“I like living a little when it’s just with you,” I protest. “It’s when everyone else is there that I have problems.”
“You have to start going outside and doing things! I know I sound like your mother, but it’s true.”
I shake my head. If I can barely stand being next to someone on the bus, how am I supposed to handle a crowded Friday-night bar?
“I can’t do it, Tina,” I say quietly.
She sighs, stops dead in her tracks, and shoots me a glare that I’ve learned, over the years, means that it’s time for ‘serious-talk.’
“Maria... where are you going to be at this time next year?”
I stare back at her silently. I don’t have the slightest clue where I’m going to be; I haven’t found a job yet. I had a panic attack during the single on-campus interview I’ve been offered.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “Grad school, probably.”
“I have no idea where I’m going to be either,” she says in a flat, serious tone.
“Then why...”
“Maria, we might never see each other again after this semester.”
I start to protest, but she pretends to zip my mouth shut and cuts me off.
“I want to see you get better, just in case I’m not with you next year,” she says quietly.
I silently look down at my snow-caked sneakers. I know what she means, but it’s not as easy as she’s making it sound. She knows that, though. She knows all about what happened.
Tina suddenly closes the distance between us and wraps her arms tightly around me.
“I care a lot about you, Maria,” she whispers. “I mean it. I want to see you be happy for once.”
I hug her back and try to smile. She’s so short that she could almost pass for my little sister. In a way, I really am her sister. I'm the only family she has left.
“You okay?” she asks, finally letting go of me. I nod back.
“I’m fine. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
“You mean at Stella’s, right?” she asks, still not willing to let me retreat inside my shell.
I sigh and nod dejectedly. Her face lights up at my answer.
“Good! Seriously, you’ll do fine, Maria. I’ll see you tonight!”
She waves to me as our paths diverge at the base of the clock tower, and I wave back to her as she continues the long walk to her chemistry class. As I walk the last block to my stats class, I am so lost in my thoughts that I don’t even notice the tower bells as they play the school song.
––––––––
“Easiest test ever,” I think, grinning with satisfaction as I check to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid like skip a question or accidentally forget a page. I expected far worse than this, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how easy the test was.
It’s only 11:45 AM. I didn’t even take a full hour to finish it, and the professor gave us two and half.
I feel my skin flush as I realize nobody else is done yet. I’m the first one finished, and I hate standing up in front of people. It feels as if every eye in the room is watching me as I rise from my desk. My pulse quickens, and it’s all I can do not to retreat to my chair and hide inside my coat.
The TA looks up at me as I approach his desk. He’s a blond-haired boy, just about my height and maybe a little bit older than I am. I am suddenly incredibly uncomfortable as his gray eyes focus on me, and I feel like I’m moving in slow motion as I walk toward him.
“You can do this, Maria,” I think, urging myself to keep moving forward. “Just hand him the paper and get out of the room. Be normal!”
“Hmm... pretty quick,” he says quietly, holding out his hand to take my paper. “How do you think you did?”
My hand trembles as I place my test in his hand. The paper rustles and rattles against his palm from how much I’m shaking.
“I... I think I did oka... okay... I think,” I stammer awkwardly. The only way I can even get the words out is by avoiding his eyes and focusing the long white scar running along his jaw.
“You sure? You’re done really early,” he says, staring at me curiously.
I hate that he’s staring. He’s looking at me the same way Darren used to. I have to get out of here. I need air.
My voice catches in my throat as I try to answer him, and instead I make a horribly awkward and embarrassing gurgle. I need to escape. I can’t be around him while he looks at me like that.
I don’t want his attention—I don’t want any attention!
Panic takes control of me. I slap the paper into his hand as my face turns bright red, and I race for the side door.
Friday, February 15 – 11:45 AM
Owen
God, tests are so damned boring. Nobody mentioned this part to me when I signed up to be a teaching assistant. Ooh, free credits! Organized homework time! A pretty pathetic paycheck! Sure, they tell you about those parts, but nobody ever mentions the part where you get to stare in silence at a bunch of students for two and a half hours.
To make it even worse, I reviewed Professor Meador’s exam before I handed it out to everyone. It’s stupidly hard, and at least one student is going to burn me in effigy tonight. Whatever. I can deal.
Oh man, I’m so bored. This is the worst!
The clock ticks deafeningly above my head, and I crane my neck and look up at it. Only forty minutes have passed. I am in Hell.
“Bullshit. No I’m not,” I think, and I shake my head in shame. I’ve been to Hell before. I grew up there.
I grind my teeth and force myself to think about happier things, like the obnoxiously large beer I’m going to order tonight.
I don’t usually go out to bars anymore. I feel like I’m too old now, even though I’m only one year older than the seniors sitting in front of me with their heads bowed, scribbling feverishly as they race against the clock. I promised my roommate Craig that I’d meet him at The Nines—his favorite bar—and actually go outside for once. I don’t want to, but a promise is a promise.
“You fucking hypocrite.”
My conscience hits me with a cheap shot and somehow knocks the wind out of me. It’s right, too... I am a hypocrite.
A promise is only a promise until keeping it might get me hurt. Been there, done that.
The sound of a chair creaking drags me out of my thoughts and back to reality, and I look up to see a girl putting on her puffy, blue and white winter coat. I glance up at the clock again and then back down at her in surprise. We’re only forty-five minutes into the test. Is she done already?
She seems horribly nervous as she approaches my desk. It’s always hard to stand up in front of people—I always hated being the first one done with an exam for just that very reason—but this is a bit much. She looks as if she might faint at any moment.
The girl holds her test paper out to me as she reaches the desk, and I can see her shaking. Poor thing. She must have given up on Meador’s test. That jerk of a professor totally made the test too hard.
“Hmm... pretty quick,” I say quietly, and I hold out my hand to take her paper. “How do you think you did?”
I feel the paper bouncing up and down against my hand as she tries to hand it to me. She’s a nervous wreck!
“I... I think I did oka... okay... I think,” she stammers.
I can tell that I’m making her upset, but I can’t stop staring at her. She’s tall and slender, and her black hair is stuffed roughly into the hood of her coat as if she’s ashamed of it. She’d be really beautiful if she took better care of herself.
Her eyes intrigue me most of all, though. They are a deep, beautiful emerald green, but something about her wide-eyed fear is making me uncomfortable. In the back of my mind, I know why I feel uncomfortable, but I can’t let myself think about it. I know what’ll happen if I do.
“You sure? You’re done really early,” I ask, trying to give her one last chance to sit down and work on the paper more. I don’t think she’s going to do it.
She practi
cally throws the paper at me and then races for the side door. It’s all I can do not to laugh now, because her reaction is just so absurd. It’s just a test, girl! There are worse things that can happen to you than failing a test.
I would know; I’ve had most of them happen to me.
“Maria Ayala.”
I read the name on her paper and then tuck it into the pocket of my backpack on the floor next to my chair. I know better than to try grading it now. I have a bad habit of laughing at terrible answers, and with a reaction like that, she must have failed really, really badly.
––––––––
“Hey, Owen! Over here!”
Craig waves to me from a bench in front of the bagel place as I cross the bridge from campus. I wanted to go back to the apartment and clean up before going out to The Nines, but I ended up stuck with Professor Meador talking about the test. Of course, he wants me to review the stats on some undergrad’s research paper on top of everything else, too. I don’t think I’ve ever once gotten out of a meeting without him giving me more work to do. I thought PhD students were supposed to do all that stuff, not M.S candidates.
Maybe they have even more work to do. It’s hard to say with Professor Meador. He’s a bit... off. Great guy, but I don’t think he’s taken a vacation in fifty years.
“Hi Craig. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He raises his gloved hand for a high-five, but there’s no way I’m pulling my bare hands out in this freezing cold weather. My gloves are back on my kitchen counter because I’m an idiot and left for class without them.
“Fine, be a spoil-sport,” he grumbles, and he brushes his messy brown hair back with one glove. It only looks even messier now.
The sidewalk is packed with Friday-night partiers, and I feel like a modern-day Balboa as I carve a path through the dense, human forest separating me from my beer. All I need now is a snazzy plumed helmet.
I accidentally run straight into a short, blond-haired girl going the other direction, and I instinctively grab her by the shoulder to stop her from falling over.
“Hey, watch where you’re fucking going!” she snaps and then roughly shoves my hand off her shoulder.
“Oh Jesus, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you!”
I feel terribly embarrassed, and it only gets worse when I realize I’ve just accidentally made fun of her for being short. My face turns red as I stammer an apology for the accidental slight, and she bursts out laughing.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” she says, and she waves to Craig with a grin.
“Hey, Tina! I haven’t seen you in forever!”
“Yeah, been a while. You still hanging in there?”
Tina forgets about me and chats happily with Craig. I gather from their conversation that they were in the same dorm on North Campus back when they were freshmen, but that’s about as clear as the references get. Everything else is a long string of inside jokes.
“Well, we’ve gotta get going,” she says. “If you get bored, though, come find us at Stella’s, okay?”
“Sure thing, Tina. You two have a good night,” says Craig, and he waves goodbye.
I wave goodbye to Tina, but as I turn away start to follow Craig again, I suddenly stop dead in my tracks.
“Two?”
I spin around again, and my jaw nearly hits the floor as I see the tall, black-haired girl walking beside Tina. It’s Maria from my class this morning. How did I not notice her the entire time they were talking? Her long, straight black hair is hanging free now, no longer tucked into the hood of her coat, and she is laughing and talking excitedly with Tina as they walk up the street. The paralyzing fear I saw this morning is gone completely.
As I stare after her, Tina suddenly looks over her shoulder and glares at me. Her defiant, protective expression is so clear that not even a megaphone could have gotten the message across any clearer.
“Back off, buddy. Leave her alone.”
She nudges Maria and whispers something to her, and then Maria turns and looks back at me. Her beautiful green eyes grow wide and dark as the laughter in them fades away, replaced instead with abject terror.
I am floored by the fear I see in her eyes, but even worse is that it’s directed at me.
Maria is terrified of me, and I have no idea why. Does she think I’m going to tell everyone about her bad test score? I haven’t even graded her paper yet! There’s no way on God’s green earth that I’d waste my Friday night doing that.
I shake my head as an uncomfortable memory flits into sight for a millisecond. I recognize the fear in Maria’s eyes, and it’s too late to close Pandora’s box now.
The memory roars to life and hits me so hard that I nearly fall over. I gasp in shock, turn away, and grab onto the back of a nearby bench to steady myself.
I’m seeing Samantha’s eyes. Maria has the same sad, broken look in her eyes that I watched choke out the joy and happiness in my little sister as Dad grew more and more violent.
I close my eyes and shudder as memory after memory suddenly resurfaces, each one just as painful as ever.
“Deep breaths, Owen... long deep breaths. You can do it,” I think. I can usually calm myself down, but it isn’t working tonight.
“You okay dude? What’s wrong?” asks Craig, and he grabs me by the arm. “What happened?”
“I’m okay. Really,” I lie, trying to shrug him off. In my mind, Samantha is falling again. She strikes the floor at bottom of the stairs with a terrible, sickening thud, and I shake my head as if it’ll make the memory go away.
“I’m sorry... I have to go home,” I blurt out, and I snatch my arm away from Craig. “I’ll catch you later.”
Craig shouts after me in confusion as I weave through the thick crowd of students, but I don’t answer him. He doesn’t understand what goes on in my head, and he’d treat me like a nutcase if I told him even half of my nightmares.
I need to be alone.
Friday, February 15 – 8:35 PM
Maria
Craig holds the door open for us, and I cling to Tina as we squeeze into the dark, crowded little bar.
“God, this place is awesome!” calls out Tina above the din, and I cannot disagree more strongly. I’m sure the architect was going for a different effect entirely, but the combination of a low ceiling, randomly-placed arches, and curved walls make me feel like I’m in a tomb.
I instinctively bristle as a guy bumps into me while trying to get to the door.
“So where’d your buddy go anyway?” shouts Tina as Craig catches up to us near the bar.
“Fuck if I know, babe,” he answers. “He just got all weird and ran off on me. Said he had to go home.”
Tina raises an eyebrow at him, and for a moment, I think she’s going to lose her temper at the ‘babe’ comment. After a long stare, she thinks better of starting anything and brushes it off.
“Hey, open seats by the bar!” shouts Craig, pointing to three empty chairs at the opposite side of the semi-circle of booze worshippers.
Tina takes one quick glance at me and then shakes her head.
“Nah, let’s grab that one in the corner instead.”
She points to an empty cocktail table with black leather chairs in the far corner, set apart from the milling crowd of students, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Okay, you girls grab the table and I’ll grab the first round. Your old favorite still good, Tina?”
Tina raises an eyebrow again and then rolls her eyes and nods.
“Yeah, works for me. Grab Maria a Guinness while you’re up there, okay?”
“Sure thing – gimme a minute and I’ll be right there!”
I don’t want Guinness at all, but as I open my mouth to protest, Tina gives me the zipper again, grabs me by the arm and drags me to the table.
“So who the heck is this guy anyway?” I ask nervously. Tina rolls her eyes as she answers.
“Oh, Craig’s a guy I dated back during freshman year when I was a bit more despera
te. Good guy, but not what I needed.”
I nod, understanding exactly what she meant. Back when we were freshmen, Tina dated pretty much anyone with a pulse just to feel like she had a connection to other people. She got better. I didn’t.
“Tina, you okay with him hanging around? Want me to make an excuse for you?”
It wouldn’t be hard to come up with one; I’m skittish enough from the crowd already.
“No, don’t worry about it,” she says. “He’s a good guy. Really. Relax and just trust him, okay?”
I say nothing and instead awkwardly force a smile as Craig sits down next to Tina. As he puts down the drink tray, I scoot my chair so that the table is in between us.
“Okay... Guinness for Maria, Cosmo for Tina, and ye old Leffe for me.”
“Oh god, that stuff is practically piss-water,” moans Tina, and she sips her deep red Cosmo.
“And yours is fruit-flavored battery acid,” quips Craig. “I’ll keep my stomach lining, thanks.”
Just as I decide that they must hate each other, Tina bursts out laughing.
“You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” she asks, smiling radiantly.
“Nope. Still an insufferable prick.”
“Good,” she says, taking another sip of her drink. “Don’t ever change. It suits you well.”
I don’t understand their relationship one bit. They might as well be speaking a different language to me.
“Who was that guy you were with earlier?” I ask, cutting in during a lull in their conversation.
“Oh, him? That’s my buddy Owen. He’s my roommate.”
Tina’s eyes light up at my question and she stares at me excitedly.
“Ooh! Did you think he was cute?”
“No, I was just wondering who he was,” I stammer. “I thought I recognized him.”
My face grows hot, and I bow my head and look down at my lap. Tina should know better than to single me out like that, and she definitely knows better than to think I’m attracted to him.
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