Begin Again(20)

I tap out a quick text—Sorry I missed you! Maybe next time. Enjoy your trip!—and shove the phone back into my coat pocket. I breathe out long and hard, watching it fog up the afternoon air, and wish the guilt could evaporate with it, too.





Chapter Eight


In my defense, I don’t wake up on Wednesday morning with the intention of unearthing Milo’s deepest secret and upending the sanctity of one of Blue Ridge State’s most prolific traditions. And also in my defense, I was just trying to be a good roommate when it happened.

It’s still pitch-black when I wake up to the sound of the door clicking shut. I flick on the light by my bed just to confirm Shay is gone and check the time. Two things register: one is that it’s six in the morning, and the other is that I still haven’t written a worthy response to the “Bed of Roses” column I took on this week. Everything’s been such a whirlwind I haven’t even been able to put myself in the headspace for it.

I let out the kind of sigh I know means I’m not going back to sleep anytime soon, stretching just enough that something glints from Shay’s side of the room—her room key, sitting on top of her fully made bed.

“Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts,” I mutter, grabbing the keys and shimmying into a pair of sweatpants and the slippers by my bed.

I see Shay and Milo both getting into the elevator at the end of the hall as I poke my head out, but the doors shut before I can holler. I take the steps as fast as I can and bolt out braless and coatless, so cold that the air feels like the inside of a sno-cone, but when I call out Shay’s name she doesn’t so much as flinch.

Shay and Milo abruptly pivot to the psychology building near our dorm and walk inside, so I follow with the half walk, half jog of someone who is both freezing and attempting to use their own forearms as a makeshift bra. It’s not just that I’m going to be busy with class and a tutoring session all day, so I won’t be able to let Shay in—it’s also that my brain can’t reconcile these two non-psychology majors wandering in there before most psych majors have cracked an eye open. I’m too curious not to follow.

By the time I get inside I see Milo unlocking a door and Shay following him in, but they still don’t hear me—they’ve both got headphones on—so I have to drag my slipper-clad self to the unmarked door and catch it with my hand just before it closes.

Shay spots me first, and greets me with an “Oh, shit.”

“Your key,” I blurt, holding it out to her, my hand shaking from the cold.

Only then, when Shay and Milo both freeze in place, do I take in our surroundings. The soundproofing foam on the walls, the soundboard propped on a table, the comically small booth behind clear plastic with chairs and mics dangling in front of them. A weathered-looking sign reads BLUE RIDGE UNDERGROUND.

“Oh, yikes. Thanks for that,” says Shay, taking the key from me. She glances at Milo with a sheepishness I can’t decipher. “Uh . . . my bad.”

But Milo’s already shucking off his jacket and tossing it to me.

I catch it, but just barely, because my eyes have already snagged on another sign. One on the wall to the left that reads THE KNIGHTS’ WATCH has a bunch of pictures of students framed under it. The one closest to the top is a picture of Milo, looking slightly less sleep-deprived and smiling this wry, genuine smile that I saw just a hint of on my first day here. One that snaps the situation into place so fast that I can’t help it when my mouth falls open, and I blurt out the one thing they’re probably hoping I won’t say.

“You’re the Knight,” I say, gaping at Milo. “The Knights’ Watch—you’re the one recording it.”

It’s why I thought I recognized him when we first met. It had nothing to do with his face, and everything to do with his voice. I’ve spent the last six months with Milo in my ears—early mornings sitting in my grandmas’ garden, walking around the community college campus, lying in bed and watching the sun come up early enough to listen to it live.

The heat that floods into my cheeks is so searing that I don’t need Milo’s coat or maybe any kind of coat ever again. Shay winces, but Milo just lets out a loose shrug.

“Sorry,” Shay tells him. She turns back to me. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Oh, I know,” I say, my eyes trailing all over the tiny room—everywhere other than the pictures on the wall, or Milo’s sleepy face.

“No, not just the Knight. Like, this whole setup.” Shay pulls down a rickety mic stand to settle it in front of a stool. “The broadcast and journalism programs don’t exactly love that the show is more popular than all of theirs after all these years, so we’ve been relegated to this, uh.” Shay looks around. “Is ‘closet’ too generous of a word?”

“But why the psych building?” I ask.

Milo shrugs. “It’s always been this way, is what I was told.”

My mom always told me they’d done the broadcast somewhere secret, but I was a kid back then. I’d imagined some edgy bunker or off-campus facility, somewhere hidden that would involve a fingerprint scan or password to get in. But I suppose in their case it might have made more sense to hide in plain sight. I’ve passed this same door plenty of times now and never even noticed it.

“Were you also told what to do about not one, but now two of your dorm residents finding out your big secret?” says Shay.