Chapter Text
Jackson Healy always believed in the usefulness of first impressions, because he firmly subscribed to the idea that who you saw for the first time was pretty indicative of someone’s personality; that being said, he hoped that his new roommate, Holland March, would forgive and forget the whole “I backed my car into you when I was moving in and broke your arm” first meeting. It wasn’t even his fault. Mostly. He had already driven by the rental house he was supposed to be sharing with his Craigslist roommate once so he decided to back into the driveway to better unload the trunk when he heard a loud “thoonk” and a noise that reminded Jackson of mariachi singers, high-pitched and sustained.
And then it hit him: he had hit someone.
He bolted out of the car, ran to the space between the trunk and the garage door, and there was the new roommate, Holland March, crumpled on the ground and holding his left arm. Jackson’s mind went in a million directions. I just backed into my new roommate and killed him. This guy didn’t move when he saw me pulling into the driveway, what an idiot. He’s kind of good-looking. Jackson shook the last part out of his mind and knelt down next to Holland.
“Oh my God, I didn’t even see you-!” Jackson spluttered as Holland muttered something, muffled, into the asphalt. “What?”
Holland turned his face, screwed up in pain. “I was trying to open the garage door for you. There’s no automatic button,” he hissed between gritted teeth.
So as far as first impressions had gone in Jackson’s life, he desperately hoped his roommate wouldn’t hold it against him.
After taking Holland March to the emergency room and getting his arm set in a cast and driving them back to the rental, Jackson got to work moving his few boxes and suitcases into his bedroom. Holland disappeared into the backyard with barely a second glance and took a pack of cigarettes and lighter with him. Not that Jackson cared what his roommate got up to.
There was a certain calmness about putting clothes in the dresser, hanging up his few jackets,setting up his desk, and smoothing out crisp sheets on the double bed that had been delivered. Yeah. Starting over. In Los Angeles. Where he didn’t know anyone. And his only potential first friend had a fractured radius because of him. Second chances and all that.
The rental was indeed nice and mostly tidy but the kitchen had several empty beer cans crushed around the counter and sink, like there had been a party the night before. A few bottles rolled on the floor and by the fridge. Jackson looked through the kitchen window and Holland, in his fresh new cast, was sitting on the diving board over an empty pool, chain smoking. Holland was lean, tall, and had a moustache coming in. He wore a real goddamn signet on his right pinky and a gold ring on a chain around his neck.
Jackson tentatively went outside and cleared his throat and Holland flinched with a Jee-zus! when he saw him. “I’m sorry again about the arm,” Jackson said lamely.
Holland rolled his eyes and inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “Whatever, Jack. I have health insurance or some shit. Pretty sure ER visits are covered.”
“Still,” Jackson said and shifted uncomfortably and ran his fingers through his dark curls. “Sorry.”
Holland flicked his cigarette butt into the cavernous pool and lit up another. “Anyway…” he trailed and looked over at Jackson and blew smoke out his nose. It reminded Jackson of a dragon. “Room ok?”
“Yeah. All unpacked.”
Holland nodded. “Nice,” was all he said before going back to staring at the world’s largest ash tray underneath him and taking a long drag.
“Did you have a party last night?”
“What?”
“There’s cans and bottles all over the kitchen.”
“Oh.” Holland sounded surprised that his recycling bin of a kitchen was unsightly. “No, I don’t throw parties. I’ll clean it up later.”
They left it at that.
Sure enough, the next morning, the cans and bottles had been crammed into an overflowing recycling bin in the garage. Holland’s bedroom door was closed and Jackson took the day to get acquainted with the neighborhood, the commute to campus, the bookstore, and the buildings where supposedly all his classes were held. When he got back, well after two in the afternoon, the bedroom door was still shut and there was no evidence of Holland in the backyard.
Holland didn’t even emerge from his room until after the sun went down, and he came bleary-eyed and sleep rumpled from his room and staggered into the kitchen where Jackson was eating dinner. They looked at each other, as if they were both confused as to why the other would be there for a moment, before Holland shook his head, grabbed a beer from the fridge and chugged it like it was water. He crumpled the can, tossed it in the general direction of the recycling bin, and grabbed another and ambled outside with it.
Jackson watched him perch on the diving board again, light up, and alternate smoking and drinking while staring directly below into the empty pool. What a weird guy. Jackson finished his dinner, stuck the plate and fork in the empty dishwasher and went back to his room. He was slightly startled awake around midnight when he heard the sliding glass door open and close softly and footsteps pattering around the kitchen. Another crack of a beer can.
What did I get myself into?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The drive from New York City to Los Angeles had been blessedly uneventful. On the other hand, the chaos of physically leaving his old apartment, packing up his few things leftover from the divorce, and cramming them into his car for the road trip to grad school was anything but peaceful. June had booted him immediately from their place. He couldn’t even stay with his family in the interim. How awkward. Hey Aunt Leah, heard that Dad shacked up with my supposed loving wife. Mind if I crash here? Hello random parking lot on 30th and 8th.
The acceptance to grad school was like the safe harbor on the other side of the country, beckoning him to leave it all behind and start over. A new city meant new people which meant putting down roots which meant putting that whole fiasco behind him for good. Finding the rental near campus was a godsend: dirt cheap rent, only one roommate who was also in school, and the pictures of the place looked spacious and relatively well-kept. Holland, who had barely messaged him about the room and accepted his offer, seemed to care less about the first month’s payment and more with Jackson moving in before the start of the semester. That had been the width of their communication, mostly down to “if you want the room it’s yours” and “sounds good, see you in two weeks”.
And Jackson promptly broke his roommate’s arm.
Jackson quickly learned three things about Holland within the first week of living with him: 1. Holland could drink the goddamn Navy under the table 2. Holland smoked like a chimney but only did so outside, a good twenty feet from the doors and 3. Holland studied all night and never during the day. He was like an academia vampire. Jackson only learned that last part after getting up for water and Holland’s bedroom door was half open at one in the morning, light spilling out, and he was hunched over his desk writing something in a notebook ferociously. Two textbooks were propped in front of him and there were highlighters all over the floor.
They barely spoke to each other. The extent of their conversations began and ended with “hey”. Holland moved like a ghost throughout the house, with the only evidence of his presence being the growing cans and bottles in the recycling and the waft of cigarettes in the backyard when the sun went down. Jackson wondered how the hell he was even a full time student with that level of jackassery, especially with the university’s fall semester around the corner. He stuck to his summer reading list instead of worrying about what Holland got up to in his day to day activities.
But on the morning of the first of the semester, Jackson nearly flinched in surprise when he saw Holland sitting at their kitchen table, eating cereal, and blocking something in a textbook with a pink highlighter. His hair was damp, like he had just gotten out of the shower and he was wearing blue jeans and a yellow floral button down with short sleeves. Someone had drawn a goose on his white cast and he still wore that signet and ring necklace. Holland lifted his head in greeting at Jackson but didn’t take his eyes off his textbook.
“Hey,” he said to Jackson.
“Hey,” Jackson answered and went to make coffee.
A beat passed.
“What are you studying?” Holland asked suddenly. “Like, what’s your grad school?”
“Journalism.” Jackson carefully measured coffee grounds.
Holland’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “No shit. Isn’t that one of the dying arts?”
Jackson seethed. “No, it is not.”
“You don’t hear about many journalism students these days. I always assumed the program was dissolved or something.” Holland looked up from his book and capped his marker. “Kind of like English literature.”
“Well,” Jackson said and filled the machine’s tank with water, “I’m here. So clearly the program is alive and well.”
“Well no offense, Jackson,” Holland said, a smile creeping on his lips, “but good luck with that in the next two to three years.”
“Oh yeah?” Jackson asked, punching the “on” button on and watching the machine gurgle to life. “Then what are you studying if you’re so much better than everyone?”
“Law.”
“What? Like law school?”
“Hell yeah like law school. What do you think I’ve been getting up to this whole time? Reading fucking Junie B. Jones?” Holland lifted his textbook and shook it then dropped it with a dull “thud” on the table.
“Don’t you need to be smart to get into law school?”
Jackson hoped the blow would land but Holland only smiled wider. “You mean like me? I took the fucking LSAT like Elle Woods, baby.” He cackled a little.
Jackson poured his coffee and sipped it, considering him. “You drink like twenty beers a day. How can you even focus on whatever you’re reading?”
“I color coordinate,” Holland said and waved a pink highlighter in Jackson’s direction. “How do you study?”
“With flashcards. With notes. With classmates.” Jackson tried to remember his other cohorts. Was there a Jim in there? Or was it Tim? It might have been a Tammy. “Anyways, good luck with your semester. You’re gonna need it.”
“Same to you, Jack,” Holland said with a grin and went back to eating his cereal and nearly blocking out a paragraph in his textbook in pink.
When Jackson got back from his first day that evening (it wasn’t Jim or Tim or Tammy at all- it was Dan) there was a small magnetic white board stuck to their fridge amongst the random magnets that hadn’t been there earlier. In bright pink marker, Holland had written “EXTRA EXTRA: JACKSON HEALY STARTED SCHOOL TODAY” across the entire board. There was a crude drawing of a newspaper next to it.
Holland was sitting on the back patio, smoking with an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, and nearly on the edge of the plastic lawn chair, leaning over his binder with the two textbooks in front of him. When he saw Jackson looking at him through the sliding glass doors, he raised his left arm in greeting, cigarette dangling from his lips, then went back to writing something down. Jackson stepped outside.
“Good first day, champ?” Holland asked, never stopping writing.
“Syllabus day,” Jackson replied and sat across from him. “You?”
“I have a paper due next week. And some girl in my litigation class hasn’t returned my notes yet.” He snubbed out his cigarette and lit up another. The small orange flame flashed across his face in a way Jackson thought was kind of rakish and cool.
“You smoke too much,” Jackson said plainly.
“As opposed to too little?” Holland blew a smoke ring at him. “Isn’t vaping worse for you? Gives you popcorn lung or some shit like that?”
Jackson waved the smoke away from his face. “Whatever. You’re gonna keep Marlboro in business forever with that.” He frowned. “Or at least until you die of lung cancer. Either way. You’re gonna peel the paint off the wall with all that smoke.”
“I promise you,” Holland said and leaned back to slouch in his chair, “that I will never smoke inside the house.” He held up his right hand. “Scout’s honor and all that.”
“Were you a scout?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Jackson said and got up to go back inside. “I gotta do some class readings. See you tomorrow, Holland.”
“See ya, Jack.”
Jackson read the same paragraph in The Newspaper Designer’s Textbook three times but couldn’t stop thinking about Holland blowing the smoke circles at him. Or the orange flame dancing across his face. Or the way his face scrunched in concentration.
What a prick, he thought.