Free Lunatic Fringe by Allison Moon Page B

See?!” Renee pointed.
“There you go again.”
    Lexie snapped back to Renee’s face.
“Oh,” Lexie said. “You’re right. I’m kind of out of it.” She
fumbled for an excuse. “I’m just . . . a freshman.”
    Wow, that was lame. Lexie
cringed.
    “ Wow. That’s lame,” Renee
laughed.
    “ Yeah.” Lexie smiled
another apology. “But it feels kind of true right now, weird as it
sounds.”
    “ Listen,” Renee whispered,
her lips grazing Lexie’s ear. “You want to go upstairs? More
privacy?”
    Lexie shook her head again, biting her
lip. She hated to disappoint this brash and beautiful girl, but she
knew that no was the only answer. Renee stroked the long, fine
hairs framing the left side of Lexie’s face, pushing a lock behind
her ear.Lexie shook her head and gave a small smile.
“No.”
    Renee held her hand to Lexie’s cheek.
“I’m glad you spoke up,” she said with a wink. “You should try that
more often.” It was a sisterly gibe, but it unsettled Lexie,
anyway.
    “ It’s all good,” Renee
said, sighing long and deep. She leaned in and kissed Lexie gently.
“Do you want to dance?” she asked.
    “ Not really. Should I?”
Across the coffee table, Lexie caught a glance from Blythe. Blythe
looked away before Lexie could read her, returning her attention to
Mitch.
    “ Nah, Hazel’s life
is Flashdance .
She’ll be at this all night.” Renee stroked Lexie’s face. “It’s
late. I’ll grab us some blankets for now and walk you home once the
storm breaks.”
     
     
     

Chapter 6
     
    The streets were strewn with the
wreckage of the prior evening’s squall. Though it had sounded
fierce at the time, seeing the littered streets in the new morning
light made Lexie realize just how much damage had been done. A tree
limb dangled overhead, entwined in sagging power lines, and a car
sat stalled in a waterlogged dip in the road. Brown leaves
plastered the sidewalks and the storm drains roared. It was
painfully early, not even seven a.m. The sky remained overcast with
a layer of grey cloud, unmoving and impenetrable.
    Renee walked her to the sidewalk that
unofficially divided the north side of campus from the south. They
stood together on that invisible boundary, Lexie conscious of the
effects that drinking all day and staying up all night must have
wrought upon her face. She wanted to hide, but the cold glare of
the overcast morning bathed her in grey light. Renee kissed her
goodbye before turning back towards the Den. Lexie dragged feet
back to her dorm.
    She wore that kiss on her lips for the
rest of the walk home, her mind racing with memories of the
previous hours. She kissed a girl. She got a little drunk. Both
were for the first time and both easier and more fun that she had
anticipated. Yet, she had declined Renee’s invitation to her room
which contradicted the collegiate vision she had created for
herself. She wasn’t winning her game of “yes” and promised herself
to recommit to her efforts.Rounding the corner to her dorm, the
noise of a crowd tore her from her thoughts.
    Clumps of students in bathrobes and
pajamas stood bleary-eyed and confused on the dorm’s front lawn
beyond a perimeter of yellow police tape. A fire crew, a handful of
police officers, and five helmeted utility workers huddled around a
massive oak tree that had crashed through the roof of her
dormitory. Milton College’s president, a short-haired academic
named Suzanne Fern, paced beyond the crowd, a cellphone pressed to
her ear. She wore a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt instead of her
usual pantsuit, likely due to the hour and because it was Saturday.
As Lexie rounded the crowd for a better view, she recognized the
tree. It was the one outside her window, and it was lodged squarely
in her room.
    The ancient oak rested in a violent,
U-shaped gash of plaster, cement chunks, and wood, as if an errant
monster had bitten a chunk out of the roof and wall of the
building. Through the hole, she saw the poster she had