Page 7 of Collision
Twenty minutes later, the arrogant tattoo-covered guy sitting next to me is calmly listening to music as if it were nothing.
I could disregard his disrespectfulness except for the obnoxious hum from his headphones preventing me from focusing on the lecture as fully as I’d like.
After lots of back-and-forth in my head, I turn to him and tap his shoulder. “You should turn that off, don’t you think?” I say with a pointed glare at the phone resting on his thigh.
Staring at me as if I’d just told him we’re not in a lecture hall but on a spaceship headed for Mars, he pulls out the left earbud and replies, “Why?”
“Because I want to follow the lecture, and you’re distracting me,” I reply calmly, trying to keep my composure. I don’t want to argue with him again, I just want to take my favorite class in peace. Is that too much to ask?
Thomas puts his earbuds back in, turning up the volume in defianceof my request. To make matters worse, he resumes chewing his gum, and it smacks noisily between his white teeth. I have to summon all my self-control not to pull that gum out of his mouth and plant it in his hair.
I shoot him a withering look, the kind I usually give my mother when she finishes the box of cookies without telling me. Or Travis when I realize he’s barely heard a word I’ve been saying.
“What’s your problem now?” he asks, irritated.
“Oh, I’m the one with the problem? Really? I’ve been trying to listen to this lecture from the moment you sat your butt down in this stupid seat!”
“So listen, what’s stopping you?”
“You are!” I exclaim, my eyes wide.
“Because of this?” he asks, pointing to his earbuds. “Jesus, you can’t be serious.”
“Ugh, you know what? Just forget it!”
I turn back to the slides and hold out for the last few minutes of class, looking forward to getting away from him.
“All right, class, that’s all for today. See you Friday!” the professor declares twenty minutes later.
I’ve never been so happy to hear a teacher dismiss the class in my whole life. And all because of some jerk who sat next to me for the sole purpose of bothering me. Thomas wraps his earbuds around his phone, slips them into his back pocket, grabs his pencil and the notepad he has been doodling on the whole time, and walks off without a word.
I need coffee to calm my nerves. Today has been an awful day. I walk into the coffee shop and wait my turn. Looking through the windows, I notice that it has started raining even harder. The rain and I have always been in sync; it comes when I need it.
I start to step forward, but someone pulls me from behind. It’s Alex, who wraps his arm around my shoulders. I hug him back, sinking my face into his sweatshirt with its citrusy scent.
I missed him so much last summer. My days without him were boring as hell. With Travis doing his own thing and blowing me off all the time, the only person I could count on was Tiffany. But she has abusy and exciting life—unlike me, always in my room studying, reading, or watching TV.
“Sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier. How are you?” He musses my hair with one hand, while with the other he slips the Canon he’s always carrying around his neck, ready to capture even the smallest detail and reveal its uniqueness.
“Next question.”
His lips curl into a grimace. “What did Travis do now?”
Oh, this time it’s not just Travis! Let’s see, the list is long: the fight this morning, all my mother’s orders, Thomas’s arrogance, which I will likely be forced to endure for the entire term. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll drop the class or fail, and I’ll never see him again.
“Nothing, it’s just a bad day,” I say simply, taking a step. I don’t feel like burdening him with my stupid drama. It occurs to me that he doesn’t know anything about my fight with Travis or the video on Instagram. Just as well. It would only be more proof that his concerns are valid.
“What about you? How’s your first day going?” I ask, curious. “You have no idea how sad I am not to have you in philosophy.” With that idiot today, he would’ve been a huge comfort.
“Aw, I’m sad too, but I had to do more art. And I joined the photography club,” he tells me enthusiastically. All summer, he did nothing but bombard me with photos from Santa Barbara, where he and his family spend every summer vacation: beach clubs, boat trips, sunset bonfires. And while he’d had all that fun, I had nothing to show for my summer but the slew of books and shows I’d devoured in his absence, Travis’s incredibly boring practices that I couldn’t say no to, and all the draining arguments with my mother during which I tried to explain to her that I was no longer a child who could be controlled by her ridiculous rules. All wasted breath.
“Good for you!” I say, back in the present.
“You know, I feel I’ve found what I really want to do,” he continues.
In the meantime, it’s our turn to order. I ask for a cup of regular and a double cappuccino for him. “I’m sure you have. Your picturesare incredible. I’m jealous of your artistic talent!” I pay and a moment later collect the steaming drinks, but before I can turn around, he snaps a picture of me, leaving me momentarily stunned.
“Alex! Don’t do that. You know I hate it.” I blink repeatedly, dazed by the flash, and hand him his coffee.
