by Sophia Duane
“How is history stupid? Do you mean it’s hard, or do you mean that you just don’t care about what happened in the world before you were born?” She tapped her fingers against the taut hide covering the bongos. No rhythm emerged, but I stil liked the sound. She turned her face up, lips quirking at one side as she thought. “Um, maybe both?” She looked at me again. When I caught her eyes, she seemed in a hurry to explain. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t care about what happened in the past, I just don’t see the point of focusing on it. Shouldn’t we pay more attention to the present so we can make the future what it should be?”
While I couldn’t deny that she had a point, I shook my head. “But how can you know what’s going on in the present without studying what got us here?”
“It doesn’t matter what got us here. We’re here. What are we going to do about it? We can’t change what people did, we can only deal with the aftermath.”
I set the pencil down and scratched the back of my neck. “A part of dealing with the aftermath is understanding the events that brought us to this point. You can’t truly deal with what is if you haven’t even looked at what was.” Olivia was quiet as she got up and replaced the bongos with the rest of my drums, and then wandered around my room. She looked at my books, then the things on top of my dresser. She touched the painted wooden beads of a sloppily made necklace. It cost a dol ar to make at a festival. Aaron and I used to love sitting down on the blankets and stringing the beads as the crowds passed by.
His were long gone—given to the landfil s when he realized stuff like that wasn’t cool. I didn’t know why I stil had a lot of things from my childhood. Things that were now useless. They had no function, and were real y just pieces of junk with some kind of sentiment attached to them.
I watched her as she moved closer to me, final y sitting down on the bed and facing my desk. She kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged.
Her eyes were trained on the picture hanging low on the wal between my bed and desk. She tucked her hair behind her ears as I thought for a moment if she was going to ask who the woman in the picture was, but maybe she could just tel it was my mother. “I think it’s cool you get so passionate about things.”
My eyebrows rose and she reacted to the cue. When she smiled, I noticed the crinkling of the skin around her eyes—another smal thing that made her seem older than what I knew her to be. She must’ve been able to tel that I needed her to explain what ‘things’ she was talking about because she added, “You know, defending history and playing the drums.”
I wasn’t passionate about anything other than drumming, and even that seemed like a lukewarm fascination. Passion was something pure and indescribable—something one could see without being told. Olivia dancing was passion. Aaron on the footbal field was passion. “I can’t make you like history, but I can help you study it.”
“Good.” She licked her lips, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and then said, “So, tel me the secrets.” I scanned my room as I thought back to her entering. She’d had nothing with her. “You didn’t bring your notes.” She shook her head even though it wasn’t a question. “Wel , I think the best way to see what’s going on is to review your notebook.”
“I don’t take good notes.” That was usual y the problem with people who got poor grades in history. I tried to lighten my expression in an attempt to let her know that I understood, but it might have come out like a grimace. “I get distracted,” she said. “At my old school I sat by the window and never listened to what my teacher was saying.”
“Do you sit by the window here?” She shook her head. “Then maybe it’l be different.”
“I don’t think so,” Olivia said, and laughed. “I’m real y good a math and science, but that’s figuring things out, you know? Like solving something chal enging. history and English are just . . .”
“It’s a different kind of learning, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be chal enging.” She was looking right at me, paying attention to everything I said. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but I went on. “Actual y, it’s more chal enging considering you’re not intrinsical y good at it.” Again, she laughed. I waited for explanation. God, she was pretty. I couldn’t think about it, or I’d never be able to continue our conversation. She stood up, crossed the room again, and used two fingers to lift up a few slats in the blinds. Her hair came to her mid-back. I wondered if she’d always worn it long. Maybe that was a girly thing to wonder about. My brother said that I must’ve inherited my mother’s girly gene when she died.
“You sound like the counselor at my last school.”
Knowing an opportunity to find out more information when I heard one, I jumped on it. “Where was your last school?” Olivia turned and tapped her finger on my snare. “A little boarding school in Colorado.” That surprised me. The Cartwrights weren’t rich, and boarding schools seemed like they were for the wealthy. “Real y?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “I wasn’t there for long.”
“What was it like?”
She rol ed her eyes. “Stuffy. It had horses and a lake.”
I’d never been to boarding school, but the fact that those two things were what she told me about struck me as odd. “You don’t like horses and lakes?”
“I like horses, but the school was like . . .” She paused for a long moment and then shrugged. “It was like a therapeutic school. They used the horses to help troubled kids bond with something or whatever.”
I cocked my head to the side. She wasn’t looking at me now. Olivia tucked her hair behind her ears and busied herself with drumsticks and mal ets.
A therapeutic boarding school. Troubled kids. She didn’t seem like a troubled kid who needed therapy. She seemed wel -adjusted and happy.
Wel , at the moment, she looked lost in thought. Not happy, but not overly sad either.
It struck me that I knew so very little about her.
“So what about rock’ n’ rol , man?”
Her voice was brighter than just moments before and the strange juxtaposition confused me for a second. Then my focus narrowed back onto her words, but I was stil confused. “Huh?”
“You have al these drums for marching band, right? So what about rock’ n’ rol ? Do you have a set for rocking out?” I liked the way she spoke. There was no struggle for words. There was no awkward cadence or hesitation. She just spoke.
“My kit’s in the garage,” I said.
She tapped a drumstick against my Dune poster. “So you do play some rock?”
“Of course.” I was defensive. She had no way of knowing that I played, so the question wasn’t out of line, but the tone bothered me. “I’m not just some guy that’s good at history and marching band.”
She turned, craning her head in my direction, causing her hair to whip around. It made a ‘ppppfftt’ sound as it hit the poster on the wal . At first her expression was neutral, but then, slowly, a mirthful expression seemed to blossom. Lips upturned, eyes twinkling, she said, “You have fire in you.” With a nod, she added, “I like it.”
I had to look away from her not knowing what she meant. It took a moment, but I final y cleared my throat, and attempted to shift the topic back to tutoring. “I real y need to look at your notes in order to help you with history.” I was stil looking at my carpet when I heard her set the sticks down on my snare. There was a quiet thud on my bed, accompanied by the squeaks of the springs. Glancing up, she was lying on her stomach, her feet up in the air, crossed at the ankle, her head resting on its side on top of her folded arms. “Okay.”
I motioned toward the window. “Do you want to go and get them?”
She sat up, and looked me in the eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
I nodded.
“What’s the point of studying history? I don’t get it.”
How could she not know? Had we not just had this conversation? She was smart—even if she needed a little help, I could tell she was smart.
How could she seriously need
to ask why studying history could be beneficial? I almost started explaining to her like she was Aaron. Usual y with him it was vague statements because I knew he wasn’t really listening anyway.
But then instead of just looking at her, I looked at her. She was genuinely interested in what I was going to say. While I stil felt the same way I always did around pretty girls—worthless and unworthy—something about her, something in this moment, made me feel just a little bit more confident. It wasn’t that I thought she might’ve liked me or wanted me to be her boyfriend or anything like that. It was that she was treating me like an equal—like a friend.
She deserved better than a short answer. She deserved more energy than I gave to Aaron, or anyone else for that matter. I had to be real, because while we were only talking about a subject in high school, I felt like we were real y talking about something else. Something deeper.
“How can we move forward, how can we have a future, without understanding our past? Understanding where we’ve been and how we got there is extremely important. It isn’t just about dates and dead guys. It’s about people coming together and doing great things, horrible things, things that changed the course of al humans. The past can guide us. It can teach us. If you forget about it, you’re real y just stumbling around blind, bound to make the bad decisions of those before you.”
Olivia sat silent for a moment, her head was cocked to one side. She was nibbling on her lower lip as her eyes were fixed on some spot above my head. Final y, she looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes. “What if I already understand the past, but have no flipping clue about the future?”
“No one real y knows about the future,” I said.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s cal ed the present.” Her voice, while confident, sounded sad.
I’d heard it before, but never spoken with such quiet conviction. “I like that.”
“Me, too.” Olivia hopped up and stretched. “I respect how you feel about history, but it’s over and done with. The world is the way it is because it is the way it is. Studying how we got here won’t change it. Even studying the past can’t help clarify the future, so until the future gets here, today is al we have.”
Olivia tugged on her shoes then reached out, her index finger extended, and poked me on the shoulder. “I’l be back with my notebook.” And with that, she was gone.
I heard her go down the stairs. I got up and went to the window. She skipped out into the street, her hair flowing behind her. When she got to the bottom of the steps of her house, she slowed down, then she disappeared behind the door.
That’s when my head started to spin. I couldn’t believe she’d just been in my room. She’d spoken to me like I mattered. She was smart, and pretty, and total y nice. Olivia had been in my house and was coming back for me, not Aaron! Sure, it was because she needed help with History, but stil . There’d been times in the past when girls like her—pretty girls—talked to me. It was because of academics as wel , but this was different.
Even if we’d only mainly talked about history, I felt like something meaningful had been exchanged.
From the window, I saw her come back out, items in hand. It was then I realized that it was rude for me to be up here in my room and not waiting downstairs. Now she’d have to stand outside with books in her hands until I got down there to open the door.
I scratched behind my ear and made my feet move. I was out of my room and to the top of the stairs when I saw her coming up them. She hadn’t waited. I hadn’t heard the doorbel , which meant that she’d just opened the door and come right on in. Did she do that at other people’s houses?
I just stood there watching her, wondering who the hel she was and why I found her so fascinating. She was different, that was for sure. Different from me, obviously, but different from anyone I’d ever known. Casey had been my friend since kindergarten and had been coming over to my house since he was five. He’d never just walked in. He knocked. Every time.
But not Olivia. She walked in like she was meant to be here.
The thought both soothed me and wound me up. I liked that she was here. It felt like I was at the edge of the stairs, toes hanging over, chest pushed out. Like I wasn’t holding on and I would be fal ing forward at any time. It felt like something big—life changing big—was happening.
I heard a laugh then felt a poke in my abdomen. With a hard swal ow fol owed by a deep breath, I blinked and looked down. I literal y was standing on the edge of the stairs, and Olivia was right below me.
“Can I come up?” she asked. The way her voice sounded gave me chil s. It was teasing, accentuating the fact that she’d already entered back into the house, but now I was standing in her way. Her fingers were pressed against my stomach, and for a moment I didn’t think I would be able to breathe ever again. Her gaze caught mine.
My breath shook as I inhaled, but I needed to answer, or move, or both. I swal owed hard and scratched behind my ear again before taking two steps back, and whispering, “Yeah.”
I fol owed her into my bedroom, trying not to acknowledge how perfect her body was, how shiny her hair was, or how good she smel ed. When she got to my bed, she tossed the book and notebook onto it before plopping down herself.
“Tuition included the books, so I kept my history book from last year. They encouraged us to highlight and write in it, so I thought you might want to look at it.”
“Yeah.” That intel igent reply came as I just stood there in the doorway, eyes focused on her fingers as she drummed them against her folded legs. I let my eyes fol ow the fingers of one hand up beyond the knuckles, over the veined top of her hand to her slender wrist, up her forearm to the beautiful y pale skin of the inside of her elbow. Her bicep was partial y covered by her T-shirt, and I couldn’t see her shoulder, but I imagined that it was just as pretty as the rest of her. Her neck was perfect, long and elegant, with her golden brown and honey hair spil ing over it.
Her chin had a smal dimple in it, but had I not been studying her, I might have missed it. I intentional y skipped looking at her lips. I already knew how perfect they were. Instead I focused on her nose. It was the one part of her face that wasn’t so perfect. It was a little too wide, and the end was a little too rounded, but somehow that imperfection helped make her seem even more perfect overal .
When I got to her eyes, it was like a punch in the gut. They were rounded and her brows were raised. She was waiting for me to do something other than stare at her. I felt caught, like when I was younger and Aaron convinced me that it was a good idea to get into my dad’s “secret” stash of Belgian chocolates. He’d kept it on the top shelf and Aaron nominated me to be the one to climb up and get it. I’d been sitting on top of the refrigerator when my dad found me, and had been frozen when he’d asked, “Just what do you think you’re doing, Adam?” When I’d looked around for help, Aaron was nowhere to be seen.
But instead of my dad’s patient, yet expectant face gaping at me, waiting for an answer, it was Olivia’s face, her expression mostly neutral but sort of amused, I saw. Clearing my throat, I pushed myself to pretend as though I hadn’t just being staring at her for God knows how long, went over to the bed, and picked up the text.
Sitting down next to Olivia on my bed, I flipped open the book. It didn’t take long to figure out what some of the problem was. “You’ve highlighted almost every word in here.” I turned to look at her. Her expression was blank. “The point of highlighting is to take a large amount of text and boil it down to the most essential parts. When you study, your eyes should be drawn to the yel ow marks, and you should read only the main themes and important supporting information. What you have here is,” I paused, struggling for a word that wasn’t offensive. “It’s not helpful.”
“I highlighted what I read.”
I nodded. “It’s good that you read it, but then you need to pick out the important parts. That’s what you highlight. Not the whole thing.” She tapped a ye
l ow paragraph with her finger, and I realized how close we were sitting. Again, my gaze fol owed the length of her arm until her breasts took my attention. With much concentration, I pul ed my eyes away and focused them on the book in my lap.
“So what’s the important part of that paragraph?”
She wanted an il ustration, so I stood up for a moment and grabbed the pen from my desk. Settling back down next to her, I quickly scanned the page, underlining certain words. In less than a minute I was done.
I read. “Ponce de León. Spanish Explorer. c. 1474—1521. Governor of Puerto Rico. Fountain of youth. Florida.”
“That’s not a lot of information.”
I turned to look at her, moving away from her just a little in order to see her better. “It’s al the information you need. The rest just fluffs up the paragraph. Train your mind to focus on the meat of the text and let the fil er fal away.” Her voice light. “I must like fil er.”
I chuckled with her. She was so gorgeous when she laughed. I had to stop thinking girly things like that, so I took a deep breath and cleared my throat again. “History isn’t hard after you figure out what’s most important.” I closed the book and set it between us. “But since you can’t mark in the books at our school, let’s focus on note taking.”
She picked up the pink notebook and handed it to me. “I’m sure it’s the same as the book. Too much information.” I flipped it open. Her handwriting was girly—al big bubbly letters. The margins were littered with doodles and designs. “Bored a lot?” I asked.
“Not bored,” she answered. “Sometimes it’s just hard to keep on task.”
Her notes were scattered. Some of them stopped mid-sentence; some of them were complete—probably word for word what the teacher had said. “First, do the same thing I told you with highlighting. Just write down the essentials of what you read. Do the same thing when you’re in class.
Not everything your teacher says is meaningful. Just listen for key words and write it down. You’l have less to write and an easier time when you go to study.”