.

It was Lexie’s idea for us to move in together. Our school doesn’t have dorms, just a town full of questionable landlords and too many “For Rent” signs tacked to telephone poles. Last spring, Lexie texted me out of nowhere: What if we got a place? And I said yes because I thought that’s what grown-ups did. I didn’t want to live with my parents. And it was much closer to school.

So here we are. A three-bedroom with thin walls and a white fridge always humming in the background. To get approved for the lease, I had to show the landlord my pay stubs from the movie theater, a job I got in preparation for the move — proof that I was employed, at least technically, and not just another broke college student with a dream and nothing else.

I still smell like the movie theater half the time. Butter topping and sticky soda syrup. Sometimes I catch it on my hoodie when I pull it over my head and it makes my stomach turn a little. Luckily, this apartment is only a three-minute drive to my job.

I truly hate it there. The entitled customers, the floor that’s permanently sticky no matter how many times you mop it, my manager. I keep telling myself it’s temporary. That I’m lucky to have a job at all. That this is what you do when you’re twenty and paying rent and pretending you know what the hell you want from your life.

Meg knocks on the doorframe again. “We’re gonna watch a movie on Lexie’s laptop if you wanna join,” she says.

I nod, fold the pizza crust into my napkin. “Yeah, be there in a sec.”

I sat with them for a while. We watched something none of us really paid attention to, some movie from the early 2000s where everyone had unrealistically big apartments. Halfway through, Lexie fell asleep with her head in Meg’s lap. I looked at the two of them and wondered if this was what adulthood was supposed to feel like.

The first day of school always feels like it should be crisp and new, like the first page of a notebook you swear you’ll keep neat this time. In reality, it’s muggy and smells like fresh mulch because the grounds crew always tries to make the campus look presentable for the first week.

Orientation for the theatre program is held in one of the old black box spaces, a windowless room with mismatched chairs and scuffed floors that still carry bits of spike tape from last semester’s student showcase. There’s a tray of grocery store muffins on a folding table that everyone circles like seagulls.

Lexie and Meg are there before me, perched on the floor. Meg waves me over to sit with them.

There’s a professor named Dr. Jennings who’s technically in charge of the orientation. He wears a blazer with elbow patches and round glasses. He keeps tapping a pencil against his palm as he talks about the transformative power of storytelling. He says transformative at least twelve times, and by the last one, Lexie catches my eye and makes a face.

Then there’s Professor Keene, who’s a costume designer by trade but somehow teaches Movement and Voice. She has this way of talking that makes everything sound slightly like an insult. She shuffles around the circle, correcting people’s posture with a bony hand on a shoulder or back. She tells Ernie he’s sitting like a bag of laundry.

Ernie is also a part of the theatre program’s LGBT contingent — there’s several of us who orbit each other like planets that know they share the same sun. Ernie’s tall and always a bit rumpled, with a perpetual grin that makes him look like he knows something you don’t.

And then there’s Miles, he’s a year ahead of me. He always smells faintly of coconut lotion and peppermint gum. He’s the kind of gay guy that feels effortless, like he’s been himself for so long that nothing could sand him down. When he laughs, it breaks open a space in the room.

After orientation they break us into groups for the annual “get to know each other” theatre game. This year, the game is called The Outbreak: half the students are zombies, half are survivors, and there’s one student who’s the “doctor” and has to get the “cure” to the other side of the building without being tagged by a zombie. Professor Keene narrates the whole thing like it’s Shakespeare. Lexie immediately volunteers to be a zombie — she goes for Miles first, who shrieks dramatically and sprints behind a prop flat. Meg and I stick together, survivors by default, until Ernie betrays us for a better hiding spot in the tech booth.

When it’s over, we’re all sweaty and sticky. Someone breaks out a cheap speaker and music echoes down the hallway while we sprawl on the floor and make small talk about where we’re from, what roles we dream about, which professors we should avoid.

The rest of that first week moves in the same blur: syllabus meetings that stretch on too long, frantic trips to the bookstore for plays that I’ll probably just look up a synopsis for on SparkNotes, late nights in Lexie’s room with the overhead light turned off and just the glow of her fairy lights, all of us curled up on the floor talking about the summer like it’s already a story we’re telling ourselves to feel better about it being gone.

In the mornings, I make toast in the apartment’s temperamental toaster and think about what it means that this is my life now. I still miss Sadie. I still think about the gas station and the train whistle. But maybe this year will be okay. Maybe being twenty doesn’t have to feel like you’re always standing in the wrong line, not sure what you’re waiting for.

The semester settles in. I learn the quickest path to campus from the apartment, which parking lots don’t immediately fill up, which professors will ignore you being five minutes late as long as you look sufficiently frazzled.

I spend most mornings with Lexie and Meg, walking across the cracked pavement behind the Performing Arts building. They’re always already deep in some conversation about what roles they’re gunning for or what they overheard in the dressing room or who’s sleeping with who, and I trail behind them like punctuation.

In October, I went as Ash from Fantastic Mr. Fox for the theatre department’s Halloween cabaret — black eyeliner whiskers, fox ears from Party City, a white towel for a cape safety-pinned around my neck. It was too warm that night, which made the whole thing itchy and unbearable. But people knew who I was, or sort of did. I liked that. I liked being recognized for anything at all.

In Script Analysis, we finished A Streetcar Named Desire. We’d already read Oedipus Rex and Topdog/Underdog. Next was Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl. Mostly my routine was the same. I went to class, read plays, wrote papers, then stood behind the counter at the movie theater. My favorite days were when I didn’t have to do concessions — just cleaning auditoriums all day. I’d check my freshly printed schedule to see when each movie ended. I’d sweep up the popcorn, throw away the cups and candy boxes, and then I’d have ten, maybe fifteen minutes of quiet before the next one let out. I liked that part best. I liked that I didn’t have to speak to anyone.

In November, Miles kept going on about a Friendsgiving, Lexie asked where it would be, and Miles said, “Here,” meaning our apartment, like we were supposed to know we were hosting. It was fine however, we were thrilled.

The day came and I cleaned the whole apartment with Meg. We wiped every surface with Clorox wipes. I lit a pumpkin cinnamon candle from Bath & Body Works in the living room. I put on a fall ambience video on the TV — a fake crackling fireplace, jazz music, dry leaves blowing around. Lexie stood in the kitchen boiling green beans, humming to herself. I bought a pumpkin pie from the store and put it on the counter.

Lexie went to add crushed red pepper flakes to the green beans. The cap fell off and half the container went into the pot. She texted the Friendsgiving group chat that the green beans would be spicy. “white people buckle up,” Miles texted back.

People showed up with foil pans and plastic bags. They sat anywhere, cross-legged on the rug, balancing plates on the arm of the couch, in my desk chair by the window. Someone brought stovetop mac and cheese in a giant Tupperware, someone else brought a box of Publix fried chicken that was already cold. Lexie had this collection of old paper Pizza Hut cups for some reason, she passed them out and we poured cheap grocery store wine into them.

At some point someone put on a YouTube video: “10 hours of silence interrupted by random vine boom.” Every so often a conversation would peak — “So I told him, I’m not your mother—” BOOM. The vine booms punctuated people’s sentences all night.

I looked around at all of us slumped in mismatched chairs, holding Pizza Hut cups full of wine. The candle on the coffee table had burned down to a puddle. Someone asked what classes I was taking. I started talking about Script Analysis, how Streetcar and Eurydice are both plays about memory and wanting what you can’t get back. Then BOOM.

One thing about our program is that every semester, you have to take a practicum, basically a fancy word for “free labor that looks good on your transcript.” They say it’s about building well-rounded theatre artists. Really, it’s about filling crew positions no one wants. Some people do lighting, some do set construction, some pull their hair out in the box office. I always pick costumes.

It makes sense, I guess. I like the hum of the sewing machines, the rows of dress forms with half-finished garments pinned and draped. I like how quiet it can feel, even when it’s not. This year I’m on wardrobe crew for the winter musical — Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

It’s a very pretty show, all powder blue satin and rhinestones and wigs that make my scalp itch just looking at them. I stand in the wings with safety pins clipped to my lanyard, ready to rescue a ripped hem or re-hook a busted zipper. You learn a lot about people when you’re crouched at their feet in the dark, slipping a pair of shoes on to their feet while they whisper their next line to themselves.

Most nights after rehearsal, I go home smelling like hairspray and stage makeup. Lexie is one of the stepsisters — she stays at the theatre late, running lines and gossiping with the other cast members in the green room. Meg’s in the ensemble, which means she’s always humming the songs under her breath in the apartment, dancing around the kitchen table in her socks.

The closer we get to opening, the more the days blur together: early mornings in class, afternoons sewing loose buttons back onto coats, evenings crouched in the wings under half-burnt work lights while the orchestra warms up. There’s something about tech week that makes everyone a little unhinged — people cry for no reason, crushes flare up and combust in the same hour, someone always forgets their shoes at home. But under all the chaos, there’s that hum of something coming together.

Then its closing. Closing night always feels like a pulled thread. You tug and tug for weeks. Fittings, quick-changes, and the late nights pinning hems in the wings, but then suddenly it’s over. The final bow, the applause that stretches for too long, the costumes hung neatly back on their racks like none of it ever happened.

I loved it, though. Every moment. There’s something comforting about being useful, about someone needing you to fix the zipper or find the missing glove or hold their hand before they step into the light.

After the final bow, the cast party becomes the thing everyone clings to, like we’re all terrified of what happens if we just go home alone afterward.

The lead actor, a tall British guy who somehow found himself in the American south pursuing a BFA in theatre, scrawls his family’s address on the whiteboard in the green room: a lakeside two-story place on the edge of town, big enough for the entire department to cram themselves inside.

We go back to the apartment first to get ready. We all rush to our rooms to change. My room still looks half-moved-in, boxes stacked by the closet, the sheets always a little twisted from nights I come home late from work and don’t bother fixing them. I’ve been paying rent here for five months but it still feels like I could leave any day. I change my shirt and brush my hair with my fingers. Ernie and Miles pull up outside. Lexie chugs her White Claw and we head down.

The three of us wedged into the backseat of Ernie’s car with Miles squeezed up front, knees brushing the glovebox. The drive is half-loud and half-soft: Meg and Lexie talk over each other about the show and about who might hook up with who. I rest my forehead against the window and watch the streetlights thin out.

The house appears out of the dark, bigger than I pictured. A Union Jack doormat greeted us at the threshold, a small but declarative marker we were at the right place. Signs led us to the backyard, little scraps of paper taped to posts that pointed us toward the party. The cold air wrapped around us as we walked around, expecting warmth, bodies, music, something, but instead finding only a few scattered figures, bundled in jackets, their breath curling into the night like cigarette smoke. It was too quiet. Where was everyone?

Inside, the basement is bigger than our whole apartment. A pool table sat in the center, its green felt glowing under a dim hanging light. Against the far wall there was a wine cellar with neatly arranged bottles standing in quiet, expensive rows. Lexie makes a beeline for the mini bar, mixing us up drinks she masks the strength of with Sprite. Next to the mini bar is a cookie cake that says Congrats Cast & Crew in blue frosting. Lexie passes me a cup. I sip it slowly, watching the room. A freshman lay motionless on one of the couches, his head tilted at an unnatural angle, his skin waxy under the dim light. He had arrived early, I was told, and had gone too hard too fast, a casualty of over-excitement. The room pulsed with the low thrum of music from an unseen speaker, but it was empty, hollow. I ask where everyone is, and someone says, “down on the dock.”

I followed the narrow dirt trail, the path wound deeper into the backyard, its only guide a faint glow in the distance. It led to a two-story dock that jutted out over the lake, its wooden beams creaking. The water below was black and still.

I climbed the ladder to the upper deck, my fingers stiff against the cold metal rungs. This was where everyone had gone, where the real party hummed beneath the stars. This was the designated smoke spot. A joint flickered between fingers, then another, then another, orange embers burning against the dark like fireflies. The scent of weed curling into the cold like incense.

I smoked occasionally, mostly with Sadie. My first time was behind the Dollar General back home, which sounds trashy because it was. We were sixteen, bored, and restless. She’d gotten it from her older cousin, a rumor of a boy who everyone said ran a small-time grow out in the woods.

We sat on the concrete curb behind the store, legs stretched out, the wall at our backs still warm from the sun. Sadie lit up like she’d been doing it for years and blew the smoke at the stars. She handed it to me, I remember the scratch in my throat, the way my eyes watered, the sudden bright clarity of the train whistle when it rattled through town. I became so aware of everything and yet felt like I was trapped in a dream.

Sadie leaned her head on my shoulder and told me she wanted to move to New York City someday, and never look back. I told her I’d go too, though I wasn’t sure.

We stayed there until the security light behind the Dollar General flickered on, catching us like bugs in a jar. We ran off giggling, the joint stubbed out on the heel of Sadie’s Converse.

But I’d never smoked in a place like this. Never in the middle of a party, standing on a dock surrounded by people who all seemed to know exactly how to exist in their own skin. But for some reason — maybe the thrill of the night, maybe the weight of expectation— I said yes when someone passed the joint to me. I took a deep pull from it, then another, then a third, each one handed to me by a different person. I wanted to keep up, to match the rhythm of the night. This was a terrible mistake.

The high hit like a crashing wave, swallowing me whole before I even had a chance to brace for impact. My mind unraveled in slow motion, stretching the moment into something too big, too loud, too aware. Smoking at a party as a socially anxious person doesn’t feel like fun — it feels like you just murdered a person and your neighbor is knocking on your door asking if everything is alright.

The high wrapped itself around me like a heavy coat I couldn’t take off. Everything felt too sharp and too distant at the same time — the cold air biting at my skin, the murmured conversations warping and stretching like a cassette tape left out in the sun. My own thoughts ricocheted inside my skull.

Then, out of nowhere — “Did you gag the first time you tasted cum?” Meg asked.

I turned, blinking hard. She stood next to me, eyes glassy, a half-smirk tugging at her lips. I opened my mouth to respond, but the words fell apart before they even reached my tongue. Had she actually said that? Had I imagined it? I couldn’t decide. The whole scene felt like a dream I wasn’t fully inside of, like I was watching myself from somewhere else, floating just slightly outside of my body.

I needed to leave.

Climbing down the ladder felt like an Olympic event, my limbs stiff and uncooperative, my fingers gripping the cold rungs like my life depended on it. Each step felt like it stretched on forever, the ground pulling further and further away even though I knew it had to be close. When my feet finally hit solid earth, I exhaled like I had been holding my breath the whole time.

The trail back to the house twisted into something unrecognizable, the trees shifting, stretching, watching. My legs moved, but the path never seemed to end. The night had swallowed me whole, and I wasn’t entirely sure it would spit me back out.

Then somewhere in the dark — “Is that Evan!?”

The voice cut through the air, sharp and sudden. My chest tightened. For a split second, I was convinced I had imagined it, that my own thoughts had started speaking out loud. My heart pounded. My pulse roared in my ears. Was I hallucinating? Had I left reality?

Then, out of the shadows, a familiar figure emerged, grinning. A friend, newly arrived, making their way toward the dock. Real. Solid. Not a ghost or a voice in my head.

I planted myself outside in the cold, back pressed against a rough wooden chair, staring out into the night like it might offer me a way out. There was no way I was going back into that basement. That cavernous, wine-cellared, dimly lit trap where time folded in on itself and everything smelled like stale beer and sweaty ambition. I couldn’t handle it, not with my pulse still hammering, not with my thoughts unraveling like a spool of thread caught on a nail.

One by one, the crowd from the dock made their way back, filling the basement, the backyard, the air itself. Their voices swarmed around me in a low, indistinct hum, conversations overlapping, laughter punctuating the static. I was vaguely aware of movement, of shifting bodies and familiar faces, but I felt separate from all of it, like I was watching a scene play out through thick glass.

Then — Abbey, a girl who I worked on costumes with.

Love her to death. But in that moment, all I wanted was for her to disappear. She was trying to talk to me, her voice warm and animated, but I couldn’t latch onto the words. Every syllable floated past me, indecipherable and distant. My mind was too busy spiraling, caught somewhere between an out-of-body experience and the paralyzing anxiety of someone being actively hunted for sport. I nodded along, pretending to listen, hoping she’d move on before I lost my ability to fake normalcy altogether.

Ernie who was playing the role of designated driver was sober, steady, observant. He took one look at me and understood immediately. No judgment, no teasing, just quiet efficiency. He disappeared for a moment, then returned with a bottle of water and a slice of the cookie cake.

“Eat,” he said, handing it over like some kind of divine offering.

I devoured the cookie cake like it was the only thing tethering me to the earth. Each bite was an explosion and I couldn’t stop. The frosting clung to my fingers, my tongue, dyed my teeth. Every chew felt like it lasted an eternity, like I had forgotten how to swallow. But the sugar was a lifeline, jolting through my bloodstream, grounding me just enough to remember that I had a body, that I existed. Then Miles approached. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something profound, something that might pull me even further back into reality.

Instead, he squinted at me, paused, and simply said:

“Eyes red. Teeth blue.”

Then he walked away.

The host of the party stepped outside, taking in the scene, his sharp, assessing gaze landing on me. I must have looked as wrecked as I felt because, after a beat, he simply said, “You look cold,” and draped a blanket over my shoulders before steering me toward the fire pit. I sunk into the warmth, eyes locked on the flames, watching them flicker and twist, swallowing the wood. I swear I sat there for thirteen hours, or maybe thirteen minutes—time was a meaningless concept, stretching and collapsing in on itself.

At some point, the Brit pulled out a cigar, cutting through the damp night air with the rich, peppery scent of tobacco. He took a slow drag, then held it out to me. Without thinking, I accepted, bringing it to my lips and letting the smoke fill my mouth.

The nicotine hit my already-fried system like a shockwave. My head spun, my limbs went light, and my stomach flipped like I had just stepped off a roller coaster. The dull hum of my high sharpened into something electric, a dizzy, buzzing contrast of relaxation and hyper-awareness. My mind felt both heavier and lighter at the same time, like I was sinking into the chair and floating above my own body all at once.

Eventually, the cold crept back in, pushing me inside. Back in the basement, the couch swallows me whole. The music feels like it’s coming from the inside of my skull. I catch snatches of conversation — people bragging about who’s cast in the spring play, who got a callback, who’s already thinking about summer stock.

I keep thinking about the zipper on Cinderella’s ballgown that split during the matinee, about how I sewed it back together with shaking hands, how Meg hugged me so tight afterward my ribs hurt. I keep thinking about how tomorrow there’s no show to run, no hem to pin, just the sticky floor of the movie theater concession stand and the buzz of the soda machine.

Lexie flops down next to me. “You good?” She asks.

“Yeah,” I lie.

When we finally pile back into Ernie’s car, Lexie’s mascara is smudged, Meg’s humming a song from the show. Ernie’s eyes are fixed straight ahead, his grin soft and sleepy in the rearview. Miles dozes off against the window, his breath fogging the glass.

I watch the dark highway peel away behind us, the cookie cake still sweet on my tongue. I feel the leftover fuzz of the high in my bones, the part where the party felt like it was happening ten feet away from me, like I was just visiting my own life for a bit.

I think maybe that’s what I learned tonight. That I’m too anxious to be stoned at parties. That I like watching more than I like performing sometimes. That maybe that’s okay. I press my forehead to the cold window, and feel the vibrations of the car in my chest.