Love Novice (Completed) Season 1 In Ben and Am's Romance

Chapter 17: Walking

"Hold on. You are French? You don't have an accent," he says.

"Well, I'm French and American"—Ben watches my mouth when I reply as if its shape would somehow reveal a clue he missed and expose my Frenchness—"I was born there and, as I told you, my mom is French, but my dad is American."

I reserve the information that Mom didn't move to the US with us. That to finish school she sent away the one-year-old me for Dad and Nonna to take care of. Nope. Too much too soon. He doesn't need to know my baggage.

"Your parents live in two different countries? Where did you grow up?" His eyes are on me, studying my face and not paying much attention to the trail.

"US mostly. But I'm a French citizen, so I can live and study there. Plus, the tuition is nominal." The way my finances are faring, I can't afford five more years of school in the US. Money, or lack thereof, is a foe I had to get used to since Dad got sick.

"Interesting. Studying abroad has never occurred to me as an option. What's the practical application of a degree in Social Thought?" Ben asks in his even tone, seemingly unaffected by the tempo of our walk like I am.

"You aren't the first one to ask." I scrunch my face, uneasy about telling him the truth of how uncertain I am about what's next. "I'm not completely sure yet, but I'd like to be a researcher, or maybe a lecturer. A professor, like my Dad, maybe? Working as a TA has been a helpful experience, and I've always loved digging into why we humans think or behave a certain way. How much is shaped by the environment, vs. education or social position, or even politics..." I turn my head to gauge his reaction. He's not looking at me but is focused on the backs of the people ahead of us. Yeah, no one is interested in social thought unless you are studying or teaching it. I better wrap it up before I bore him to death.

"I mean, it's the dream," I say. "One thing I've learned in life is: it rarely goes according to plan. But I've applied to several Universities in France." He doesn't need to know I've already been rejected by one.

"And what if you don't get accepted, what then?".

He's not messing around. Even Angie hasn't asked me this. She pretends I'll succeed, and get in, and have a fancy happy life in France full of wine-drinking and trips to the beach.

"I've asked myself that and ... I don't know yet. I'll start looking for a full-time job, maybe? Live with Angie, or leave Chicago? I'd prefer to move somewhere else. But I don't have to decide now."

Ben looks at his watch. "We should probably head back. We've been walking for three-quarters of an hour." 

So much for baring my soul. He's clearly listening, his questions are relevant to what I say but he doesn't seem to care much about these choices I'm facing. Well, one big choice, the biggest one in my life-to-date. Maybe I'm expecting too much. He's just a guy who I've been friendly with, not an actual friend. And he's decidedly not Angie. I follow suit and check my watch. He's right. The tension in my legs is a telling sign as well. We turn back to make our way to the parking lot.

"Dad always told me on hikes to remember that no matter how energetic I felt and how much I begged him to keep going, there was always the way back I needed to think about." Thinking about my dad and our hikes makes me grin. The sweet memories are a nice change from my usual flashbacks of him sick or dying. "More times than I could remember, he ended up carrying me on his shoulders at least part of the way home, because I underestimated how tired I'd get."

"Your dad sounds like a good father, a good man."

"Very good. My dad is the man I've always compared every one of my boyfriends to." Did I just say that? What's wrong with me? Why do these confessions keep coming out? My control evaporated together with the sweat on this walk.