by Hughes, Maya
“And no hiding in the bathrooms.” He turned around the second I passed him.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
He pursed his lips, looked me up and down, and nodded. “Yeah.”
Tucking a stray hair behind my ear, I stepped into the restaurant and pushed through the second swinging door. Servers walked back and forth with trays. Most of the tables and booths were empty. This was the weird gap in between lunch and college dinner time, which seemed to start later than anywhere else. Someone walked past me as I stood, tugging my gloves off.
A woman with a half apron wrapped around her waist appeared. “Sit anywhere you want. Someone will be over in a second, and here’s a menu.” She handed over a plastic-covered menu and I looked for a spot.
I sat at a table and stared at the options. There were so many things I’d never even heard of. My stomach grumbled at many of the descriptions. Bleu cheese on a burger? What are atomic fries? Can that many things even fit on a plate of French fries?
“Do you know what you want to order?” I supposed this was my server. She pulled a pencil and notepad out of the pocket of her apron, her face vaguely familiar. Most of the people working there looked like college students.
My last time out without anyone looking over my shoulder at what I ordered had been with Aunt Sophie what felt like ages ago. I’d stuck to eating at home or packing snacks when I went to the library. “I’ll have a Shirley Temple.”
The woman nodded.
I raised my hand like a kid in class. She stared at me. “Can I have extra cherries?”
“Sure thing. And to eat?” She crouched down beside the table, resting her hand beside the menu.
“I really have no idea. Everything sounds really good. What would you order?”
“The Juicy Lucy with fries is pretty awesome. That’s my favorite thing on the menu.”
Cheese-stuffed burger with bacon and ranch. My mouth watered. “I’ll take that.”
“Perfect. I’ll be right back with your drink.” She took my menu and left. I drummed my fingers across my lap.
I looked around the restaurant. Some people studied. A lot of people sat with friends, talking and laughing. Even after moving away to college, I was still on the outside. The loneliness I’d attributed to my parents, being homeschooled, and only being surrounded by adults as a child hit even harder when I was surrounded by people my age, when I’d walk by them on campus or sit beside them in class and I remained invisible.
The server came back with my drink, extra cherries included. Even here in the restaurant, friends laughed and joked. Couples flirted and smiled at each other. I plucked a cherry out of my drink.
I sat at the empty table by myself with my bag, my books, and a phone with no more than ten contacts on it. Sticking the stem of the cherry into my mouth, I tied it into a knot—one of many useless talents I’d entertained myself with as a kid. I’d needed some way to distract myself at all those boring computational math events.
“Hey, are you following me or something?” A shadow fell over my table.
Glancing up, I stared at Graham. A couple of guys walked past.
“I’ll be right there,” he called out to them.
“No, definitely not. It must have been the path from the coffee shop to here, maybe the wind direction or something. Generally, people are averse to walking into the wind, which is why when small children go missing, they always look for them with the wind at their backs. Feel free to stop me whenever this gets too awkward.” I swallowed, hoping the floor would open up and swallow me whole. Maybe I’d get lucky and the campus was on top of an inactive volcano or a hell-mouth.
He laughed. “That’s great information if I’m ever helping look for a lost kid. And I didn’t actually think you followed me.”
“Graham, you coming?” someone called out from the back of the restaurant.
“Here you go.” The server was back with my plate of food.
“I’ll let you get to your meal. It was nice meeting you today, Persephone.”
I fought against the cringe. “It was nice meeting you too.”
He backed away from the table and disappeared from view. My stomach, which had been in knots seconds ago, completely unfurled the second I stared down at my plate. It was a swirling pile of greasy food, and I couldn’t wait to dive in.
* * *
More stuffed than I’d ever been in my life, I walked back to my apartment. It was like Mother Nature had arrived early for the season change from fall to winter and she was pissed. For some reason, I’d figured Philly wouldn’t be this cold this time of year.
I opened the door to my apartment. Silence greeted me. I let out a deep breath. My fingers had itched for a moment alone like this. Rushing into my room, set my bag down and dragged my case out from under my bed. I flipped it open and lifted my bow and violin out of the velvet lining.
Being away from my parents, I’d anticipated having more time to play, but Alexa’s aversion to string instruments was a lot like my dad’s, which meant I hadn’t played in almost a week. Resting the varnished wood on my shoulder, I lifted the bow and let my fingers dance across the strings. Like math, music was an outlet I’d embraced early on.
With math, there was always a correct answer, always a solution. It might take decades to find, but it was there. With music, it was the opposite. A note might be off, a key out of tune, but mistakes could create beautiful surprises.
Once my dad realized I had a better chance of breaking records in math than with the violin, my lessons were abruptly stopped. Funny how once it wasn’t what they wanted—what he wanted—I could finally find the joy of my fingers on the strings, of the bow in my hand. On days when things just sucked or I couldn’t figure out a problem, I’d play for a bit and the answer always came to me. I’d gently lay the instrument down on my bed and scribble down in my notebook everything my brain had pieced together while I lost myself in the notes.
But tonight, it wasn’t math on my mind. It wasn’t a complex theorem that would make most people cry. It was the guys who’d sat across from me that afternoon.
Graham was attractive, seemed nice, and was interested. He was the safe choice. Maybe that was why Reece kept coming back to me. He’d most likely say no; he hadn’t even been there to respond to the ad anyway. Talk about embarrassing. Looking back on that conversation now, I did the full scarlet-cheeked scene replay in my head. I’d asked him how big his penis was. That should have been enough for me to never want to see his face again, but thoughts of his eyes and lips kept pushing their way back into my mind, shoving the sensible thoughts away.
And if he said no, what was lost? I could definitely ask Graham. The probability of the experience being acceptable was high—well, as high as anything could be when human nature was involved. The front door opened and closed. I wished Alexa was someone I could talk to about this, maybe pop some popcorn, make some drinks, and chat about it while painting our nails or watching a movie and getting her advice on what I should do.
I sat on the edge of my bed and took down my hair. The braids were an old habit. In the old black and white movies my dad watched, the women always had intricate braids, or maybe I’d just seen Heidi a few too many times. I’d spent hours in my room when I was tired of reading or didn’t feel like turning in another equation and had taught myself how to do it so my mom didn’t have to anymore.
Maybe that was why I embraced it so much. It was something I’d done for myself. Math, violin—everything else in my life had been foisted on me by someone else, but my dumb, way-too-intricate braids were all mine. Taking out the bobby pins, I dropped them into the little ceramic bowl on my desk, each tink a satisfying noise as my hair got heavier, falling down around my shoulders. Threading my fingers through it, I brushed it out and stared at myself in the mirror.
Alexa’s heels clicked on the floor. I looked at my open door through the mirror behind me, and she appeared in the doorway. “I have friends coming over tonight.” Without
another word, she wrapped her fingers around the doorknob and closed it behind her. Her message was clear. Sometimes I felt like she was the evil stepsister and I was Cinderella. The braid thing probably didn’t help.
After changing into my pajamas, I walked out toward the kitchen to grab some juice—my little act of defiance. The second my foot hit the floor in the living room, everything went silent. I could feel their eyes on me, boring into my back. Taking my time, I grabbed my glass, filled it from the carton in the fridge, and walked back down the hallway.
The second I was in the shadow of the hall, they came back to life again like someone had hit the unmute button. I had thought I would find a lot more kindness and warmth once I left my house, but that had been my own naivety. I was ready to shed that side of myself. Start making real choices. Taking real leaps. Which meant there was only one possible choice.
6
Reece
The driving pounding of death was being hammered into my head. We didn’t have a game until the following week, so Berk and LJ had decided to celebrate our win one more time—with shots. I cracked my door open, and the creaks might as well have been nails straight into my brain. I braced my hands on the wall and walked down the steps.
Plastic cups littered the stairs and the place reeked of stale beer. Nasty. I stepped over one of the guys from the team who’d crashed on the stairs. Two people slept on the couches. Coach was going to kill us if we were late to practice at ten.
I made it to the kitchen and gingerly opened the cabinet where the oversized bottle of ibuprofen lived. Shaking out a few pills, I turned on the faucet and cupped my hand, filling it with water. Dropping the pills into my mouth, I gulped them down.
Resting my head on the cupboard, I groaned and wished for death. This was what happened when you didn’t have a drink for a while. Since the season had started, I’d stuck to one or two, but the previous night I’d really gone for it.
Maybe it was trying to drown out the thoughts of what a possible virgin on campus might be doing trying to finally lose her V-Card. Why did I even care what she was up to? If I hadn’t sat at that booth, I would have been none the wiser and would’ve avoided the whole thing. Instead, every time my thoughts had drifted to her, I’d done another shot. It was a hell of a lot of shots, and now my brain was kicking my ass for being so damn stupid.
Closing my eyes, I breathed through the pain when the shrill chirp of my phone went off. I peeled one eye open and dragged back the curtains above the sink. It was nearly the ass-crack of dawn. Who the hell would be calling this early?
I’d just made it to the bottom of the steps when my phone rocketed down the staircase and missed my face by an inch. My hand shot out and I caught it.
“Thanks, Nix.”
He flipped me the double bird, yawned, and slammed his door.
The phone came alive in my hand. I jabbed at the screen. “Hello?”
There was a long pause. I pulled the phone away from my face to make sure I hadn’t dropped the call.
“Reece Michaels?”
“Yes.” Had I applied for a bank loan? The cool, professional tone on the other end of the line made me feel like I might be called in for an interview somewhere.
“I know you probably don’t remember me. It was kind of a strange first interaction, and I completely understand.” The rambling and tight way she spoke totally gave her away.
“Hi, Seph.”
“You remember me?” Her voice shot up high.
“It’s not very often you find out you’re part of a sex tryout like something from the next season of The Bachelorette.”
“The what?”
“It’s a TV show. Forget about it. So, you’ve met your goal already?”
She cleared her throat. I could picture her tugging at the hem of her shirt. “No, and it’s something I wanted to talk to you about, if you have some time today?”
The relief I felt at her response blindsided me. “I have practice at ten, but I can meet you at noon.”
“You have practice on a Saturday?”
“We have practice or training every day we aren’t playing.”
“Wow, that’s real dedication. Noon works for me. I found this awesome place—we could meet there.” She rattled off the address of one of the campus staples everyone had been to at least once, like it was a hidden gem she’d slashed through overgrown vines with a machete to find.
“Yeah, I know The Vault. I’ll see you there.”
Berk rolled off the couch, hit the floor in the living room, and threw a pillow at my head. I ducked the cushion and regretted the quick movement.
“Shut up.” It was a half zombie, half hungover groan.
“Am I talking too loudly for you?” I took the pain at raising my voice. It was worth it for his cringe. I threw the pillow back and it bounced off his head. He groaned again, grabbed it, and shoved it under his head on the floor. He would definitely be puking at practice.
I slowly went back upstairs and lay back in my bed with a giant bottle of water. I set an alarm to wake me up in a few hours. Hopefully by then I’d have slept most of this off, or Berk wouldn’t be the only one barfing on the field.
* * *
Death—that was pretty much the only way I could describe it. I was dying, if I was lucky. The sweats weren’t just from the drills Coach had had us do when half the team had dragged themselves onto the field five minutes late for practice. The strategically placed trashcans on the sidelines had been lifesavers; otherwise the landscaping crew would have castrated us for puking on the manicured grass.
I grabbed the front of my pads and tugged them over my head.
“Remind me to never do that again.” Berk’s shade of green wasn’t as bad as it’d been when he’d first stumbled onto the field, but it still wasn’t great.
“I wasn’t the one trying to celebrate our win with a shot for every point. I was perfectly fine with a few beers and some music—you’re the one who pulled out the shots.”
Nix plopped down beside me. He hadn’t drank much, but he still looked like shit. His throwing had been less than stellar, though still miles ahead of anyone else on the team. He was a natural, but at that moment he might as well have been roadkill.
“How you feeling?” I squirted water into my mouth.
He dragged his hands down his face, stretching it out and massaging his cheeks with his fingers. “Did I miss the toll for the one-way trip into the underworld?”
“How much did you have last night?”
He shook his head. “It’s not even that. My dad cornered me after the press conference after the game.”
I sucked in a sharp breath between my teeth. “You should’ve told me. I’d have staged a kidnapping or something.”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t have helped. He’s an unstoppable force. He’s headed over to London at the end of the month for the game Philly and San Francisco are playing over there.”
Nix’s dad had retired from the NFL ten years ago and now did sports commentary.
I pushed open the locker room door. “At least he’ll be off your back for a bit.” The quiet shuffle of feet, distant spray of the showers, and groaning met us the second we stepped inside.
“He’ll find a way to get on my case no matter what.” He dropped his pads and grabbed a towel.
“Did you hear about that girl who put up the ad?” Berk ran a towel over his drenched head and dropped it into his locker.
My blood turned to ice, the sweat rolling down my back freezing in seconds. “What ad?”
“Some girl put up a prank ad trying to get laid.” He grabbed his clothes from his locker.
“Seriously?” LJ dropped down onto the bench beside him.
“Yeah, apparently it was some psych student trying to do a case study or something. Some guys said they showed up and it was a chick with notecards and stuff. Probably trying to find out who the hell would be desperate enough to answer something like that.” He headed into the shower.
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If that was what everyone thought had happened, that was the best-case scenario. That meant if she tried again, guys would probably just ignore it. Why did I care about this so much? Why had trying to keep her from making this mistake been drumming at the back of my head since I slid out of that booth while she stared up at me with her big, caramel eyes?
I hopped into the shower, feeling less like I’d been run over when I got out.
With my gear stashed in my car, I walked the few blocks to meet Seph. I’d managed to keep my mind off her since our call. It wasn’t too difficult when I had been fully focused on not puking for the last few hours.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I slipped it out and answered the call.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Don’t hey mom me. You were supposed to come over this weekend.”
“The weekend is still young. It’s only Saturday. That still leaves another weekend day where I could come visit.”
“Yeah, you say that, but I bet it would have conveniently slipped your mind when I called tomorrow night.”
“I just left practice and I’m heading to lunch.”
“How was practice?”
“Good. Coach is working us hard to make sure the championship is ours this year.”
“You’ve been playing well this season.”
“Only well? Have you been watching the games?”
She laughed. “Fine, more than well. I might have to get your dad to work on the front door before you come, though.”
My eyebrows dipped. “The front door?”
“I’m not sure your head will fit through with as big as it’s gotten.”
“I’m only speaking the truth.” This was my best season ever, more touchdowns and yardage than any season before.
“Is Dad at the office?”
She sighed. “Of course. He’ll be home soon. Who are you heading to lunch with?”
“Someone I met the other day.”
“A girl?”
“She is, in fact, female.”