To the Steadfast

by Briana Gaitan

  It goes to voicemail.

  I dial it again, but I get the same recorded greeting. Even if he does eventually forgive me, things will never be the same.

  I make one more tearful call, but this time to Lydia.

  “Hello?”

  “Can we go somewhere this weekend? Get away.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s just getting to me. This town. The memories. The people.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “Yes.” I move away from the pool and go inside to where I can sit down. I curl up with a pillow from the couch and tuck my legs under me. “I need to fall out of love with him.”

  “Who? Mischa?”

  “Yeah, I can’t let him string me along anymore. He’s had a girlfriend this entire summer, and he’s not going to leave her for me. I’m not a kid anymore and it’s time I did what I want.”

  “And what does that mean?” It comes out in a whisper.

  I take a deep breath before divulging my plans. “I don’t want to attend Columbia in the fall.”

  I can hear her breathing on the other end, but other than that the line is silent.

  “Are you mad?” I ask.

  “Yes! I mean no! I mean it sucks that we had all these plans to go to school near each other and stuff, but I want you to be happy. As long as you’re not just trying to appease your grandmother.”

  “I do want to be happy, but I can’t do that if I keep letting everyone walk all over me. It’s gonna be hard, and it won’t happen overnight, but I need to do this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a job I hate, pining over some guy who will never love me.”

  “Do what you gotta do. Don’t worry about me. What did your dad say?”

  He hasn’t exactly jumped for joy when I express my feelings about going to nursing school, but he’ll get over it. I’ll get a job if I have to, do whatever it takes.

  “Are you ready to go home?” Lydia throws her book into her backpack and stands up. “I’ve been reading for hours and I’m bored. Can’t we go out and have some fun?”

  Even if I wanted to answer her, I won’t. I’m in the zone which means no distractions. It’s something Lydia has never figured out. I don’t know why I let her come to the library with me, she doesn’t even go to school here, but she flew all this way to hang out with me before the fall semester lets out, and I didn’t feel right leaving her alone at my apartment. It’s not like I have a choice. Finals are in a few days and memorization was never one of my finer points. She doesn’t take the hint and begins hitting the Anatomy book in front of me.

  “It’s late. Do you really need to be wandering alone at night like this?”

  I wave my hand at her, still not looking up from my book. “I’ll be fine. You can go get some sleep. Really.”

  She hovers for a few more moments. “I didn’t leave the greatest city on earth to visit so you can ignore me. No studying tomorrow. I mean it.”

  I wave my hand again and rest my chin on my hand as I start over and begin reciting medical terminology in my head. The program is a bit more tedious and involved than I had imagined. I knew becoming a nurse would be hard work, but these anatomy classes are a killer.

  “DO or MD?” a deep voice asks from behind me.

  I twist around to see who’s talking. A guy with thick, dark hair and caramel-colored skin is standing behind me, looking at my textbook. He doesn’t look like a freshman, and the confidence rolling off him leads me to believe that he might even be a senior.

  “Nursing,” I eventually spit out. “I’m not even sure I can make it that far. The curriculum is a lot more than I bargained for.”

  “I’ve seen you studying a lot. I normally sit over there.” He points to a table a few yards away by the window. I’ve never noticed him, but I don’t exactly check out my surroundings much either.

  I eyeball him from behind my book as he sits down in the seat across from me. Why is he sitting down?

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “Freshman?”

  “That obvious, huh? I’m having a hard week. I made a C on the last test. I haven’t had this much trouble in a long time.” I close my book and fiddle with my hands in front of me. I can feel his gaze on me, but I can’t seem to bring myself to look him in the eyes. Why am I so nervous? I hate this.

  “Same here. My father is a scientist at a private consulting company. He hasn’t stopped talking about adding me to the family business in about…twenty years. I’m an engineering major. ”

  I allow myself to smile. “That’s nice.”

  “Where are my manners? I’m Bassam.” He holds out his hand and when I take it, he shakes it so overzealously I begin to laugh.

  The muscles in my neck relax as he lets go of my hand. “Nice to meet you, Bassam. I’m Cody.”

  “Nice to meet you, Cody.”

  I stuff my pencil in my backpack and look back up at him. “So, are you a senior?”

  “Yep.” He rocks back and forth in his seat nervously. “Nursing, huh? I hear they have a tough program here.”

  “Tell me about it. Even a 4.0 GPA won’t guarantee me a spot, and I’m having issues with all this memorization and stuff.”

  “If you ever need a study partner.” He gives me a slight wink.

  “Thanks, but I doubt an engineering major and a nursing major have any classes in common.”

  He laughs for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. “Oh, man. You’re not gonna make this easy on me are you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m trying to ask you out.”

  My brow scrunches up as I try to analyze exactly what part of our conversation resulted in a date. I’ve been out of the game so long I’ve forgotten how to flirt or even what it feels like to be flirted with.

  “Really? What part of studying resulted in a date? Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t have time for dating right now.”

  I stand up and throw my backpack over my shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Bassam.”

  He stands and follows me. “Wait. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just see you sitting here every weekend, and I wanted to say hi. I don’t come here to pick up girls, I swear. My roommates are really loud, so I need a quiet place to study.”

  I make it as far as the glass entrance doors and turn around. He doesn’t seem like a creep, and he’s graduating from college in a few months. Surely it would be okay to talk to him. I could use some friends, any friends. Lydia is the only one I talk to.

  “Fine, but just so this is out in the open. I don’t date.”

  “Don’t date guys or don’t date at all? Or is this because of my ethnic descent?”

  My mouth drops open. Is he serious? I can’t tell. There’s a playfulness in his eyes, but with his hands crossed in front of his chest he looks serious.

  “Um, this has nothing to do with your gender or race. I just don’t want a boyfriend right now.”

  “Is this because someone broke your heart or were you really fat in high school resulting in lifelong self-esteem issues.”

  What in the world? Who says that to someone they just met? My eyes center in on him which is easy to do since he’s my height, no taller. His lips twitch like he’s holding back a smile. So he’s joking. This is something I haven’t had in a long time, not since I decided men weren’t worth my time. I kind of like it.

  “You ask too many questions.” I continue walking from the library with him right on my heels.

  “Well, maybe that’s why I’m an engineer.”

  I push open the glass doors and exit the library. “I’m pretty sure that has nothing to do with why you are an engineer. You build bridges.”

  “Actually I’m majoring in chemical engineering with a biomedical concentration. Completely different. We have that in common. You want to be sticking needles in peoples’ asses all day long, and I hope to be inventing the medicine you stick in people’s asses all day long.”

  I refuse to let him see
me laugh so I try my hardest to keep a straight face as I say, “My lifelong goal is not to stick needles in peoples’ butts.”

  “Could have fooled me. What else do nurses do?”

  I only have one answer for him. “We help make sick people better.”

  He puts his hands to his heart and sticks out his bottom lip. I can’t take my eyes off his pout. Lips so full, beautiful. What would it feel like to suck on them? I wonder if they’re as soft as they look.

  “I’m sick.” He fakes a cough. “Can you make me feel better?”

  “You really are something else, but I do have to get home. I have a houseguest. ”

  He doesn’t take no for an answer and follows me for a few more steps. “Meet me for coffee in the morning? A friendly thing.”

  I really shouldn’t. I don’t even know this guy. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Have a good night, Bassam.”

  I just love saying his name. It’s unique. Wait. No, no, don’t do this. He’s wearing a shirt under a polo. Who’s done that since the ninth grade?

  “It’s the broken heart thing, isn’t it?” he calls out as I step away. I stop, turn around, and look him up and down. I take my time, finally getting brave enough to lock eyes with him. “No, it’s your clothes. I don’t like guys in polo shirts.”

  Without waiting to see how he reacts, I keep walking to my apartment.

  He calls out, “I’ll still be there waiting for you!”

  My studio apartment sits on the edge of campus. I didn’t get to pick it out, my father did. He pays for everything. My living expenses, my tuition, as long as I spend summers interning at his office. I think he still hopes to persuade me to change my major back and go to medical school.

  I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t go back to the life that had been planned out for me. I fooled myself at St. Cecilia’s Academy. I became the daughter they wanted and hoped it would change things, but it didn’t. I haven’t spoken to my mom in months. We’re both too busy to exchange more than a hello text every now and then. I’m attending one of the top nursing schools in the south so I can be closer to Nona. Things should have gotten better, but they haven’t. There’s still an emptiness inside my heart.

  I push the door open and throw my bag on the kitchen table. Lydia is sitting on the couch reading one of her scripts. She looks up. “That was quick.”

  “Yeah, some guy started pestering me so I decided to call it a night.” I pour myself a glass of soothing chocolate milk, hoping to calm myself down.

  She climbs over the couch and gets in my face. Her brown eyes are wild with excitement. “A guy? It’s about time you had some sort of freshman fling. I wish you’d get over what’s his face already and have some fun.”

  “I’m over him, but I don’t want to put my heart out there again just to have it stomped all over.”

  Lydia shakes her finger in my face and backs up to fix the pullout sofa. “Sometimes if someone stomps on your heart, it’s only to keep it beating. To make sure you’re still alive when the day is over. You could call it a sole defibrillator.”

  She beams at her clever little joke, replacing soul with the sole of a shoe. We’ve had this fight way too many times over the past few months. She’s playing the field in New York, and she’s never put her heart out there, not that I know of.

  “It hurts,” I choke out. “It hurts so bad I can’t breathe sometimes.”

  She sits and pats the spot on the sofa next to her. I curl up beside her. “One day, Sweetie. One day it won’t hurt so bad. It hurts to love someone who won’t love you back, but trust me when I say that Mischa wasn’t a good catch. In twenty years, you’re gonna be this amazing nurse out there saving lives and he’s gonna be still slinging drugs in Betty.”

  “He can’t help the way he grew up. His parents weren’t the best influences.”

  “There you go making excuses for him again! Stop that. Tomorrow we’re gonna find this mystery guy and you are gonna ask him out.”

  “Bassam.”

  “Bassam. Ooh, exotic. I like him already. Okay, we are gonna find Bassam and you are gonna ask him out.”

  “No.”

  “I’m gonna make you.”

  “No way. There are twelve thousand students here. There’s no way I’m going to find him before winter break. Though he did…”

  She sits up on her knees. “What? What? What?”

  “He asked me out for coffee in the morning.”

  “What did you say?”

  I roll my eyes. The answer should be obvious. “No, of course.”

  “Are you crazy? You’re gonna go there in the morning, find him, and ask him out.”

  “For the millionth time. I’m not going to ask him out. I’m having enough trouble with school as it is. I don’t need another distraction.”

  She seems to take a hint because she stops bringing it up.

  “Have you talked to Suzanne lately?” she mumbles.

  “Not really. A text message here or there.”

  “Oh.”

  I roll off the couch and climb in my bed. “I’m wiped. I pulled an all-nighter last night, and I have my last final tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Sucks to be you. Sweet dreams, Dakota.”

  My upstairs neighbor is always the first thing I hear in the mornings. It’s one of the pitfalls of living in such a small apartment building. I can hear every cough, groan, and footstep. A repetitive pounding begins and it can only be one of two things. Cardio workout or an early afternoon delight. Gross.

  “Turn on the TV or something. Anything to cover that noise.”

  Lydia doesn’t answer.

  “You still asleep?” I look over to my couch to find it empty. Lydia is an early morning riser. She was probably up at the crack of dawn running. I get up to make my morning ritual coffee and sit at the kitchen table to pour over my anatomy book before my final later this afternoon. As hard as I try to concentrate, my eyes keep drifting over to the Rubik’s Cube on the microwave. I stand to refill my coffee and as the machine fills my mug, I move the blocks around, hoping to get a little closer to solving it. When I’d packed my room for college, I’d found the cube tucked in an old purse in the corner of my room and didn’t have the heart to throw it away. The little puzzle kept calling to me, begging me to fix it. There was so much in life I couldn’t fix, this wasn’t going to be one of them. For the past few months, I’ve been trying desperately to solve it. Every time I got one level completed and went on to the next one, I’d mess up my work.

  An hour later, the front door opens and Lydia sticks her head in.

  “Yoo hoo!” she calls out. “Don’t hate me, please?”

  What does she mean? I brace myself for the worst as she walks inside. Not a moment later Bassam comes strolling in behind her. There’s no hiding the shock and utter disapproval on my face.

  “I found library boy!” she sings out.

  Bassam is grinning from ear to ear. Does this guy ever stop smiling? Pulling the bun from my hair, I wipe under my eyes and try to fake a gorgeous ‘just woke up’ look. Ugh, I’ve never been one to pull it off.

  Lydia looks into my cup and turns to the guy in my apartment. “A little Cody 101, Bassam. She’s a major coffee snob. Don’t piss her off until she’s had her daily dose of caffeine. She also hates dating so you’re gonna have to work for your booty call. Oh, she likes chocolate…impress her.”

  Bassam looks back and forth between the two of us. She’s confused him. No big surprise considering Lydia tends to ramble when she gets excited. He walks closer and holds out a cup in his hand.

  “What’s this?” I ask, glancing at it but not taking it.

  “It’s a mocha latte. Coffee and chocolate in one.”

  “I know what a mocha latte is.” Normally, I don’t drink after people, but I take the cup and sip the sweet goodness.

  “Thanks.”

  “Am I your new favorite person now or what?” He winks and sits across from me in the only other chair.

  “So how
did you guys meet?” I ask them.

  Lydia, her eyes glued to her phone, begins talking. “I went for a jog, decided I needed coffee, and went looking for library boy.”

  She says it so nonchalantly that I look to Bassam for the real story.

  He agrees. “She was walking around asking people if their name was Bassam, and if they had hit on a pretty nursing student at the library last night. I fit the bill so here I am.”

  I try to hide my embarrassment behind the cup of coffee. “I am so sorry. Lydia likes to try and control my love life.”

  “She cares about you, it’s nice to have a friend like that. Anyway, the engineering department is having this end of the year slash holiday dinner tonight, and I was supposed to go with my roommate, Abs, but he’s going back home early. I thought maybe you’d like to join me?”

  I should say no. He looks like the type of guy who breaks hearts, and I’m only the type who gets her heart broken or breaks them.

  “Yes,” I whisper, half surprising myself. “But this isn’t a date. It can be a friend thing, and I fully expect you to live up to that promise to be my study partner.”

  “Wonderful.” He practically jumps out of his seat as if he hasn’t had a date all year, which has to be impossible. He must have girls dying to go out with him. It’s not every day you meet a smooth talker with gorgeous caramel-colored skin and a perfect smile.

  “I’ll pick you up at six then. Nice meeting you, Lydia. Thank for convincing me.”

  Lydia waves her hand at him. “What are BFFs for?”

  After Bassam leaves, I turn around to glare at my friend. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Did what? Get you a super-hot date? By the way, you totally played down how incredibly good-looking he is. I mean, really? His eyes are super intense. Admit it. You are excited.”