"Hey," a girl's voice said, and someone touched her on the elbow. "Hey, are you okay?"
Claire yelped and jumped, landed hard on her strained ankle, and nearly toppled over. The girl who'd scared her reached out and grabbed her arm to steady her, looking genuinely scared herself. "I'm sorry!
God, I'm such a klutz. Look, are you okay?"
The girl wasn't Monica, or Jen, or Gina, or anybody else she'd seen around the campus at TPU; this girl was way Goth. Not in a bad way - she didn't have the sulky I'm-so-not-cool-I'm-cool attitude of most of the Goths Claire had known in school - but the dyed-black, shag-cut hair, the pale makeup, the heavy eyeliner and mascara, the red-and-black-striped tights and clunky black shoes and black pleated miniskirt...very definitely a fan of the dark side.
"My name's Eve," the girl said, and smiled. It was a sweet, funny kind of smile, something that invited Claire to share in a private joke. "Yeah, my parents really named me that, go figure. It's like they knew how I'd turn out." Her smile faded, and she took a good look at Claire's face. "Wow. Jeez, nice black eye. Who hit you?"
"Nobody." Claire said it instantly, without even thinking why, although she knew in her bones that Goth Eve was in no way bestest friends with preppy Monica. "I had an accident."
"Yeah," Eve agreed softly. "I used to have those kinds of accidents, falling into fists and stuff. Like I said, I'm a klutz. You okay? You need a doctor or something? I can drive you if you want."
She gestured to the street next to them, and Claire realized that while she'd been sobbing her eyes out, an ancient beater of a black Cadillac - complete with tail fins - had been docked at the curb. There was a cheery-looking skull dangling from the rearview mirror, and Claire had no doubt that the back bumper would be plastered with stickers for emo bands nobody had ever heard of.
She liked Eve already. "No," she said, and swiped at her eyes angrily with the back of her hand. "I, uh - look, I'm sorry. It's been a really awful day. I was coming to ask about the room, but - "
"Right, the room!" Eve snapped her fingers, as if she'd forgotten all about it, and jumped up and down two or three times in excitement. "Great! I'm just home for break - I work over at Common Grounds, you know, the coffee shop? - and Michael won't be up for a while yet, but you can come in and see the house if you want. I don't know if Shane's around, but - "
"I don't know if I should - "
"You should. You totally should." Eve rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't believe the losers we see trying to get in the door. I mean, seriously. Freaks. You're the first normal one I've seen so far. Michael would kick my ass if I let you get away without at least trying a sales pitch."
Claire blinked. Somehow, she'd been thinking that she'd be the one begging for them to consider her...and normal? Eve thought she was normal?
"Sure," she heard herself say. "Yeah. I'd like that."
Eve grabbed her backpack and slung it over her own shoulder, on top of her black silver-studded purse in the shape of a coffin. "Follow me." And she bounced away, up the walk to the gracious Southern Gothic front porch to unlock the door.
Up close, the house looked old, but not really rundown as such; weathered, Claire decided. Could have used some paint here and there, and the cast-iron chairs needed a coat, too. The front door was actually double-sized, with a big stained-glass panel at the top.
"Yo!" Eve yelled, and dumped Claire's backpack on a table in the hallway, her purse next to it, her keys in an antique-looking ashtray with a cast-iron monkey on the handle. "Roomies! We've got a live one!"
It occurred to Claire, as the door boomed shut behind her, that there were a couple of ways to interpret that, and one of them - the Texas Chainsaw Massacre way - wasn't good. She stopped moving, frozen, and just looked around.
Nothing overtly creepy about the inside of the house, at least. Lots of wood, clean and simple. Chips of paint knocked off of corners, like it had seen a lot of life. It smelled like lemon polish and - chili?
"Yo!" Eve yelled again, and clumped on down the hall. It opened up to a bigger room; from what Claire could see, there were big leather couches and bookshelves, like a real home. Maybe this was what off-campus housing looked like. If so, it was a big step up from dorm life. "Shane, I smell the chili. I know you're here! Get your headphones out of your ears!"
She couldn't quite imagine Texas Chainsaw Massacre taking place in a room like that, either. That was a plus. Or, for that matter, serial-killing roommates doing something as homey as making chili. Good chili, from the way it smelled. With...garlic?
She took a couple of hesitant steps down the hallway. Eve's footsteps were clunking off into another room, maybe the kitchen. The house seemed very quiet. Nothing jumped out to scare her, so Claire proceeded, one careful foot after another, all the way into the big central room.
And a guy lying sprawled on the couch - the way only guys could sprawl - yawned and sat up rubbing his head. When Claire opened her mouth - whether to say hello or to yell for help, she didn't know - he surprised her into silence by grinning at her and putting his finger over his mouth to shush her. "Hey," he whispered. "I'm Shane. What's up?" He blinked a couple of times, and without any change in his expression, said, "Dude, that is a badass shiner. Hurts, huh?"
She nodded slightly. Shane swung his legs off the couch and sat there, watching her, elbows on his knees and hands dangling loosely. He had brown hair, cut in uneven layers that didn't quite manage to look punk. He was an older boy, older than her, anyway. Eighteen? A big guy, and tall to match it. Big enough to make her feel more miniature than usual. She thought his eyes looked brown, but she didn't dare meet them for more than a flicker at a time.
"So I guess you're gonna say that the other chick looks worse," Shane said.
She shook her head, then winced when motion made it hurt even more. "No, I - um - how did you know it was - ?"
"A chick? Easy. Size you are, a guy would have put you in the hospital with a punch hard enough to leave a mark like that. So what's up with that? You don't look like you go looking for trouble."
She felt like she ought to take offense about that, but honestly, this whole thing was starting to feel like some strange dream anyway. Maybe she'd never woken up at all. Maybe she was lying in a coma in a hospital bed, and Shane was just her lame-ass equivalent of the Cheshire cat. "I'm Claire," she said, and waved awkwardly. "Hi."