Graphite

by Anne Leigh

  Oops.

  I stood up and grabbed the small black prototype, “No…it’s ah, one of my experiments. I’m trying to see if I could create something small to move through really tiny spaces. I’ve been working on it and I’m still trying to find out what I can equip it with so it will also hold a camera and sensors.”

  Her face was still scrunched up in disgust. “I thought I was weird. Science girl, you’re weirder than me.”

  I pushed my fork forward in the air, “Let’s toast our weirdness.”

  She clinked her fork to my fork, and that was how our beautiful friendship started.

  Bishop

  The past week flew by without another call from Mom.

  She’d finally gotten ahold of my sister after I bugged her a few times to return Mom’s calls. I knew what Bridge was trying to do – distance herself from her life back in New York, but Mom was still Mom. She had to know that blood didn’t dilute no matter how far away you were– a fact that took me a long time to adjust to for myself. She might as well talk to her now before Mom decided to move to California so she could be close to Bridge.

  That last tidbit must’ve frightened my sister because later that night I received a text, “Called your mother and she’s doing fine.”

  To which I’d given her a few thumbs-up emoji and a fist bump.

  Tomorrow was Quantum Mechanics day and in a way, I was looking forward to it. I could hear conversations in the hallway outside of my bedroom, but I didn’t want to get out of bed. I needed to get up early for practice, and then two of my hard classes were tomorrow.

  During the semester, the guys in the house pretty much kept to themselves. I took the third floor, along with Rikko, Takei, Chris, Logan, and Matt.

  Scott, Justin, and ten other guys took the second floor. And the newbies shared the three rooms on the bottom floor.

  With the amount of testosterone around, we all had to observe rules. The number one rule being: no poaching on another frat brother’s significant other. Rikko established that rule after the mess between Cord and Lewis who were both officially kicked out of the frat after all the football cheerleader drama.

  Boy, that was some messed-up shit.

  I was just finishing up the assignment on the Bloch theory and how it was being used in semiconductor devices when I heard a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Bro, you awake?” It was Rikko.

  “Yep,” I answered and got up from the bed. Early morning workouts were great, but the beginning of the season always seemed harder than any other time. Maybe because anticipation of the game took a chunk of the anxiety between me and my teammates. We should all be used to it by now, but every season was a new beginning. And every beginning had its challenges.

  Our first game was against Arkansas and their inside center was Afasa, a tough Samoan who could offload the ball in record time, and whose shoulder charge was so dominant that Sports News’ coined it as a “power truck.” The team didn’t have a lot of weaknesses and that was why I was studying film obsessively. We were faster, but they were more powerful.

  Fast always beats power.

  Most of the time.

  “I got a favor to ask.” Rikko’s eyes wandered over my desk. He was probably checking out if I had a bag of Thin Mints.

  The dude was obsessed with minty candies.

  I shook my head, “Nope, I didn’t buy any of those disgusting sugar-filled Girl Scout cookies for you.”

  He tsked and sat on my black swivel chair as he started to rummage through my desk.

  “Dude, say what you gotta say and get out,” I chided, Rikko was a messy freak and who knew when he last washed his hands. “Stop messing with my stuff.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned his head, “Is this why you don’t have a girlfriend? Because you’re afraid she’s gonna mess up your shit?”

  “Ding ding ding.” I tapped my finger in the air, “You got it genius. Now why are you here?”

  “I need a favor.” He rendered, as he propped his foot on the printer box at the bottom of my desk.

  “You said that already.” I cranked my neck and felt the pull from my right shoulder. Two years after the surgery, I still felt the pain sometimes. Mostly phantom, but also because when I didn’t give myself time to stretch, the muscle became constricted and tight.

  “I have an away game in two weeks,” he started, bunching his shoulders on the extremely tight red shirt was wearing. Rikko’s fashion sense was dubious, but the fucker made it work for him. He had a revolving door of girls and I guessed they loved men in tight, suffocating shirts. “Scott will be away, too.”

  “I had a perfect score on my SAT.” I mumbled, “This shit isn’t hard to figure out.”

  “You got a perfect score?” His voice was awed.

  “Yep.” I went towards the closet and started sorting my laundry. Whites with whites, colors with colors.

  “Damn.” He said and then as if he was trying to figure something out, “Hold on, what’s your point?”

  “Dude. If you have an away game, ‘course Scott’s on the away game with you. He’s the quarterback, doofus.” College football players should really be evaluated for CTE because sometimes I wondered if they’d been hit so much that they lost a hefty amount of common sense.

  “Oh yeah. Huh.”

  “Why are you here again?” I dredged up a sigh. I liked the guy, but sometimes he went 360 on a topic and even I forgot what the point of it was in the first place.

  “Oh yeah, favor.” He winked at me –

  “Fuck dude, what the hell was that for?”

  I clutched my hand to my stomach to stop myself from laughing too hard because the look on his face was priceless when I threw a dirty sock at him.

  “That was for the wink.” I shot back at him. “Winks don’t work for me, fool.”

  Making a circling motion with my right pointer finger, “Let’s wrap this up – what do you need? And what do I get out of this?”

  He was scratching his nose, trying to get rid of my sock smell which I’d have to be honest, would not be so satisfactory since I used it the whole time during practice. Two hours and a half of sweat didn’t translate well in fabric.

  His tone became serious and his face matched his tone. “Since Scott and I will be away, can you be on the lookout for my sister?”

  Now this, I understood.

  I swallowed air, “Sure.”

  “You’re one of the guys I trust around here. Kiki’s pretty new to the area. She doesn’t know a lot of people here and just in case there’s an emergency or something, I want to give her your number so she can call you.”

  “Sure. Give her my number,” I nodded. With all the ribbing that the guys and I do, if there was one thing that we had – it was trust.

  “Thanks bro,” he said as he stood up. “Kiki’s very independent and she might not like it that I’m interfering but I don’t care. She volunteers at this nursing home to walk the dogs when the older residents can’t and sometimes she forgets what time it is so I’m gonna ask her to call you in case I’m not here and she needs a ride in the evening. I don’t like it when she’s alone in an Uber or Lyft car. I doubt she’ll bother you much, but I don’t want her to feel alone. Our away game’s in Cleveland. And then the week after that we’re going to be playing Cal.”

  “It’s alright.” I motioned with my chin, “She can call me. I’ll be here unless we’re on away games, too.”

  Last semester, when football was here, I was mostly away on road games so what Rikko was suggesting might actually work. And we didn’t travel as much as them so the arrangement would be okay.

  “Thanks bro.” He was going to give me a hug. Rikko liked to hug, but I held out my right hand up instead.

  “No need to thank me.” I trailed off, “It’s cool.”

  At least Bridge had Aunt Nina and me close by. Rikko’s sister didn’t have anyone else.

  He acknowledged my response with a nod and said, “You ready for Colle
ge Sports’ Day?”

  Every year, College Sports hosted televised events in D1 schools. It was agreement between the country’s number one college sports network and intercollegiate athletics to increase awareness and participation in college sports.

  Football didn’t need any more publicity since everyone watched it.

  But this year, the Dean and Athletic Director of SDU sent Coach Masterson an email before the season started.

  Rugby would be on primetime.

  And since SDU was the number one rugby team in our division, it meant that my team would be on primetime.

  “Yeah, can’t do much about it,” I said with a frog in my throat.

  I abhorred the limelight with a passion.

  In the years that I’d been here, I’d managed to avoid on-air interviews because the news media was satisfied with my typed emailed answers and Coach Masterson ended up being stuck on the table to answer questions from the media.

  The only time I went on air was in my freshman year when there was all that hoopla about me joining SDU, but I was happy for the spotlight to be stolen by Rikko and Scott.

  But now – now that there was no denying that the Predators were the most dominant team in the country, I knew I had to.

  Success is often a double-edged sword. You didn’t know which edge was painful and which one was harmless.

  All I ever wanted was for my team to be number one. The desire came from the competitor, the fighter in me.

  Now that we were at the top, there was a responsibility that came with it.

  Attendance had skyrocketed during our games and since two years ago, kids of all ages have started coming up to me, wanting to be a fly half.

  Or a lock like Ian.

  “You’re cool, bro. I’m sure you’ll charm the College Sports newscasters away,” Rikko said as he edged towards the entrance. “Just make sure you wear new socks because you don’t want to drive them away with your stink.”

  I laughed and pushed his ass out of my room. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

  As soon as Rikko’s shadow was out of sight, I slammed my body on my bed facedown.

  I tried to remove the thoughts of College Sports’ Day from my head, and focus on the present and get some sleep.

  Sleep didn’t come easily because my mind was still wired from thoughts about the upcoming game and media day, so I decided to fire up my computer and watch my favorite movies.

  Settling on my favorite action movie of all time, I got lost in the masterful Bruce Lee classic, Enter the Dragon.

  Yeah, tomorrow will come.

  But for now, let’s kick some ass.

  Kara

  “Am I going to see you on Friday?” Scott’s voice was clear on my phone. I was in the bathroom getting ready for class when I heard the chirping from my bedroom. I ran so that I wouldn’t wake Anissa up. She worked late last night and I didn’t want to wake her up.

  “Hmm…” I said, pretending to ponder about it. “It’s not me who has been avoiding you. Maybe I should return the favor.”

  “Kiki…” He was placating. I could just see him now, his green eyes wearing the pleading puppy look that I adored. “I’ve been so busy. Coach has been running us through the mud to get ready for our first game and classes just started.”

  I knew that.

  But still, as his girlfriend, I had to give him grief.

  “Rikko’s expecting you to be here. He’s really sorry about not picking you up at the airport. And I want you to be there.” Scott and I had been dating on and off since I was eighteen and the day he turned twenty. The time off between us was largely due to our hectic schedules. Last spring, we decided to give it a go again.

  Being with him was easy as apple pie. We could go days without talking to each other and still we both knew where we stood in each other’s lives.

  I hummed, “I’m just teasing. I was gonna go anyways, but I need a ride back.” There was no need for me to drive around when I attended Texas U. Everything I needed was in close proximity and if I had to go somewhere, Hanna gave me a lift. When I was home, Dan, drove me around town so there wasn’t a need for me to have a car for myself. The one thing Mom and Dad agreed on was that there wasn’t a car safe enough for me to drive.

  It was sad, really.

  I learned how to drive from my brother. Scott also helped. Much to my parents’ dismay because they didn’t want me behind the wheel. The day I got my license, Rikko got punished for it. The punishment didn’t last long because after a day, he was able to get his precious Nissan GT-R back.

  Mom hasn’t driven a car in decades and she wanted the same for me.

  There were a lot of things she wanted for me and majority of them were stuff that I contested.

  “Of course I’ll give you a lift back,” Scott sounded bemused. “As if I’d let my girlfriend walk around campus late at night.”

  “Scotty…” It was my endearment for him since he loved Star Trek, though he didn’t look anything like the guy who portrayed it. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact. Scott Strauss carried the All-American football player, boy-next-door look well, with his dark blonde hair and green eyes that had broken a lot of the hearts of the girls at Southlake High School.

  “What’s up, Kiki?” He asked. His voice always brought me back to how easy it was to be with a guy who knew me like the back of his hand.

  “Are we really doing this?” Ever since we’d rekindled our relationship, I had been thinking about what was going to happen after college.

  “Kara.” His voice sounded drained. I didn’t do drama, but I also wanted to feel like I was important to him. Scott’s first love was football. I knew that being with him, I’d always be number 2 and at times, number 5 depending on what was going on with his life. “Can you go with the flow? See where the road leads us instead of always trying to determine the outcome beforehand?”

  I bit my tongue. As much as I wanted to agree with him, I liked to prove hypotheses right or wrong, I didn’t care much for the hypothetical. Even though I didn’t want to be foretold of the outcome, was it really wrong that I wanted to get an idea of where we were heading?

  We weren’t getting any younger and in less than a year, I had to decide what jobs I would apply for. My life didn’t hinge on his entry to the NFL and travel schedule.

  I loved him, but I often thought about if he loved me enough.

  Maybe I was expecting too much from him. Knowing myself, I was working on expecting less and being satisfied with what I had. He was a good guy, he respected me and he had never cheated on me. I should be happy with the way things were between us.

  I didn’t have much time to run my points with him and I would love not to do this over the phone so I capitulated.

  “I’ll see you Friday. I’ll be there.” Like a dutiful girlfriend. Like I always have.

  “How are you going to get there?” He questioned, and the concern that underlined his voice made my heart cut through the chill. “I have class and practice then I gotta get stuff ready. Rikko might be able to – ”

  I cut him off, “I’m twenty-two, Scott. I think I can figure out how to get to a frat party. I gotta get to my classes. I’ll talk to you later.”

  His response was a “Bye” and before the phone line went dead, I heard guys calling out his name.

  Yep, football came first.

  Always.

  Kara

  My homework was piling up.

  Econ wanted a discourse on the effects of banking and the competitive market. Tara and Jayden, my groupmates for the assignment, wanted to meet on Monday after we’d done our research.

  My general ed classes, Societies of the World and Ethics, were easy, but they took up most of my time. There were two papers due every week and they had to be a minimum of five pages each. I liked school, but writing papers were a waste of time. I had put off completing my GE’s because I was so focused in completing my double major requirements.

  The only class that I was actually ca
ught up with was Quantum, but that was a given.

  Some people found their happiness in chocolate. I found mine in distinctly flavored ice cream cake and Science.

  I sat in the front row of Quantum so I could listen to the Professor better.

  Sure, that’s what I kept telling myself.

  But as tempted as I was to look back, I didn’t give an inch to temptation.

  Who cared if there was a hot guy in class?

  I, for sure, didn’t.

  Then why did you think of one hot guy instead of hot guys, Kara?

  I felt the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise during the whole class. My body knew I was being watched.

  I gave Dr. Milliken a hundred and ten percent of my attention as he discussed motion in central potential.

  I raised my hand a few times and I took part in the small group work during class.

  I kept my eyes to the front and never allowed them to wander to the back of the room.

  And as soon as class finished, I lingered around to talk to the professor about my planned paper for senior year. I was getting ahead of myself, but I wanted his input so next year I wouldn’t have a hard time convincing my subsequent professor, Mr. Khan, that using Fermi’s golden rule to provide an opposing view to Bohr might not be so wise, as others have often proposed.

  Of course, I saw the shadow of a tall guy waiting by the exit.

  I had no idea if it was him, but I couldn’t take the chance.

  I had a boyfriend, and I was here to complete my degrees and not engage in college drama.

  It was presumptive of me to assume that he would be waiting for me.

  I didn’t know if the shadow was for me or how long he’d waited.

  But thirty minutes after the class ended, I walked out the door, looked around, and saw students huddled along the corridors, waiting to get into their classes.

  There were no signs of him.

  I took a deep breath in, and upon exhalation I felt a stirring sense of disappointment inside of me…

  Why did it feel like somehow I was missing something?