by Linnea May
And then Olivia’s family moved away, across the country, the killing blow for a junior high school friendship. We kept in touch for a while, but quickly grew apart, as teenagers do when they live on completely opposite coasts.
Before she left, we wanted to make sure to exchange gifts, something that would help us remember each other and the promises we made. Of course, friendship bracelets were too mainstream for us, so we went to a local jewelry shop and picked out black ceramic rings.
“I’ve never seen anyone wear a ring like this,” Olivia exclaimed. “It’s perfect for us! Perfect!”
I agreed.
Now, I’m sitting on the bed of my dorm room at an Ivy League school, majoring in the same subject as my mother and following a path that will eventually lead to the one thing I swore not to become: my parents.
The ring is still there. I don’t know why I never took it off.
Maybe because it reminds me of her, of our dreams, of the person I used to be and the one I hoped to become, before Olivia’s contagious free spirit left my life. I know that she didn’t forget about it, she actually went through with our oath and became an artist, a struggling artist, but a happy one. She always wanted to become a dancer or an actress, as it suited her expressive nature. Now, she’s doing both. Social media makes it easy to follow someone’s life, even when they’re not living around the corner anymore.
I can’t say how many times I’ve been sitting in front the computer, staring at her profile, thinking how happy I am for her, while at the same time, feeling troubled by my own choices. I’ve given up, just because I couldn’t put a name on what it was that I wanted to pursue. Olivia had a clear-cut dream, a goal. I never had anything like that.
All I have are ideas, plenty of them. When people say there’s an app for everything these days, I strongly disagree, because I have encountered numerous situations in which I thought there should be an app, but there wasn’t.
But I picked the wrong major. I had this short period in my life where I thought I knew what I wanted to do, and then I fell back under my family’s influence, too weak and with too little volition to withstand their ideal of growing an undiluted household of scholars, drinking sherry while engaging in academic discussions.
I don’t even like sherry. I don’t like any of it. It just comes easy to me.
Now this man shows up in my life and unwittingly starts poking at all these things, these ideas from the past, the ongoing doubts. Just as I’m about to finish my graduate degree and embark on the next level, as he called it.
I thought Mr. Portland was joking when he said that he wanted to give me an individual homework assignment. I expected some kind of payback for my snappy way of talking to him, but instead, I find myself faced with an assignment that rocks the foundation of everything I built up during the past few years.
“Figure out what it is you really want to do in life,” he said. “Not what you should do, not what is expected of you to do, not what would be the smart thing to do right now. It has to be something you really want - even if it appears silly or unrealistic.”
He sat there, looking gorgeous with his damp hair and green eyes, both of us wearing his sweaters like long-term lovers, and he told me to rethink my future.
As if it was that easy. I’ve been trying to cast his intrusion aside for weeks and focus on getting through my final classes as best I can, but I’ve reached a point where I have to admit that it won’t work like that. Especially because I’m reminded of all my ‘what if’s’ every time I sit in his class.
Mr. Portland’s lectures diverted from sheer self-marketing and inspirational speeches to something much more. While he sticks to his mantra of doing things differently, thinking outside the box and not underestimating the worth of failure along the path, he also presented us with quite a few insights on the business world that caught my interest, definitely more than the models and mathematics behind everything that we are taught in other Econ classes. In a nutshell, he is teaching us how to turn an idea into a profitable business.
It could be interesting to follow up on this. With him and what he’s teaching us. I kept my distance from him because I perceived his way of unraveling me as distracting and too confusing. But with the more time that passes, the more intrigued I am to open this new door instead of shutting everything behind it out of my life like I have before.
Besides, I still have his sweater.
He never asked me to return it, but every time he casts me one of those fierce looks during class, I’m reminded of that soft piece of clothing that - for some reason - I keep hidden away in the far back of my dresser.
I’m also reminded of the fact that I secretly wear it when Celia is not around. She’d freak if she knew what happened between me and the elusive Mr. Portland. I can’t even imagine her reaction if she found out that I ended up in his office, alone with him, while both of us changed into dry clothes, that he stood in front of me with that marvelous bare chest and gave me something of his to wear, and that I kept it and occasionally wear it as if he was my lover or something.
I mean, nothing happened between us. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t even touch. Did we flirt? I most certainly didn’t - but him? I’m not sure.
“Yo, dreamy head!”
Celia’s voice violently pulls me out of my stream of thoughts. I look up and turn to her bed, where she’s still tucked in beneath her massive amount of sheets and pillows. Her bed is so crowded with bedding that I always wondered how she manages to sleep in there at all.
Her hair is ruffled and her eyes are nothing but narrow slits as she glances over to me.
“Aren’t you late for class?” she asks.
I glance over to the alarm clock on my night stand and realize she’s right.
“Crap!” I exclaim, jumping up from my bed.
Celia chuckles as she rolls back over, turning her back to me and burying her face beneath the bed sheets.
“What’s wrong with you, man?” her muffled voice asks from under the sheets. “You’re lucky that your disturbing morning routine has conditioned me to be awake this early.”
I want to argue that it’s close to 10 a.m., which some people wouldn’t even consider morning anymore, but I’m in too much of a hurry for that.
I throw on my scarf and jacket, grab my bag and storm across the campus. This has never happened to me before. How could I get so lost in thoughts that I actually forgot about class. His class!
I’m one of the last people to enter the auditorium, and of course, there is no chance for me to take my usual seat in the third row this late. I’m left with a free seat at the far back of the hall. I’ve never sat this far back before, and am surprised at how little everything appears from up here. I have to squint to see what is written on the board at the front.
Why would anyone want to sit here voluntarily?
However, a look around at my seatmates provides an answer to that. The guy sitting right next to me isn’t even awake, he’s lying bent-forward on his desk, curled up in his sweater and snoring noisily. I will have to wake him up when that attendance list makes its way around.
Others in my proximity are glued to their phones or tablets, some even with laptops, scrolling through online shops, or giggling over memes and cat videos. Even the magic and allure of Mr. Portland fails to reach every student sitting way up here.
When he enters the auditorium and takes his position in front of the board, I see him glancing to the area where I would usually be sitting. He always does this, but I never realized how natural it had become. Even though we haven’t been in a one-on-one conversation since that thunderstorm, I’d feel disappointed if he started treating me like any other student.
The expression on his face changes when he realizes that I’m not in my usual seat. It gives me great satisfaction to see him curling his eyebrows and looking around, scanning the rows for me.
A faint hint of relief emerges on his handsome face when his eyes finally lock on mine, before he
tilts his head to the side quizzically.
I hunch my shoulders and cast him an apologetic smile. Sorry, I was late.
He turns his attention back to the rest of the class and begins his lecture.
This feels so natural. The self-evident way in which we make sure that the other one is around feels so right and normal - yet it is anything but that. There’s a kind of connection and tension between us, triggered by that day we escaped together alone to his office.
He dismissed me abruptly and I left, taking not only his sweater with me, but a homework assignment I have yet to turn in.
He is waiting for me to come back to him. Obviously, he is. But I can’t come back until I have an answer, until I have done the homework I was assigned.
I’ve spent too much time pushing him and the ideas he put in my head away.
But that is going to change moving forward.
CHAPTER TEN
JACKSON
Walking down the hallway is torment in itself, even without the constant jeers and ridicule. My shoes have been worn for a while, the soles growing thinner with every step, until they finally fail to provide protection from whatever surface I’m walking on. It was raining this morning and my feet have been soaked all day, the cold slowly creeping up my legs until it reaches my core.
I’ve never known anything but poverty, but the older I get, the more it seems to hurt. Still, I can consider myself lucky. I’ve never gone hungry. Food is the only thing that my mother always has enough money for. Food and alcohol. The latter seems to be the only comfort she has since my father left us two years ago, and I’ve been watching her grow more depressed ever since. Glued to the couch in front of the television, the only quality time I ever share with her involves a huge portion of fries and fish sticks with ketchup, pizza, or instant macaroni and cheese. Sometimes, it’s all of these together, while we stare at the TV in silence, only communicating via our loud chewing or when passing drinks and food between us. She started sharing her beer with me when I turned thirteen a few months ago, but I never cared for the taste. I don’t understand why everybody is making such a big fuss about underage drinking, when beer tastes like wet feet. I’d much rather stick with Coke.
“Jackson Fatson!” One of my classmates yells across the hall at me as I approach my locker. I ignore him, just like I ignore everyone else. The stares, the name calling, the pointing fingers, the giggling behind my back - the D on my most recent test. I provide these cruel kids with a target on so many levels, I can hardly blame them for unloading on me.
I just wonder what it’s like on the other side.
I hold my head low and fiddle with the lock on my locker, prepared to be attacked by a horrible smell or something falling at me once I open the door. Kids are very creative when it comes to torturing others.
Today nothing happens. All I find are my belongings, worn-out schoolbooks, pens, and an open bag of candy, the only solace I know. I grab two pieces and quickly shove them into my mouth, hoping that no one saw me do it. A faint smile speaks of the comfort the sugar provides me. I feel happy, even though I know the feeling won’t last long.
My next class is math, the only class that doesn’t make me feel like a complete failure. It’s not like I’m bringing home straight As, but I never saw a big fat F or D scrawled across any of my math tests.
“Jackson Fatson!” Another chorus sings behind me.
“Whatcha doing loser?” Kendrick, a boy from my geometry class asks. “Trying to hide in your locker?”
“Like he’d ever fit!” Another one chimes in. “Probably crying because he flunked the easiest quiz ever!”
“I didn’t flunk!” I protest, now turning around to the little group of boys who have nothing better to do than to add to my misery for their own amusement.
“Whatever!” Kendrick yells at me. “Jackson Fatson!”
Something tells me that he’s not the brightest bulb in the box himself. Others have shown a lot more wit when it comes to tormenting me with their words.
I cut off his ongoing attempts at messing with me and head for my next class. Math is my favorite class, not only because I don’t suck at it, but for an additional reason, and that other reason happens to walk around the corner at just this moment.
Aileen Watson may not even be aware of my existence, but she plays the lead in all of my adolescent dreams, innocent or not. She is tall for a girl, taller than me and there is nothing particularly captivating about her looks, as far as I can tell. I’ve never heard the boys talk about her the same way they talk about the others. Like Sara, our blonde, popular star athlete whose breasts grew enormously last summer and who suddenly started to wear the heaviest makeup.
Aileen doesn’t wear makeup or short skirts and she is rather clumsy in gym class, but she excels in her studies. She’s the best student in our entire grade, which means that she must be a lot smarter than me. Her brown hair falls over her shoulders in long waves, sometimes blocking her views when she bends over her desk to work on assignments. When that happens, she tucks it behind her ear with a calm and elegant motion, not letting it disturb her work. She’s always prepared and concentrates in class, and she doesn’t participate in chatting and giggling with the other girls.
And she doesn’t bully me. She’s a good person. At least I think she is. I’ve not talked to her even once, and the only time I’ve heard her speak was in class, when she answered the teacher’s questions. Her voice is deep and calm, not squeaky and annoying like the voices of the girls on the cheerleading squad who continuously practice their infantile chants on the field outside and inside the halls.
She always sits in the front row, and I’m two rows behind her, slightly to the right, so that I can see her delicate frame and watch her follow along in class with unparalleled attention.
She’s too good for me. I know that. While I’ve never seen Aileen with a boyfriend or even talking to another boy in a flirtatious manner, I’m sure that I’d be the last one for her to pick. She needs someone smart. Someone with potential. Not Jackson Fatson. Not a loser who sighs in relief when he earns a passing grade because he’s too dumb for school.
But while all of that may be true, Aileen still gives me a reason to smile. Her mere presence uplifts my mood and makes me feel blessed to be alive.
I could look at her forever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JACKSON
More than a month has passed, and Miss Harlington acts as if our little encounter never happened. I’m beginning to regret letting her go like that. I could have risked more. I usually do. If it wasn’t for that turn our conversation took, I definitely would have gotten a taste of her.
Screw the rules, screw the trouble this could put me in. The faculty may agree that students are off-limits, but I’m not really one of them. I’m just a visitor from another world - and I prefer the rules I live by.
But she has to play along. She didn’t give me anything these past few weeks, except for shy looks from afar. She participated in class, but only when I posed fact-based questions. Our only interaction was when she raised her hand in class to tell me something that I could have pulled up just as easily on a search engine. There was absolutely no personal communication between us.
I hate that. She might be closing up on me before we even get started.
When I didn’t find her sitting in her usual seat last week, I feared she might have dropped my class altogether. I couldn’t start my class until I found her sitting in a row at the far back, looking at me with the same attentive face as always, and hunching her shoulders while casting me an apologetic smile.
But why was she sitting back there? Is she trying to send me a message? Why distance herself from me even more than she already was?
I hate not knowing what’s going through that pretty head of hers. She might not be thinking about our conversation at all, or she might be scared, confused, mad even. I want to know what she’s thinking. I want to know whether I hit the nail right on the head when
I assumed that she’s not really pursuing this degree with all her heart. She may seem like the ordinary scholarly girl, but even after the few exchanges I’ve had with her, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is the real her. Her voice is monotonous when she talks about the path that’s been laid out for her. She never says “I want”, she just says “I do”.
Never have I seen anyone react to my words as she did. Where’s that arrogance and confidence she displayed during our first conversation? Her resistance to my unconventional approach vanished far too quickly.
And it has been replaced by this disturbing silence. I’d much rather fight with her and let her spit arrogant malice at me instead of not engaging at all. How in the hell am I supposed to get my way with her if she’s not even within reach?
She still has the sweater I made her wear after her blouse got drenched. That thunderstorm provided the perfect opportunity to be alone with her and test her - and I didn’t take the chance! I got too distracted with my role as her teacher and adviser, and now my chance may have passed forever.
At least this week she’s back in her old seat. Third row, slightly to the left. I take my regular position in front of the class and regard her with the usual welcoming look, relieved to find her closer this time, if only physically.
But there’s something else about her. She looks radiant. She is wearing her hair up, and unless I’m mistaken, her makeup is heavier today than usual. Her eyes look bigger, enhanced with black eyeliner, and her cheeks look less pale, with more of a pink blush to them.
I absentmindedly hand out the quiz I have prepared for today.
“Thirty minutes!” I yell throughout the auditorium. “It’s just a little pop quiz to see if you guys have been listening to me at all so far.”
A giggly murmur travels through the space as I pace back to my position up front.