by Jill Knapp
“Amalia Hastings,” I said, trying my best to sound as confident as he had. I could feel my voice crack as I uttered the last syllable of my name. I squared my shoulders a bit and smiled.
“Well, Amalia Hastings,” he repeated my name, still holding my hand in his. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His hand was soft, but still masculine. When he pulled away, I remember feeling slightly confused by the experience.
Michael was the same age as me, but that first encounter, among others, made him seem much more refined than any guy in their early twenties. If we had met in a bar, I would have pegged him for at least twenty-seven. He carried himself in a way that suggested confidence and pride, but I still found him warm and approachable. He was clearly well known at NYU. Most of the girls in the cohort noticed him for more than his good grades; their eyes following his every move whenever he made his way into class.
As I made my way to my seat, I could have sworn I saw one girl actually slowly scan him with her eyes as he reached over to a retrieve a pen he had dropped on the floor. I caught eyes with her and she quickly turned away, but not before giving me a nasty side-look first.
I laughed to myself and claimed the empty seat next to Michael.
“What’s so funny?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing worth mentioning,” I smirked.
I pulled out a large notebook from my over-sized purse, and realized I didn’t have any pens on me. They must have fallen out while I was dashing through the rain like a crazy person. I rummaged through my bag for another minute until Michael presented me with a pen.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
He just nodded and returned his eye to the front of the room. I scanned the lecture hall and quickly noticed our other friends weren’t in class today. As if to read my mind, Michael leaned over and said, “Olivia and Alex aren’t here. I’m assuming the rain kept them away.” He leaned over close enough for me to smell his cologne. He smelled like sandalwood, and something else. As his arm accidentally brushed against mine from leaning a little too close, I quickly pulled it back and smiled. I felt my heart rate pick up a little bit when he touched me, but I shook it off. I had obviously noticed he was a good-looking guy, but I had never thought about him as anything more than just a friend.
Neither Olivia nor Alex lived in Manhattan, so it made sense that they would use the bad weather as an excuse to ditch. I looked around, noticing a lot more empty seats than usual. As I scanned the room, I watched one girl stare at Michael while simultaneously chewing her bottom lip. I raised an eyebrow at her, but she was too busy drooling to notice. Apart from the drooler, most of the class had definitely opted out of today’s lecture.
I turned to Michael and whispered, “I’m guessing that’s a common theme today.”
He smiled and said in a near whisper, “I’m glad you made it.” I felt a small shudder go through me as his voice dropped into a smooth, lower octave.
I smiled back at Michael and caught his eyes. I felt my stomach drop, the way it does when you’re on the top of a really high roller coaster. I could feel heat rise from my chest, into my cheeks, undoubtedly making them flush, and wondered if this cold was turning into fever. As I took a deep breath to get my ever-rapidly climbing heart rate until control, I immediately felt a tickle in my throat. Before I knew it, I began uncontrollably coughing again. Perfect, I thought. I put my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound as much as possible. I was petrified Dr. Van der Stein would kick me out for interrupting his lecture on the myth of phrenology. Just as I was about to get up and run into the hallway, Michael tapped my shoulder and without saying a word reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of cough drops, and placed them on the desk in front of me. We made eye contact but I couldn’t speak to thank him, fearing any use of my voice would trigger another coughing fit. He turned back to face the front of the class but I continued to stare at him. I then stared at the cough drops.
Why was this affecting me so much? I felt a strong sense of panic come over me, followed by a moment of clarity.
I was in love with Michael.
Chapter 2
Tell me you love me
The next day my apartment buzzer went off at exactly 8p.m. Without asking who wanted in, I buzzed back, opening the downstairs entrance, unlocked my door, and plopped back onto my couch. My best friend Cassandra had made me re-tell every moment of yesterday’s class with Michael ad nauseum over the phone that afternoon. By the end of it, I chalked up my new-found love for him as nothing more than fever-induced delirium. Even if I had found Michael momentarily attractive, I was looking forward to a nice relaxing evening on the couch with Nicholas. I finished the conversation with Cassandra by telling her that Nicholas was coming over that evening because he wanted to “nurse me back to health”.
Cassandra let out a long sigh into the receiver, and almost threateningly said, “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
Two minutes after the buzzer had rung, my door opened and Nicholas Anderson had materialized. He was just standing there, smiling warmly at me. He was wearing his traditional torn jeans, plain white sneakers, and a dark-blue T-shirt with a hoodie over it. He topped the look off with a worn-out gray baseball-style hat that I remember him buying four years ago at Abercrombie. Nicholas was always a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy, he never dressed to impress anyone, always appearing completely comfortable, and he effectively pulled it off. It was one of the things that had drawn me to him in the first place.
We had met four years ago, freshman year of college at Rutgers when my roommate Dasha had introduced us. We clicked instantly and became fast friends, bonding over our mutual hatred of our economics professor and our love for Dashboard Confessional’s music. Even though the economics class would be the only class we would take together, me being a combined Biological Sciences/Psychology major, and him being a Communications major, we still made it a point to spend nearly every day together. At this time, four years ago, I was still involved with my high-school sweetheart and didn’t think of Nicholas as more than just a good buddy. By the time we finished undergrad, I came to think of him as one of my best friends. It wasn’t until one rainy Friday night two years ago when Nicholas insisted on coming over to talk and said that it was extremely important. He refused to tell me any details over the phone, which only made me imagine the worst. I was so nervous from his evasiveness, figuring something horrible had happened, that I immediately grabbed and hugged him when he arrived that evening. I nervously looked him up and down for some sort of clue as to what was going on. He quickly realized my frantic state and let out a chuckle.
“It’s nothing bad, Amalia,” he said, leading me to the couch. “I’m sorry I scared you. I just had to talk to you in person, and it had to be now.”
Dying of anticipation, I put my hands on his shoulders and commanded, “Tell me now.”
He took my hands off his shoulders and held on to them tightly, all the while keeping strong eye contact. Taken aback by this gesture, I was beginning to feel nervous. He let go of my left hand and stroked my out-grown bangs away from my face.
Without breaking eye contact, he said “I know we’ve been friends for a long time.” Nicholas paused and finally broke eye contact. He sheepishly looked down at the floor, almost too embarrassed or afraid to continue with his obviously well-prepared speech.
I opened my mouth to break the silence when he said, “But I’m crazy about you, and I have been since the first time I saw you.”
My initial reaction was to bypass this type of emotionally charged contact with a joke, but I was too stunned to deflect with my usual sarcasm. Nicholas then proceeded to proverbially pour his heart out to me, recapping every moment of the first day we met, from the smell of the perfume I had on, right down to the green laces in my sneakers, and everything in between. He ended his pontification perfectly, declaring the words that every girl longs to hear from a man.
He cupped my face in his hands and softly said, “Amalia, you’re the on
e”.
I was petrified. No one had ever told me I was “the one”, and certainly never with such conviction and confidence that Nicholas had presented. He spoke as if the alternative, me not being “the one”, was impossible. After taking a few days to think about this proposal, of him and I taking a huge leap into a full-blown relationship that could end badly, ultimately causing us to never speak again, I decided it was worth the risk if it meant I got to be with someone who loved me so intensely. It was now two years later, and I had never felt happier.
Remembering that night only made me feel more relieved and comforted by his familiar presence when he walked over to me tonight.
“I come bearing gifts!” he said as he excitedly reached into a plastic Duane Reade bag.
I wrapped the blanket around me and sank a little lower into the couch, fully preparing myself to be taken care of. Even with his cap on, I could see that Nicholas’s dark hair had grown out well past the point of needing a haircut, but somehow it only made him look sexier.
“Nyquil, tissues, organic green tea, and Vitamin C,” he proudly presented as he systematically placed the contents of the bag in a line on my coffee table.
After emptying the contents of the bag, he took off his hat and threw it on the table, revealing his perfectly straight, gorgeous jet-black hair. He then leaned over me and put his hand on my forehead; his hands were always warm and comforting. I immediately closed my eyes in reaction to the warm rush of what I could only recognize as love. True love that formed when you knew someone perfectly for years before you even began dating them, not the kind of quick lust that was elicited when a near-stranger offers you a lozenge. Having been raised by an atheist mother, the notion of faith to me was as well received as believing in the tooth fairy. However, when it came to Nicholas, the cynical, black-and-white realist that had been ingrained in me from an early age seemed to disappear. I firmly believed that we were meant to be soul-mates. I opened my eyes and stared into his. His eyes were by far his best feature. They were perfectly round and impossibly wide and youthful, a light chestnut color with flakes of deep brown, which masculinized an otherwise feminine trait.
“Hi, baby,” I purred dreamily, slipping further into bliss. His strong arms were exactly what I needed to fall into after a day of feeling awful.
“Hello, darling,” he answered sweetly, stroking my hair and pulling me closer to him.
I could smell his Acqua di Gio cologne, and I was convinced it was the greatest scent in nature. I could feel him breathing as he gently put my heavy head on his chest. All of the chaos and stress of the previous day had vanished. This was exactly what I needed. I felt the warm envelopment of sleep coming.
“Tell me you love me,” he whispered as he pushed my hair off of my face.
I smiled, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Before I could even take a swig of Nyquil, I was out.
Chapter 3
Dirty Blondes
“You’re a damn idiot,” Cassie rolled her eyes as she tried to flag down the bartender at Oliver’s Tavern.
Except her nasty comment wasn’t directly at the cute, hipster bartender, it was directed at me.
“You’ve been in love with Michael since the first day you met him, I remember you going on and on about how he made you shake his hand,” she said, annoyed at both me and now the hipster.
Cassandra was not used to not getting her way, or in this case, her order taken. She was growing increasingly annoyed at the bartender for not paying attention to her despite her best efforts.
I looked around the bar. I couldn’t help but notice the place was overly crowded for a Thursday evening, containing mostly an older scene. I checked my watch; it wasn’t even nine, way too early for this kind of crowd. Even through all of the yuppie noise, I could hear Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” playing over the speakers and had a brief flashback to summer camp. In the left corner of the room I noticed a group of four good-looking men in suits, probably bankers, laughing too loudly. Finally, the exasperated bartender appeared in front of us.
Before he could even ask what we wanted, Cassandra said, “It’s about time! Gin and tonic, and not any of that cheap well shit. Make sure you put Tanqueray in there.” she commanded without even looking up, “I can tell the difference.”
A little embarrassed by her tenacity I said sheepishly, “Jack and Coke. Please.” Adding the please as an attempt to soften the experience and minimize the chances of spit being in her drink in addition to her high-class gin.
He made the drinks in record time and slammed them down in front of us, spilling a good amount of mine onto the bar, but thankfully missing any of my clothes.
“I mean,” she started in again as she plucked the lime out of her drink and dropped it onto the bar, “I can’t believe you haven’t done anything about this sooner.”
She sipped her drink and then finally met my gaze. I suddenly felt very alert.
“Woah, wait a minute, I’m not doing anything. What are you talking about?” I said, a little confused by her vigilant attitude.
She looked at me, straw in mouth, and cocked her head to the side as if to say “You know what I mean.”
“Cass, Michael and I are just friends.” I said calmly, hoping to disarm the attack that I knew was coming. Clearly not buying it, Cassandra let out a laugh, but it sounded more like a snort. “Sure, he’s a good-looking guy, but I’m not doing anything! For starters, I have a boyfriend who I love.” I pressed my hands to my chest, watching as she shook her head at me.
Even though Cassandra was my best friend, she had only met Nicholas a handful of times and for some reason unbeknownst to me, she wasn’t his biggest fan. I believed her disdain for him had something to do with the first time they met. He had made a joke about her name; I couldn’t recall the details since I was already three or four drinks in when the misunderstanding happened, but the whole ordeal had left a bad taste in Cassie’s mouth.
“Secondly,” I said and then paused to take a sip of my drink. I suddenly felt a strong relief from the alcohol that was in front of me, “Michael has a girlfriend, in case you had forgotten.”
“Hello! Who lives in Phoenix!” she practically shouted, at the same time as the bartender walked by. He shot us a look, and then smiled politely.
“That bartender’s pretty cute; you shouldn’t be such a bitch to him,” I muttered.
“Don’t try to change the subject, Amy!” she said, now grinning. She held up one finger and shook her head. Her blonde hair bounced from side to side.
She was the only person on earth who could get away with calling me Amy. After all, Amy is in no way short for Amalia, but in eighth-grade gym class she decided my actual name was too much of a mouthful and has been calling me Amy ever since. She could obviously tell I was not amused by this conversation, so she finally pulled back.
“Fine,” she said, softening. “I am sorry I even so much as implied that you could do better than Nicholas Anderson.” She crossed her legs and started looking around the bar, as if this conversation was suddenly boring her.
I shook my head and clapped in front of her face to regain her attention. “It’s not a question of doing better, Cass. I love Nick, he’s my boyfriend. Michael is in a relationship and regardless of geography he and Marge seem to be doing fine, so moving on!” I said in a self-declaring rant, and then downed the rest of my drink.
Cassandra, not knowing when to leave well enough alone concluded with, “Marge, ugh! I even hate her name.”
“We’re moving on!”
Now I was the one practically yelling.
We both looked at each other and burst out laughing. We’ve been friends for ten years and had never gotten into a real fight. Sure there were moments when we would get short with each other, but it always ended with a laugh, knowing how ridiculous we sounded. She flipped her short, golden hair back, and gave me a light punch on the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” someone said from behind us.
; I turned around to a very well-dressed man in what I assumed was an expensive, and well-tailored, suit. It was one of the laughing bankers from the corner. I noticed he had grayish eyes and recalled earlier that day in class, when I had learned how rare that physical trait was. All in all, a good-looking man.
“Are you sisters?” he asked as he leaned in a little closer to us.
When he came closer I could tell he was older than Cassie and I, definitely late twenties or possibly even thirty. I turned to Cassandra, expecting her to answer with some quick retort, but she just sat there, staring at the guy. I felt the need to jump in.
“No, sorry. We’re not sisters,” I offered, not really sure why I felt the need to apologize, but he seemed completely disinterested in what I had to say and continued looking at Cassandra.
She finally recovered from her swoon and said, “That’s right, we’re not sisters. People always ask us if we’re related, though, because we have the same hair color.”
I loosely grabbed a handful of Cassandra’s, barely shoulder-length, hair and held it up to my own in an attempt to justify this comment. My hair was about five inches longer than her hair, hanging down the middle of my back. Despite this difference, the coloring was virtually the same.
“Dirty blondes?” he smirked.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. Anyone over the age of 18 should never make a joke that pedestrian. He barely noticed my dismay.
“Bryce Peterson,” he said. I work for Ernst and Young, in accounting”.
Bryce took a sip of his beer and then continued, “I just started working there this week, so a few of my buddies and I are out celebrating. What are your names? What do you do?”
I thought it was odd that he offered up his credentials without us even asking. Also, his questions were directed at both of us, but it seemed clear he was only interested in Cassandra’s answer. I felt relieved; I had enough problems with men right now. For example, I couldn’t get the thought of Michael’s soft graze against my arm out of my mind. Something so insignificant was suddenly the main focus of most of my thoughts. I couldn’t tell Cassandra, she’d never let me hear the end of it. Besides, I felt guilty for ever feeling this way.