Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
– Solomon
"What the hell kind of name is Pru, anyway?"
"I don't know – what the hell kind of name is Hanna?"
"It's a totally normal name. Like, how many Hannas do you know? 'Cause I only know one Pru."
"The Hannahs I know all end in an 'H.' Two Hs, two As, two Ns. So what the hell happened to your other H?"
"I don't need another H. There's only one H, 'cause there's only one me. I'm unique."
"Well, I'm PRUnique!"
"Oh, ha ha. . . You couldn't wait to whip that one out, could you? Have you been using that all your life?"
The friends went back to their studying. After a bit, Pru took up the conversation again. "It's short for Prudence."
"Ewww – Prudence? No wonder you go by Pru!"
"Yeah, 'cause I'm sure as hell not 'dence!'"
"I could call you Prudy!"
"Oh, yeah. 'Cause that's what people think when they think of me. Prude-y."
Again, they went back to their books, but, again, it didn't last long. Again, Pru broke the silence. "I was named after my great grandmother."
"Really? They have Prudences in China?"
"What the hell are you talking about, China?"
"Your grandmother."
"What makes you think my great grandmother was Chinese?"
"You don't exactly look Italian!"
"Hanna. I'm Korean."
"Yeah, okay, whatever. They have Prudences in Korea?"
"God – yes, Hanna. We have Prudences. We have Hannahs, too. Only we know how to spell it!"
"What are we even talking about names for?"
"You were the one who…"
"Can we just go get a beer or something, 'cause I'm getting a headache from all this studying."
"You just said the magic words!"
Pru followed Hanna out of her bedroom toward the door. "We're taking a study break," Hanna announced to Paige and Emily, who were studying in the common room. Emily was sitting on the couch, with her feet up on the coffee table. Paige was reclining on her stomach, her legs in Emily's lap.
"You guys were in there for all of, what, 20 minutes?" Emily asked, looking to Paige for confirmation.
"We're just taking a break, Emily. We're going to come back and finish after last call!"
"Since when does the study break take longer than the studying?" Paige said to herself.
Pru came over and smacked her on the ass. "Trust us. We know what we're doing!"
"You guys should come with us!" Hanna offered.
"What do you think, Babe? One drink?" Emily asked.
"Why not? I don't think I'm going to get anything else done tonight."
Because of the freshmen with them, they decided to head to a dive bar that catered to students and wasn't overly aggressive about checking IDs. It was rather loud; apparently, much of the student body needed a break from all the studying.
Emily and Paige were each nursing a bottle of beer, but Hanna and Pru decided that it would be a good idea to do shots. At least they were entertaining drunks.
"So, Little One, do you have a special guy back home?"
"Jesus, Hanna! Why do you have to ask me that every single time you get drunk?"
"Because, Bro! I want to see you get laid."
"You want to see it?"
"Nothing I haven't seen before…"
"Yeah, I want to see that, too," Pru said, mocking Hanna's goal. "So what about you Hanna? What's with that guy you've got back at home – Caleb, right?"
"Yeah, Caleb. He's doing his thing - finding himself, whatever. I think he's in California, or something."
"So, you guys are over?"
"Oh, no. He's coming back. And I'll be here. But, in the meantime, it doesn't mean that I can't have fun."
"You guys aren't exclusive?"
"Please, Prudence!"
Emily mouthed the name "Prudence?" to Paige, who smiled and nodded.
Pru rolled her eyes. "What the fuck was I even thinking when I told you that?"
"Okay – Pru. You don't just deprive the world of this. Not till he puts a ring on it, at least."
"Uh, Emily? Who's that putting the moves on your girlfriend?" Hanna interrupted the discussion that she and Pru had been holding about what guys were each other's types. Emily was bored out of her mind and waiting for Paige to return from the ladies' room. Pru and Emily's heads shot up to see what Hanna was talking about. On the other side of the room, Paige was talking to a tall, dark, athletic woman who must really have liked the fabric of Paige's sweater, judging from the way that she kept touching Paige's sleeve.
"Well, Paige definitely has a type…" Hanna mused. Emily just glared at her.
Paige must've felt her friends' eyes on her, because she smiled over at their table and put up a finger to indicate that she'd be back in a second. Athletic woman, meanwhile, pulled a pen and notepad from her jeans. Emily had seen enough. She stormed over to her girlfriend, possessively putting her arm around her waist.
"Hi, Emily," an oblivious Paige said blissfully. "This is Shana. It's the funniest thing – Shana mistook me for someone in her history class! I guess I have a twin!" Paige was surprised that Emily wasn't reacting to the humor of the mix-up. She was just glaring at Shana. Paige wasn't sure why Emily was in such a bad mood all of a sudden, so she just soldiered on with the story. "Anyway, I told her that I couldn't be in the girl she was thinking about, because her class meets the same time my calc class meets. So, it turns out that Shana's a math major, and she said I can call her if I ever get stuck."
Emily kept her glare on Shana as she said, menacingly, "Thank you, Shana, but I don't think my girlfriend will be needing your help. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're going to go rejoin our friends." Emily spun a very confused Paige around and pushed her back to their table, as Paige tried to keep up the suddenly frantic pace.
"Emily, what's wrong? You were rude to her! That's not like you..."
"Because she was hitting on my girlfriend!"
"Oh, come on, Emily! She offered to help me with math! Does that sound like a pick-up line to you?"
Hanna looked over to Pru. "God – is everyone in Wisconsin this naïve?"
"Nope," Pru replied, "Just our Paige!"
"What?" Paige looked at Pru, clueless.
"Um, Paige, honey? She tried to give you her number, for fuck's sake!" Pru pointed out.
"In case I needed help with math!"
"She wanted to help you multiply," Hanna joked. "Wait, that doesn't work for lesbians, does it? Well, you get the gist."
"No! She doesn't get it! That's the problem. She gets hit on all the time, and she's too oblivious to realize it." Emily threw her coaster in frustration.
"Emily," Paige said, grabbing her girlfriend's arm, "I'm not interested in anybody else." She kissed Emily's lips. "I love you."
Emily backed away from her anger a bit and kissed Paige back. "I love you, too. But do you have to be so nice to everybody?"
"Sucks having a hot girlfriend, huh, Emily?" Pru asked.
"Yeah, sometimes, it really does."
"I don't know," Paige said, snuggling into Emily "I've got no complaints about my hot girlfriend." Looking up at Emily, she continued in her low, husky voice, "If you're so jealous, you'd better take me home and – claim me!"
Emily scrambled, grabbing money from her wallet and tossing it to the table and pulling on her jacket in one less-than-smooth motion.
"Oh, fuck," Hanna exclaimed, "Would you two stop being so annoyingly cute? Why did we even take you with us?"