Chapter 2
TWO
Things in Antonia weren’t different in a positive way.
They were worse.
Sophie had assumed, never having been to a small town in her life, that the people were spread out, avoiding each other, revelling in all of the big, wide-open spaces and their quaint Rockwell-esque single homes.
No. In a small town, all the people clustered. They moved in smaller packs, but still in packs. The whispers continued, the stares continued. With fewer people, there was less camouflage. Up here, the people seemed to be fairly homogenous. She stood out.
Of course, people were polite. For the most part, no one did more than blink and do a double-take upon seeing her pasty self slide into the small classrooms. The orchestra conductor was also her cello teacher and he was also Armenian.
Her three classes a week with Professor Grigoryan made life bearable.
Then she would sit alone while she ate, alone while she studied, and go to her room alone.
I wanted to be left alone.
Loneliness is awful.
She put down the third chocolate pudding cup resolutely. She was not going to eat her way into a curvy body (she’d already tried that) or out of her situation.
Fewer people. More degrees. The end of the story. Nothing else matters.
“EXCUSE ME? HEY! HEY, I —”
Sophie whirled as she heard footsteps pounding up behind her.
Holy male model.
There was a total stud muffin behind her, collar-length dark hair, wide blue eyes, a freaking cleft in his chin- and utter puzzlement on his pale face.
Pale. Milk-white pale. On him, it worked, partially obscured by a carefully trimmed stubble, thick dark brows and lashes, long hair curling over a popped-up collar on a denim jacket.
But, pale like her. Her face showed the same kind of astonishment.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were — someone I knew,” the man stammered, retreating.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.” His feet stopped their backward shuffle. “Are you new here?”
“Yes.” Sophie winced internally. She was coming off extremely antisocial. Even her hands were curled tightly around the straps of her book bag and her case, tensed for a verbal blow and the self-numbing she’d have to employ.
He nodded a couple of times. His head tilted ever so slightly, eyes squinting.
Here it comes...
“I’m Jesse. Business major. Junior.” He extended his hand.
Sophie shifted the case from one hand to the other and took his with a quick shake, “Sophie. Music education. Uh, — freshman.” He must’ve been out walking for a long time in the cool September air.
Antonia was in the mountains. She hadn’t realized this particular area was covered in fog fifty percent of the time, rain for thirty, and the sun was a lazy bastard who only wanted to work a couple of hours around noon.
The overall effect was a permanent “chilly autumn” atmosphere.
This winter is going to suck, she suddenly realized.
She also realized he was still holding her hand, brows quirked together like he was concentrating on a difficult problem. With a little cough, she pulled her fingers back from his grasp.
“Are you from this area?” Jesse asked.
“I’m from the state, Philadelphia.”
“Cool. I’m from—Pine Ridge.” He dropped the name significantly.
“Is that in...?”
“New York. Pine Ridge, New York, about ninety minutes away,” he clarified, face clearing. “Some people have heard of it.”
“Uh-huh.” Not me. Why would I have? “Sh-should I have?” Oh, great. The stutter. She hadn’t stuttered since those kids cornered her in second grade and tried to “wipe off her makeup.”
“Only if you like minor league hockey.” His dark blue eyes twinkled and his smile broadened.
Sophie felt her heart speeding up. Why? Please, no.
Don’t do this to yourself, Soph. Crushes don’t go well for you.
Her few dates in high school had been by guys who wanted to check out a curiosity or win a bet, nothing more.
There was never a second date. She tried telling herself that maybe she wasn’t into guys.
Or girls. Or anyone. She was probably asexual.
His lips curved crookedly, putting a dimple in cheek as his head tilted, eyes checking out the sky. “Looks like rain, huh?”
She made a scoffing noise. “Doesn’t it always?”
“Ah,” he held up a palm, “I’m a connoisseur of mountain weather. Mist, fog, drizzle, sprinkles, rain, all-out-gully-washer....” Jesse trailed off, a self-conscious chuckle at the end. “This is definitely—”
Drops splattered her hair and his hand.
“Rain,” they concluded together.
She smiled.
He smiled back, but there was still something speculative in his eyes that she couldn’t place.
“See you around,” Sophie ended the conversation abruptly, awkward and unsure what to do next.
Jesse nodded several times like he was giving himself permission to walk away. “Yeah. See you.”
As she hurried to get out of the rain, she found herself darting a glance behind her. He was ambling slowly as if the rain didn’t bother him a bit. As if the temperature wasn’t dropping by the second. He must be used to it, coming from this area. No, even farther north.
He’s odd.
She blinked water out of her eyes and pushed her now soaking hair back from her forehead.
He’s the first person I’ve ever seen in real life who looked anything like me....
SHE DIDN’T DENY THAT she looked for him whenever she ate in the tiny dining hall.
She never saw him. Her eyes went roving across campus whenever she changed classes, but especially after orchestra on Monday and Wednesday nights, right at 5:30.
That was where he’d called out to her the first time. The only time.
He seemed to have vanished.
This campus has fewer people than my high school. Why haven’t I seen him again? Why do I care?
“HI, MOM! HI, DADDY!” Sunday nights were FaceTime nights. Sophie smiled over her bowl of lo mein, sitting cross-legged on the foot of her bed, her laptop opened and aimed at her grinning face.
“Hi, Baby!” her parents chorused as one. They had her father’s iPad set up where her plate usually sat, resting on a stack of books to raise it so she was actually able to see more than just their chins.
Sophie’s mouth instantly watered at the sight of the mock sou boreg her mother was dishing out, a cheesy Armenian pasta dish. They tried to plan Sunday dinners so that a theme reached across their two tables (or one table and one lap).
“Is that Chinese?” Her mother squinted at the camera.
“It’s pasta. It’s the first pasta.” Sophie deftly plunged her chopsticks in and came up with a nest of noodles and carrots.
“You’re not living on take-out are you?”
“No, Daddy.”
“Campus food is so starchy.”
“They have a salad bar and lots of vegetarian dishes, I promise. I’m eating my greens. Look.” To prove her point, she inserted a spear of broccoli into her mouth.
“The ‘Frosh Fifteen’ isn’t always a bad thing,” her mother said nonchalantly.
Sophie’s food turned bitter. Her mother represented the highest standard of “traditional” Armenian beauty. Large, liquid eyes, lustrous, wavy brunette hair, and curves in pleasing places. “It’s not working, Mom. The carbs haven’t magically decided to stick.”
“Oh, honey, I didn’t mean-”
“You know, you could come home on the weekends. Your mother is going out of her mind without you.”
Daddy to the rescue. They had this conversation every weekend and it saved them every time.
“Dad, it’s like six hours in the car to get there and back, plus thirty dollars of toll money. I still haven’t found a part-time job, so I have to watch my ‘allowance.’” Sophie made sure to smile and roll her eyes like it was all a matter of money and all a minor inconvenience. It worked, for now.
As if on cue, her father started a lecture on the criminal prices of tollway fees and the automation of EZ-Passes that were ruining the potential for hard-working folks to keep their jobs safe from robots.
She nodded in all the right places. Inside, she wondered how many more times that excuse would work.
She wondered when she’d really have to take job-hunting seriously.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go home. She just knew that when she did, she might not be able to force herself to ever leave the apartment again. The thousands of eyes in the city were too much. The few startled stares that she earned even in this remote mountain town were too much.
Maybe it was time to go back on her anxiety medication, but it ruined her appetite. She’d become dangerously thin and stopped sleeping, taking her look from slender to skeletal in a matter of months before the doctors realized the pills did more harm than good.
“Alidz? Check the screen. She’s frozen.” Her father’s exasperated groan startled her back to the present.
“I’m here!” Sophie blurted. “Sorry, I was just— thinking that it’s great that at least they can’t make a robot teach the cello.”
“Yet!” Her father slammed his fist down on the table and he was off again about self-checkouts and self-pay turnstiles at the subway. Her mother nodded supportively, piling more food on his plate.
Sophie bit down a grin. Her parents were so freaking cute together, even after twenty-two years of marriage.
Her father still scooped his petite wife up like she was a teddy bear and swung her around.
She still purred and giggled his name and called him her “Hot Cup of Coffee”, which apparently had some secret meaning that made them both smirk.
As she watched her mother cluck supportively and pat her father’s tense shoulders, Sophie had another dreadful realization.
I’m not asexual.
I want that kind of steady, long-lasting, still romantic, still-in-love love. I’m never going to have it.
The salty, starchy goodness that she’d been looking forward to all week was suddenly an unpalatable tangle in her mouth.
“Sam. Samuel, stop going on about the instant ordering at the deli! Can’t you see Sophie is upset?”
“No! Mom, seriously, I’m not. I— just got a really big chunk of raw carrot and I bit down on it wrong. No big.”