by Sam Ledel
Leaning back a bit farther, my neck stretches to confirm my suspicion. Joey lounges in an oversized, purple beanbag to my right. Her long legs stretch toward me, and I can just see the top of her forehead while the rest of her face is buried in a calculus textbook. Several journals and stray papers are strewn next to her, along with a water bottle. I grin, then set all four chair legs back on the floor.
I close my notebook, collecting it and my geology books into a pile before sliding them under my arm as I stand.
“Room for one more?” I ask, using my toe to poke the bottom of her foot.
Joey moves the book down onto her chest, her clear eyes sparkling when she greets me. “I’ve actually started charging,” she replies, gesturing to an empty collection of beanbags nearby. “Five bucks for thirty minutes.” She sits up, adjusting so that her legs are crossed. Then she pats the now empty indention in the beanbag next to her. “But I might be able to offer you a discount,” she adds with a grin, and I join her.
“So,” I say, leaning back against the cool faux-leather, my legs out in front of me. I throw one arm behind my head. “I see you read Coach’s motivational email today, too?”
Joey snorts. “Sure did. ‘Great season, ladies,’” she begins, quoting our coach’s email. “‘Third place is something to be proud of, but also something to improve upon. So work hard and keep an eye out for the winter workout schedule before you all head home. And don’t forget to study!’” Joey finishes our coach’s speech with a fist pump across her chest.
“She certainly respects the importance of grades,” I say. “Not always a common trait amongst coaches.”
Joey nods and fingers through the textbook splayed out in front of her. She sighs. “Yeah. If only I could get my head around this stuff.” I sit up as she thumps on the pages. “I was fine at math in high school. I mean, I was no star, but I could get by. I really didn’t think I would need a math credit as a political science major, but I guess when you do mediocre all your life, they want to make sure you can still count to ten.”
I watch her frown at a notebook she pulls closer to us. The lines on her forehead surprise me. Joey is usually the epitome of confident, especially on the soccer field. She hasn’t wavered all season, and she never let on if she was struggling with something.
I reach out, nudging her knee with my hand. “Well, hey, if you like, I’m happy to help you out.”
“Yeah?” she says, still focused on her notes. “I’m sure you’ve been here awhile. You probably want to go home.”
This is more like the Joey I know. The lone wolf at the end of the field. The “I can take care of it myself” goalie, who never lets anyone help her.
“I don’t mind,” I say with a shrug. “I actually took calculus as a junior. Math has always made sense to me.”
Joey sits back against the beanbag, leaning on her left arm so that she mirrors me. She glances at her sports watch. “I don’t know. It’s already late. We’d only have an hour before the library closes, and I don’t know if that’s enough time to help me.” She looks down sheepishly. “It may be futile.”
I hold her gaze when she looks back up at me, and wonder at her stubbornness. “You don’t have to do everything on your own, you know.”
Joey raises an eyebrow, and for a second, I see that look again. The same one she gave me all those months ago. And I feel myself returning it. But, as if she senses us falling back into its grasp, the look vanishes, and she lowers her gaze. But she’s smiling. Genuine. Bright. The smile I saw when we first met in my dorm room in July.
“All right,” she finally says. “But it won’t be easy.” She sits up, pulling her textbook and notes closer.
“Good,” I reply, stealing a sip from her water bottle. “I like a challenge.”
* * *
I reach over Joey to glance at her notebook, where she’s answering one of the practice problems I wrote for her. Scanning the page, I nod.
“Yeah. And so, to find the derivative, you have to—”
“Multiply the number with the exponent.”
“And then…”
“And then.” Joey bites her bottom lip in concentration. “Subtract one from the exponent?”
“Exactly.” I shift, bumping her shoulder as I straighten my back. It’s been so long since I’ve done any of this math, I’ve forgotten how much I actually enjoy it. “Think of it like this,” I say, and Joey leans back to listen. “Math is a lot like poetry.” I ignore her raised brow and continue. “Poetry likes to use a lot of flourishing language to say very little. Take Shakespeare and his sonnets, for example. They’re beautiful, but they all essentially talk about the same thing: love. And he uses a lot of words and fancy metaphors to basically say ‘I love you,’ to whomever he’s writing about.” Joey’s gaze is trained on me instead of her notebook, an inquisitive eyebrow raised. “What I’m trying to say is, all of those flowery words are simply the means to an end. They’re the path that gets you to the final message. Math, or calculus, in this case, works the same way. All formulas, like this one,” I say, gesturing to her notebook, “are just road signs pointing you where to find the answer. So don’t get hung up, stay focused on where you want to end, and it will be easy to follow.”
After a moment, Joey looks back at her notebook, her lips pursed. “Okay, so if that’s the case,” she mutters, starting to scribble under her practice problem, “if I do this…” I watch her scrawl numbers into a formula, then work a couple minutes to solve it. As she writes the final answer at the bottom, I can’t contain my excitement.
“Joey, that’s it!” I grab her knee and lean into her shoulder, my excitement bubbling over.
She bumps me back. “Really? I got it?”
“Yes! That’s the right answer.”
Joey grins at her notebook, then turns to me. “Thanks, Kyle.”
I notice then how similar the shade of her eyes is to the fluorite crystal we examined in geology the other day. Not the whole crystal, I decide, but the tiny sliver toward the end where the rock transitions from light blue to translucent. The lump in my throat threatens to race up and over my tongue, spilling out all of the ways she has made my heart skip in the last hour. “Um, you’re welcome.”
After clearing her throat, Joey adds, “Though, I have to say, I doubt you’ve read many of Shakespeare’s sonnets. You do know they’re not all about love, right?”
I shrug. “I slept through most of English senior year.”
Joey nods. “I can tell. Remind me to never ask for your help when I take British literature next semester.”
“Hey, my analogy helped, didn’t it?”
Joey is still watching me, her eyes bright.
My throat tightens again.
She shakes her head in disbelief, and I fight the urge to brush back her hair that’s fallen loose over her face.
Once we pack up, we take the elevators down and walk outside. The bracing night air feels good on my face as we stroll quietly side by side across campus. Each step we take is so charged that gloved hands tremble, creating a force that drifts our hands closer. When my pinkie bumps hers, Joey turns to me.
“Race you back?”
Our dorm is only fifty yards away now. I hadn’t even realized how long we’d been walking. I exhale, the mist warm when it passes my lips. “Loser has to try the Jell-O in the cafeteria?”
“You’re on.”
Then, like two shooting stars, we speed into the night with billows of laughter streaming behind us and across the lawns. An exhilaration fills my body and threatens to pick me up and carry me faraway. And as I watch Joey dash ahead of me, I wonder if I might ever touch the ground again.
Chapter Twenty
“All right, so we’ve got Elf or White Christmas.”
I glance up at Emily from the other side of the kitchen counter. “Seriously? Those are, like, the two most opposite of Christmas movies.”
“They both feature singing,” Emily counters, arranging herself against on
e of her couch cushions.
“And that’s where the similarities end.” The microwave beeps behind me and I grab the fresh popcorn before pouring the contents into a bowl. “The question really is: do we want a modern-day funny take on Santa and his elves, or a holiday classic with a killer soundtrack and Bing Crosby’s signature crooning?”
“Well, Zooey Deschanel isn’t bad to look at,” Emily says as I join her on the couch. “Don’t you agree?”
I give her a look. “Yes, I have to agree. She looks pretty cute in this one.”
Emily picks up both of our cocoa-filled mugs from her side table and hands one to me. She carefully clinks our cups together. “Congratulations, Kyle.”
I take a sip. “What in the world for?”
“That is the first time you have openly admitted to finding another woman attractive.”
I chuckle and enjoy the warm feeling of the mug between my hands. Real winters—believe it or not—do actually blow through Texas every once in a while. Sure, we don’t get piles of snow up to our waists, but we get the occasional falling of white stuff that turns into slush with which we happily form lopsided and sad-looking snowmen. And it can get cold. Really cold. So, thanks to this current winter weather and the fact that it is still a couple days until I head home for winter break, Emily and I are taking advantage of the end of the semester to indulge in a movie night.
The wind lets out a howl as Emily breaks me out of my musings. “Okay, Zooey takes the cake. Elf it is.”
I snuggle deeper into her apartment couch. Emily pops the DVD in, and a soft ding goes off underneath me. My phone has found its way under my legs, and I fish it out to find Joey’s photo on my screen. I open up the message.
Hey, short stack. Did you already leave for Xmas? Just knocked on your dorm room but no answer.
Quickly, I type out a response.
No. I’m still here. At Emily’s. Will be home around eleven. What’s up?
Her reply comes in just as Emily plops down next to me and presses play.
Nada. Just curious :) Have a good night.
“Jax?” Emily asks me.
“Joey,” I say and Emily’s face goes from vague disdain to excitement in half a second. “Oh,” she says with a smile. “How’s she doing? You two going to get together over the holiday?”
I glance at Emily as the previews play onscreen. Emily always insists on watching them despite the fact that the menu options allow you to skip them. Ever since I spilled the beans back in August on what happened at Alex’s party, every time Joey is mentioned, Emily lights up like the Fourth of July. And even though she says she understands my trepidation following the events of that evening, I feel like she still doesn’t quite get it. Even though I’ve explained to her over and over that, while I enjoyed the kiss, I’m still not ready to take that leap. Not with Joey. Not with anyone, really. Still, Emily continues to be supportive of whatever Joey and I are…or aren’t.
“Em, Joey and I are just friends.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, because ‘just friends’ eat breakfast together in the corner of the cafeteria every day, giggling like they’ve got a dirty little secret.”
I scoff. “We do not giggle!”
“Fine. Call it a chuckle.” I shoot her a look, but she continues. “And, amiga, I see those eyes of yours roaming down her legs during warm-ups.”
“Wow, Em, she’s not a piece of meat.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet of you. Defending her like that.”
I thwack her with a couch pillow, and she nearly spills her cocoa before crying out. “Okay, okay! I was just saying. And who knows,” she adds, “maybe it would be fun for you guys to get together over the next few weeks. She’s only an hour and a half from your hometown.”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumble as the opening credits finally roll.
Emily throws up her hands. “It’s just a suggestion. You know, just doing the best friend thing and all that.”
“Sip your cocoa, best friend, before I get my hands on another pillow.”
“Such force,” she replies. “I can see why Joey likes you.”
Emily has just enough time to set her cup down before a yellow throw pillow hits her square in the face.
* * *
About two hours, one pillow fight, and four consumed cups of cocoa later, we say good-bye, and I hurriedly run six feet out to my car that’s parked outside her apartment. My bare hands fumble with my keys, and then I collapse into my seat and start the ignition. Traditional holiday music starts while I let the engine warm up. Clicking on the defroster, I sit back for a minute, enjoying the warm air coming through the vents.
After a little while, I go to put my car in reverse when I notice something sitting on the other side of my windshield. The defrosted, watermelon-sized space through which I can now see outside frames something sitting on the opposite side of the glass. I step out carefully onto the frozen parking lot, glancing around and finding nobody, I pick up a small white box, quite cold to the touch. I think back. It definitely was not on my car on the drive over to Emily’s. I misplace things from time to time, but I’m not so bad as to leave something on the front of my vehicle.
The engine purrs while I hold the box, which is no bigger than my hand, up to the slivers of moonlight peeking through my windows. I click on the overhead light to get a better look and notice my name written on the top. When I open it, there’s a small leather pouch, and underneath that, a folded piece of paper. Setting both the box and pouch down in my lap, I unfold the paper to find a slanted but neatly handwritten note:
Kyle,
Since you have a strange (but oddly endearing) fascination with rocks, I thought you might like this. It’s an amethyst with hematite inclusions—whatever that means. I still say stars are better than rocks, but according to this little stone, it looks like the two can coincide with one another pretty beautifully. Anyway, I was just thinking about you. Merry Christmas.
Joey
Setting the paper down in the passenger seat, I grab the pouch out of the box. Untying it, I turn it over, and out falls a gemstone about the size of a quarter, wrapped intricately in a silver frame that’s attached to a chain, creating an absolutely stunning necklace. I hold the stone up to the moonlight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Clouds of purple and black whirl around each other while flecks of gold and white are splashed across its many faces. Faint swirls of brown give the impression that some faraway galaxy has been captured and compacted to fit onto this one tiny, triangular stone.
Rocks and stars.
I slip the necklace around my neck. The chain feels cool and the heavy stone settles neatly onto my chest. From where it lands, a heat radiates outward, making every part of me feel as if I’m packed with fireworks ready to burst. My fingertips dance along the steering wheel and I actually squeal before leaning back into my seat, completely giddy. Then I rev the engine and turn up the music until I’m swimming in a sea of blue light all the way back to campus.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fiddling with the necklace around my neck, I resist the urge to text Joey while Mr. Kaufman flickers on the oversized projector to begin our first class since the new semester began. Now would be perfect, I think, to send her a picture of my actually quite full Geology 102 classroom, demonstrating that there are others like me who have an appreciation for the subject. I imagine Joey’s sarcastic response as the familiar sound of backpacks being unzipped and students shuffling their feet on their way to their seats echoes off the bare, high walls and tiled floor. The noise actually brings me a weird sense of comfort. I have to admit that I am glad to be back. Not that my holiday break wasn’t great or anything. Our family Christmas dinner featuring my mom’s brother and sister-in-law, Uncle Will and Aunt Stacey, was actually pretty fun. They brought their three Yorkies, of course. Kevin and I played video games. My parents even managed to tear themselves away from work for the day to indulge in some turkey and stuffing.
Yet, while I w
as home, I found myself missing everyone from school. Well, okay, I found myself missing certain people. I did see Emily on New Year’s, despite her urgings that I call Joey up to see what her plans were. For some reason, though, just the thought of being around her on a night involving champagne and turning over new leaves made me nervous. Instead, I opted for a night of movies and watching the ball drop at Emily’s with her family and friends.
“I hope you all enjoyed your holidays,” Professor Kaufman says from the bottom of the small auditorium, breaking me out of my thoughts. “We’re going to jump back into things with a brief review of last semester’s items.”
My phone vibrates in my back pocket, and I pull it out to find Jax’s photo gracing the screen. Despite the fact that I’m halfway up in the auditorium and fairly obscured in the small sea of faces, I glance up to the front of the room, then swipe open the message.
Hey cutie. Can’t wait to see you at practice tonight ;)
I don’t realize I’m biting my lip until the gaze of my classmate to my left makes me look up. A girl I recognize from last semester’s lecture is staring at me like I’ve got some deep, dark secret. My face flushes and I set my phone in my lap, trying to think of a response. Jax always makes me feel like I have no power for words, even with something as simple as crafting a thought-out text message. She had messaged me three times over the holidays. Each nothing more than a quick Hey cutie or Miss me? but they were enough to confuse me even more and left me spending hours trying to decipher what she wants with me.
My professor’s booming voice pulls me back to reality. “So, we have three main types of rocks, if you will remember.” Mr. Kaufman is a tall, lanky man whose only remaining hair seems to be on his face in the form of a Santa Claus–esque beard. “And those three types are…”