Sophia
June 9, 2016 marked the fourth day of my first year as a college student.
I made sure to log down this entry in my journal before I forget or feel too lazy to do it.
At the moment, I was sitting on a bench underneath a large tree, healthy and ancient, gallantly protecting me in its shade, at the same time giving me fresh oxygen and the alluring scent of nature. I loved that smell, the smell of the world as it once was, void of people and pollution.
I tilted my head and marveled at the beauty hovering over me. The sunlight slipped through the leaves and branches above me, creating golden patches on my face. I felt warm and happy.
6:15, I scribbled down on my current entry page. Stacy and I had arrived at Orion a bit too early, and she wouldn't let me hear the end of it. So I suggested she find something to read at the library and I had stifled my laughter at the look of horror on her perfect face.
She had told me: "I'm sure there's more fun stuff to do besides reading." And I had seen her dart a lingering smile on a passing male student, who was immediately prey under her spell.
And off she had went, the college guy in tow. It was just like fishing, except she was her own lure.
What to write? What to write? I propped my elbows on the marble table, cradling my cheeks in my palms as I lowered my brown eyes to the opened notebook with a pencil resting on top of it.
I've kept a diary since I was six years old, and I dutifully got a new notebook after the last one got clogged up with my notes, poems, thoughts, dreams, and opinions.
I was more of a writer than a reader. I love writing. A teacher would assign us a report, and I'd always give more than the required number of pages. I loved how the paper and pen gave me the freedom to express my thoughts into words without being judged.
The day was still young, so I picked up my pencil and jotted down a spontaneous starter of my log:
Yet another beautiful morning, and I got the honor of being embraced by the magnificence of mother earth. I'm surrounded by green trees, the faint cologne of soil and paint, and the coveted peacefulness most people yearn for. Birds are chirping and the breeze has grown cold. Good thing I was prepared. I brought my favorite Bay-max hoodie, but I'm not chilly enough to put it on yet. It's Thursday today, which means last period would be Club Activities. I'm sort of nervous and excited at the same time. I got accepted into The Orion Arrow, the school newspaper.
A pleased smile threatened to invade my face, but it trespassed anyway. I clapped my notebook shut, then replaced it inside my green backpack, along with my pencil. After contemplating whether I should eat a light snack or read the book I brought with me, I chose the latter.
With tender caution, I pulled out The Little Prince from my bag, then checked its front cover.
I have been reading books since I was five years old, and though it was weird for someone that young to be so engrossed in thick novels, Stacy supported my nuttiness, and we often went on meticulous hunts and adventures to find the books on my long,lengthy list. At the age of 5, I had printed out 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. Stacy scolded me for being morbid, so she made me change the title to 1001 Must-Read Books. She's such a marshmallow sometimes.
To name a few, I've already finished To Kill A Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Rings, The Harry Potter Series, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Little Women, Of Mice and Men, Crime and Punishment, Sense and Sensibility, and Anna Karenina.
I was a sucker for classics.
Of the hundreds I've perused, my most favorite book was The Little Prince, and I frequently carried it with me so I can drown in its reality, escaping my own, and learn more depth.
I closed my eyes and raised the book to my nose, flipping the pages. A moment later, a voice pulled me out of my trance.
"What are you doing?"
I stopped and opened one eye to look at Lucas. He was blocking the sun, and the light looked like a halo around his head.
"Sniffing."
"Sniffing what?"
"The literary spirit. This is how bookworms get high," I told him and continued flipping the pages. The scent of old books is just invigorating.Someone should invent a perfume that smells like books.
"You're weird," he commented, then he asked me if I minded him sitting beside me.
"No, it's fine," I answered Lucas, who smiled and slid into the empty space on my bench.
My peripheral vision told me that my companion was staring at me in carefree silence.
"Um, why are you looking at me?" I bravely asked, hugging my book to my chest.
Lucas folded his arms on the cold marble table and rested his chin on his arms as he peered up at me, a lopsided smile curving his full lips.
He answered: "Just wondering why you're at school so early."
"Oh." I reassembled my thoughts, because the way his brown eyes twinkled was disarming.
I shrugged, darted my eyes in another direction, and replied: "I guess I was being selfish. I wanted to enjoy the serenity of the campus." I gestured to the seclusion. "So I secretly set Stacy's alarm to an earlier time when she wasn't looking last night. We always commute to and from school together." I wore a sheepish grin to mask my embarrassment.
Lucas nodded his head in understanding. He smiled up at me and said: "That's nice. You and your sister must be pretty close, I gather, since you share rides and phones?"
A fond smile curled my mouth as I thought of my crazy twin. "We're more than close. She's my other half," I told him. "I often believe our hearts are connected, like our necklaces."
At this, I put my book down on my the table and fingered the silver half-heart pendant dangling from my thin silver chain. I showed the little trinket to Lucas with a smile on my face.
His lips slightly parted in awe, and his brown eyes went big as he nailed them on my pendant.
"'Twin For.'" As he read the cursive engraving, his mind seemed to be working like clocks and gears, and after a second, comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh, now I remember. Stacy was wearing the other jagged half of the heart. So when you join the two pieces, it will complete a phrase, right?" he tore his eyes away from my necklace and kept his gaze ahead of him.
I nodded eagerly as I explained to him: "Her half says 'Sisters Ever'. Twin Sisters Forever."
"You really love Stacy, don't you?" He asked, then his eyes flew to the book in front of me.
"More than I can even describe," I seriously answered. I saw what he was looking at and my face broke into another sheepish grin.
He pointed at the worn-out copy of The Little Prince. "Is it your favorite book?"
"Yes, it is!" I couldn't help bubbling up with enthusiasm. My fingers caressed the front cover of the softbound book, and I was filled with yet another whoosh of love and appreciation for it.
"I'm not much of a bookworm," Lucas confessed, stretching his arms across the marble table.
"But have you read it?" I asked in a steady tone. Careful, Sophia. Don't push someone to read what you read just to get them to like it out of force. It's his life. His reading choices.
"The online version," he responded, and I fought back an appalled gasp. Online books were never better than offline books. I had half a mind to tell him this, and I began to open my mouth to launch into a passionate tirade about real tomes when he spoke up again.
"I have one favorite author,though. He or she only wrote two books, but they're unbelievably amazing, I can't stop rereading them. They're really popular,from what I've heard."
My eyebrows knitted together in curiosity. I eyed him closely. "He or she? You don't know if the author is male or female?" I inquired.
Looking quite excited, Lucas pulled open the zipper of his seaweed-colored backpack and took out a couple of fairly thick softbound books, and I squinted my eyes to get a closer view of them.
"Nobody knows," he told me in a conspiratorial voice. "The writer goes by a cryptic pen name. He or she writes under the pseudonym S. Green."
He proudly presented me with the two novels,and I barely contained my gasp.
In his left hand was a inky-blue book with a girl on the cover. She had her back turned, but even with her mid-length brown hair streaming down her back, and her off-white off-shoulder gown, anybody could work out in their imagination that she was beautiful. A white lacy, satin ribbon was pinned to the back of her hair, and above her was the book's title, printed in glossy blood-red text: SCARLET THREAD. And on the very bottom of the cover, in black caps, was the author's alias, a mere persona: S. GREEN.
I held my breath as my eyes shifted to the other book in his right hand.
The front cover was bathed in soothing sunset colors of blue and pink, tinged with placating hues of purple and orange. Just looking at it was enough to pacify anyone's nerves.
In a side profile, against the soft, colorful background, was a girl with long hair the color of sunshine at the break of dawn, and her face was hidden by her bangs, but her peach lips were lined with an unfathomable smile. And like stars scattered, the title, in thin black lower-case letters, read The Constellation of Our Friendship. Then, in black caps was S. GREEN.
I swallowed hard at the sight of an orange circle in one bottom corner that officially claimed it as a Bestseller novel in multiple countries, the same stamp I saw on the first book.
"Do you want to read both of them?" Lucas asked me, waving the novels in my dazed face.
"N-no. I'm good," I stammered and mentally smacked myself upside the head for stuttering.
He studied my flustered face, his brown eyes concerned. "Why not? Have you read them?"
Oh the irony. It was I who restrained myself from pushing The Little Prince onto him, but look at him now, persistently convincing me to try out his two favorite books.
"You could say I have," I told him with an elusive smile.
"Oh, okay." He checked his watch before gingerly putting his novels back into his bag.
I glimpsed at my own clock on my white phone and felt a stab of alarm at the time. We had ten minutes before our respective 7am classes would begin. The hour sure flew fast.
The two of us rose from the marble bench, and I dusted off the leaves and dust from my blue pencil skirt and straightened my gray vest, white blouse, and dark blue necktie.
"I guess we'll continue this another time?" Lucas asked as he slung his bag over his shoulders.
"Definitely," I told him while I adjusted my rimless glasses, and secured my ponytail.
Lucas gave me a grateful smile. "It was fun hanging out with you, Sophia."
"Fun? We just talked," I jokingly said. We started to walk alongside each other.
He placed a hand over his heart as if I just shot him there with an arrow.
"Ouch. I suppose my definition of fun is different from yours." He caught my skeptical frown and half-lidded eyes and piped up: "It's not what you do. It's who you're with. And that's what counts." And he flashed me a toothy grin, to which I nudged my backpack against his.
"Well, I can't argue with that."
Lucas abruptly halted in front of a white marble building, and I distractedly stopped walking.
"We're here," he pronounced with a flourish, gesturing his head to the building.
I was flummoxed. "W-what?"
He quirked a playful brow at me and pointed at the sign above us. Humanities Hall.
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I wasn't paying attention to our surroundings, and I completely forgot we would pass by my main building before his, which was the Finance and Economics Hall.
I slapped my forehead with the heel of my palm. A nervous chuckle echoed from my chest as I turned to look at Lucas, who was grinning like the cat from Alice in Wonderland.
"Okay, okay! I'm going. No need to tease me," I babbled, commanding my feet to move.
"Wait," Lucas called, and I felt an electric zing jolt through my arm when he grabbed it.
"What? Please hurry. I hate tardiness," I rambled on in a rush.
One corner of his mouth tugged up. My eyes squinted at him.
He asked: "Can I have your number?"
"What?" I was too aggravated to process his question.
"So we can talk more." He held out his white phone. "Please?"
That was not fair, pouting and widening his eyes like a cute puppy.
Not wanting to be late for class, I swiped his phone from him and entered my number.
"See you later, Sophia," he bid me with a wave of his hand.
"Yeah, sure," I absentmindedly replied as I hastily climbed up the overflowing stairs.
It was only when I reached my classroom did his parting words sink in my brain.
What did he mean by that?