Chapter 1: First Day on Campus
The Florida sun was a physical weight, pressing down on the plaza with a humid, insistent hand. Channing shifted her backpack, the strap already sticking to her shoulder through her thin tank top. The map on her phone seemed to swim in the glare, the little blue dot mocking her. Turlington Hall was supposed to be right here. Instead, she was surrounded by a maze of identical brick paths and sprawling oak trees, their Spanish moss trembling in the faint, hot breeze.
“Hey. Need some directions?”
She looked up. A guy in a fraternity t-shirt and mirrored sunglasses leaned against a bike rack, smiling a smile that was all teeth and calculation.
“I’m good,” she said, her voice smooth and carrying the soft, melodic drawl of South Georgia. She didn’t slow down.
“Sounds like you’re not from around here,” he called after her, undeterred.
“Sounds like you are,” she tossed back without turning around. “Yet here you are, still lost.”
She finally found the building, pushing through the heavy doors into a blast of air-conditioning that made her skin prickle. The lecture hall was a steep canyon of stadium seating, already buzzing. She slipped into a seat near the front, aisle side, and pulled out a pristine, navy-blue notebook. She labeled it neatly in the top corner: Biology 101. Dr. Evans. 8:30 AM.
This was the point. The classes, the degree, the path that led out of the quiet, confusing isolation of her hometown. The guys in high school had either fetishized her mixed heritage or treated her like an exotic intruder. Here, she was just another student. She intended to be the best one.
The professor began his droning introduction to course syllabi. Channing’s pen moved in swift, precise strokes.
By Friday, a rhythm had emerged. Each class had its assigned notebook—grey for Statistics, green for Literature—and each had its specific seat. Her spot in Biology 101, three rows up on the aisle, was hers. She’d claimed it through the consistent, early-morning act of sitting there. It was a small anchor in the vast, shifting sea of campus.
She was early, as usual. The hall was only half-full, the hum of conversation a low drone. She set her bag on the floor, opened her blue notebook to a fresh page, and wrote the date at the top.
A shadow fell across the page, accompanied by the scent of cheap body spray and fresh grass. A large body dropped into the seat beside her. Her seat.
Channing blinked. She turned her head slowly.
He was clearly an athlete, with broad shoulders that strained his UF Football t-shirt. He had a handsome, carelessly sculpted face, dreads going down his back , and an air of utter, unshakeable belonging. He was dumping a beaten-up, empty notebook onto the desk as if he’d been sitting there all semester.
“Excuse me,” Channing said, her accent a little sharper, cutting through the air between them.
He glanced over, a lazy, bemused smile on his face. “Yeah?”
“You’re in my seat.”
The smile widened. He looked around, deliberately. “I don’t see your name on it.”
“You wouldn’t. It’s been implied since last Monday. This is my seat.” She held his gaze, her expression flat. She didn’t care who he was. They were all the same.
He studied her now, the bemused look deepening into something more curious. His eyes traveled from her focused expression, down to the meticulously organized notebooks, and back up. He leaned back, stretching his long legs out into the aisle, invading her space. “Tre Davis,” he said, as if that explained everything.
It didn’t. “Channing. And you’re in my seat, Tre.”
A guy in the row behind them snorted. “Dude, she doesn’t know who you are.”
Tre ignored him, his eyes still locked on Channing. A genuine laugh, low and warm, escaped him. “Alright, alright. My bad. First day back. Forgot the assigned seating chart.” He didn’t move. “You always this serious?”
“About my education? Yes.” She reached over, picked up his sad, empty notebook, and handed it to him. “The seat behind me is free. I hear the view’s just fine.”
For a second, he just looked at the notebook in his hand, then at her steadfast face. He shook his head, that laugh still in his eyes. “Okay mama” Then he stood up, a mountain of a man unfolding himself. He moved to the seat directly behind her. She could feel his presence there, a new heat source at her back.
When Dr. Evans began lecturing on cellular mitosis, Channing focused, her pen flying. Ten minutes in, a voice, low and close to her ear, came from over her shoulder.
“You’re writing that down like he’s giving the secret to eternal life.”
She didn’t turn around. “It might be on the test.”
“What’s your major?” he murmured.
“Pre-med.”
“Figures.” There was a pause. The professor drew a complex diagram on the board. “Hey. Your accent. Where’s that from? The bottom of somewhere am i right ?”
“Something like that, South Georgia.”
“I like it. Sounds like home.”
That made her pause. She half-turned, catching his eye. He wasn’t smirking now. He looked earnest, intrigued. “Most people around here just ask me to say ‘y’all’ again like I’m a performing pony.”
“Most people around here are lame,” he said, so simply it disarmed her.
She turned back to her notes, but a faint smile played on her lips. For the rest of the lecture, she was hyper-aware of him behind her. The shuffle of his feet, the rustle of his (still empty) notebook. When class ended, she packed up methodically.
“See you Monday, Channing from South Georgia,” Tre said, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
“And Hopefully you can find your seat, Tre ,” she replied, slinging her own pack on.
He grinned, a brilliant, infectious thing. “Oh, I’ll find it.”
He was there on Monday. In the seat behind her. He’d arrived before her. She felt a ridiculous spike of something—not annoyance, not exactly—when she saw him already settled, his long legs kicked out.
“You’re late,” he said, glancing at the clock. “Lose your way?”
“I had a meeting with my stats TA,” she said, slipping into her seat. “Some of us have more than one class on our schedule.”
“Ouch.” He chuckled. “So, pre-med. You wanna be a doctor. What kind?”
She opened her notebook. “Undecided.”
“Come on. Everyone has a dream. Trauma surgeon? Pediatrician? World-famous brain something-or-other?”
She sighed, relenting. “Maybe oncology.”
The straightforward gravity of it quieted him for a moment. “Heavy.”
“It’s important.”
When the lecture started, he was less disruptive. He even took a few notes. Five minutes before the end, a folded piece of paper appeared on the edge of her desk. She unfolded it. The handwriting was surprisingly neat.
You draw a better diagram than the doc. Want to compare notes over coffee? - T
She didn’t look back. She wrote on the bottom of the note.
I don’t share my notes with people who skip the first two weeks. - C
She passed it back. A moment later, she heard his soft, choked laugh. When the class was dismissed, he fell into step beside her in the hallway, a magnetic force parting the crowd of students.
“You checked on me. You’re keeping track.”
“I notice patterns. It’s a scientific habit.”
“I had a thing. Team retreat.”
“I don’t follow sports.”
“Everyone follows sports here.”
“And I’m not everyone.” She stopped at the junction where the hallway split. Hers went left to the library. His, she assumed, went right, toward the athletic complexes.
He looked down at her, the noise and motion of the campus flowing around them like a river around two stones. “Yeah,” he said, his voice losing its playful edge. “I’m starting to get that.” He nodded, a new respect in his eyes. “See you Wednesday, Channing.”
“Bye , Tre.”
She walked to the library, the ghost of a smile on her face, the chaotic hum of the plaza feeling a little more like a rhythm she could get used to.