Chapter 6 #2
“I don’t think you’re dumb, so no, it won’t,” Sophie reassured.
“I told you, I don’t plan — didn’t plan on being with anyone romantically, at least not more than a date or two. I thought I’d stopped meeting people I would love. I never expected to say those words again.”
How sad. How incredibly sad. Yet hadn’t she lain awake at night wondering if she would ever find love? If she would always be alone? What would happen to her after her parents died? Who would be her family and her friends then? Life had seemed like an empty, dark corridor.
If she’d thought for a moment that Jesse sounded like a man nearing the end of his life instead of someone in his prime, she dismissed it. Her condition had often made her wonder why she was in this life at all.
“You have me. You can say them again.”
“I love you, Sophie.”
“Jesse!”
In the background, Sophie heard a woman’s voice.
“Coming, Mom.”
“That’s your mother?”
“Yeah, she needs my help getting something off a high shelf. I can call back?”
“Sure, when you want to. I have to go help make pie crust.”
“Okay. um. Well. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
“L-love you.” He blurted out the last words and hung up.
Sophie smiled.
I’m in love.
EVERYTHING IS BETTER when you’re in love.
Food tastes better, scents are sweeter, everything is suddenly interesting, stored up for discussing and sharing later.
Normally using the holidays as a welcome relief from the stress of being stared at in school, Sophie would use any break as a chance to hibernate. Not this year.
“I want to go out on Black Friday. I want to get Jesse a Flyers jersey,” Sophie announced during Thanksgiving dinner.
“With what money?” Sophie’s father demanded.
Her mother barked an explosive rebuke in Armenian.
Sophie didn’t want this to devolve into a family feud over the ever-touchy subject of money. “Daddy, I promise I’ll get a job before Christmas even if it’s like the graveyard shift at a gas station.”
This time her mother’s hectoring warning ripped out in a long string of sounds so fast that her fractured knowledge of Armenian couldn’t keep up.
“That’s not necessary. I just don’t want you to spend all of your time holed up in your room or with that new boy,” her father said sternly, a placating hand held up to his wife. “I want you to get used to working, even if it’s a few hours a week. Of course, your studies come first.”
“Exactly.” Her mother beamed.
Sophie hesitated. “Do you know something?”
“Hm?” Her father’s spoonful of stuffing hesitated between plate and lips.
“I have really, really good hearing. Almost— I don’t know. Superhuman.”
Her parents exchanged a look. “We’ve always said that, Sers,” her mother replied.
“I used to think people were insulting me and talking about me all the time, right in front of me, like I wasn’t even there.
Jesse helped me realize that I’m overhearing a lot of questions and curious remarks that aren’t meant to be rude.
Maybe they still are, but I’m not as upset by them anymore.
” Sophie shrugged. “I mean, hey, we used to ask ourselves the same things all the time. Why do I look like I’m made out of milk?
Who’s paler, me or the mashed potatoes?”
“Stop it, Ewa,” her father chided, fork stabbing viciously into the turkey on his plate.
“I’m starting to hear people talk about me in a good way, too. I’m starting to hear a lot of things I never noticed in orchestra, the way sounds fit together...” she tilted her head, eyes closed, as if hearing strains of music, “even my conductor notices.”
Sophie opened her eyes to see her parents involved in an intense staring battle.
“I’m not hearing voices, geez, guys. I was trying to explain that it used to be hard for me to think about taking a job where I knew people would stare at me and maybe talk about me, maybe right to my face.
But I don’t have that problem anymore. I still don’t look forward to it, but I’m not dreading it. I promise I’ll apply when I get back.”
Her father’s broad jaw unclenched slightly as he nodded.
“What if her job makes her work over Christmas break, Sam? Then she won’t be home for the holidays!”
“I’ll try to find a job on campus!” Sophie interjected as her mother’s large, liquid eyes began to blink rapidly, signaling the onset of tears. “I’m sure that’ll follow the academic calendar. Mom! Don’t cry. Dad, do something.”
“Alidz, don’t. Sophie is happy! Hrm. We can brave the city for a jersey for this ‘boyfriend’. But if he breaks your heart, I break his nose.”
She had a sudden image of her father towering over the already taller-than-her Jesse, Jesse’s eyes comically wide and panicked. “I don’t think you have to worry. We care about each other but we’re not serious.”
“But he loves you!” her mother exclaimed.
“What?”
“That poor turkey. You don’t have to kill it twice,” Sophie muttered as her father stabbed his plate again.
“Think of it more like friendship with extras. No! Not that, Mom, that’s friends with benefits,” she cut off her mother’s horrified squeak.
“Think friendship with a side of romance. We know we’re both young people in college. This might not last. Chill.”
Her parents exchanged another look and then burst out laughing.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“For the last thirteen years we’ve been trying to get you to ‘chill.’ I think I will like this boy,” her mother chuckled.
“I’M PASSING THE SCENIC Overlook sign. Are you back yet?
” Sophie spoke through the bluetooth setting on her car’s radio, the phone perched in her cup holder.
The reception in the heart of the mountains was poor and the roads were treacherous.
She knew she should wait to call, but she couldn’t.
At the last redlight before the overlook, she’d given in to her desire and called.
Jesse’s voice crackled over the patchy connection, but it was relieved and warm. “I just got back twenty minutes ago. Um. Do you wanna meet up? I know it’s late.”
Was it late? Sophie realized it was almost nine. “Sure.”
His voice popped and broke. “You can come over here if you want.”
She’d never been to his dorm, or to anyone’s dorm for that matter. “Okay.”
“Basement level of Ramsey, 104.”
“10-4,” she quipped.
“Roger dodger, I’ll see you soon,” he joked back.
“You’re a goofball.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But I like that about you.” Love that about him.
In about fifteen minutes, she arrived on campus and called home to let her parents know she’d arrived. She hesitated and then said, “I’m going to stop by Jesse’s dorm for a little bit and give him his jersey.”
“You go into a boy’s room alone at night? No!” her father protested.
“Sam, she’s a good girl.”
“Mom, Dad, Jesse and I aren’t going to suddenly jump into bed. We barely started dating.”
“That’s enough for these American boys!”
“I’m an American girl!” Sophie winced, thinking of the dolls.
“I do not need to be chaperoned and I trust Jesse. He’s not going to turn into a monster just because I go to his room.
” She parked her car on the tree-lined avenue in front of Ramsey Court, thankful that Sunday night parking wasn’t strictly enforced and that a lot of kids from nearby towns were probably going to drive back to campus Monday morning, leaving her a space.
“Besides, it is a dorm. If he tried anything I didn’t like, I think I could probably outrun him,” she knew her parents were aware how fast she was, “or I would scream and people would come running. I’ll text you when I leave, okay? ”
“Fifteen minutes,” her father growled.
“No! I’m not leaving in fifteen minutes, but I’ll text you to let you know I’m okay. I haven’t seen him in four days. I want it to be longer than fifteen minutes.” I could be lying through my teeth and you wouldn’t know the difference anyway.
“This is hard on your father,” her mother said softly. “We were preparing for this for years, wanting you to have friends and get out more. Our protective instincts have been idling and now they are all revved up. Sam, go take a B-vitamin.”
“Ali, I don’t want a vitamin.”
“It will make you calm. I will make you tea.”
“You guys are adorable. Jesse is also pretty adorable. I’ll text you soon.” Sophie rolled her eyes, grinning as she ended the call.
SOPHIE REALIZED THAT her dorm really was a slum as soon as she entered Ramsey Court.
Ramsey looked like a nice hotel, including a lobby with overstuffed chairs, a polished, curving reception desk (currently vacant), and soft lighting.
The place was silent, no milling students, no upperclassmen studying or playing video games in the common room she passed.
Most people aren’t back yet.
I’m sure there are some people here.
Her stomach was tight. What if Jesse wanted to escalate things, now that they’d put “I love you” out there? What if she wanted to do things and he was still reluctant? How could someone who made her so happy make her palms so sweaty and her stomach ache so much?
“Here! Hey, Beautiful!” Jesse flagged her down at the entrance to the stairwell. “It’s kind of dark in the basement level, I didn’t want you to walk down alone.”
“Aww. You’re sweet. Which is why I bought you a little Philly souvenir.” Sophie ran to his side and found herself pulled into a hug, cool cheek to cool cheek. The plastic bag with the jersey went from her hand to his. “Open it!”
“Yes, Boss,” he teased, walking her to his room.
Sophie swallowed a gasp when she entered.
This wasn’t a room, it was a little apartment.
There was a little sitting area with a table and kitchenette, and two doors, one halfway open that revealed a bathroom and the other one closed, which must be a bedroom.
“What? WHAT?” she twirled inside, bumping into him.
“We could have been coming over here to sit on your actual couch instead of perching on my desk chair and the edge of my bed, or eating outside in the rain!” She lightly slapped his arm.