The Similars (The Similars #1)(85)

The second boy fidgets, his angular face etched with discomfort. His jet-black hair is greased unattractively behind his ears, yet he has strong, attractive, even intelligent features.

The boy sitting on the bed grins and hops up, extending a hand.

“Welcome to the rest of your life.” He waits for the second boy to shake his hand. After a moment, he does.

“John Underwood,” says the second boy. “Everyone calls me Johnny.”

“Colin,” the first boy answers jauntily, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Colin Chance. Nice to meet you.”

The air goes out of me like I’m a giant balloon. It’s the first time since I entered this memory that I’ve even thought of myself, of my own body.

This boy, Colin Chance, is my father.

I’m watching my own father when he was a student at Darkwood.

But I don’t have time to process this. I turn my attention back to the scene. I don’t want to miss a second of it.

“That’s your bed,” my father—I mean, Colin—tells his new roommate. “Where’s the rest of your luggage? In the car?”

“The rest?” Johnny says. “No, this is it.” He sets down his bags, then sits stiffly on his bed.

“That’s all you brought with you?” Colin stares at the duffel and paper bag in confusion.

Johnny grabs the handles of the paper bag and dumps its contents on the bed. It’s all textbooks. They’re used, and not gently. Some are missing covers. Johnny unzips his duffel and removes the contents: a few clothes, one extra pair of shoes, and a Ziplock bag containing his toothbrush and medicinals.

“I like to travel light.” He places the clothes in a dresser drawer, slides the shoes under his bed, and sets the toiletry bag on his desk. My father looks from the dresser to the bed, something clicking in his mind.

“Good call leaving the rest of your stuff at home,” Colin says generously, even though Johnny quite obviously doesn’t have other stuff. “Half the junk the kids here bring is a big waste of space, if you ask me.” I let out a breath, relieved my father has chosen, in this situation, to be kind.

Johnny shrugs, surveying Colin’s side of the room, which has everything from snacks to a mini-fridge and even a bike, propped up on one wheel by the window.

“Where’re you from?” Colin asks as he flops back onto his bed, picking up a soccer ball and lazily passing it back and forth between his hands.

“New York.” Johnny watches the ball. “Not the city. Upstate.”

“Sounds…nice?”

“Sure, if you like cemeteries. Our house was built on one. When I was a kid, I used to watch the hearse bringing the coffins up the hill. Once, there were sixteen funerals in a twelve-hour period. There’d been a fire at the local pub. That was a pretty interesting day.”

I focus on Colin’s face. Johnny’s finally made an impression, and not a good one. He drops the soccer ball.

“Oh,” he says quietly.

A voice rings out, cutting through the silence. “You made it!”

Colin and Johnny turn. A skinny kid stands in the doorway, his hair tousled like it’s been brushed once, ages ago, his clothes mismatched and wrinkled. He grips a messy notebook under his arm. Clunky, tortoise-shell glasses with thick lenses sit on his nose.

Johnny springs from the bed. “Hey.”

“What’s up, Al?” says Colin, who welcomes the distraction.

“Albert,” mumbles the kid. “I prefer Albert.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Colin laughs. “I forgot. Al—I mean, Albert, this is my new roommate. Johnny Underwood from New York.”

“He knows my name,” says Johnny to my dad, though he looks straight at Albert.

“Oh.” Colin looks between the two boys, confused. “You two met already?”

“You could say that,” says Johnny, his voice measured.

Johnny and Albert stare at each other another beat. Then, out of nowhere, Albert throws open his arms, his notebook falling to the ground as he pulls Johnny into a bear hug. Albert’s glasses hit Johnny’s shoulder and knock askew as he embraces him. Johnny doesn’t hug Albert back. He just stands there, stiffly. But he doesn’t push Albert away either.

Albert breaks the hug. Now I can clearly see his face. He’s grinning, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Johnny, my man! Long time no talk. Wait till you see what I’ve been cooking up in the lab. I don’t want to get anyone prematurely excited, but the cafeteria food is gonna taste a whole lot better once I get my beta enhancers in it…”

Johnny shrugs. “Sure. Whatever you say, Albert.”

“Show me a little enthusiasm, buddy. I’m going to vastly improve that mush they call dinner—”

“I haven’t tried the dinner yet, remember?” Johnny says, sounding agitated. “I just got here. A year later than you. Because I couldn’t—because this is my first year,” Johnny amends. I know what he was going to say. Because he couldn’t afford it.

“How’d you two meet again?” Colin asks, and I want to tell my father to butt out, but I don’t because he can’t see or hear me. This is only a memory, after all. I’m an invisible bystander.

“We didn’t meet. We’ve known each other our whole lives. We’re brothers, okay?” Albert snaps. The blood drains from Johnny’s face at the revelation.