Harriet whistled as she walked down the sidewalk towards the Student’s Center, hands in her pockets, and hair tousled by the ocean breeze. She could smell the salt in the air, and her blood thrummed with the knowledge of being so close to the coast. It was as if the beach were calling her.

            Shaking her head and smiling, she looked down at her bright blue flip-flops and denim shorts. Her tank top fluttered around her, and her shoulders were bright red from her visit to the beach the weekend before. So was the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks – once again, she had forgotten that reapplying sunscreen was incredibly important. Harriet wrinkled her nose as the smell of Asian cuisine wafted to her from the Student’s Center, a pang of pain associated with the movement. Asian was one of her least favorite types of food, but people here seemed obsessed with it.

            Harriet entered the Center and headed to the Subway, using a meal pass to purchase a sub, then toted it back to her dorm room. Her freshman year had started one month ago in this new town, and she still did not like eating in common areas like the Center or the Dining Hall, as well as the small restaurants and convenience stores littered around the campus.

            Walking back, she noticed a dark-haired beauty that she ran into on the beach last weekend eating with a group of people. She waved to Harriet and gestured for her to sit, but Harriet waved back and declined with a frown. She met the girl – Clara, she remembered – when her volleyball landed on Harriet as she was sunbathing. Clara galloped over, and, out of breath, said, “Hey, sorry ‘bout that. My bad.”

            Harriet squinted up at her and couldn’t think of anything to say besides handing the ball back, cursing her awkwardness. Clara was tall with legs for days, black hair, black brows, a strong, straight nose, and full lips. Her build was very athletic, the opposite of Harriet, who’s muscles could be compared to marshmallows – as well as her skin. Clara’s skin was golden and bright, while Harriet was bright all right – almost reflective she was so white.

            So to Harriet it made no sense as to why Clara became interested in her, sitting beside Harriet on the beach and striking up a conversation after her game was over.

            “You’re not from around here, are you?”

            This sounded offensive, but Clara’s brown eyes were clear and her smile soft as she plopped next to Harriet in the sand, propping herself up by her elbows

            Harriet mirrored the position and smiled faintly. “No, is it obvious?”

            Clara grinned. “Your nose and shoulders are bright red, dude. Did you bring sunscreen?”

            Harriet frowned and looked at her shoulder, confirming she was indeed burned. She sighed and said “Yes, and I put it on!”

            “When?”

            “Noon?”

            Clara laughed boisterously. “It’s four p.m., dog! Here,”

            She rummaged around in her drawstring bag on her back and tossed her some spray on sunscreen. Harriet thanked her and sprayed her shoulders and face, squeezing her eyes shut, then handed it back.

            “So, where are you from then?”

            “North Dakota,” Harriet answered sheepishly, as if this was a bad thing. “You’re from here?”

            Clara looked out on the ocean, her shoulder length hair streaming behind her. “Born and raised. Even still live with my momma.” She side eyed Harriet. “My name’s Clara, by the way.”

            Harriet offered her name and confirmed that no family came down with her, and she lived in the dorms, even offering which dorm, though she later couldn’t fathom why she would freely hand out this information. Harriet pieced together through their continued conversation that Clara was an extrovert who ‘adopted’ introverts, especially ones that needed friends. This made Harriet much less weary about the stranger who only noticed a lonely girl on the beach, but made her worry about herself more than she had since she arrived. Did she really not fit in as well as she thought she did? Sure, she hadn’t joined any clubs, or hung out with anyone in her free time, or bothered talking to fellow classmates before or after class, but did this make her so much of an outsider? The thought shook her.

            “Anyway,” Clara said, brushing sand off her legs as she stood up, “don’t stay out here much longer, and don’t go in the water at night, or even close to it. Sharks are most active at night – tip to an outsider.” She winked as she left.

            Harriet watched her walk away and was surprised that Clara walked off to boardwalk without meeting anyone, even passing the group that she was playing volleyball with.

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            Thinking of this interaction, Harriet noticed that the volleyball-group was not the group of people Clara was eating with. How many friends does she have? Harriet thought.

            Though it didn’t occur to her until she was in her room, eating while watching Youtube, perhaps this group of people needed a role that Clara could fill, and Clara was happy to oblige.

            As the first month of classes evolved into the second, Harriet was falling into a steady rhythm with her classes – as well as a caffeine habit. She found that the library was a more productive space to study in, and as it was 24 hours on weekdays, she pulled all-nighters while studying sometimes, not realizing how late it was until it was already one a.m., and by then she figured she might as well keep going, especially as none of her classes were before eleven a.m. She also fell into a rhythm of noticing Clara around campus, from hanging out in the Student’s Center to the Dining Hall to various educational buildings, and she exchanged small talk with Clara plenty of times while commuting across campus together or simply in passing. Harriet was amazed with her social circle – Clara seemed to be friends with everyone she crossed paths with.

            Harriet even went out of her way to see Clara sometimes, knowing which routes she took around campus, and purposefully taking them as well. Harriet struggled making friends on her own, and knowing that there was someone who went out of her way to be friendly with her made Harriet want to see Clara. She worried about overstaying her welcome with her sort-of-friend, until she ran into her in the library one night.

            Clara and her friend group were leaving for the night, and she happened to notice Harriet studying and veered over to say hello. They ended up hanging out all night at the library, and Harriet got very little studying done, but it was the first time in college that she was beginning to understand the romanticization of it – how so many people claimed it was the best times of their lives, and they would do anything to go back to it. Hanging out, chatting about random things, drinking energy drinks, and drawing inappropriate things on the white board that made Harriet blush and rush to erase it easily became her best night since arriving in this new town.

            This was closely followed by a beach outing, where the weekend after they hung out at the library, Clara invited her to play volleyball with her friends. Harriet agreed because she felt Clara wanted her to go, and she wasn’t about to alienate her only friend, but she ended up immensely enjoying her time, and even managed to hit the ball – only once. Clara’s other friends were very nice, but didn’t go out of their way to speak to or involve Harriet in one-on-one interactions, and Harriet was fine with this as after three hours, her social battery needed charging, and she biked back to the dorm. Clara tried to convince her to stay, but Harriet said that she needed to study, which she did.

            The next time they hung out, it was at the Student’s Center at a table eating. Half of the Fall semester had flown by, and the subject of grades was brought up.

            “I bet a book worm like you has all A’s, don’t you Harry?” Clara had taken to nicknaming Harriet ‘Harry,’ and while Harriet was against this, she, again, didn’t want to risk making Clara mad, so she let it happen. A small voice in the back of her head told her that she was too dependent on Clara, and she should stand up for herself, even for something as small as a nickname, but the voice was easily sundered by the oppressive loneliness that Clara held at bay.

            Harriet smiled sheepishly. “All A’s, yeah. But these are introductory classes, I’m sure yours are much harder.”

            “Eh, sophomore classes are just as easy as freshman, especially when you are like me and still taking general education because you don’t know what you want to do yet.”

            “What are you passionate about?”     

            Clara sighed and tipped back her head and chair. “Everyone always starts with that.” With a loud bang, her chair dropped to the floor and Clara brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “What if you’re not passionate about anything? What if you don’t have any hobbies? I seriously can’t think of a single thing I would want to spend the rest of my life doing, besides surfing and playing volleyball.” A small ‘v’ appeared between Clara’s eyebrows.

            “Why not be a student athlete, then?”

            “This school doesn’t have a volleyball team, or surfing team, just swim meet. And that is so boring compared to surfing.”

            Harriet took a bite of her sub and, while chewing, said “Well t’en ‘ooks ‘ike you’re shit out of ‘uck,” and burst out laughing, accidentally spewing sub across the table. Clara leaned back in her chair again and drew her arm back shouting about how gross Harriet is. Her grossed-out expression morphed into panic as she leaned too far back in her chair, balancing on that precipice of safety and falling. Clara threw out her arms to Harriet, and Harriet tried to grab her hand, but Clara fell with a loud boom that echoed through the room. Both girls shrieked with laughter, cupping their hands over their mouths, then quickly existed the Student’s Center.

            They made eye contact while descending the outside stairs and dissolved into giggles.

            Between this situation and more, throughout Harriet’s freshman and Clara’s sophomore year of college the two became more and more attached. They went to bars, parties, sleepovers, and study sessions together. Treasuring their time and solidifying their friendship into an unbreakable bond. They seemed to be two sides of the same coin; they were so similar and yet so different. As their lives became even more intertwined, Harriet could feel a rift forming in the world. She couldn’t quite place the origin of the feeling, or what exactly it meant, but some days she was filled with dread when she looked at Clara. She looked at the earth and would stretch her fingers across the grass, digging her fingertips into the dirt and wonder if anyone else seemed to feel the sort of vibrations that occurred every now and then.

            A foreboding dread took over Harriet’s spine and sighed a cold breath along her skin, raising goosebumps along her arms and down her legs. Something was coming, she mused, but she couldn’t pin down what.