Finn and I agree to meet on Saturday to work on the English assignment, so when Saturday arrives, I find myself at a table in the library, suffocated by the silence. I scroll through my phone and double check the time and our texts — library, Saturday, 10AM. I'm early, but only because I set seven alarms and left without putting in my contacts. 

A soft knock on the table grabs my attention and I look up. Finn stands there, knuckle against wood. His pale, grey-blue eyes search my face and his mouth quirks upward in recognition.

"I didn't quite recognize you with glasses," Finn says, and takes the seat across from me. "How are you?" 

"Oh, right." I adjust my glasses. They're black-rimmed and plain, but they do the job. "I'm doing well. Yourself?"

"I'm fine." He sets out his things in a neat row, his notebook spaced an inch away from a thin pencil case. I stare at my notebook, its cover bent and coming apart, pages crumpled from rain damp and being shoved into my bag too many times. Finn's so well put-together that it reminds me of how disorderly I am. Like how I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for three days straight, or the fact that I've already lost a pen in one of my classes, or how I forgot my toothbrush at home and had to buy another one at the school convenience store.  

"Have you started on the readings yet?" Finn asks, interrupting my thoughts. 

"A bit," I say, pulling out a creased handout from my bag. I think that the state of this handout is an accurate representation of myself: a mess. This mess must be making a great impression on Finn. "I haven't had a chance to read all of it yet."

"Same." Finn flips through the handout. "I guess we should read all of it before starting on the questions."

"Sounds good," I agree. I flatten out the pages as best possible, then settle down to read.

It doesn't take long for my mind to wander. The material is dry at best and uninteresting at worst, so I find myself skimming through and not really understanding. I keep reading a sentence and backtracking, trying to connect the two together. I'd much rather be writing a story, or at least reading one, and this article on academic writing is most certainly not a story. It takes me a while but I agonize through the first page, mentally juggling what information I've learned, before deciding to give myself a break, never mind that there are three more pages to read and a dozen questions to be answered.

My gaze flicks over to Finn, hunched over his papers, his elbow propped on the desk and his chin cradled in his hand. He looks deep in thought as he reads through the handout. There are drawings on his papers, but I can't see them well from this angle. His pencil twirls between his fingers as he reads, stopping occasionally to underline a word or scribble quick notes. 

Finn has the sort of cheekbones that make girls go crazy. They're sloping and sharp like they were sculpted from a cliff edge, or chipped out of marble. Under the unforgiving library lights, his skin is as delicate and translucent as fine bone china, and the shadows thrown across his face highlight the knife-like edge of his jaw. The cool fluorescent light illuminates his hair, granting him an ethereal quality, but the dark smudges under his eyes make me wonder if he hasn't been sleeping well.

As I'm observing Finn, a blackened vine creeps up the side of his neck and curls against his cheek. Horrified, I watch as dark tendrils crawl up from the floor, twisting around his arms and across his chest. Glossy black leaves and tiny white flowers grow on the branches as they circle around his body. On top of his head, a single branch curves to create a leafy crown dotted with ivory flowers. 

"Sean?"

I blink, Finn's voice startling me out of my reverie. The branches and flowers have vanished as if they never existed. Finn gives me an odd look, and only then do I realize that he's called my name multiple times. His eyebrows furrow, a little line forming between them.

"Is something wrong?" he asks. 

I shake my head and fish for something to say. "Sorry, I was — distracted." My fingers pinch the corner of the handout, and I toss Finn a crooked grin. "It's really dry stuff. About as interesting as reading a dictionary." 

A flicker of a smile plays on Finn's lips. "I know, but we'll have to suffer through it. Have you finished reading?"

My gaze falls to the handout. "Not yet."

"Okay." Finn sets his lips in a way that makes me think he's a little disappointed, then turns back to his handout. "I'll get started on question one. Let me know when you're done."

By the time I've read through the entire handout, Finn's completed a third of the questions. I give his sleeve a gentle tug to get his attention, then we discuss the readings and our answers, trading ideas back and forth. There is no single answer to these questions, and it is during a debate over an interpretation of a particular paragraph when my stomach cuts through our discussion with an angry growl. Finn's sentence falters as he casts me an uncertain glance. My ears and cheeks burn.

"I must be hungry," I mumble, a sheepish grin on my lips. Finn looks at his watch and I check my phone. It's almost noon.

"We can take a lunch break," he suggests. I agree, and we pack our things and head to the school cafe. Finn buys pasta, I get a sandwich, and once we've paid, we claim a small table in the back corner. We chew our food in silence, awkward and unused to eating in each other's presence. 

"So," I venture, breaking the quietude, "You're in first year Arts?" Finn nods. "What are you studying?" I ask.

"General Arts," Finn says. "I'm taking a bunch of courses to see what sticks."

"Oh, cool." I take a bite of my sandwich. "Any favorites?"

Finn pauses. "I like Acrylic Painting."

"So you're an artist," I say, not quite a question. 

"Sort of." Finn pokes at his pasta. "What's your major?"

"Creative Writing," I answer without missing a beat. 

"So certain," Finn remarks with a small smile.

"I've wanted to be a writer since I was young," I say. "My overactive imagination needs an outlet and I've always enjoyed making stories, so I thought why not make it a career?" 

It's the sort of thing I would say in a job interview, a soundbite that paints me as a promising young man passionate about his art and studies, with a happy future ahead of him. It's true that I have always loved writing, spinning fantastical tales inspired by my vivid dreams, but it's a story that covers up a darker truth. Nowhere does it indicate a teenager expelled from school, with the strange delusion that he can bring his dreams into the real world.

I tried to defend myself when they were debating my expulsion, but it's difficult to create a plausible alibi when you are accused of releasing birds into the school and you have feathers in your hair. I remember dozing off in math class, dreaming about birds and ocean waves, and when I woke up, class was over and the hallways were a chaotic mess of screaming students and irascible seagulls. 

It was easy for administration to pin the blame on me, with my track record of dumping dirt on a professor's desk, flooding the boys' locker room, and clogging a toilet with gum. Only two of those incidents were my fault and even then they were accidents, products of my dreams affecting reality. Chance Benson was the one who'd dumped chewing gum down the toilet, then lied and said it was my fault. I think he did it as revenge for when I accidentally-on-purpose spilled juice on his shirt. He'd insulted my mother the day before.

"It must be nice," Finn murmurs, "To have a plan for your future."

"There isn't much of a plan," I say jokingly, "Besides amassing debt, then working my ass off to pay it back once I graduate."

Finn breathes out a laugh. "Fair enough."

We finish our meals with halting small talk. I learn that Finn shares two other classes with me, Classical Studies and Introductory Calculus. He tells me he likes math, and I cannot fathom how anyone could enjoy such a torturous subject. The only reason I'm taking it is because it's required. 

Finn and I agree to continue working on the assignment in the cafe. Most students don't like working in such a noisy spot, but I prefer it. In the quiet of the library, I find myself hanging on to every disturbance, whether it be the hum of fluorescent lights, or a student coughing, or the shuffling of papers at another desk. Here, it's easier to let the noise fade into the background. 

Finn doesn't seem to mind the hubbub. He's focused on the task at hand, his posture tucked, weight leaning on one elbow. When we're done, Finn signs his name at the top of the paper and I add mine below it, a messy 'Sean Murdock' below the neat lettering of 'Finn Whelan'.

"That wasn't too bad," Finn remarks as he packs his things. My eyes catch on the drawings on his handout and my blood turns cold.

"What's that?" I ask, pointing. Finn pauses, then places a finger below the small, detailed sketch. Outlined in grey is an eerily familiar skull with spiraling black antlers nestled on a bed of white flowers. I rarely ever have the same dream twice, but ever since school started, I've dreamt of the monster horse and its ghoulish face several times.

"It's a deer skull," he says. I shake my head. 

"No, I know that, but —" I feel like I've eaten gravel instead of a sandwich, and all the stones are stuck in my throat. How do I ask the questions I have without sounding insane? I swallow down my fear and summon what little courage I have. "Have you seen it around campus?"

Finn furrows his eyebrows. "Seen what?"

"That," I say, pointing to the skull. "But on a large, skeletal black horse. It might be in the woods?" Finn's expression remains perplexed, and I can feel my courage receding like the tide. "It's just — I've dreamt it before, and thought maybe you saw it around here —"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Finn says. He's looking at me with an expression I can't discern, except maybe it is a little wary. "I designed this when I was fourteen."

My gut plummets as I realize that this — the deer skull, the nightmare horse, the flowers — must be some sort of twisted coincidence, fate playing me on a string. Finn and I are worlds apart: he makes pretty drawings and I dream of monsters. 

"Never mind," I mumble. Finn is still watching me with those grey eyes of his. He must think I'm crazy. I give him a faint smile. "Just overactive imagination."

Something flickers across Finn's face. "Okay," he says, and slings his bag over his shoulder. "I'll see you next class?"

Maybe he's only being polite, but I'm grateful for this kindness. "Yeah," I say, grinning. "See you."

Finn flicks me a smile and turns away. Black leaves scatter in his wake, trailing along the ground behind him. I tear my gaze away and shove my things into my bag.

It is only my overactive imagination.

~*~

Plops down chapter three. I, like Sean, don't enjoy Calculus. What do you think about the strange connection between Sean's dreams and Finn's drawing? 

Word Count: 1975