A/N: This will pick up next chapter, I promise. I was having some issues making this a) move and b) flow without any dialogue or interpersonal interactions. That phase will not last. So bear (bare?) with me this chapter and keep reading, please!
Peter turned off his car. He slumped down in his seat, leaving the key in the ignition to give him the impression that he could still drive away. Other cars sluggishly parked and surrounded him. They tentatively unloaded his senior class. The girls—well, women now— were wearing uncomfortably tall heels. They dragged behind their discomfited husbands, who looked afraid that a reunion for a school they hadn't attended could bring them back to their own lacking social rankings. The men hadn't changed much. They wore the same clothes, smiled the same fake smiles, and dished out the awkward man-hugs. Peter could pick individuals out through his windshield. There was Diane, holding her husband's hand and smiling prettily. And there was Lucas, flirting successfully with Kyra, whose husband looked disgruntled and already a little tipsy. Peter did smile at that. He'd want to greet Lucas later. Maybe he should get out of the car.
Peter moved his hand to the door handle. He stopped. Moist, heavy dread had settled in his stomach. From somewhere in his endless store of emotions came a potent twinge of something consuming that made him not want to move. He exhaled and leaned back against the driver's seat. He watched the familiar traffic pass by him. He remembered continually watching the same scene from his dorm room. Abruptly, he stepped out of his car.
He looked skeptically at the actual reunion. There were banners with congratulations, welcome homes, and crosses. Golden plastic tablecloths were stained with unblessed wine. Heat-wilted flowers added a cartoonish depression. Peter walked in the other direction. He refused to allow himself to think of exactly what he was doing. Providentially, the dorm was unlocked. Peter slipped in. The air conditioning blasted through his face and hair. It was only as Peter climbed the stairs that he slowed down. Each step was a mire of confusion. Memories pushed at his mind from all angles, pulsing down on his brain. He sped as they crashed through, millions of pieces of crystalline shrapnel bursting through the dam in his head. By the time he reached his door, he was almost running. The familiarity of the building and the door were killing him. He was a martyr of his own memory.
Hand shaking viciously, Peter pressed the door knob into the fallible wooden door and pushed. The door swung quickly open, and, through the anticipatable agony, Peter felt something else: shock. Ivy, Nadia, and Matt were sitting on his bed.
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