Chapter Eleven

Elle

“Elle!” someone called as I skipped down the cool, shaded steps of the building I was exiting.

“Jake!” I said, rushing over to him, as he swept me into a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Am I not allowed to come over to the crimson side?” he asked, as we released from the hug.

“Funny. Crimson’s an ugly color,” I stated. I don’t like it. It’s in between red, and brown, and just gross.

“Well, get used to it, because that’s your color for the next four years,” he said, as I took his hand, and began to walk down the red brick pathway.

“No, it’ll be seven years,” I corrected him.

“Seven?” he questioned.

“Yeah, because it’ll be three more years for law school.”

“Harvard law? You seriously want to go to Harvard law?”

“Why not? It’s the best in the country.”

“Okay,” he sighed, as we came to the end of the straight path, and up to the street. “So what class are you coming from?”

“Some math one,” I said simply. I don’t like math. I never have, and I never will. I have the ability to do it, I would rather not.

“Fun,” he said, as we ran across the street while there were no cars.

“Eh. What about you, what classes have you had today?” I asked.

“A depressed literature one, a lab, and one about the city and the environment,” he answered.

“Cool.”

“So, you hungry?” he asked, picking up our pace, probably without even realizing it.

Like all the boys in my life, Jake’s an athlete. His main sports are football and baseball, but somehow he has recently acquired running. Almost every time I text him, he’s running. It’s so weird, but whatever makes him happy, I’m fine with.

“Sure,” I said.

“What are you in the mood for?” he asked.

“Food.”

“What type of food?” he prompted.

“I don’t know. Edible?”

“Elle! Please, just give me a real answer.”

“Some place outside,” I said. It was another gorgeous day out. The sun was shining radiantly, and the sky was an electric blue color. It was perfect out.

“Fine. Do you want a wrap or something?”

“Sure,” I said, swinging our hands back and forth.

“Okay then.” We turned on a corner, and entered a street lined with stores. We continued to walk, passing by other pedestrians distracted by forms of technology, or everything going on around them.

“Here?” Jake asked, stopping by a small café with a seating area outside.

“Okay,” I said.

“So, how about I go in, and you get seats?” he suggested.

“Sure,” I said, as he kissed me on the cheek lightly, and retreated into the unknown terrain of the cute restaurant.

I opened a short gate, separating the sidewalk and the rounded tables belonging to the café, and stepped in. I saw a circular table for two in the back, and walked over, sitting down in one of the chairs. I let the backpack I had been carrying drop to the ground, and pulled out my phone, checking for any new messages.

I had received three texts from Kara, John, and Nick. I looked at Kara’s first, which simply read, “Miss ya girly! Txt me l8r!” And you’ve thought someone like Kara would actually utilize autocorrect correctly… I didn’t feel in the mood to have a long conversation about nothing at the moment, so I didn’t respond.

I opened John’s text, and skimmed the words typed, “Hey Elle. Wen r u comin bak?!” It sounded urgent enough. “Idk,” I responded. I then opened Nick’s text hesitantly, not knowing if I wanted to read it. “ELLE! WE NEED U AT ASAP!” were the words my eyes viewed. Okay, something definitely happened at the condo. I don’t even want to know…

“Who’s that?” Jake asked, coming over to the table, water bottles in hand.

“Nick. He and John said they need we or whatever.”

“Are you going to go?”

“No. They probably ran out of food or something, so are lost, and panicking,” I said, thinking logically about the situation. I quickly typed in, “Good for you,” as a reply to Nick, before hitting send. I looked back up at Jake, and smiled. They’re big boys, they can deal with whatever happened maturely, and without me.

Nick

“What are we going to do?” I asked John, staring at the mess (if it can even be categorized as one) we had made.

“Call the police?” he suggested.

“I don’t think they deal with stuff like this,” I said, rolling my eyes. Who the hell would call the police for something like this?

“Uh. Call our parents?”

“I really don’t feel like worrying them about some shit like this,” I said, praying that Elle would pop through the door, and magically fix everything for us. She’s good at that; solving problems.

“What about the neighbors?”

“Neighbors?” I repeated, thinking the idea over. “We don’t know them.”

“Well I think a time of crisis is a better time to get to know them than never,” he said.

“Fine. They’re in the condo next to us?” I asked, placing a rag down on the counter, and slowly moving myself away from the kitchen.

“Yeah,” John said, carefully straddling the back of the couch, not allowing his feet to touch the ground. I nodded, and walked to the door on my tippy toes as fast as possible.

“Be right back!” I said, opening up the door to the outside world, and stepping out, closing it behin me. Neighbors. Geez. Man we’re idiots! Well, John is at least.

I walked a good five feet until I came to a door identical to ours. My fingered lingered above the doorbell for a brief moment, contemplating whether or not to press it, before I closed my eyes, and pushed. I wasn’t going to knock on the door, because knocking just takes so much time, and unneeded energy. From within the apartment I could hear footsteps, and yelling. I held my breath as the door swung open.

“Hi! I’m-”

“Aspen?!” I said in astonishment, finishing the girl’s sentence.

“Nick?!” she said, equally as stunned.

“Holy fuck. What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, confused.

“Uh… I live here…” she said, rolling her crystal eyes at me.

“No you don’t!” I said, not knowing how to deal with this. Seeing Elle in Starbucks was a huge surprise, and when I found out she was one of my roommates, I was even more shocked, but right now, seeing that Aspen Ricci is my freaking next door neighbor is just unreal!

“Yeah Nick, I just broke into the house, and opened the door for some idiot. Yes I live here!” she said, punching me lightly with her small fist.

“What the fuck are you doing in Cambridge?” I asked.

“Going to school,” she shrugged.

“At Harvard?” I asked. If the two of us live right next to each other and go to the same school that would just be unbelievable.

“Psh. You know me Nick, I’m not that smart,” she laughed. I gave her a puzzled look. “I’m just kidding! But seriously, I’m not Harvard. Too stiff, preppy, traditional, conservative, republican; you know, people like you.”

“I’m not a republican,” I said firmly.

Technically, I’m registered as an independent, but I think I tend to vote democratically… regardless of my parent’s very conservative, very republican views. Maybe besides the whole taking psychology thing, voting for a democrat will also be part of my “rebellious” streak. Ha. No.

“Oh! Independent over here!” she said, pointing at me, before laughing.

“Right. So where are you going to school?” I asked once again.

“MIT,” she said with a smile. Wow. I did not get in there; mainly because I had no interest in applying, and in my application I think I may have mentioned something about hating mechanics and robotics, but still.

“Oh! Smartass over here!” I said, reiterating her own words, and motion.

“Damn straight. So Ross, why the fuck are you standing outside my door? Were you stalking me or something?” she asked, leaning up against the doorframe.

“Nah. I leave my stalking for weekends,” I said, as she shook her head, letting out a small laugh. “I actually live over there,” I pointed back to our door, as her eyes followed my arm.

“No fucking way bro!” she said, her mouth gaping in disbelief.

“Nick! What the hell is taking so freaking long!” John said, as he stumbled out of the condo, flip-flops, sopping pants, and all.

“Hey Johnny!” I said, still as amused at his appearance as I had been when the entire incident occurred.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! You’re flirting some hot girl while I’m flipping out in there!” he said, staring at Aspen. I must admit, and unfortunately agree with him; his accusation, about Aspen being “hot” is pretty darn accurate.

“Me? Flirting with this loser? No. That would never happen,” Aspen said, a look of disgust surfacing on her tanned face.

“Okay. Well since Nick is taking forever, I’m just going to ask, we need help,” John said, clearing freaking out about the situation at hand. I mean it’s not that bad. Ha. Who am I kidding, it’s worse.

“With what?” she asked, looking at him in a strange manner.

“Oh! I’m sorry! Where the fuck did my manners go?” I said, as the politeness Danni had instilled in me as child decided to revisit my mind. “John, this is Aspen. Aspen, this is John.”

“Hey,” she said, walking out of the door, towards him, and nodding in his direction.

“Hi,” he said.

“Now Apsy, I don’t know if you can help us or not, but it would be pretty damn nice if you could… before our other roommate comes back and rips our heads off,” I said, pushing past John, and reentering the door he had just exited.

“Oh. So he’s your roommate?” Aspen asked, stepping in beside me, before her eyes widened at the sight that was before us. “What the fucking hell happened in here?” 

“Uh… We kinda spilled,” I said, as she walked right in.

“Kinda? This is worse than the BP oil spill!” she said, going around the edge, to the kitchen in the back. “What the hell did you two do?”

“We didn’t know how to turn the faucet off…” I mumbled.

“We? So does this mean the blonde kid is also another moron like yourself?” she questioned, approaching the sink.

“Yeah pretty much,” I said.

“I am not!” John objected.

“But you are,” I said, watching as Aspen inspected the sink, before trying to turn the handle off.

“We tried that already. It didn’t work,” John said.

“Why didn’t you guys call a plumber?” she asked, taking two hands to the knob, and putting for force into trying to shut it. This chick may be all muscle, but there’s no way in hell that she’s just going to waltz in here, and be able to stop the on going flow of water.

This place looks so awful. The tiled floor is soaked with water, and the carpet is drenched. I don’t even know how we’re going to clean it all up. The water from the kitchen sink is just flowing out, never ending. If Elle sees this, which she most likely will, she’s going to flip.

“Is this something a plumber would fix?” John asked, as Aspen carefully lowered herself so she was facing the counter below the sink.

“Sheesh. I think I know what you meant Nick; about those losers being dense,” she said, opening up a cabinet.

“Are you indirectly calling me dense?” John questioned.

“No, pretty directly actually,” she said, crawling into the small space underneath. If she hadn’t been wearing a tank top and sweats, I may have felt guilty about her getting her clothes dirty; but then again, I don’t think she’d care either way.

“It’s okay Johnny boy, I think you’re stupid too,” I said, not at all reassuringly.

“Gee, thanks,” he said, mumbling something under his breath. Talking to yourself now, are we John? Interesting…

“Nick, how hard did you guys actually try to turn this thing off?” she asked from under the sink.

“Eh. Pretty hard,” I replied. We tried to turn it off, and after that didn’t work, we kind of got stuck, not sure what to do.

“Right,” she said. I’m sure if she had been facing me, that word would’ve been paired with a shake of the head, and a small smile.

“I know that Harvard is better than MIT and all, but do you think an MIT student can fix some Harvard kids’ mess, or not?” I asked, sitting down on the counter, so I could just see her legs.

“You’re funny Ross. But yeah, MIT can totally fix Harvard’s problems, but I’m sure you’re already well aware of that,” she said cockily.

“We’ll see…” I grumbled. Harvard is better than MIT. Period. Not open for discusion, it’s a fact.

I heard a creaking sound, and then Aspen let out a loud sigh. “Did it!” she said, as the water miraculously stopped coming from the tap. Just as the water stopped, the door opened.

“What the hell?!” Elle shrieked.

“Hey Elle!” I said, smiling brightly at her horrified face.

“What the fuck did you two do?” she asked, looking every which way.

“Wow Elle, nice, you don’t normally use that type of language!” I said.

“Shut up Nick!” she said, turning to John. “What happened?”

“We spilled some water…” he said, not meeting her gaze.

“But I fixed it!” Aspen piped, climbing out from the depths of under the marble topped counter.

“Who the heck is she?” Elle demanded, clearly pissed at us, but conscious of her language once again.

“Aspen Ricci,” Aspen said, nodding her head at Elle.

“Nick?” Elle said, wanting me to formerly introduce the two of them.

“Elle, this is Aspen, Aspen this is Elle Paterson,” I said.

“Oh! This is Elle?!” Aspen said, in the same tone of excitement as a four year old about to get ice cream. “The ex?!”

“Yes,” I said flatly.

“I’ve heard so much about you!” she said, walking through the water-logged floor, over to Elle. Oh no...

“Have you? Nick what the hell?!” Elle said. She’s so going to hate me later…

“Don’t worry, nothing bad. Only good. From what Ross over there had told me, you sound like an epic chick!” Aspen said, taking Elle’s pale hand, and connecting it with her own darkened one, shaking it. Elle didn’t know what was happening, so just blankly went along with the weak attempt at a handshake.

“That’s good…” Elle said. If she had had a gun in her hands, it would’ve been pointing, and shooting at, me.

“So look, I’d really love to talk to all three of you… actually, that’s a lie. Nick and Elle, the two of you I’ll totally talk to later, the other one, sorry, but you seem boring. Bye!” she said, waving, headed out the door.

“Thanks Aspy!” I called.

“Sure thing Rossy!” she said, closing the door behind her.

Once it was safely shut, Elle spoke up, “Who the hell was that?”

“Our neighbor,” I said smugly, walking towards the stairs, about to go the safe route, and call Danni… or Dean. Yeah, let’s go with Dean, he’ll be mad about this whole thing, but not as mad as Danni. Wow. Elle and Aspen. Those two are so going to have such an interesting time getting to know one another!