I opened my mouth, about to make another attempt to refocus Kat’s attention to our assignment, but then Cambria stepped into the room.
“What are you guys doing?” She wandered over to the table where we had papers splayed out.
“It’s for clinicals,” I answered, a bit curtly. “And we really need to keep working on it.”
“We were talking about Drew’s boyfriend.” Kat gave Cambria full eye-contact, which resulted in her turning her back to all of the papers on the table. In that moment, I thought I felt a headache coming on.
“Aren’t you jealous your sister’s boyfriend is a lawyer?” Kat asked Cambria.
“Law student,” I interjected.
“Wait, he’s officially your boyfriend now?” Cambria pivoted to face me.
“No. Not officially. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t know?” Cambria crossed her arms.
“I mean, he hasn’t asked me, or said anything about it being official. I think he’s just waiting until next term, when I’m not in his workshop anymore. Then things will all be . . . kosher.” I used the word that David had on our first date.
Cambria was practically staring me down. If she was trying to be intimidating, the smoky makeup around her eyes was actually serving her pretty well.
“You guys hang out, like, every day,” she said. “He should have made it official by now.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Kat offered from her chair. “You guys are happy, he’s crazy handsome, and he’s a . . .”—I raised my eyebrows at her—“a law student,” she finished.
Cambria didn’t look satisfied but let down her stare.
“I have to go study for Chemistry.”
When she had left the room, Kat said, “I don’t know what her problem is. If I were you, I would just go with the flow. That’s what I always do. Speaking of which, did I tell you about the date I had last week with the guy from engineering?”
“The short one? I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I never say no to a date—that’s my personal philosophy. Anyway, he was pretty nice, but he didn’t ask me very many questions.”
Now, I definitely had a headache. I would need to swallow a few painkillers to get through the rest of the night. It would be a while before we actually finished the assignment.
◈ ◈ ◈
Cambria and I went home to Rockwood for Thanksgiving and spent the long weekend with our parents. My previous years of college, I had loved being home for Thanksgiving. Eating amazing homecooked food. Looking at old photo albums with my mom. Even brushing my teeth in my old bathroom. It all felt like being wrapped up in an old, childhood blanket.
This year, it was different. David was back in Freya, having Thanksgiving with his own family. He had told me his plans about this earlier in the week, and the truth was, these plans had surprised me. I had expected to receive an invitation to join him and meet his family. Or, I thought, maybe David would propose a plan so that he would drive over to Rockwood later on Thanksgiving Day to meet my family. Neither of these expectations transferred into reality, though. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving arrived, I told David that Cambria and I were leaving town, he said to have a nice time, and that was that.
I was malcontent over the whole weekend. I was thinking about him, wondering what he was doing, missing him. I wistfully picked at the homecooked food on my plate. I only half paid attention to the photo albums with my mom. And I stared at my phone every time I brushed my teeth, waiting to see if I would ever hear from David.
I didn’t get any phone calls from him, but he did send me a text the day after Thanksgiving that said, Happy late Thanksgiving. Pretty busy here. Miss you, beautiful. That brought me some elation initially, and I read the message at least once a day, trying to reignite that spark it gave me the first time I saw it. My mom tried to converse with me about nursing school over the weekend, but she seemed to notice how distracted I was. My dad, on the other hand, was taken up with Cambria, wanting to discuss medical school and future doctorhood with her.
When Monday finally came, I was ecstatic to be back in Freya, to get back to my old routine. Finally, I would get to see David. Of course, we both would have to get through our long days of school first, but soon enough, we would be together. My mind circled around ideas of what we might do that night, how wonderful it would feel to be in his arms, to see his smile and hear his voice.
But after texting him to check on what time he was free that evening, his response caused my enthusiasm to shrivel up in a heartbeat.
I’m super swamped, he wrote. My finals are next week. We’ll hang out another day. I’ll let you know. Sorry, gorgeous.
As the week went on, I felt my motivation to get through school dwindle more and more. I noticed an unfamiliar loneliness creep over me, as well. I had apparently grown highly accustomed to spending so much time with David. Being on my own felt like being with a stranger.
Thursday made its appearance, which meant it had been a whole week since I’d last seen him. I hadn’t heard from him since that Monday. I was going a little out of my mind not knowing when we would see each other next. I had tried my best to give him space so that he could prepare for his finals. I knew how that was, after all, being stressed when finals week was coming around. His semester ended a week sooner than my term, so we were just experiencing a mismatch in our schedules was all. I had tried telling myself that this week would pass soon enough, but come Thursday, this mantra was no longer working for me. I decided I was going to see him that night, even if it were for just a few minutes.
◈ ◈ ◈
I knew his weekly schedule well, almost by heart. I knew that at six pm that evening, he would be hosting one of his workshops on campus. After having attended all three of the workshops required for my scholarship that term, I knew that he would finish up around seven o’clock. He never went very long with them—like he had said during that first session of the workshop, he understood that students were already busy enough as it was.
During the other sessions Kat and I had to attend, I loved listening to him speak. It wasn’t really the words he said exactly, that I loved. Actually, I usually wasn’t paying attention to the words. It was just hearing his voice that I loved and watching him captivate the room. I would smile at him from my front row seat in the auditorium, but he never gave me special attention, just in case anyone noticed and disapproved.
That evening, I went to the auditorium around 6:45. I tried to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible when entering through the doors and moving toward the stage. I’d learned there was a door to the left of the stage that allowed access to the offices in the back. I was able to slip through the door discreetly and successfully get to David’s office without seeming to cause any interruptions.
In the office, I paced around, inspecting the assortment of stage props and costumes, examining my reflection in the mirror. I’d thrown on a dress that belonged to Cambria. Borrowing her clothes was not something I normally did. But I had noticed this dress in her closet that night—a shade of pink unlike any color of clothing I owned. It fit a little on the short side, since I was taller than my sister. Eventually, I chose to sit on the couch that was underneath the mirror, stretching the dress down my thighs as much as the material would allow me to. I sat there, reading old text messages on my phone, looking at old pictures I’d taken over the last few months. I realized there weren’t very many of them.