Chapter 14
Aya
“So, about your doctorate,” said Emi.
“You just want me to get one so I can have a couple of letters in front of my name,” grumbled Aya. “Here, stand with the museum in the background and look wistful.”
“I’m not even signed up to attend the Pilgrimage,” said Emi. “Not officially.”
“Stand still,” said Aya. She had borrowed one of Twyla’s old cameras. She always thought it was a shame that Twy had decided to report news, not simply take pictures. Then again, she was forced to do so much at the local paper that her articles often included a picture she’d taken herself.
Emi tried again. “I wouldn’t want you to go out and get a doctorate if you hadn’t already done most of the work,” she said. “But something has kept you in that program for seven years.”
“Eight years, actually,” said Aya through gritted teeth. “Though only six before I took this job.”
Emi shook her head. “Sure, however many years. I know at one point you liked it. So what changed?”
When Aya didn’t answer right away, Emi gave her a sly smile. “Actually, I could ask that same question about Noah. You liked him, so what changed?”
“You know what happened back then,” said Aya right away, but Emi only shook her head.
“You never talked about it, remember?”
Aya gritted her teeth. “Okay, well, let me give you the short version. First, I talked to Nobu. Sit over there, okay? I think that gets us the best angle of this stupid stage.”
Emi walked over to the spot Aya had indicated. She was moving slowly, probably because she was trying to process new information about an event that had happened a very long time ago.
“I can see why talking to Nobu might have put you off,” said Emi slowly.
Aya glared. “What? Because he’s gay?”
“No! Because he was a jerk in high school.”
“He still is, for all I know,” said Aya. “We haven’t talked in years. Luckily, it’s not that hard to avoid him.”
But Emi was shaking her head. “He really isn’t, Aya. He hasn’t been, not for a long time.”
Aya looked out over the deserted festival site.
She wanted to say that people didn’t change, but she’d never believed that.
She was certainly a different person from the shy young girl who couldn’t hide fast enough at every high school dance.
Senior prom had been the only exception, thanks to Noah, and look how that had turned out.
“Well,” said Aya, “it doesn’t matter. Back then, he was a jerk, but he still knew things. And he let me know that Noah wasn’t really interested in dating.”
“Oh, come on,” said Emi. “Noah was all over you.”
The long summer day was fading quickly behind banks of clouds, and Aya felt a raindrop on her hand. She tried to shield the camera. The pictures of Emi were going to look very dramatic, but Twy would be furious if she got the camera wet.
“He was interested in dancing with me,” Aya corrected her. “Flirting, maybe. But what I imagined, actually dating? That wasn’t going to happen.”
“Because you didn’t let it happen,” said Emi.
Aya didn’t speak. There was more to the story, and Emi was one of her few friends who had been there through the whole thing. But she wasn’t ready to share it.
“I think we should go in,” said Emi. “The storm is only going to get worse.”
The rain was steady, and Emi’s suggestion was very reasonable. But Aya looked at the landscape, which took her mind off those high school memories. Emi looked forlorn, a darkly devastated speck on the bare land, and Aya took as many pictures as she could.
“Stay there for a moment,” she said. “We’re finally getting something.”
By the time they left, Aya was satisfied. At least she had ammunition. She and Emi had both gotten soaked, but she’d managed to shield the camera, and at least some of the pictures were going to be great.
She just had to find it within herself to take Noah down.