LOGINAURELCon Law is the one class I can't afford to fail, which is exactly why I haven't understood a word in forty minutes.Professor Adler is up front saying something about commerce and clauses and a case from seventeen-eighty-something, while I'm staring at the same paragraph in my textbook I've been staring at since the bell, the words sliding off my brain like water off a windshield. Wrenley would absolutely know what it means. She's someone that could explain it in two sentences and make me feel stupid for not getting it, which is somehow the only way it ever sticks.But she isn't here. She's probably across campus pretending she didn't just verbally dismantle my girlfriend in front of twenty four people yesterday.And speaking of my girlfriend.Elise is in the seat beside me with her head on my chest, the way she likes to sit when there's an audience, her hand resting over my heart, sometimes circling it like she's claiming territory. Which she is. Half the lecture hall watched
WrenlyThe campus gym at four in the afternoon is the probably the worst possible place to be having a crisis about Aurel Castell's arms, but here I am doing just that.The place is loud; from the clanking of the metal plates, somebody's bad playlist leaking out of the corner speaker, two guys near the dumbbells arguing about a game, a cluster of girls by the mats who are very obviously here to watch the hockey team train and not to work out. The whole room smells like testosterone, sweat and someone's too-strong body spray. And in the middle of it, at the rack against the mirrors, is Aurel, pushing a loaded bar up over his chest in a cutoff shirt with his hair pulled back, and I am sitting at a machine I'm supposed to be using, pretending to scroll my phone, occasionally stealing glances at the way his biceps bulges like it's my job.“Pull yourself together,” I coaxed myself because I hate this. I came here to train and mind my business, instead I'm thinking about the fact that this
WRENLEYBy six in the morning my whole life is in three trash bags on the curb.I packed them by phone light so I wouldn't have to turn on a lamp I no longer pay for.The first bag is clothes. The second is the swim gear, which is the only thing in any of the bags worth more than the bags. The third is everything else, which turns out to be almost nothing; some books, a mug, a charger, the dead plant I kept meaning to water and apparently could not bring myself to leave.I don't know why I packed the plant. It's dead. I'm arguably not doing much better, so maybe that's why but I'm sitting on the cold concrete next to it like we're both waiting for a bus that isn't coming.I have nowhere to go. That's the part I keep arriving at no matter which way I run the problem. There's also no one to call unless I want several hours of concern, disappointment, and life advice I didn't ask for.But that would mean giving up my dreams to go live the life my parents planned and I am not calling Tess
WRENLEYHis name is Jerry.That's all I got at the party before Tess dragged me to the snack table and started narrating the social standing of everyone in the room like I'd asked.I remember leaving there feeling things I never thought was possible. Meanwhile, Aurel has been trying to talk to me all week but I avoid him.The thought of Jerry fills my head until I can't think of anything else which is a problem, because I have several actual problems that deserve the attention more."How do you get a guy to like you?" I blurt out to Tess one afternoon. The second the words leave my mouth, I consider throwing myself through the nearest window."Oh my, look at you having your first crush," she teased, bringing her chair closer to mine."I regret asking already." I muttered with a hand over my face. We had just finished class for today. "Who is he? Is it Aurel?" She gave me a light shove. "I saw the way he looked at you at that party.""Ewww, no. I'd rather be married to a dog than him.
AURELI've been holding the same cup for an hour so people stop handing me new ones."Hey dude, great game," some guy that I've never met before says while shaking my hand. "You really were fire out there.""Thanks," I smiled, soaking in the praises as the room erupted in my chants. Everyone except a certain purple head.I don't think I've seen her before but the frown on her face intrigues me. It sits on her face and piercing blue eyes call out to me. She's in a red dress that shows a good portion of her thighs and boobs but she keeps trying to drag it to her feet."You're doing that thing again," Finn says, dropping down onto the arm of the couch beside me."What thing?" I turn to my best friend and housemates. One of the perks of being an only child is that you get absolutely anything you want including a mini mansion."The thing where you smile at everybody but your eyes go completely dead. It's honestly kind of disturbing," he sips his drink. "But somehow people eat it up." He no
WRENLEYThe eviction notice is taped to my door, so I take it down again for the third one this month.I fold it into quarters and shove it into my pocket with the other two. At this point, I should probably start a collection."Fuck," I cursed silently as the alarm for practice goes off. Swimming has always been something I was good at, but winning the Olympics was a newfound dream, one that was way better than the mate I was promised to before I could even walk.Despite Coach Diaz's ongoing campaign to turn me into a cyclist, I still prefer walking. It requires less coordination and fewer opportunities for public humiliation.I manage to make it with four minutes to spare, which means I walk onto the deck still pulling my cap on, and Coach Diaz looks at the clock instead of at me. Apparently being four minutes early still counts as late in his personal religion."Vale. Lane four. We're doing two hundreds on the three.""Got it." I tug at the tape wrapped around my ankle, over the ma







