Where Fires Dare to Burn

Chapter 02 - An Elaborate Scheme

Luke was thankful for the presence of his irrepressible room mate as they approached the ELU gym. He could already see light spilling out of the main entrance, and a steady trickle of other freshmen making their way inside. Noise rippled out across the campus. He found himself nervously drumming fingers against his thigh as they walked up to join the line.

Excitement and nervousness all bundled up into a messy clump in his stomach as they shuffled forward. Students filled the grassy paths, with a bewildering kaleidoscope of colours blaring from their clothes that had Luke second guessing his decision to keep things simple. Sticking with comfort, he had a smart-ish pair of black jeans on above his Converse, a dark t-shirt (this one stamped with the name of a different band) and his dark blue graduation hoodie, plastered across the back with massive white letters that read CLASS OF 2013.

There were a lot of girls here, and a lot of guys who looked like they'd made more of an effort. Luke found his gaze jumping from person to person with nervous energy, instantly judging himself against the people around them. He swept fingers through his fringe half a dozen times as they walked, knowing it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference but unable to stop himself from doing it anyway. Kenny failed not to notice.

"Take it easy," he muttered, giving Luke a gentle nudge with one elbow. "You're going to give yourself a comb-over at this rate."

Luke frowned; stuffed his hands into his pockets. "How come you're so chilled out?"

"Oh, me? I can't shut up. Motor-mouth, you know?" Kenny shrugged and gave him another good-natured bump shoulder to shoulder. "I just keep talking so nobody can ever tell if I'm nervous or not."

"Smart."

"Sometimes." He smiled, casting a mischievous look in Luke's direction. "Other times it gets me into trouble."

Before Luke could ask what kind of trouble, they reached the entrance of the gym where a pair of student volunteers manned a desk, armed with a formidable list of names and a roll of sticky name labels. Once they'd given their room numbers, they were quickly ticked off the roll of prospective attendees and had labels slapped on their chests by the enthusiastic duo.

The zeal of everyone here brought a fresh smile to Luke's face. It was a lot, a lot more than he was used to, but a big part of him wanted to get used to it. High school always felt like a grinding uphill climb, clawing for the grades and navigating the cliquey minefields to stay the course, long enough to nail down a future for himself. He wasn't top of his class or anything like that, but Luke had worked damn hard to get here. He wasn't going to let anything ruin it – not today.

Breathing deep through his nose, he followed Kenny into the hall, and into the noise.

Luke let his head loll back as he took in the cavernous space. People filled the gym in a loosely flowing mass, broken up by long tables of food and drink and the strident forms of more volunteers who brought lonely-looking freshmen together with military efficiency. Voices charged with vibrant, hopeful energy rose up to the rafters where bright lights blazed. An overflow of freshmen spilled onto the bleachers set up on the right-hand wall of the gym hall and the smell of aftershave, perfume, pizza and cheap soda engulfed him.

On autopilot he stayed behind Kenny as his room mate plunged into the crowd, searching intently for whoever they were supposed to be meeting. It didn't take long for him to come to a halt though, his eyes narrowing. He shook his head.

"Gimme a second, they're round here somewhere," Kenny said as he rotated left and right, whipping his phone from his back pocket. After a few swift swipes of his thumb, he held it up, quickly plugging a finger into his other ear to block out the hubbub.