I grin, then obey.
She leads me to a side door which opens to a short corridor lit only by the eerie green light of an exit sign, which seems to flicker and buzz as we pass under it and into a stairwell. The stairs wind up and up, and I enjoy the view once again as I trail behind Nell like a puppy on the sexy ass of my mate.
We reach a door at the top. She pushes it open and kicks off a shoe, placing it on the ground to keep the door from shutting and locking us out. We’re on the roof of the north wing of the art building now, overlooking the School of Theatre beyond the courtyard and the grassy hills. In the darkness of the night, the ground far below seems to disappear, giving us the illusion of being high atop some brick mountain, nothing but shadows and strange, glowing amber light from all of the lampposts.
“Niiice,” I sing.
She slips past me, kicks off her other shoe, then sits right on the edge of the building, her legs dangling off.
I feel my knees trembling already and I’m still hovering near the door. “Far drop,” I mutter. “Can we chill, uh … Can we chill back here?”
She looks at me over her shoulder. “You scared?”
“Nah.” I swallow. “I mean, y’know. Campus security might spot us. And, like, y’know … if we’re back here … maybe we’re less, uh …”
“Brant, come and sit the hell down.”
“Alright.”
As if I’m traversing some super narrow bridge, I place one careful foot in front of the other, cautiously approaching the ledge where she sits. The gravel of the rooftop crunches beneath my feet, only serving to make this experience that much more unsettling. When I finally reach Nell, it feels like an eternity later. I slowly crouch down, sitting cross-legged next to her.
“I like this spot,” she murmurs quietly as a sudden gust of wind picks up all her hair, flailing it around. “So few places left where I can just let myself go and … just fucking exist.” She whips her head around to face me. “Know what I mean?”
“Totally.” I’m gripping my thighs so tight, I could bruise them. I don’t want to show her I’m afraid, though; she’ll never let me live that down. “I’m still kinda wet in my pants. I think.”
“I should’ve thought ahead,” Nell admits with a dry chuckle. “I … really wasn’t planning to do that to you in that little slobber room. It was just a sudden impulse I couldn’t ignore.”
“Is that usual for you? Chasing impulses?”
“It’s all I do. Art doesn’t exist without them.” She nudges me with the side of her leg. “It’s the reason we’re sitting all the way up here having ourselves a chat.”
I nudge her back playfully. “I can be impulsive myself. Problem is, I don’t know if I choose the right impulses to … act on.”
“Was picking photography an impulse?”
“Yeah. And also no. See, my dad took photography when he was in high school. He took photos for the school newspaper. He’d, like, proudly show me his yearbooks, pointing out all the pics he took. I played with his cameras growing up. He owned four. He used to shoot photos for some nature magazine. I don’t know exactly. It was a side thing he used to do when I was a kid.”
“So you caught the bug from him,” she surmises. “It wasn’t a total fluke that you ended up here.”
“Well, it was also a bit of a fluke, too.” I smirk, picking at a stray thread in my jeans. “My dad pushed me toward business, which I didn’t take to. Then he pushed me toward engineering, which I tried out for both semesters of my sophomore year. Last year I was partially undeclared, then tried to pursue architecture, but they had no more room in their program. I was playin’ around with my dad’s camera the end of last school year, brought it back to school with me after spring break and started taking photos like crazy. I was the unofficial photographer for Dessie and Clayton’s spring musical. Fuck, that girl can sing. Got this really great shot of her singing to someone behind her, another actor in the show, and my light somehow also caught Clayton standing somewhere backstage … and he was watching her, enraptured. The pic was totally unintended. Totally can’t use the photo for their archive or whatever … but it’s my favorite of them all. It’s so … accidental. Candid. Real. It caught something it wasn’t supposed to catch. The intense love in Clayton’s eyes. The passion in Dessie’s. The whole fuckin’ world just squeezed together and became that short moment, caught in that photo. Fuck. I wish I was good enough to capture something like that intentionally.”