Chapter 6: Picnic with the Girls
The sun was a brute, hammering down on the quad and baking the scent of cut grass and charcoal into the air. Music bled from a dozen different Bluetooth speakers, creating a chaotic symphony of competing basslines. Soren sat on the edge of a worn quilt, surrounded by the noise and bodies of his so-called friends, and felt utterly alone.
He’d been maneuvered here by Chloe, who had presented it as a done deal alongside a printed-out schedule of his week. “You need to relax, Soren. It’s optimized for peak social integration,” she’d said, tapping the spreadsheet. Now, he watched a game of frisbee he wasn’t part of, his fingers digging into the quilt’s fabric.
Then he saw her.
Zoe was pulling Taylor through the crowd, a bright spot of enthusiasm dragging a storm cloud. Taylor moved with a stiff reluctance, her eyes scanning the scene like a scout assessing hostile territory. She wore a simple black tank top and jeans, a stark contrast to the sea of pastels and crop tops. In her hand was a large, black sketchbook.
His breath hitched. The memory of the hallway, of her closed door, was a fresh bruise.
“Look who I found!” Zoe announced, depositing Taylor on the edge of their group’s territory.
Chloe’s smile was instant and razor-sharp. “Taylor! So glad you could finally join us. We were just talking about the bar. What a wild night, right?” Her eyes flicked to Soren, then back to Taylor, dissecting.
“Yeah. Wild,” Taylor said, her voice flat. She didn’t sit, just lowered herself to the grass, placing the sketchbook carefully beside her.
The conversation swirled around them—gossip, professors, summer plans. Soren tried to listen, tried to add a word where it was expected, but his attention was fixed on Taylor. She wasn’t participating. She’d opened the sketchbook on her knees, a charcoal pencil moving in quick, sure strokes, building a world on the page that was far away from this one.
Chloe watched her, too. The constant, quiet scratch of the pencil seemed to grate on her. It was a rejection of the social ecosystem she so carefully curated.
“What are you drawing?” Chloe asked, her tone sugared with false interest.
“Nothing,” Taylor said without looking up.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be shy.” Chloe shifted, reaching for her iced coffee. The movement was a little too broad, a little too careless. The large plastic cup, nearly full, tipped over. A river of sweet, brown liquid cascaded across the blanket, heading straight for Taylor’s lap.
It happened fast. Taylor jerked back, but not fast enough. The coffee sloshed over the open pages of her sketchbook, drowning the careful lines, bleeding the charcoal into a murky, blue-tinged swamp.
A beat of silence. Zoe gasped. Someone else muttered, “Oh, shit.”
Chloe’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh my god, Taylor! I am so, so sorry! It was an accident, it just slipped!”
Taylor didn’t say a word. She looked down at the ruined pages, at the image now dissolving into abstract stains. Her expression was unreadable, a mask of calm. She carefully blotted the cover with the edge of her tank top, but it was hopeless.
Then, slowly, she reached for the small canvas bag she’d brought. She unzipped it. Everyone watched, the air thick with a performative tension.
She pulled out a folded bundle of grey fabric. It was soft, worn. Soren’s sweater. The one he’d lent her weeks ago, when a sudden downpour had caught them both outside the library. He’d forgotten about it.
He hadn’t known she’d kept it.
Without a flicker of emotion, Taylor unfolded the sweater. She pressed the soft, thick wool against the soaked paper, soaking up the coffee, blotting the damage. The gesture was practical, efficient. And utterly devastating.
Chloe’s face went through a rapid series of adjustments. The feigned concern tightened. Then confusion. Then, as recognition dawned, a slow, dawning horror. Her eyes darted from the sweater to Soren’s face and back again. That intimate, casual possession of something of his, used to clean up the mess she’d made. It was a checkmate no one had seen coming.
Taylor finally looked up, meeting Chloe’s stunned gaze. “It’s fine,” she said, her voice quiet but clear. “Accidents happen.”
She folded the sweater, now stained with a blotchy brown patch, and tucked it back into her bag. She closed the ruined sketchbook. The quiet that followed was different from before. It was charged, electric with things understood.
Soren just stared, the noise of the picnic fading into a dull roar. He saw the sweater in her hands and understood, with a jolt that felt like a physical blow, that she hadn’t just kept it. She carried it with her.
The sight of his sweater, stained and carefully stored in her bag, unspooled something inside him. It wasn’t just an object; it was a secret she’d been keeping, a quiet answer to a question he’d been too afraid to ask. He watched Taylor stand, the ruined sketchbook held against her chest like a shield, and something in him finally snapped.
He stood up. The frisbee game, the chatter, the entire bright, noisy world faded into a dull hum. His focus narrowed to a single point.
“Chloe.” His voice was low, but it cut through the ambient noise. Everyone went still.
She looked up, her face a perfect mask of wide-eyed innocence. “Soren? What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk. Now.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned and walked away from the blanket, from the group, expecting her to follow. He heard her quick, light steps behind him on the grass.
He stopped under the shade of a large oak, its branches a stark contrast to the brutal sun. He turned to face her. The performance was over.
“That was intentional,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Chloe’s mask cracked for a fraction of a second before she reassembled it. “The coffee? Soren, no, it was an accident. My hand slipped.”
“Your hand doesn’t slip that way. You aimed.” He could still see the dark liquid engulfing the paper, the deliberate arc of the cup. “You saw her drawing. You saw she wasn’t paying attention to you, to any of you, and you couldn’t stand it.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She crossed her arms, her planner pressed tight against her chest. “Why would I do that? I was just trying to include her. You know I’m always trying to help.”
“You’re not helping. You’re managing. You manage my time, you manage who I talk to, and you try to manage anyone who doesn’t fit into your plan.” The words came out in a quiet rush, thoughts he’d never let himself fully form. “You spill coffee on her things because she has something of mine. Because she doesn’t play the game.”
Her composure finally shattered. “Game? What game? I look out for you! You have no idea how many girls are just using you, Soren. They see your face and they see a prize. I protect you from that.”
“I don’t need your protection.” He took a step closer, his voice dropping even lower. “I need you to stop. The spreadsheets, the schedules, the… the spills. It ends now.”
Her eyes glistened, but with anger, not tears. “You’re choosing her? That sarcastic, miserable transfer who treats you like a piece of furniture?”
“She treats me like a person,” he said, the truth of it settling deep in his bones. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
He didn’t wait for another lie. He turned and walked away, leaving her standing rigid under the tree. The crowd seemed to part for him as he scanned the sea of faces, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had to find her.
He saw a flash of black fabric disappearing around the corner of the humanities building. He moved, his pace quickening to a jog, the picnic sounds dying behind him. He rounded the corner and saw her, halfway down the empty path, walking with a stiff, determined gait.
“Taylor.”
She stopped but didn’t turn around.
He closed the distance between them, the air cool in the shadow of the building. He could see the damp, warped cover of her sketchbook clenched in her hand. “Your book. I’m… I’m sorry.”
Finally, she turned. Her expression was raw, stripped of its usual sarcastic armor. “For what? You didn’t spill it.”
“For everything that led to it being spilled.” He gestured vaguely back toward the quad. “For all of that.”
She looked down at the ruined pages, then back at him. A long, slow breath escaped her. “It was just a book.”
“It wasn’t.”
She held his gaze for a moment, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. Then she shifted her weight, her eyes dropping to the ground before flicking back up to his. “I still have your sweater. It’s stained.”
“I don’t care about the sweater,” he said, the words feeling like the most important ones he’d ever spoken.
A single, sharp nod. “Okay.”
She turned and continued walking, but slower now. He fell into step beside her, the two of them moving away from the noise, into the quiet of the campus afternoon.