Chapter 3: Broken Routine
The thing about my life is that it just makes sense. It’s a well-oiled machine. Maybe the parts are a little noisy sometimes, but they all fit together.
Take Tuesday mornings. My alarm goes off at 6:45. By 7:15, I’m walking out of my dorm, and by 7:17, I’m not alone.
“You look half-dead. Here.”
Freya Hollis falls into step beside me, her posture perfect, her blonde hair in a severe ponytail. She thrusts a travel mug into my hand. The coffee is always black, always the perfect temperature, and she always has a printed copy of my day’s schedule tucked into the side pocket of her backpack, just in case I ‘forget the structural integrity of my own timeline.’
“Thanks, Freya.”
“Your Biochem notes from yesterday were inefficient. I re-formatted them. Color-coded by topic. I’ll email you the document.” She doesn’t look at me as she speaks; her eyes are scanning the path ahead, calculating the most direct route to the science building. “And you’re almost out of your preferred brand of highlighters. I ordered more.”
It’s just how she is. Driven. Reliable. She sees my life as a system she can optimize, and I’ve never had the heart, or the energy, to tell her it’s fine the way it is. It’s easier to just drink the coffee.
By the time we hit the main quad, the group has usually assembled. Zoe is there, cracking a joke about the professor’s comb-over, making even Freya crack a smile. Chloe appears, often with a piece of fruit or a muffin she ‘couldn’t finish.’ It’s a dance I know the steps to. A gentle, constant orbit. I never asked for it, but after a while, you stop noticing the gravity.
It was the same at the Kappa Sig mixer last weekend. The music was too loud, the basement air thick with cheap beer and body spray. I’d gone because Zoe insisted it would ‘loosen me up.’ I stood near the wall, a red solo cup in my hand, feeling the bass thump through the floor.
And then they were there. Not all at once, but in a slow, steady convergence. Chloe materialized first, positioning herself as a barrier between me and the crowd. Zoe dragged a couple of her friends over, creating a noisy, laughing satellite group. Freya arrived later, assessed the situation with a critical eye, and immediately went to get me a bottle of water because ‘hydration is crucial in these environments.’
I remember looking across the room and seeing a guy from my anatomy lab watching our little cluster. He had a weird look on his face, a mix of confusion and something like resentment. I just gave him a small, awkward wave. He shook his head and turned away.
At one point, I got hungry. The chips were on the other side of the room.
“I’m gonna grab some food,” I said to no one in particular.
“I’ll come with you,” Chloe said instantly, her hand lightly touching my elbow.
“We’ll all go,” Zoe declared, and it was settled.
So we moved, a six-person convoy cutting through the dancing bodies. I filled a plate. Chloe, standing right behind me, added a few extra pretzels. “You looked like you wanted more,” she’d said softly.
It was normal. For me, anyway.
This morning, though, the machine felt different. A gear was out of place. I kept glancing towards Taylor’s door as I left with Freya, half-expecting it to open. It stayed shut.
The feeling lingered through my lectures. During a lull in Pathology, my mind drifted back to the clinic, to the focused set of her jaw as I cleaned her cut. She hadn’t flinched. Most people flinch.
Lunch in the cafeteria was the usual routine. We commandeered our regular table by the window. Chloe was unpacking her lunch—a meticulously arranged container of salad, grilled chicken, and quinoa—when she looked up and her pleasant expression tightened.
“Don’t look now,” Zoe murmured, a grin in her voice. “But your favorite porcupine just walked in.”
I followed her gaze. Taylor was at the entrance, a worn leather satchel slung over one shoulder, her gray eyes scanning the crowded room. She looked utterly detached from the frantic social energy of the place.
“She’s probably looking for someone,” I said.
“Or she’s scouting for fresh insults,” Zoe countered, gleefully stabbing a piece of lettuce.
Taylor’s gaze swept past our table, paused for a fraction of a second on me, and then moved on. She didn’t smile or scowl. She just turned and walked to the shortest sandwich line, pulling a book out of her bag and reading it while she waited. Alone.
“See?” I said, feeling an inexplicable need to defend her. “She’s fine.”
“She’s an island, Soren,” Freya stated, not looking up from her textbook. “Islands are geologically stable but notoriously difficult to build infrastructure on. A poor return on investment.”
Chloe was quiet, her fork pushing the quinoa around her container. “She was really rude to you last night,” she finally said, her voice low.
“She was just stating a fact,” I replied, and the words felt true as I said them. It was a fact. A harem did imply willing participants.
The rest of the meal continued, the conversation flowing around me, but my attention kept drifting back to that sandwich line. Taylor got her food, paid, and found an empty two-person table in the far corner. She ate reading her book, one hand holding the sandwich, the other tracing the lines of text. She never once looked around to see if anyone was watching her, never seemed to feel the absence of company. It was a different kind of gravity. One that pushed things away.
After lunch, I told the others I had to return a book to the library. It was only half a lie. I did have a book. But my feet carried me past the library steps, towards the older, more forgotten-looking arts building on the east side of campus.
I didn’t know why I was going there. A hunch, maybe. The clay I’d cleaned from her hand. The faint, earthy smell that clung to her clothes.
The building was quiet, a stark contrast to the bustling main walkways. I pushed open a heavy wooden door marked ‘CERAMICS STUDIO’ and was hit by a wave of warm, humid air that smelled of wet clay and mineral spirits. The room was vast, filled with wheels, shelves of lumpy, bag-wrapped projects, and tables caked with dried gray sludge.
And there she was. Her back was to me, hunched over a wheel that was spinning with a low, rhythmic whir. Her shoulders were rounded, her entire being focused on the centering lump of clay under her hands. Water and slick, gray slurry splattered her arms. The bandage on her hand was dark with moisture.
I didn’t say anything. I just watched. This wasn’t the sharp, defensive person from the hallway or the clinic. This was someone else entirely. Her movements were sure, gentle, and full of an intent I never saw in the lecture halls. She was completely inside the moment, the spinning clay, the sound of the wheel.
She leaned in, her thumbs pressing into the center of the clay, and it began to open, to rise, transforming from a shapeless mass into a graceful, widening cylinder. A vase. A bowl. Something.
My grandfather, a man of few words who spent his life fixing old clocks, once told me that most people are just collections of parts, never quite synchronized. But sometimes, he said, you meet someone who is a single, beautiful, functioning movement.
I finally understood what he meant.
I must have shifted my weight or let out a breath, because the wheel slowed to a stop. Taylor didn’t turn around.
“If you’re here to check my stitches, Wilhelm, you can forget it,” she said, her voice echoing slightly in the quiet room. She reached for a wire tool to cut the piece from the wheel. “And if you’re here to gawk, that’ll be five bucks.”
“I was just returning a book,” I said, the lie sounding weak even to me.
She finally glanced over her shoulder, her expression unreadable. “The library’s the other way.”
I nodded, feeling like I’d been caught trespassing on something private. “Right. Sorry.”
I turned to leave, the heavy door feeling even heavier as I pulled it open.
“Soren.”
Her voice stopped me. I looked back.
She was wiping her hands on a grimy towel, looking at the newly formed pot, a critical tilt to her head. “The clay here is garbage. Gritty. It fights you the whole time.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Oh.”
“Yeah. ‘Oh.’” She finally looked at me, a real, tired smile touching her eyes for the first time. “See you around, Med Student.”
I stepped out into the bright, ordinary afternoon, the image of her at the wheel burned onto the back of my eyelids. The well-oiled machine of my life suddenly felt clunky and loud. And for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to be an island.