12
Andy
The night I first fell in love with Sophie, she had a yellow ribbon in her hair.
I remember it exactly, tied in a neat bow around her ponytail. I saw it, and even before she turned around I thought it must be her. Even though it had been months since we’d seen each other last, and months more since that first night on the fire escape.
I saw the ribbon in her hair and knew it had to be her, but I wasn’t in love with her yet, so I wasn’t yet paralyzed by fear and feeling. I just said, “Excuse me,” and she turned around and saw me there.
“Andy, hi! I didn’t know you were on campus this summer.”
“Yeah, hey. Good to see you.”
“Can I help you find something?” There was a library cart in front of her, from which she’d been shelving books. She pushed it to the side to walk towards me.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude. I couldn’t find it in general fiction.”
“Oh yeah, we’re setting up a whole magical realism section. Here, come with me.” She motioned for me to follow, glancing back over her shoulder as she asked, “Have you read it before?”
“No,” I admitted as we moved through the shelves. “And it’s not for me. I’m assisting a professor this summer.”
“Oh, but it’s fantastic. You have to read it and text me your reactions.”
“I don’t think I have your number.”
“You don’t?” She stopped in her tracks, turned around, and said, a little too loud for a library, “Oh, hold on. We have to solve that problem right now.”
It was amazing, how effortless she was. Her ability to draw people out, make them feel comfortable.
She wasn’t even trying, she just was this way.
A phenomenal contrast to every effortful, ineffective thing I seemed to do—constantly fighting to find the right thing to do or say and usually coming up empty.
I reached into my pocket and placed my phone into her palm. She created a contact for herself, confident as ever, and said, “There. Now you have to text me later, so I can have your number too. It’s only fair.”
I couldn’t seem to tuck my smile away, even as I followed her through the stacks to the correct shelf.
“You’re an English major, right?” she asked as we searched for the title.
“Yeah. You’re not though… Science Ed?”
“Good memory. Yeah no, I’m just a recreational reader slash person with no social life.”
“Right,” I scoffed, spotting the book and pulling it from the shelf.
“Are you scoffing at me, Andy Walsh?”
“I mean, I don’t doubt you like reading, but come on.” I gestured to her vaguely. “I doubt you’re available on short notice.”
She put a stubborn hand on her hip. “Well, would you believe that today is my birthday and my only plan is to watch Moana alone in bed?”
“No.”
“It’s true!” she shouted, again too loud.
But I didn’t believe it. It was June on campus, sure, but even during the lows of summer break, if it was really her birthday there was no doubt in my mind people would be clamoring to celebrate with her.
“Ok then,” I replied, overcompensating for her loudness with a low whisper. “Prove it. Show me your ID. If it’s really your birthday, I will… I don’t know, buy you dinner.”
“And if it’s not, do I have to buy you dinner?”
I shrugged. “Seems fair.”
Wordlessly, even smugly, she reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of shiny plastic proof.
I frowned down at the card, then pulled out my phone to double check the date. June 1st. Shit. And there was nothing I could do but hand it back to her with a stammered, “Oh. Sorry, I… happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” She smiled a little as she took it back and tucked it into her purse, but the gesture was hollow. It fucking bothered me.
“So,” I said, “dinner’s on me.”
And the way her face brightened when she asked “Really?” made me feel like a goddamn superhero. She was so full of brightness, so easy to please. Certainly everyone felt that way around her, but to experience it… it felt like she reacted that way just for me. Like I was worthy of it.
By the time Sophie clocked out of her shift, I’d put together a list of restaurants for her to pick from, since I had no idea what she liked yet. She picked a pub nearby because she heard from a friend that they never carded there. And so it began.
We walked a few blocks, then down narrow stairs into a dark basement.
Green Day played over the speakers and my shoes stuck to the floor.
The server didn’t blink an eye when newly 19-year-old Sophie ordered an absinthe cocktail, and I—no more legal than she at 20—decided to get the same.
Neither of us had ever tried it before, but it was a special night.
The drinks arrived, and it was so easy. Listening to her, talking to her, even just existing across the table from her. She grasped the helm of the conversation with both hands and guided it expertly, offering up so much of herself that it tempted me to do the same.
The absinthe reminded her of the Lost Generation, and that was a full hour of conversation alone.
I told her that I’ve always liked Hemingway’s straightforward language.
When she laughed and said she hated him—because “who wants to read boring prose about loathsome people?”
—I wasn’t even embarrassed to disagree. We ordered another round of drinks to help settle the debate, along with our food orders.
Sophie, I learned, believed that birthdays were for ordering “weird food” you didn’t let yourself order on other days.
So, instead of a main dish, she ordered three different types of fries: straight, curly, and waffle.
We split the three orders between us, and were in perfect agreement that absinthe and fried potatoes paired perfectly.
We ordered another drink for the consensus.
Then, when the fries were too cold to eat, Sophie built little houses out of what remained.
Waffle fry floors, straight fry walls, waffle fry roofs, and curly fry chimneys.
She said we absolutely had to get another drink to celebrate her architectural genius.
I really didn’t need another, but when she reached across the table—squeezing one of my hands in both of hers and pouting that bottom lip that I suddenly wanted to feel between my own—I found I couldn’t refuse.
The hours passed quickly, and then it was last call. She tried to split the bill but that wasn’t happening, both because it was her birthday and because I’d lost the bet. Fair was fair.
She rocketed out of the bar like a champagne cork, all sparkles and momentum, then looped her arm through mine. Her summer dorm wasn’t in the same direction as mine, but drunk as we were I could hardly let her walk home alone.
“I’m glad I ran into you today,” she said, slurring the slightest bit. “I was gonna be really depressed.”
“I’m glad, too.”
“Sometimes I just feel so lonely, yanno?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing exactly.
“I thought college would be better,” she continued, leaning most of her body weight on me by then. “And I mean okay yeah I guess I have friends here, but they suck. I mean, they don’t suck. Lia is great. But everyone else, pfft. They don’t care about me.”
She was a rambling kind of drunk, I realized, but it was cute.
“Or it’s just a bunch of guys who only want to hook up. And I’m sorry, but I’m not about to have my first time with a random dude I barely know who doesn’t care about me.”
Her shoe snagged on a crack and suddenly she was tumbling forwards. I barely caught her around the middle before she could hit the ground, then pulled her up to standing.
“I might be drunk,” she giggled, folding forward until her face was pressed over my heart. There was no way she was making it home unassisted.
“Okay, come here,” I said, hoisting her up into my arms. Her ensuing shriek of laughter was lightning bright in the darkness. Several passers-by turned their heads, and I walked more quickly to clear their stares.
“You’re my friend, right Andy?” she asked from my arms. “Like my real friend who actually cares about me?”
“If you’re mine.”
She flashed her fluorescent grin up at me—guileless and toothy and real—and it felt like my ribs were inflating. “It’s a deal.”
By the time I set her down in front of her building, I was somehow already missing the night that wasn’t yet over.
Then she raised her gaze to mine and asked, “Would you maybe wanna… come in? With me?”
At first I thought I’d misunderstood. But she took a step closer, trailing her fingers along my arm, and the invitation couldn’t have been more clear.
She was a perfect temptation, crafted just for me.
Her full lips. Her hair in that yellow ribbon.
The freckles across her nose. She was soft and natural and captivating.
Cute and pretty. Sweet and wild. The devil on my shoulder screamed, “Yes! Go inside with her! She’s the one who asked.”
But then she stumbled as she waited for my answer, and she’d just said it would be her first time…
I wanted her. Of course I did. I wanted her so badly. I just didn’t want her to regret it. Or just as bad, forget it.
I still hadn’t answered. Her offer hung in the air between us as I excavated a string of words from the annals of my mind, ultimately landing on, “I should head home.”
Her face fell. I felt like an asshole.
“But hey,” I tried, pulling her back against my chest, if only to hide myself from the sadness in her eyes, “thanks for spending your birthday with me. I’m… glad we’re friends.”
I don’t know if Sophie remembers the end of that night. After all this time, I’ve never been brave enough to ask.
But I remember it.
That night is a well-loved paperback—spine creased, pages dog-eared, annotations in the margins.
Because I fell in love with her that night, and in all the years since I’ve never been able to move on.
I fell in love with Sophie in the library, confident and kind. Sophie in the bar, opinionated and teasing. Sophie outside her dorm, bold and beautiful.
I’ve reread those chapters in my mind a hundred times.
Two hundred. Trying to convince myself I made the right choice.
That summer especially, I thought of her every day, trying to seem cool in my texts, wondering if there was a sober part of Sophie that really wanted me, too scared to ask, thankful for anything she’d give.
From the very start, Sophie didn’t just make me feel accepted. She made me feel needed. I don’t think I’d ever felt needed before I met her. And as our friendship grew, that year and in the years to follow, I promised myself I would always be someone she could rely on.
I’ve never let her down since.
I won’t start now.