Chapter 6: Mattie & Shirley

Mattie’s dorm room was decorated with all his favorite movie posters, most of which were old, like, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Blackboard Jungle.

I was kind of surprised Siren was there with us. She had a new guy… Well, she still kind of had the old one, too… and she’d been gone a lot in the evenings, as of late. I got the impression she was getting bored with Gabriel, and he’d soon be relegated to her past. All she could talk about lately was some Drew guy she’d met in her math class. He was studying music therapy and played the trumpet. It hardly seemed fair. I still hadn’t hooked up with anyone, and she had two guys at her beck-and-call. At that moment, I realized Zach hadn’t texted me in three days and a pang of longing went through my heart and loins. While Siren was busy with Gabriel or Drew, and neither of us had to study, Mattie and I hung out in his room. When she wasn’t busy with one of the her guys, the three of us hung out in Mattie’s room. We liked to pop microwave popcorn and drink diet Shirley Temples (he kept a supply of diet ginger ale, grenadine and maraschino cherries in his mini-fridge), while enjoying his favorite old classic movies. He had a soft, purple shag rug on the floor, with bright throw pillows and beanbags scattered around. He called it his “pleasure palace.” Siren was nested in a tye-dye beanbag. I was hugging a big, fuzzy, lime-green pillow.