Everything That Makes You

by Moriah McStay

  When she talked in class, when she met new people, when she walked around campus, there were no double takes, no furtive second glances. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There were a few. But they were the good kind.

  The first time it happened, she and the other girls in her suite had gone to a party. A cute hipster guy scanned their group as they walked in. When his eyes caught Fiona’s, she bristled, expecting the recoil. Instead, he gave a flirty smile.

  She gaped at him, not thinking to smile back—so he moved on to Bethany From New York, who was more skilled at flirting.

  Not that she was looking to meet boys. The few other times the eye-lock thing happened, she stumbled away, clueless about what to do next. Anyway, she and David never had gotten around to the awkward “What exactly are we doing?” conversation. Dating other people hadn’t been strictly forbidden—but she was pretty sure it wasn’t encouraged.

  Notwithstanding the unclear dating guidelines and her inability to flirt anyway, Fiona embraced her growing social life by following one simple rule: say yes.

  Zoey From Chicago: Want to go to Much Ado About Nothing? The theater department’s putting it on.

  Fiona: I’ll be there.

  Miriam From St. Louis: There’s a weird lecture on German philosophers in the student union. Come with me?

  Fiona: Sure, sounds fun.

  Bethany From New York: Battle of the Bands on Greek Row!

  Fiona: Let’s go!

  Lexie From Des Moines: You’ve never had kimchi? We must go eat Korean food RIGHT NOW!

  Fiona: Hang on, I’ll get my wallet.

  Yes, I’ll go to that party. Yes, I’ll come to dinner. Yes, I’ll hang out.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  She rarely second-guessed the “Yes” philosophy. Maybe when Miriam talked her into spending Evanston’s last warm Saturday in a dark theater watching an art film about doors—wide doors, glass doors, sliding doors, revolving doors. By the end, she just wanted to walk through the closest one.

  And maybe these Tuesday and Thursday mornings spent in the “Musical Theory Circle” were nearly as weird as that movie.

  She was required to take a music course for her scholarship, and this was the only class with openings. A lot of openings. According to the syllabus, the class would expose her “musical expressions to the echoes and undertones of all the discarded creations preceding it.”

  There were ten of them in Circle, and, like Fiona, most had guitars, though a few had violins. A boy in her geology course—which pretty much everyone called “Rocks for Jocks”—lugged an enormous double bass to every class.

  Professor Edward Fleming, aka “Flem,” bowed to the girl with the clarinet and said, “Ah, the mighty reed.”

  He said this every time.

  Flem had thinning brown hair, which hung in a sad ponytail. In addition to his endless supply of neck scarves, he also sported a goatee and pipe.

  That’s right, pipe.

  “My fellow explorers!” said Flem. “We continue our quest! Let us push past our boundaries and reveal the hidden worlds of music seeking to be traveled!”

  According to Flem, this was to be accomplished by dissecting 1980s power ballads.

  After a particularly sad—or hilarious, she couldn’t decide which—class, Fiona called Lucy as she walked home. “I am supposed to, ahem, ‘reinterpret “Is This Love,” 1987, Whitesnake’—that’s one of my dad’s eighties hair bands, by the way—‘in such a way as to reinform its relevance in modern day culture.’”

  There was a pause on Lucy’s end of the line. “I’m panicking. I have no witty retort.”

  Fiona laughed. “Wait, there’s more.” Mimicking Flem’s tone, she read from her assignment sheet. “‘Surgically remove any four-count phrase of your choosing, reinterpret it and, after introducing it back to its once familiar and now foreign role in the overall body of work, allow a new arrangement to organically flow around the shifts it inspires, as a river wends its way around the randomly placed detritus of man.’”

  “Good Lord, stop. It’s like my kryptonite.”

  Fiona adjusted her guitar case so as to hit as few passing students as possible. Northwestern was a long, narrow campus spanning over a mile—liberal arts to the south, tech to the north, and business in between. She had yet to make a full pass from Flem to dorm without whacking someone.

  Despite all these bodies, the walk was a fairly quiet one—just passing conversations in pairs and threes, the rustle of leaves in the brisk Chicago wind. Not so on Lucy’s side.

  “I can hardly hear you,” Fiona said, pulling the phone closer to her ear. “Where the heck are you?”

  “In a café. There are about seven within ten minutes of me. I’m trying them all.”

  Fiona felt a sudden pang for her coffee shop and best friend. “How’s that one rank?”

  “Quite low—too hipster. Good one yesterday, though. Had all this cool old movie paraphernalia.”

  “I didn’t know you cared about old movies.”

  “I didn’t either.” She paused. “It could have something to do with all the girls there.”

  Fiona laughed. “So you’re not the only one in New York?”

  “It appears I am not, thank God.” Fiona heard rustling on Lucy’s end as her best friend said, “’Kay, I gotta go to class. But, hey, be respectful to the hair band. Despite the bluster, it’s a fragile creature.”

  She and Lucy spoke or texted every day—pretty much the same as with David. Fiona had a standing Sunday night call with her parents, but they emailed and texted about little things during the week. Ryan, however, was another animal altogether.

  Either he was lying, or he truly had no free time. The few times he picked up his phone, he was out of breath, running from one place to another. He had mandatory athletic study halls in the library every night, so he couldn’t video chat. She got occasional quick texts—bbq here sucks or what’s iambic pentameter—but nothing more.

  Now back in her room, she sat cross-legged on her bed and left yet another voice mail demanding he call back, though she didn’t think he would.

  Ever since the surgery, things felt different with him.

  Fine—he had to get to Clemson early, and okay—she spent the first few weeks after her surgery as a useless lump. But what if Ryan was beginning a new life, too? What if he was leaving her behind?

  She grabbed her guitar and played around with Flem’s assignment awhile. The arrangement was predictable, with lots of opportunities for “reinterpretations.” She might make fun of it, but this type of work was perfect for her. After the open mic night disaster, she’d spent a year becoming Queen of the Cover Song. By now, she was a genius with nearly any cover she touched—Beck to the Beatles.

  Exposing a stranger’s pain to other strangers was much, much easier than exposing her own.

  In fifteen minutes, she finished Flem’s assignment. She’d ace this class. But that anxiety about Ryan still needled, so she moved on to the meatier part of her therapy. Going between Moleskine and guitar, she picked out notes and fiddled with words—her own words and notes—until it felt like a real beginning of something.

  My pieces got melted / The edges are jagged

  I wonder if they see / Only half the pieces cover me

  As always, she got lost in it. She glanced at the clock, and two hours had passed. It was probably time to put this one away, anyway. She’d figured out over the years that it worked best that way. Start it, write it down, then leave it alone awhile.

  Plus, she was starving.

  She walked out of her room and nearly face-planted, her foot colliding with a body sitting just outside her door.

  “Ow! What the—”

  A boy popped up, catching her by the elbows. “Sorry. I, uh, heard you playing. Singing.” Once sure she was steady, he let her go, ruffling a hand through dark, wavy hair and looking sheepish. “I normally don’t sit outside of strange girls’ doors.”

  Fiona kept a wary eye on this ea
vesdropper. “Wouldn’t you be the strange one here?”

  “I know. It’s bad, right?” He cleared his throat. “It’s just . . . you sound like Lorde. But like, with maple syrup.”

  Well, she’d never been compared to syrup before.

  He gestured down the hall. “You going somewhere?”

  The Eavesdropper was about as tall as Ryan, maybe a little broader. His charmingly imperfect smile played against a background of perfect olive skin.

  This boy was cute. “Downstairs,” she said. “I was getting something to eat.”

  “You’re from the South.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “Memphis.”

  Her accent was a constant source of amusement up here. Her Yankee friends randomly commanded her to say pie or my, while giggling at her dropped g’s.

  The boy gawked at her. “No way. Where’d you live?”

  “Uh, Midtown.”

  “High Point.” He rocked back on his heels, giving her an openmouthed, crooked smile and holding out a hand. “I’m Jackson King.”

  Fiona took his hand. When his skin met hers, an almost-violent case of flutters coursed through her, stomach to throat. “Fiona. Doyle.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Fiona.” Affecting a thick southern accent, he folded his hand around hers. “Well, fellow Memphian, would you believe that I was headed to get something to eat, too? Before you distracted me?” He held up his hands, as if proving he wasn’t armed. “I’m not a stalker, I swear.”

  She hesitated—well, pretended to hesitate. Anyway, she had to say yes, right?

  As they sat across a table from each other, Fiona tried to act like a normal person. It was hard, what with those green eyes. “You do look familiar,” she said, although she couldn’t imagine from where. He certainly didn’t go to her high school—he was too cute to forget. Trent-McKinnon-who? cute. “You’re not in my lit class, are you?”

  He shook his head. “Chemical engineering major.”

  “I wonder why I didn’t see you at orientation. People kept asking if I knew Elvis. Or they called me y’all—in the singular. I mean, it’s got all in it.” She took a sip of coffee, shaking her head. “It would have been nice to have some backup.”

  He laughed, nodding his head. “I got here late—a few days after classes started. I meant to defer but decided last minute to come.” He waved his hand, dismissing the question she hadn’t asked. “Family stuff.”

  “I guess I’ve just seen you around the dorm.”

  He nodded and wavy hair dipped over green eyes. Looking guilty, he bit one side of his lip, making his smile all the more lopsided. “So, I have a confession.”

  Oh no. “What’s that?”

  “I wasn’t going for coffee. I was heading to class.” He looked at his watch. “Which starts in four minutes.”

  She laughed, feeling so, so fluttery. “You were being a stalker.”

  The boy hung his head dramatically. “I know. Five minutes in and I’ve already broken my first promise. It’s a bad start.”

  “A bad start for what?”

  He stood and began walking backward as Fiona stayed at the table. He backed nearly all the way to the automatic doors. They slid open, but he paused, those pretty green eyes still on Fiona. With a sly, uneven smile, he answered, “Not sure yet.”

  FI

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed, Fi nestled Panda in her lap and absently picked at her comforter. “Where are you?” she asked, holding the phone away from her ear.

  “The common room on my hall.” Trent spoke loudly, and still all the background noise threatened to drown him out completely. “There’s a party later. People are hanging out.”

  Fi’s dramatic plans for the evening included hiding from her parents’ “good intentions” and going to bed by nine, just as she’d done every night since May.

  “Sounds fun,” she lied.

  “And you’d be the expert,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

  Critiquing her mourning rituals was Ryan’s job. All summer, he and Gwen had tried to coax her out of the house. By August, he was spouting platitudes, like He’s better off now the suffering’s over and There are other fish in the sea! All the while, with his arm comfortably around Gwen’s shoulder.

  “Nothing. Sorry,” Trent said. “Hang on, I can’t hear anything.” Muffled sounds came over—and then the background noise suddenly disappeared. “Okay, I’m back in the room.”

  “You don’t have to leave your party.”

  “It’s not a party yet.” She heard the groan of springs followed by a soft grunt. “I want to crash a minute anyway, I’m exhausted. The coach is sadistic. We practiced all day, and it’s like a hundred and five outside.”

  Fi sympathized. Doing anything outdoors in a Deep South summer—which could last till October sometimes—sucked. She had swimmer friends who claimed to sweat underwater. “Maybe it’s payback,” she said. “Remember those awful workouts when you made yourself my personal trainer? You never showed any mercy.”

  “You were in a climate-controlled gym, you wimp.” The mattress groaned again, and Fi pictured Trent’s feet dangling off the end of the twin-sized dorm bed. He hardly fit in his queen bed at home, always complaining he had to sleep diagonally. “You have no idea—all the pads! Seriously, I could drop dead out there.”

  Closing her eyes, Fi rubbed her fingers hard across her eyebrows, like she could massage out the dull throb she’d had since Marcus died.

  “Man, Fi. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  Actually, it wasn’t fine. She wasn’t fine. She was way on the other side of fine—upside down even. But dragging Trent down with her wouldn’t get her right side up.

  She’d gotten used to the awkward pause that always followed these situations. The thoughtless gaffe—usually something harmless, like I’d rather die than see that movie or A little broccoli won’t kill you—followed by the stammering apology. Then overcompensating conversation immediately after, usually about something trite like the weather or tomorrow night’s dinner.

  “Tell me about the drills,” she said. Her finger looped around a loose thread in the bedspread, and she snapped it free.

  “I got the playbook today. Hang on.” She heard another grunt followed by shuffling and another groan of springs. “Well, there’s the Flip.”

  For the next twenty minutes, Trent talked her through the Ole Miss lacrosse playbook. Some were pretty clever; a few could even be adapted for a girls’ team. She could picture one in particular, a low double cut while the center—Fi—plowed to goal.

  Only, when she tried to visualize this happening with her Milton teammates, Fi groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” Trent asked.

  “Nothing.” She’d been snapping threads this whole time. Now, there was a knuckle-sized hole in her bedspread. “Just trying to picture the Milton girls trying to pull off the Flip.”

  “They’re really that bad?”

  “Some are still trying to keep the ball in their sticks. Which come from Walmart.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Today, the goalie missed two easy blocks because she was texting. After practice, they rolled out a keg.”

  “I told—”

  “Don’t. Please.”

  Milton had always been a hard choice, but it was worth it. Because Marcus was worth it. But then he died, and everything unraveled. It sounded melodramatic but it was true—she’d lost everything.

  “So . . . how are classes?” Trent asked. He used the voice he saved for adults—politely non-sarcastic.

  This conversation wasn’t going to be any better than one about dead boyfriends. “Okay, I guess.”

  “How’s calc?”

  “It continues to be the bane of my existence.”

  During registration, she hadn’t paid much attention to her advisor’s suggestions, just said “Sounds good”
to each one. Spanish and sociology were fine, and creative writing had been a pleasant surprise. But calculus was god-awful.

  “I’m sure Ryan could help out,” Trent said. “He’s how you passed precalc anyway.”

  “I don’t need Ryan,” she snapped. “I’ll be fine.”

  She heard Trent snort. “Wouldn’t want anyone to know you’re not perfect.”

  “Who said I thought I was perfect?” What a terribly misinformed conclusion.

  “Never mind.”

  With that polite, placating voice, he talked about his classes—Spanish, a geology class he called “Rocks for Jocks,” a business class. Some shouts interrupted him, and after a muffled conversation—it sounded like his hand was over the phone—he said, “I gotta go soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “Weekends down here are awesome,” he said. “You should come sometime.”

  Fi had no interest in hanging out with a group of people she didn’t know. Anyway, Trent would probably abandon her ten minutes into a party, what with all the inevitable swooning girls following him around. “I don’t know any girls down there. Where would I sleep?”

  “It’s not church camp, you dork. You could sleep with me.”

  For the first time during the conversation, Fi’s hands stilled. A thread wrapped around three fingers at once, turning the tips purple. “Uh—”

  Trent sighed. “Do you think I’m a total asshole? Your boyfriend just died.”

  It was the first time he’d stated the obvious out loud. It was refreshing.

  “I can kick my roommate out,” he continued. “He’s got a girlfriend. You can sleep on his bed. Anyway, it’s only an hour from home. You wouldn’t even need to spend the night if your hermit self went into freak-out mode.”

  She tried to picture sleeping over at Trent’s—him sprawled across a too-little bed, snores bouncing against concrete walls. She imagined their comingled body heat in a small, stuffy room; how they’d groggily maneuver around each other the next morning.

  “I’m not a hermit,” she said.

  She heard more muffled in-and-out sounds, like he was pulling on a shirt. “When’s the last time you left the house?”