Horizons
"Dusk, is just an illusion, because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are; there cannot be one without the other, yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel, I remember wondering, to be always together, yet forever apart?" – Nicholas Sparks
One
I stood in the driveway, my eyes lingering on the structure that had been my home for the past eight years of my life. It wasn't special by any means—a slightly smaller than average house, probably one of the smallest on the block. Pastel yellow in color, blue shutters, and a windowsill box filled with dirt and withered brown objects (Mum never was particularly skillful with gardening). By comparison, the size certainly served its purpose compared to the cramped flat in London which I was born and raised in. And then it hit me.
This was the last time I would see home for a very long while.
A breeze swept in, rustling the leaves of the tall oaks lining the street: the last sweet notes of summer. Cicadas hummed along in tune, and the sun hung lazily in the sky behind mounds of fluffy white clouds. I stared vacantly at my house. So many memories had come and gone, and at the age of eighteen, it stood as a former husk; an empty shell, void of my childhood.
"Isn't this exciting? Your first year at university…"
I turned, the words coming from my mother: a fifty-something native Englishwoman with a head of neatly styled, graying auburn hair. She smiled, the crow's feet around her eyes deepening. The smile had a melancholy air about it. It was the kind of smile that instead of revealing the young, beautiful woman inside her made her appear older than she actually was. Frail, almost.
"Mum," I breathed, choking back any feelings that were turning up my insides. "Please-"
The rest of my sentence was smothered by her arms reaching around me. "I know, dear. I just can't believe after all these years—you're not a little boy anymore." The scent of her heavy perfume flooded my nostrils, traces of lilacs and honey. She pulled away, holding my cheeks in her hands and carefully observing me one last time as if I were headed off to war and not to college. "Oh Arthur, I still remember when I could hold you—"
"Mum. Really—there's no need to get sentimental about it," I stressed. A loosened piece of asphalt sat idly by my left food. I nudged it a bit with my toe. Like a plaster, Arthur, the quicker, the better, I reminded myself. "Well…see you in three and a half months."
I expected a long, tearful goodbye from her: how sorely I would be missed, how my mother wished my father could be here to see me off (but he couldn't because you know, Arthur, he is working really hard). Instead, I received that same melancholy smile. Without words, so much as an "I love you" I brushed past my mother and struggled to squeeze into my car. The inside of the vehicle was packed tightly with boxes, and I could barely manage my way inside. A sleeve dangling off a stack of magazines obscured my view, and I swatted it away before turning the car on. It took three attempts before The Beast howled to life. I pulled out of the drive, and then from my side mirror watched as my former life disappeared behind me.
Driving out of the suburbs of Chicago, you tend to notice the spacing of towns increase exponentially. About twenty minutes into the drive through a dense cluster of towns, there is nothing but corn as far as the eye can see. And as far as anyone is concerned, corn is by far the least stimulating thing to look at. Illinois is flat and full of the stuff. In the country, the horizon stretches as far out as the eye can see, unbridled from the lack of trees and buildings. Just wide, open farmland filled with corn.
To make an effort to stifle my boredom, I flipped on the radio (also to block out the gawd-awful roar of The Beast) to which I was greeted with the typical, screechy, four chord pop song that gets stuck in your head, and you'd sooner want to bash your skull into a concrete wall after you heard it. So I turned the dial: static, Spanish, country, Spanish, Spanish, polka, static, and more cookie-cutter modern music. I could have kicked myself for not keeping my fucking ipod unpacked.
"Right then," I noted as I powered off the radio. Without any music to muffle it, the car's engine was restored to its deafening volume, worsened by the open window. A closed window could have easily improved the sound, but the air conditioning inside the bloody Jetta has been broken for God knows how long. The heat, despite being only ten in the morning, was unbearable. My shirt had seemed to permanently fix itself to my skin, using back-sweat like it was crazy glue.
I soon grew weary of the sour notes emitting from the engine of The Beast. My car was a 1990 Volkswagen Jetta GL, but my friend Kiku had nicknamed it "The Beast" because the muffler was broken and something was wrong with the engine (we didn't have the money to get it fixed.) So the car always sounded like a wild animal, hissing and sputtering and growling. Its previous owner must have been a chain smoker too, because no matter how thoroughly we scrubbed the interior down, it always smelled faintly of an ash tray. Anyways, the rickety engine got annoying—possibly even more so than the radio, so I switched back. I supposed the music wasn't all too bad. I actually found my leg bouncing up and down to the rhythm of a few songs.
The three hour drive seemed more like a six or ten hour ordeal until I finally spotted the exit sign for Whitmore University. I wiped my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand and tried to calm down my windblown hair. The brunt of the driving was over. Yet like a tide, anxiety quickly rolled in to replace my short-lived relief. It was if as every single doubt, question, and idea was armed with pointed sticks in a collective mass and decided to wage a full-blown, all-out bombardment on my defenseless brain. My insides churned and I found myself wondering if I had made the right decision to come down here. Foolish feelings, Arthur. I kept reiterating this to myself, gripping the steering wheel tightly until the tops of my knuckles turned white. I continued to drive for awhile, passing farmsteads with white picket fences and fields full of cows lazily feeding on grass until a sign greeted me on my right.
Peculiar Illinois "Where the 'odds' are with you"—home to Whitmore University!
As it turns out, there is nothing peculiar about Peculiar Illinois. Peculiar was your typical country town: a Walmart surrounded by a collection of strip malls and subdivisions surrounded by farmland. The small exception of oddities in Peculiar was a dinner I passed on the way to campus called Oily Bob's. Oily Bob's claim to fame was world's best frozen custard, and a "Goliath Burger" (at least that's what the sign said). Judging from the name alone, such a restaurant would give you a heart attack just by looking at the menu.
Twelve minutes down a winding road and I reached Whitmore College. I stared out my window, the scene before me almost surreal. The blocks surrounding the campus were already flooded with students: chattering circles of sorority girls, people carrying in furniture that obscured their vision as they walked. The first sign welcoming me to the college was one of many. I passed others that read variations of welcome freshman and go wolves! These ones seemed to litter the campus lots, trees, buildings—it seemed there was no wrong spot for a sign, including one plastered to an overflowing dumpster behind the athletic complex.
I made a right, passing the main cluster of academic buildings, the cafeteria, and the quad. The next street over sat a complex of buildings with gray walls and blue tinted windows, which was labeled "Dormitories A – D". The Beast complained as it rolled into the parking lot, which was packed with other cars and students. I just managed to fit into a spot where some jerk had parked six inches over the yellow line. I momentarily cursed the DMV for handing out licenses as if they were stickers children receive for visiting the dentist. The checkup goes well (like taking your exam) but the instant they leave, they are cramming snack cakes into their greedy little mouths (that is to say, said drivers return to a state of complete irresponsibility).
The clock on my dashboard kindly served as a reminder as to the small time frame I had between now and the appointment my Mum had kindly arranged with a guidance counselor, for reasons which still eluded me. I supposed it would be more practical to move my belongings later. What little precious door space remained was currently preoccupied by people trying to pass through with oversized lamps and tellies, and other things you wouldn't expect a reasonable person to drag along with them, but they had. As I exited the Jetta, a gangly blond boy passed me with a giant inflatable flamingo. My thick eyebrows rose into an arch, watching the young man haul the tacky pink object across the lot. Perhaps college life was as bizarre and wild as they had made it out to be on television.
With an intention to set out for a bit of exploring, I withdrew a map of the campus that had been folded neatly into my front pocket. The paper was slightly worse for wear, dampened by sweat. The library, as it turned out, was just on the other side of the quad, a straight shot across the street from my dormitory. That seemed like the first place I ought to familiarize myself with. I stowed the map back in my pocket, making sure that the creases fell back into their proper place and set off.
During my walk, I allowed my gaze to shift from the path before me, casually observing fellow students interacting with one another. In high school, I supposed I could have been considered somewhat of a loner. It's not that I resented the other kids, nor did they really resent me. When it came to having friends, I simply did not care one way or the other. I was always studying or reading or helping Mum out because Dad was never around.
Call me what you will: boring, monotonous, a prude—but my life had order. There was a structure to it, a rock-like foundation that brought me a great sense of security. Granted it was the same day to day, but I always knew what was expected of me and I always knew what was coming next. Anything sporadic, spontaneous I loathed. Such things broke the very precise, systematic life I led.
And it was on that day, my first day of college, my seemingly solid foundation crumbled to dust.
Before I had even registered the shouting, a great force slammed into my chest knocking me flat on my bum. "Hurry up cock-suckers!"
"Why the hell did we do that?"
"Did you see the look on her face? Pur-riiice-less!"
"No, you imbecile, I was too busy running!"
"Whatever, just run like hell—Antonio's the closest, so go there."
The voices calling out were far ahead of me: two guys, one with short, silver blond hair and the other with shoulder length curly blond hair; sprinting in the opposite direction I was headed. However the culprit, I soon realized, had been knocked down from the impact, and was now brushing himself off. The spot where he hit me smarted terribly, and my vision went a little fuzzy as I sat up. My hand brushed against a foreign object and recoiled slightly: a pair of wireframe glasses, which looked like they had seen better days. I curled my fingers around them and extended it towards the guy that knocked me down.
"You dropped these," I informed him. We both stood up almost simultaneously. He was a good few inches taller than me, muscular—no wonder it hurt like hell when he ran into me. He accepted the glasses from me, returning them to their rightful perch on the bridge of his nose.
From behind the glasses, bright blue eyes blinked at me.
"Dude, you should watch where you're going."
"E-excuse me?" I sputtered. I felt raw heat deep within my chest rise up into my throat. The nerve—clearly this bastard didn't think he was at fault. "You just rammed right into me!"
His eyes flickered back and forth, head following suit, searching for something. "You could see me comin' from a mile away." The guy flashed a cocky grin and punched me too hard on the shoulder. "You really shouldn't space out like that."
"Alfred, move your ass!" One of his mates shouted back at him.
Not so much as an apology. I opened my mouth, about to snap at him-Alfred-whatever, when all of a sudden his head jerked to the left, and a look of terror formed on his face. "Oh shit." And he took off running towards the other boys. The malformed sentence came out as a garbled mutter, which was shortly over powered by the shrill, angry cry of a young woman.
"You fuckers get back here now!" If possible, the girl in question was sprinting even faster than the three boys before her. She was haphazardly clad in an oversized t-shirt and leggings, with no shoes on, shrieking like a madwoman and tearing up tufts of grass in her trail. However, the most profound thing about her was the long, damp mane of hot pink hair spouting from her head. I had seen a great deal of people with locks representative of every color of the rainbow, but you could tell from the way it was spotty and uneven that it was clearly not an intentional dye job. There were still small patches of brown, mostly near the tips of her hair.
"Gilbert Beilschmidt, I swear I will turn you into a woman. You and your fucking posse—damn it, you sick, twisted bastard!"
Not knowing what to do, I stood there like an idiot with my mouth open, staring at the girl hunt down the pranksters, until I remembered up until that point I was on my way to the library. I glanced down at my watch.
"Fantastic," I mumbled, realizing the fiasco had eaten up my window of opportunity to see the library. With less than three minutes to spare, I changed direction, trudging towards the main building for my appointment. My brief encounter with the guy named Alfred had put me in a terrible mood, and as I trekked inside and up two flights of stairs towards the counselor's office, I silently prayed that I would never have to run into him or those buffoons again.
The interior of the building was lovely: polished wood, framed pictures of alumni and staff. I passed these until I reached the door that read three-oh-six and stopped. I waited for a moment, shifting my weight from foot to foot before giving the door a light knock.
"Come in."
I came face to face with Charles Ferguson; at least that's what the name tag sitting on the desk read. The person behind the desk was a brunette woman with little eyes and a pointed nose, reminding me of a sparrow. She smiled politely and gestured for me to sit down.
"No, I'm not Charles—management decided to move us all around this year and I haven't had time to clean up the office." She said this as if people had been coming into her office all day, accusing her of being Charles Ferguson: which was ludicrous, because Charles Ferguson sounded like the name of someone's grandfather. She leaned back in her chair, swiveling a bit. "I'm Angela Dalton, guidance counselor for twelve years here at Whitmore. How may I guide you today?"
"Er, well, Miss Dalton—"
"Angela is fine."
I cleared my throat. "Okay. Um, to be perfectly honest, I'm only here because my Mum insisted I meet with you, that is, a guidance counselor." She pushed off her desk, turned to her computer and started to type.
"Lessee, you're my twelve-fifteen slot… Arthur Kirkland?" I nodded. She continued to type. "Let me just pull up your information here. Okay. You're majoring in English?"
"That would be correct."
"Alright then," she closed out of her window. With a quick adjustment of her glasses, Angela Dalton folded her hands neatly on her desk and smiled at me. "So, Arthur, seeing as the reason for you being here today is only because of your concerned parent, I won't be keeping you long. Just a few things." I shifted in my seat, taken aback by her very blunt attitude towards the situation. "First off, if you need actual guidance, or have any gripes about the school, talk to me. Second," she paused, straightening a stack of papers and clipping them together. "I don't know what kind of life you lead before coming to college, but I want to stress the importance of this—get out, make friends, enjoy your college experience. You only get to do it once."
I rubbed my arm shyly. "Uhuh."
"We good?"
"I think so."
"Great! Here's my card, if you need anything, set up an appointment with the main office. Or just mosey on by. Good luck with the unpacking." Just as soon as I had found myself wandering into Angela's office, I was walking out. I closed the door quietly behind me, studying the card in my hand before sliding it into an empty holder in my wallet. Well Mum, I thought dryly, you sure know how to pick your guidance counselors. I didn't think to take Angela's advice seriously; I had assumed she was simply brushing me off, seeing as I had no real business being in her office. It didn't matter. Something told me I wouldn't see her anymore after this. I had carefully planned out all my courses for each semester, all the way up to my senior year. No guidance needed.
When I returned, exhausted and moody, I deflated at the sight of the sea of boxes that appeared to be overflowing from the back of the Jetta. I sighed. Where to start? I should have let Mum drive down with me in retrospect, because now I had to move the entire contents of The Beast into my room without help. I popped the trunk and wrestled a box free, buckling under the weight of it. One glance at me and you could tell I wasn't built to lift so much as a ten pound sack of flour. I was your typical artist-type: pale and slight of frame, the only real strength coming from my fingers, which were constantly tapping out words at a keyboard whenever I felt the urge to do a bit of writing. Natural selection deemed me unfit to lug around heavy objects, yet here I was, staggering under the weight of thirty-something pounds of clothes.
Just then, fate had decided to show me a little kindness.
"Do you need some help?"
Those words had never sounded more comforting.
"Er, thanks but I got it," I replied. I peeked out a little from behind my box. A boy with a similar build to mine and a few inches shorter than me was the one who had just offered me his help. He ran a hand through his dark brown hair, which fell back into place just above his shoulder.
"Are you sure? I mean, I know I don't look like much—"
"Well," I tried not to wince under the weight of the box. "I could use the help, thank you."
"Oh, no problem at all," he replied quietly. "Is that your car over there?"
"Yes, the white one."
He returned shortly with another box. Despite being smaller, he seemed to have a better handle on his box than I did on mine. And his was labeled 'books'. I could only imagine how heavy it was. "Ready?"
"Oh. Yeah. My room is on the second floor."
"So is mine," he smiled. We walked into the dorm, which was relatively nice. The main floor had a lounge area with couches and TVs. But before that, I noticed something else.
"No air-conditioning." My tone must have been full of dismay, because my partner spoke to me sympathetically.
"Yeah, the first couple of weeks will be tough. But there's heating, and we get our own bathrooms." There was also no elevator in this dorm, and I felt even better about myself for not being a big television watcher. I wondered how many people had struggled trying to haul their tellies up to the third or fourth floor. "I'm Toris, by the way."
"Arthur," I said.
"What part of England are you from?"
We turned left down the hall, and kept walking until I spotted the number two-eleven. "London, inner city, my family and I moved here the summer after I turned ten." I stopped, and Toris did the same behind me. "This is it." I set my box down and fumbled for my keys.
"I moved here when I was eight," said Toris.
"From where?"
"Lithuania."
"Really?" The door creaked open. The room was small, as expected, and came provided with desks, beds, and drawers. My roommate was nowhere to be seen, but all of his belongings were messily piled up on the bed against the wall. I frowned and shook my head.
"Seems your roommate already moved in," Toris observed and set his load down near the window by the other bed.
"If you can call that mess moving in…"
We spent the next couple of hours dragging my belongings from the car into the dorm, and by the time we finished, both of us were sticky and sweaty from the heat. I caught my reflection in the mirror briefly: straw colored hair plastered against my forehead, a small sweat stain on my shirt. I cringed. My tongue slipped out of my mouth in search of moisture, and I realized at that moment how thirsty I was. I had been sweating from the moment I hopped in my car. I cringed, my lips dried and cracked now.
I took a seat on my bed, which had yet to be covered, and eased back a little. Muscles that I didn't even know I had pulsed in a dull throb. "So," I began to remove my shoes. "Have you met your roommate yet?"
Toris, curiously enough, became flustered, "I already know him. We went to high school together."
"What's he like?"
A wan smile formed on his lips, "Interesting."
"Do you get along?" Toris, still standing, reluctantly sat down in my desk chair and faced towards me. He shrugged a little into his collar and started wringing his hands. His eyes flickered downwards.
"Well, sometimes. Yeah. Mostly," he sighed. "He's…interesting, like I said. It's complicated." I don't know what made the boy feel so uncomfortable, but I didn't feel the need to pry any further. A steady, awkward silence filtered in between us. I wasn't used to having someone around, so I rubbed the back of my neck in uncertainty. "Well, I guess I should take a shower."
"Oh, right," Toris shot up from his seat.
"Thanks for helping out." I walked him to the door. He nodded cheerily, and before stepping out, pointed to his right.
"I'm around the corner next to the stairs, room three-oh-two."
I gave a curt nod. "See you then."
"See you around. Maybe we'll have class together."
"That'd be good," I agreed and waved him goodbye. As soon as Toris left, I exhaled loudly and gave a small stretch, all the muscles in my back complaining. It was about time to take a much needed shower. Preferably cold: I couldn't stand much more of this heat anyways. Over at my side of the room, I carefully wiggled out the box marked "bathroom" and began setting things down, placing toiletries in the cabinets. I hung my towel on a hook behind the door. Back at my bed, I carefully opened up the first box of clothing, and retrieved a clean pair of underwear. Too hot for clothing, I reasoned.
The conditions of the shower were a bit questionable—rusted pipes and an odd, yellow stain on the back wall. I turned the knob and a forceful spray of icy water rushed out. A yelp escaped my lips. Cold, but soothing, I allowed the water to run down my body, flushing out any traces of sweat and head and humidity. I stayed inside until the pads of my fingers resembled raisins. When I got out, the heat seemed less intense than before. I stepped into my boxers, dried my hair off and looped the towel around my neck. The shower had also seemed to ease my tense mood from earlier, flushed it down the drain. I even started humming, a tune from the radio, and practically bounced out of the bathroom.
The scene before me couldn't have been more ironic.
Dirty socks strewn on the floor, with sweaty feet curled around the lip of his bed board sat Alfred the bastard who knocked me over this morning. His large hands were closed tightly around a game controller, teeth clenched and eyebrows furled. I was hit almost instantly with the aroma of feet, and the foul smell of McDonalds, as if the wad of chips in his mouth hadn't been a previous indicator. He glanced up from his game, recognizing me.
"Mmph!" he cried with his mouth full, and swallowed the seven something chips in one gulp. "Hey, it's eyebrows. Wow, that's totally weird. We're roommates now."
My toes gripped the floor, body tensing like a wild animal that had been spotted by a predator. Why? I cried helplessly to myself. Why? Why? Why? No. God no.
"Woah, you okay? Are you like sick or something?"
Impossibly, inevitably, on that first day of college, I had become the roommate of Alfred F. Jones.
A/N: At the bottom this time! Wooo! (does a jig). How y'all doing? Okay, so I really wanted to do a USUK fic for a long time, and now I am. Hope you guys enjoy this. I needed something else to do while I was writing Comme il Faut, so here it is.
Side note: Arthur will be mixing both English and American terms (cuz I am lazy like that) because he has been exposed to American culture during high school. So yeah…stuff.
Yes there really is a town called Peculiar – except it's in Missouri and it doesn't have a college. I chose Illinois because I am most familiar with this state.
I will attempt to update regularly, but I can't make any promises – the fic is coinciding with my school life, work life, other fan fic, and an RP that I just started doing.