NOVELTY AND NAIVETY
ALM 92, August 2026
SHORT STORIES
My Dearest Anne,
I meant to write as soon as I moved in, but you would not believe how busy my first week has been. Sayer College is nothing like RACC.
You requested an account of the friends I am making here, so I will give it.
My new roommate, Reed, is a nice girl and very intelligent; she is somewhat tall and thin, and her family is from New York City. I think we will get along. She has been here two years already, so I hope I can ask her questions.
Next door are two boys, Silas and Chad. Silas is cute, but on the short side, and he didn’t say much to me. Chad, however, is the most open and charming man I have ever met. He is active, lively, and handsome. Reed certainly thinks so, she told me she admires his back muscles.
On move-in day, Chad and his friend, Charlie, helped me with my things. Charlie is handsome enough, I guess, but he and Chad are complete opposites. He was sullen, barely spoke to me, and when he did, it was awfully rude. When he found out I was homeschooled and from Iowa, he asked if I had chickens and too many siblings, which would not have been so embarrassing if I hadn’t had to tell him that I did.
Anyway, Charlie does not live in our house, so I hope I won’t see him much. Although, Chad has said he can get me and Reed into a party this weekend, and unfortunately Charlie will be there. Don’t worry, dear Anne, about me attending a party, you know I will make good decisions. I am a bit nervous, but Reed has been to many and she says she will introduce me to her friends.
I shall tell you all about it in my next letter! Please tell me when you can visit.
Yours, etc.
Elizabeth H.
…
Elizabeth Howard was not the sort of girl frequently seen at frat parties. Prior to transferring to Sayer College, Allenham, her idea of wild festivity was her town’s summer swing dances. She was by no means a genius, but had a sweet, quietly confident disposition that endeared her to all and led to experimentation and mediocrity in many things. Thus, even at home, she was far more likely to be found drawing than mingling with the rowdy youth of society. She was, in short, what her dance instructor and Sunday school teachers would call a “sweet, helpful girl.”
It was a strange convergence of factors that led her to Allenham,Virginia, at all. The financial need of Mrs. Howard’s younger brother, combined with four younger children to support through college, induced Elizabeth to obligingly look for scholarships to support her way through the county’s community college. It was quite by accident that she found the one that had gotten her into Sayer at all, but a financial offer too good to be refused had been made, and thus Elizabeth consented to transfer, said goodbye to her brothers, sisters, chickens, and housecat, and moved farther than she’d ever been from home before.
Ever humble, she would not call herself a beauty, which was perhaps not giving herself enough credit. Her face, while a little thin, was quite fair with subtle freckles, and it was framed by waist-length blonde hair. As they prepared for the party the Friday night of Elizabeth’s first week at Sayer, Reed had the idea of accentuating her green eyes with cat-eye eyeliner. Elizabeth’s soft brown pencil would not do, she ‘absolutely must’ borrow Reed’s pure black, which made her look strange and rather more owlish than catlike.
Reed assured her that she need not bring anything to the party. “Chad and Charlie,” she said with the air of someone who has been to many such events, “are bringing us. And Chad is good friends with some of the frat guys, so we’ll have no trouble getting in at all. He’ll do the introductions.” Elizabeth couldn’t help but think that Chad was, perhaps, Reed’s primary inducement to go. “I hope he wears that white tank top,” she added. “It flatters his back so well.”
Chad was not, unfortunately, wearing the desired white tank top, but this did little to deter Reed, who attached herself beside him and bubbled excitedly as he tried to chat with Elizabeth all the way down to 12th Street.
Charlie, meanwhile, wore a gray hoodie and looked as grim as the day Elizabeth had first met him. He gave Elizabeth a perfunctory greeting and walked the rest of the way in silence. With Reed too engrossed watching Chad to speak coherently to anyone else, Elizabeth found the primary focus of her conversation, not disagreeably, to be with Chad. He was an easy conversationalist and kept her entertained the whole way with a description of his diet regimen and the best gym at Sayer
Inside the frat house, however, Elizabeth was alarmed to lose track of him almost immediately. She stood in a corner with Reed and Charlie, resisting the urge to put her hands over her ears. She was beginning to think that her swing dancing skills would not be very helpful here.
To her relief, Chad returned five minutes later, precariously gripping four red cups. As he passed one to Elizabeth, his fingers brushed hers and she looked up sharply, the color rising in her cheeks. “I’m tight with exec,” he yelled over the pounding music.
“What?” Elizabeth yelled back.
“I’m TIGHT with EXEC,” he repeated, still louder. He nodded at the cup Elizabeth now held in both hands and winked. “You’re welcome!”
She expressed her thanks, which were promptly lost to the music.
Reed grabbed her hand and started pulling her to the center of the room. “I love this song,” she yelled, taking a swig of the suspicious liquid in the cup. “Let’s dance!”
Stumbling a couple steps after her and trying to keep the liquid from spilling, Elizabeth looked back at the boys.
She nearly jumped as Reed yelled in her ear, “Don’t worry about them. They’ll watch! And join when they’re drunk!”
“But–” Elizabeth’s concerns were lost to the music. She was mollified a few moments later by joining a circle of girls, already considerably inebriated and delighted to meet Reed’s new friend.
Elizabeth, prepared to become acquainted with the other girls, soon discovered that this was not the sort of gathering for sensible conversion. Instead, she bounced up and down on the sticky floor and even ventured to raise one hand in the air at a particularly exciting moment in the music.
However, after what felt like a long time, Elizabeth’s armpits were sweaty, her hand sticky with sloshed drink, and her head beginning to ache.
“It’s okay if you want to rest!” Reed hollered at her, pausing in her dancing, face flushed and shining.
“I can stay with you,” Elizabeth assured her anxiously. “It’s fine.”
“I’m fine!”
“Are you drunk?”
Reed laughed. “Of course not, I’ve had half a beer, girl.” She looked at Elizabeth’s untouched cup. “Are you going to drink that?”
“No,” Elizabeth yelled back. “I’m not 21 yet.”
Reed just laughed and took her cup, leaving Elizabeth to push through the crowd back to Chad and his friend. In a circle of people Elizabeth didn’t know, Chad was bemoaning the fact that one couldn’t put protein powder in beer. She stood bashfully next to an unfamiliar girl until the suggestion of a game of beer pong was brought up. This was generally regarded as a delightful idea and acted on with as much expediency as a group of half-drunk college students can manage.
After several assurances that she did not want to play, Elizabeth found herself deserted by the group as they went to find a quieter place for their game. She was beginning to feel quite pressed upon by the crowd when a voice to her right alerted her that not all of the party had left. Charlie remained where he’d been before, holding a new can of beer. To her amazement, Elizabeth realized he was addressing her. “How do you like the party, Iowa?”
Never one to lie, she told him it was ‘certainly very loud.’ He smiled slightly and Elizabeth felt sure he was laughing at her. That, and the obnoxious nickname, were enough to be sure he disdained her. After the bare minimum of conversation–which wasn’t much, considering the deafening music–Elizabeth turned aside and busied herself with the only task she could think of: collecting empty red cups.
To her surprise and annoyance, however, Charlie addressed her again. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning,” she replied with as much civility as she could manage.
This time, he did laugh. “Iowa,” he said. “I wouldn’t recommend that here.”
…
The next time Elizabeth saw Charlie and Chad in the same room was during their British Fiction class, one of the few tolerable options of Sayer’s mandatory grand tour of disciplines.
Elizabeth, having seated herself near Chad without knowing that his friend was also in the class, was suffered to be lumped into a group with both of them. To her considerable surprise, it was Charlie who seemed most engaged in the topic, and the two of them carried the discussion until Chad broke from the conversation entirely to lean over to Elizabeth and ask if she knew when the first paper was due.
“Two weeks,” came the prompt response.
“Have you been reading the book?”
“Of course! Have you not?”
Chad shrugged innocently. “I don’t have the time, with my new gym plan. I’m there every day for at least two hours.”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth, feeling that this was perhaps not the best use of time.
“If you could help me,” Chad continued. “It’d be sick.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure why Chad didn’t just ask his friend, who seemed to have a very strong understanding of the book, but she was, as ever, everything that could be helpful, and she agreed, though perhaps not so readily as she might have a few days earlier. Thus, a date was set and Elizabeth left class engaged to meet with him the Tuesday following.
…
It is unfortunately a common experience among college students to get sick the second or third week of the semester, and this is precisely what happened to our worthy heroine.
It began on Wednesday with a tickle in her throat, progressed on Thursday to a bit of soreness and a headache, and deepened on Friday into exhaustion and fever so troublesome that even Elizabeth could not deny she was sick.
As people who live too long in denial of being sick are oft to do, Elizabeth found that the sickness hit her all at once as soon as she reached the weekend, and she was laid up in bed all morning. Her only consolation was that Reed, whom she normally would have spent the weekend with, had gone to a concert with some friends from home, and thus Elizabeth was not endangering her by any of her sniffling or feverish airs. Beyond this, however, she was quite miserable. Her limbs felt puffy and weak, her lower back ached and made it impossible to find a comfortable position, and her head pounded with a kind of cottony throbbing that made her eyes dry and strained. Most of all, she longed for the comfort of her own bed back home or the company of her dear friend Anne.
Elizabeth had no energy even to do the homework she had planned out for the evening, and was suffered to lie in bed and wonder if she would be recovered in time to see Chad on Tuesday. A little past one, she ran out of water and was forced by a sense of obligation to her body to go refill her water bottle. Since Reed was not there to help, however, this was an odious task, requiring getting out of bed, proceeding down the stairs, and risking being seen by any number of her housemates in the process. She almost considered asking Chad to get it for her, but thought better of it and journeyed downstairs herself.
She heard the front door open as she was filling the water bottle, but could not avoid passing the sitting room on her way back, where she saw, to her great consternation, the person she least wanted to see, reading in one of the chairs. Elizabeth attempted to continue walking, hoping he wouldn’t see her, but Charlie called out a greeting and she was obliged to enter the room.
Charlie seemed about to start on the normal, mechanical pleasantries, when his eyebrows drew together. “What’s wrong with you, Iowa?” he asked. “You look all pale and sweaty.”
Elizabeth steadied herself with one hand on the nearest wall. “I’m fine, just a little unwell.”
Charlie nodded knowingly. “Got the frat flu? Happens to the best of us.”
Elizabeth resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Just a cold.”
“Do you need an Advil?” he offered. “I’m waiting for Chad, I could ask him to bring some down.”
By then, Elizabeth was thoroughly tired of the conversation and just wanted to go back to bed. “I don’t take painkillers if I can help it,” she said staunchly, hoping he would leave her alone.
He looked as if he were trying very hard not to laugh. “I suppose you just sleep with an onion, then?”
“My mother gives me eucalyptus steam and garlic honey tea,” Elizabeth replied with dignity. Her head hurt too much for her to care if he laughed at her. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a nap.” With that, she walked off, leaving Charlie to watch her go with a slight crease of concern between his eyebrows.
…
By Tuesday, Elizabeth was feeling much better, and was heartily ashamed of her behavior toward Charlie. He might have insulted her once with his homeschooler comment, and he certainly didn’t have Chad’s conversational charms, but as best as she could recall of their sitting room conversation, he had been polite, even considerate.
She hadn’t had a chance to talk to him during class that day, but the matter was temporarily overcome by the more pressing issue of whether to keep her afternoon engagement with Chad. She informed him she was still sniffling, perhaps even emphasizing her lingering symptoms more than she normally would have done. She had suddenly become aware that perhaps Reed would not be thrilled to discover their plan. But Chad was decided: no small cold could keep him from coming over and receiving her help on the paper.
Tuesday at four, he knocked on her dorm door and Elizabeth let him in. She dragged over Reed’s rolling chair so that they could both sit in front of her desk, pressed uncomfortably close together by necessity of the space.
“How was the book?” Chad asked laughingly.
Our young heroine was not entirely at ease, but responded civilly, “Good, you should read it sometime.”
She accepted a protein bar from Chad, to snack on as she walked him through the plot of the book and their essay prompt. You will not fault her for allowing her pride to be a little bit touched by his attention. It is an extraordinary young woman indeed who can entirely resist the flattery of preference, especially one unaccustomed to attentions from such a quarter. However, she still felt that the sooner they finished this, the better.
She had just bitten into the bar when, without giving either Chad or Elizabeth time to react, there was the sound of the key in the lock and the door swung up to reveal not only Reed, but Charlie behind her, holding a small paper bag. Their eyes were instantly drawn to the protein bar in Elizabeth’s hand, and the mere hairsbreadth between her knee and Chad’s.
How could I describe the feelings of everyone in the room at this moment? Charlie was taken aback; Reed, astonished; Elizabeth, mortified. Only Chad retained a measure of his usual composure. “Mr. Charlie!” he exclaimed brightly. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“I–” began Charlie, coloring slightly. “I brought some garlic and honey, for Elizabeth. For the cold.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to respond, but was much too confused to answer anything. Charlie took the opportunity to take a few steps forward and leave the bag on the desk. “There’s also one of my grandmother’s home remedies,” he said stiffly.
Elizabeth was far too astonished to offer a response, and before she could recover herself, he had given her a polite nod, and walked out.
Chad remained longer, and Elizabeth was silently glad for Reed’s company, because she hardly had the presence of mind to keep up a normal conversation. Even Reed, however, was agitated, and soon after Chad took his leave, she departed herself with a muttered excuse that she was visiting the library.
…
During all of their Thursday class discussion, Elizabeth tried to catch Charlie’s eye and thank him for the package, but he was determinedly avoiding a direct confrontation. He spoke to her only as it related to their newest reading, and this only from necessity, as they were the only two in the group who had read it.
Elizabeth was miserable. Reed kept making excuses to avoid dinner plans or study dates, Charlie seemed upset, and she even missed the information on the upcoming exam because she was too distracted. After class, she made one last effort to corner him, but Chad caught her in an explanation of deadlifting technique, and by the time Elizabeth could extricate herself, Charlie was gone.
…
Dearest Anne,
I am wretched, but I will try to make my hand readable. How I wish to see you! I am convinced your presence is the only thing that could make me easy now.
You will have already received by now the letter I sent including the details of my meeting with Chad, and Reed and Charlie’s unfortunate arrival, but it has gotten worse since then and I cannot be patient enough to wait for your response to write again.
It is much worse than I ever thought at the beginning. Reed, who has such a cheerful and talkative nature, has hardly spoken to me for days, and today I have heard a rumor from Silas that she requested to change rooms. I am crying as I write, dear Anne. My sweet friend who has done nothing but make me feel at home here and share her own friends with me–this friend, I have wounded so badly by my despicably stupid behavior that she will no longer even live with me!
But I will say no more on the matter. You, Anne, who know how dearly I longed to make friends here, will understand completely how I feel.
Moreover Reed is not the only one unhappy. Charlie, too, is avoiding me, and though I have yet to hear any accounts of it, I am so afraid that he will tell his friends about finding me and Chad together. And what could be more natural? I meant nothing wrong by it, but he seemed so taken aback when he opened the door. Oh Anne–and he had come only to bring me medicine. I am beginning to feel that by obliging one friend, I alienated the more worthy of the pair. I do not know how it happened, but I have felt for some time now that Charlie is by no means as disagreeable as I first thought him, but now I may have ruined his good opinion forever, and caused myself to be seen in the eyes of all his and Reed’s friends as the most unconstant flirt who ever betrayed a dear friend.
I will leave you, Anne, with only a repetition of my first requests. The only thing that gives me comfort is the thought of you coming to visit.
Yours, etc.
Elizabeth H.
…
For the next few days, Reed was little in their shared bedroom, which gave Elizabeth much time for regretful contemplation and letter-writing, a pastime that felt like the only source of friendship she had left.
A little over a week from the fateful study session, she stood in line at the mail center, consumed with unhappy musings. She considered her friendship with Reed, her introduction to Charlie and Chad, her initial feelings for both of them, and how those feelings had undergone such a change in the last few weeks of school. Oh, how quickly things can shift in the first weeks of a college semester! How unstable are the friendships, formed one moment and gone the next. Charlie had been coolly polite in class to her again on Tuesday. She thought of how, when she finally thought his friendship worth having, she was least likely to ever benefit from it again. She was so consumed with thoughts of this sort, that she did not notice the subject of them appearing behind her.
She was roused only by the application, “Iowa? What are you doing here?”
Elizabeth turned in great confusion, clutching the letter and coloring deeply. She barely managed to reply, “I’m–mailing a letter.”
“A letter? I’m afraid all the carrier pigeons are busy already.” A half-smile played at the corners of his mouth. She had once thought he was laughing at her, but now the look seemed much more amiable. Then, it was gone and he became grave again. “Well, if you want to send something, you’ll have to switch lines. This one is for picking up.”
Elizabeth started and realized that she was indeed in the wrong line. Coloring still more deeply, she apologized and scooted out, joining the other, much-shorter line, and giving the letter to the worker in such a perturbation of manner that she was hardly intelligible.
The letter sent, Elizabeth turned to go and saw that Charlie, too, was on his way out with a package under his arm. She must talk to him now, or else perhaps lose her chance forever.
Without fully knowing what she did, Elizabeth jogged to catch up with him, calling for him to stop. He turned, looking serious.
“Charlie,” Elizabeth began, in the highest agitation of spirits. “About Tuesday–and Chad–I didn’t, we’re not–Well, he was only really there because he asked me to help him with his paper.” The rest of her thoughts rolled out in a torrent–about Chad, and Reed, and even himself.
At first, Charlie listened in grave silence, but it was hard to see Elizabeth in such distress without being moved by it, and as she spoke and he gathered her meaning, the sting of his wounded feelings eased and he softened. However, he didn’t interrupt until she mentioned her fears of Reed switching rooms.
“Where did you hear this?” he exclaimed.
In a great perplexity, Elizabeth attempted to convey the reputable source of her information and to tell him that ‘since Reed seemed so unhappy, I didn’t dare ask her about it.’
Charlie instantly refuted her with spirit. “I saw Reed earlier today and she said nothing of the sort. I don’t know where Silas heard it, but he could not have been correct!”
Elizabeth could hardly believe her ears. Reed, not going to switch rooms? She dared not hope for it, and yet she did. “Are you certain?” she pressed.
“Quite certain,” he replied. “Whatever you heard must have been entirely baseless.”
Spirits lifting, Elizabeth was finally bold enough to venture. “And you? Are you angry at me, Charlie?”
“Of course not,” he replied a little uncomfortably. “You are entitled to go out with whoever you–”
“Oh! but it’s not like that at all!” Elizabeth exclaimed, too agitated for politeness. “I think nothing of Chad. That is–I think him a very nice man and everything friendly, but if I once thought more of him, you must be convinced that those feelings have long since be transferred–” Here, she faltered, but looking up, she saw the sort of smile of Charlie’s normally stern face that could give encouragement to even the most bashful of admirers.
…
For the purposes of space, I must now be obliged to give only a brief account of the joys of our hero and heroine upon such a mutually-agreeable understanding as took place in the mail center that afternoon. The reader may well infer the rest.
Within a very few days, all was cleared up with Reed. She was of such a forgiving temperament, that as soon as Elizabeth made known to her the mistake, she embraced her with open arms, and not a little bit of private satisfaction that she could again consider Chad’s back muscles without guilt or jealousy.
In fact, it was not long before she was able to tell him directly how much she admired them, and Chad was more greatly gratified by her attentiveness to his speeches on his exercise plan and protein intake than he had been likely ever to be with Elizabeth’s. They were well-suited to each other in manner, habits, and disposition, and were subsequently regularly to be found together at the gym.
Elizabeth and Charlie, too, were supremely happy with one another, and not the less so because neither had entered the semester suspecting the blossoming of a romantic attachment. Elizabeth came to comprehend that Charlie, in his own way, was delighted with her small oddities, and she in turn found him a most steady and attentive companion, and not so unfamiliar with a quaint style of living as she had first suspected.
As neither Elizabeth nor Charlie was much disposed to frat parties, they were more frequently found in the green spaces of Sayer College or the surrounding city, discussing their favorite books or strolling among the fine trees of the park, where Chad, Reed, and Silas sometimes joined them.
At length, Elizabeth’s happiness was made complete by the arrival of the friend for which she had wished so ardently. Anne was everything astonishment at her urban surroundings and the wildness of Sayer College, which Elizabeth smiled on with the kind forbearance of one who was not so long ago in the same situation. Most pleasing of all to Anne, though, was the positive change a couple months had wrought in her dear friend. In contrast to the letter that Elizabeth had sent prior to her conversation with Charlie, Anne found her friend to be happy, surrounded by friends, and glowing with the confidence that youth and new experiences can bring. Anne received one other pleasure from her visit, only slightly less satisfactory than the knowledge of her friend’s felicity: that is, although in her first letter Elizabeth had dismissed him as “on the short side,” Anne quickly discovered that Chad’s roommate Silas was actually a very fine-looking gentleman.
Erin Meehan is a writer and undergraduate student, studying English and education. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing, watercoloring, and trying to hug her unaffectionate pet rabbits.
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