A New Reflection

40. Farewell Dinner

Late that night, Alex texts to let me know Steve was open to the idea of having me practice with them over the summer. I will need to get permission from the school, since I'm no longer a student at Wilderness High. He suggested I join under the premise of volunteering to help out the team.

I wonder how Alex managed to broach the topic and whether Steve found it suspicious that we had communicated, but of course I can't ask about this part. Besides, Alex is such a natural communicator; however he handled it, I trust that it was seamless.

After the exchange, Alex and I don't text again. There are only a couple weeks left in the semester, and I review my expectations for this summer on the daily. The best case scenario is that something... happens with Alex when we see each other again, but I understand this is unlikely. The probable scenario is that nothing happens, and I will still be able to enjoy his proximity and sustain my crush a while longer.

The worst case would be if Alex is available, and I risk being honest about my feelings, and he turns me down. I think I can handle this, though. It has happened multiple times this school year, and I have easily bounced back from every experience. It seems like after putting myself out there with Alex, Joshua, Ethan and Josué, my confidence would have been knocked to the ground; on the contrary, for whatever reason, I have become more self-assured with each rejection.

I feel more amused than I probably should over the my string of failed romantic experiences; it's not as though I am looking to fall in love at the age of nineteen, anyway.

We have toned down the partying significantly in recent months. Isla and I go hiking often with various groups of friends, and sometimes I play ping pong or foosball with Joshua. Our interactions are still flirty, though we haven't experienced any more of our supercharged moments such as the one in his dorm room when he tried to kiss me. I think he is afraid to take it there again.

As finals approach, I buckle down on my studies. I've been completely enraptured by this semester's course, especially my creative writing class. We are crafting a final short story in lieu of an exam, and in one night I crank out a personal narrative of my first kiss. It's raw and sentimental, and I sort of love it, but at the last second I decide it's too intimate to share with my classmates and professor.

Instead, I invent a bizarre science fiction style romance about a girl who, unaware she is part robot, is implanted with a device that causes her to give birth. I have no idea from where the plot line manifests (I don't even like science fiction), but I vomit it all onto the page in a few hours' time.

My classmates love it; my favorite peer comment, scrawled in the margin with zealous handwriting, reads: "I envy you like I envy the French their bread!!!" This makes me giggle out loud. The same student calls out my favorite line of the story as cliché, which also amuses me. As I glance across the room at the classmate who critiqued my story, a sweet blond boy with a light dusting of freckles, it occurs to me that he bares a slight resemblance to my friend James from high school. James. By golly, I think that kid had a crush on me.

As I read through the rest of the peer feedback, peppered with superlatives and exclamation marks, a sharp, boiling hot kernel of hope pops around inside me. It's hope... and desire. At first I think it has something to do with James, or Alex, but then I realize it's about me. Putting a certain combination of words on paper. Causing others to feel something.

Even though, perhaps, I didn't have the courage to share the right story.

My professor's comment at the end is a heavy aluminum lid that puts an end to the feverish popping: "This was a very, very... strange story." That's all it says.