Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Sierra doodled a small bird in the margin of her binder as the professor droned on about genetics and its tie to the aging process.
It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, and any student who had done their reading the night before would recognize the subject matter.
But as Sierra lifted her eyes and glanced around the room, she noticed most students furiously jotting down notes.
Apparently, she had been the only one home on a Sunday night with nothing better to do than read the textbook.
She continued her doodling, staring at the dark iPhone perched on the corner of her desk.
Back in the United States, she had always had ‘friends’ to text when class had gotten boring.
Since she had moved abroad, most of them had shown that she wasn’t an important fixture in their lives.
Her texts often went unanswered, and while she still followed them on Facebook, they rarely messaged her.
It was okay, though; Sierra would rather it this way.
She had always felt that her friends weren’t really there for her, and now she no longer had to wonder about the truth as she knew they had never been her friends in the first place.
It had made room for her to make new friends in her life, but she had been failing at that, unfortunately.
She must’ve zoned out, as suddenly everyone was packing their belongings, including the teacher. Class was over.
Sierra quickly put away her notebook and colored pencils, making her way down the stairs of the lecture room and into the hall.
Most of her classes were located in the medicine building, and she passed many of the lab rooms on her way out the door.
She couldn’t help but glance out of the corner of her eye as she watched various students attending dissections, evaluating plants, and heading into the room she knew likely held the human cadavers. Medical school wasn’t for the weak.
As she made her way outside, she brushed shoulders with someone and looked up to apologize, only to see Tyler grinning down at her.
“Hey, coworker!” he said enthusiastically, a smile breaking out across his pale face, his teeth practically blinding her with their intense whiteness.
“Hey, Tyler,” Sierra responded less than enthusiastically, trying to think of a way out of talking with him for an extended period of time. The small doses she had of Tyler at work were more than enough for her.
Tyler noticed her energy didn’t match his own and quickly adjusted his tactic. “Listen, I know I’ve made things awkward between us by always asking you on dates, but listen, I really do want to be your friend because work is going to suck if we hate each other.”
He had a point. “Alright, Tyler, we can be friends,” she conceded.
His answering fist pump in the air made Sierra grimace. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be trying to leave the ‘friend zone’ anytime soon. But as much as she hated to admit it, she really did need to try to start making friends rather than simply complaining about her lack of them.
“As our first order of friendship, we should get dinner tomorrow. I know an excellent pub!”
Sierra held up a hand. “This sounds a little too much like a date.”
“No, I promise it won’t be, I’ll invite my roommates, so there will be four of us. How does that sound?”
Honestly, she wasn’t too keen on the idea, even with the roommates.
But she knew that she needed to make friends here, and that wasn’t going to happen if she kept spending every night at home reading textbooks.
Sierra bit her lip and pulled the sleeve of her dark blue sweater over her wrist. “Alright, I’m in. ”
“Excellent. See you at Mulligan’s 18? My last lecture ends at 17.” Tyler asked, using the 24-hour clock that most Europeans tend to use.
“Mine, too. See you then!” Sierra turned and headed to her apartment before realizing something and turning back to see Tyler’s receding form.
“Wait!” she called, and he turned to face her. “Let me get your number in case plans change.”
“Sure thing!” He patiently waited for her to pull out her phone before rattling off his number. She quickly typed it into WhatsApp, sending him a message with her name.
“Thanks, see you tomorrow!” They waved again, heading their separate ways.
As soon as she was off campus, Sierra pulled her hood over her head to protect her ears from the biting wind. Even though it was only the end of September, it was already getting quite cold. Something Sierra wasn’t used to in Texas.
She walked home quickly, shedding her jacket as soon as she was in her apartment. Dumping her messenger bag on the couch, she turned to her single cupboard and sifted through it, trying to think of what to make for dinner. She didn’t have a whole lot, but that wasn’t unusual.
As a full-time student who worked weekends and some weeknights, she found it hard to find the motivation to head to the store in the evenings, as well as cook and complete her homework.
She tried hard, but she often ended up grabbing something from a stand on the way home or eating a prepackaged meal from the shop that she could easily pop into her microwave.
She hadn’t been to the grocery store since Friday, so her options for tonight were pasta or oatmeal.
She didn’t have anything else. A quick glance in the fridge revealed some butter, an onion, and half a carton of mushrooms. Just what she needed to make the pasta in her cupboard slightly more nutritious.
Sierra flipped on the TV and began cutting the ingredients for her dinner. She was just about to turn on the stove when her phone began buzzing from her messenger bag. With a sigh, she quickly rinsed her hands and dried them, before pausing the TV and digging in her bag for her phone.
She reached it just as it went to voicemail but saw that it was her mom. With an eye roll, she pressed redial, placed the phone on speaker, and turned on the stove.
Her mom answered after the first ring. “Sierra! Carina! Why didn’t you answer on the first ring?”
Sierra winced at the Spanish term of endearment.
Her parents had moved to America after they got married, and although they had learned English in school in Mexico, they often mixed in Spanish words when they spoke.
Sierra and her siblings also spoke Spanish, as it was necessary for conversing with extended family, but her parents had always insisted on speaking English, or at least mostly English, at home. “I was cooking, Mamá.”
“Cooking? What are you making? Arroz con pollo? Or maybe some lomo saltado?”
Sierra let out a sigh. “Mamá, I’m vegetarian now. I don’t eat meat anymore, remember?” No matter how many times she explained it to her parents, they never seemed to understand her new diet. And Sierra had been vegetarian for over four years.
“Ah, sí, I remember now. No meat. Sin carne.”
“Yes, Mamá,” Sierra responded, although she knew they would have this exact same conversation in a few weeks. “How is everyone there? Is Cecilia still enjoying her classes?”
Cecilia was Sierra’s younger sister who had just started college in September at the University of Texas.
“Ah yes, yes, she likes her classes a lot! She just told me that she is preparing for an examen final.”
Sierra dumped the pasta in the water before inquiring about her younger brother. “And Diego?”
Her mother made a tsking sound through the phone. “He is in trouble again. I do not understand. Antonio was never like this when he was in school.”
Antonio was Sierra’s older brother by two years, and unlike her younger brother Diego, he had always been a model student.
He had recently finished his law degree and was working at a private practice in the Dallas area.
“Diego and Antonio are very different people, mamá. It’s not fair to compare them. ” She reminded her mom.
“I know, Carina, I just wish he would stop getting detention. His teachers think he will need to go to summer school to graduate next year.”
Sierra bit her lip. While she was glad her parents couldn’t visit her, she knew they had their hands full with Diego.
For whatever reason, Diego had never seen eye to eye with her parents, an issue which had only increased as he entered his teen years.
Now, at 16, he was practically unmanageable, and all her siblings had moved out, leaving her parents alone to deal with his shenanigans. “Maybe Maria can talk to him?”
Maria was Sierra’s older sister and the oldest child in their family. She had finished medical school and was a doctor in Fort Worth, the city right next to Dallas.
“I don’t want to bother her. You know she is busy at the hospital.”
Sierra stirred the pot, trying to think if there was anything else she could suggest to her parents. “Maybe the pastor at church could talk to him?” Just because Sierra was no longer religious didn’t mean that the pastor couldn’t help Diego.
“Church is one of our major arguments. I don’t think he will go.”
Sierra could hear the sadness in her mother’s voice.
While she was sad she wasn’t there to help, Sierra also knew that this was one of the main reasons she lived abroad, to remove herself from the middle of these situations.
“I don’t know what else to suggest, Mamá.
Maybe you should just let him get in trouble?
He might not be so proud when he doesn’t graduate with his friends next year. ”
Her mom was silent on the other end of the line.
“But other than Diego, is everything okay there?” Sierra pressed.
“Ah, sí, sí. No te preocupes. Everything is fine here, Carina, Diego will come around.”
“Okay, Mamá, was there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Sierra stirred the pasta again and looked at the clock. She would need to take it out soon, and she hoped to hang up the phone before then.
“What! I can’t call my middle daughter just for a talk?”
“Of course, Mamá, you can call anytime.” Sierra hoped her mom wouldn’t get worked up.
She was always very dramatic, especially when it came to thinking her children didn’t want to speak to her.
“I’m just a bit busy, Mamá. I’d like to hang up and finish cooking if you don’t want to discuss anything else? ”
“I see how it is! You move abroad, and you are suddenly too busy for your mamá. We will see how you feel when I am dead!” she snapped before the line went dead.
Sierra sighed, set her phone down, and drained the pasta.
Her mom would get over it, she always did.
But it still annoyed Sierra that she tried to play with her emotions like this.
Holding her future death (which was at least 30 years away) over her head as if it would make Sierra sit down and spill her heart out to her mom.
The truth was that Sierra and her mom hadn’t been close for years. Besides the vegetarianism, Sierra had also left the church, something which devastated her mom. She was convinced that just because she didn’t sit in a pew every Sunday, Sierra was now worshiping the devil.
Sierra hadn’t fit in with her family for a long time.
Her older siblings were so successful, and Cecilia was on her way to join them, studying to be a psychologist. Sierra had been pressed to choose a prestigious study, as her siblings did, but in the end, it just wasn’t for her.
In fact, most days, she felt she understood Diego better than anyone else in her family.
It was difficult to live up to perfect older siblings, and at some point, she just wanted to do her own thing, even if it wasn’t considered a “successful” path—and upset her mother to no end.
Sierra scooped the mushrooms, butter, and onion into the pot with the pasta, stirring it all together. It was nothing gourmet, but it would do.
Thankful for the silence of her small apartment, Sierra dumped the pasta in a bowl and sat down at her table to eat. She kept her phone nearby as she ate, just in case her mother called her back. But she didn’t.
Her phone remained silent for the rest of the night.