AU: Longer wait for the update this time – sorry! This story is for some reason harder to make myself write than others. But I'll get through it, one way or another. And just to be clear, yes, this is all after BD. (Except for the flashbacks, obviously.) Hope you're still enjoying it – read on!

5

I woke up with a throbbing headache. When I got up to go the bathroom, I realized I felt achy all over, and my eyes were watery and weak. Ugh. . . If I didn't live within walking distance of most of my classes, I'd have stayed in bed. But guilt and a sense of duty kept me going. I just stayed in the back, kept my head down, and took notes in the form of dictation because I knew my teachers' words would disappear from my mind the second I left the room.

I got back to my dorm at around two, with a six-pack of Cup O' Noodles and a family size bottle of Robitussin. Then I hunkered down with my laptop and a stack of my favorite Johnny Depp movies; sure, I had a pile of reading to do for my classes, but the hell with it. I'd never be able to concentrate with my head all stuffy anyway.

Midway through Sleepy Hollow and my third lukewarm cup of soup, I heard something. Now, hearing strange noises in a dormitory isn't unusual by any stretch of the imagination. Those walls are paper-thin, and most of the people who live between them don't bother to keep their voices, stereos, or televisions down. My floor was mostly well behaved, but in the middle of the day I didn't expect quiet. However, this didn't sound like a fellow student. The voice was female, but more mature in its timbre, and hushed as if it was discussing something gravely important and didn't want to be overheard. I couldn't understand her, but I wondered what was going on. Had something bad happened to one of my hall mates? Had a parent come up to bring them home?

Last semester one of the students at another dorm had been caught with drugs and alcohol on a substance-free hall. Her parents had come to get her and allegedly she was in rehab now. I'd always thought that was a little extreme, but it wasn't any of my business and I hadn't known her that well anyway. Maybe something similar was going on here. I'd ask someone in the morning, maybe.

At 9:30 I got a call from Jasper asking if I wanted him to cover my shift at the radio station. How he found out I was sick, I have no idea, but I very gratefully told him yes. I was well enough to push buttons for a while, sure, but there was no way I could fake my chipper voice. Still, I wanted to come in and help just to get my two hours of pay for the evening. "Do you mind?" I asked Jasper. "I know how weird you are about having people around while you're working."

"Not at all," said Jasper. "It's your shift."

He wasn't alone, which surprised me. When I got to the station there was a tiny, black-haired girl perched on Jasper's knee. At first I wondered how in the world an asocial head case like Jasper (I know, it takes one to know one) wound up with a girlfriend in the first place, if that's what she was. Then I saw Jasper smile. Suddenly he appeared, not just normal, but warm, and happy. It caught me so completely off guard that I actually stopped in my tracks.

The black-haired girl spotted me and bounced over to the door. "Hi!" she said brightly. "I'm Alice. Jasper was worried about bringing a friend in here, but I told him you wouldn't mind."

"Oh." I said, a little baffled at this incessantly friendly greeting. "Um, yeah. It's no big deal."

Alice grinned back at Jasper triumphantly. "See?" she said.

I introduced myself, but Alice seemed to already know who I was; I guessed Jasper must have told her what I looked like. It was a strange evening, but a good one. Alice helped me pick out songs, fluttering back and forth between the shelves like an oversized fairy, or a black-feathered tropical bird. She chattered non-stop through the whole shift, providing a nice buffer between me, still sick and freshly dumped, and Jasper, who was polite but tight-lipped as usual. Normally it would have encroached on my patience to have a third person in the already cramped studio, but for some reason Alice's presence made me feel relaxed and almost cheerful. I'd heard before that opposites attract, but I hadn't seen such a convincing example of the fact before, and I said so.

"How long have you two been together?" I asked.

"Oh, it feels like forever, doesn't it?" asked Alice, giving Jasper an affectionate grin. "I know what you mean. We balance each other out."

"Maybe that was the real problem with me and Kyle," I said. "We had a lot in common. Maybe it was too much."

"Kyle is Beth's ex-boyfriend," Jasper explained.

"How'd you know that?" I asked.

"You said it on the air last night."

I blushed. "Really? Did I say his name?"

Jasper nodded slowly.

"Shit. . . I didn't realize I was that pissed off at him."

"It's okay," said Alice. "He probably didn't hear it."

"I hope not." Even if he deserved it. Of course I wanted Kyle to know on some level how angry I was, to the extent that I was never going to forgive him, ever, but I hadn't meant to humiliate him over the air. "Nah, he probably didn't hear it," I said, more to myself than to either of them. "He hardly listened to my show when we were going out anyway."

The rest of the night went on without any uncomfortable topics, and it was over quickly. I mentioned once that I needed a new pair of jeans, and Alice immediately volunteered herself to take me shopping. "Just let her," said Jasper. "It'll be easier if you don't fight it."

I enjoyed meeting Alice, and thought Jasper was lucky to have found somebody like her, and told him so. He agreed wholeheartedly. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized they'd never answered my question, about how long they'd been together. Maybe it was just an honest mistake.