The Do-Over(16)
Author: Suzanne Park
Chapter Nine
Stupid key.
Stupid lock.
After thirty seconds of jiggling, wiggling, and profanity-shouting, the door flung open.
“ROOMIE! How’ve you been? The weather is so nice today!”
“Hey. Sorry for all my racket. Had trouble with the key again.” I moved past Beth and plopped down on the couch.
“Two things, Roomie. One, we’re backpack twins! I can’t believe we have the same one! Let me guess, Amazon’s top choice for back-to-school? Gray JanSport for the win! A school classic, like good old-fashioned Coca-Cola, am I right?”
When I didn’t reply and got up from the couch, she followed me all the way to my room. “Second thing, your friend is here. Mia, the Awkwafina look-alike. And I’m not saying that because I don’t know what I’m talking about, she dead-on looks like my girl Nora.”
It was true, Mia was mistaken for Awkwafina all the time. She loved it, or hated it, depending on her mood.
“Mia’s here?” I pulled out the free ASA T-shirt from my backpack and handed it to Beth. “Here, you can have this.”
She unrolled the tee and then hugged it to her body. “I appreciate your generosity. Thank you.”
What she didn’t know yet was that I had a nearly identical shirt that I slept in, albeit rattier and worn in the ringed collar, left over from my college days. It was one of my few mementos from that era. My heart swelled with pride knowing that my T-shirt design had lasted so many years and the logo was still used by the organization.
Beth asked, “Do you think having the same backpack is like a personality test? Because it combines a lot of things, like color affinity, price sensitivity, and other attributes. Personally, I think if anything, it means we’re a lot alike and meant to be BFFs.”
I shrugged. “Or it could simply mean that Amazon served us the same ad that we both clicked on, right?”
She tilted her head. “But that also would mean that we had a similar profile for the Amazon algorithms to say, ‘Aha! These people are likely to click on this because we have a shit ton of data on them and they basically have the same tastes.’”
Beth had a point. Damn, she was right about how algorithms work. I bought my backpack a few weeks ago, so we weren’t even sharing the same IP address, therefore I couldn’t explain it with that. Beth was smart and insightful for such a young person. Who knew, she could possibly be my white soul sister backpack twin. A shiver traveled down my spine as I literally shuddered at the notion that boisterous Beth was more like me than I had thought. She veered away to the bathroom as I turned the doorknob to my room. Mia sat cross-legged on my bed, drinking a White Claw. “How was school, dear? Did you make any new friends?”
I groaned. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I need that drink.”
She handed it to me. “You hate White Claw. That bad, eh? Now I’m curious.”
“I saw Jake.” I took a swig and burped, remembering why I hated the Claw.
Her jaw hung open. “What? How? Did you kick him where it counts? Did he not finish his degree either?”
I coughed on my next sip. “No, I took the high road and didn’t punch him in the nuts. Not finishing college is uniquely my failure. But yeah, I saw him, and somehow restrained myself from ball kicking.”
“So . . . what’s he look like now? Hot or not? Swipe left or right?”
My memories flashed from earlier that day. His handsome face. Muscular chest. Sardonic smile. That hair I badly wanted to tangle my fingers in, and those ripped arms pushing against the fabric of his T-shirt.
“Your scrunched face suggests he’s either super attractive or the exact opposite. I’m guessing . . . hot . . . or you would be in a much better mood. Did you catch up with him? Why is he on campus?”
“He’s my TA,” I squeaked.
She yelped. “For your TikTok class?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s called Building a Global Audience and Influencer Culture, thank you very much, and I told my mom I’d take this course to help my career. But the Jake class is for the new STEM requirement for liberal arts majors, and if I pass, it happens to complete my degree. He’s the TA for the computer science class, and getting a PhD, if you can believe it. I actually saw him at the market the other day but didn’t realize it was him.”
“Holy shit.” She fell back into a cushion. “That’s a lot to take in.” She grabbed the White Claw can from me and chugged. “Random question, does he dress like a grown-up now? He wore sleeveless shirts and basketball shorts year-round. I can’t picture him in khakis, or whatever wannabe professors wear.”
A laugh burst out of me. “He’s going with a half glow up. He wears regular adult clothing on top, but still rocks his shorts on the bottom.”
She grinned. “Good for him.”
“I’m hoping he’ll ignore me and not acknowledge that I’m in his class. But I might drop it anyway. I think it’s going to be hard.” I sighed.
“Taking a CS class does sound hard, but I know you’ll do well in your courses. You know what they say about graduating, right? Cs get degrees. So don’t stress yourself out. I know how you can get, overworking and winding yourself into a tight ball of worry, and you need to make sure you keep things in check, per your therapist’s orders.”
She was right, of course. According to my therapist, I needed to try to find balance. My external validation mental model affected my self-esteem, which as of late was in a precarious state thanks to my incapability of meeting my next book deadline and being so wrongfully confident in my Carlthorpe alumna status. I needed to work on getting my life back in order, in as mentally healthy a way as possible.
Mia asked, “So back to Jake, are you two good? Did you make up after . . . you know? I honestly don’t remember how you eventually left things.”
How did we leave things? Badly. That’s how. He quit on me when I needed him the most, and I could never forgive him for that. I never returned his calls or emails when he wanted to apologize later. Maybe I should have responded, because now karma was truly being a supreme bitch. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, which came out as an annoyed sigh.
“So not good.” Mia read me like a book.
“Not good,” I confirmed. “Let’s change the subject and change locations.” We stood and she followed me to the living room.