by Sarah Jensen
graphic by Shay Suban
Love was in the air, so Alicia packed up her laptop and some notebooks and evacuated the premises. She liked her roommate, and didn’t mind her roommate’s boyfriend visiting, but the two of them were inching closer while watching some rom-com and she saw where this was heading.
Her floormates were shouting and blasting One Direction in the floor lounge. The building lounge was hosting some midterm stress relief event. Alicia was starting to entertain the idea of actually making the trek to a library for once, but a text stopped her.
Chris: Yo I’m doing chem in my lounge if anyone wants to join.
Alicia considered it. Study groups usually weren’t great for her productivity. That said, Chem was her weakness this quarter. Kumiko and Chris were doing well in that class, based on the first midterm. And a free lounge was a free lounge.
She realized then that she’d forgotten her laptop charger in her room.
It’s not even a real anything. It’s just them walking down the rain-soaked street, holding hands with arms outstretched because they have the room, skipping a little in the night. The air smells clean, freshly bathed.
One twirls into the other’s arms. She turns around to hug her properly. They could say something, but words wouldn’t be enough. So they hold each other for a second, and then continue on their way in the crisp night air.
There’s a real world out there somewhere, but it’s not their concern right now. Their only worry is trying to keep the fuzz in their hearts from getting wet, which is both an easy problem and not a bad one to have.
And what is there to say? It’s a feeling that’s warm but not too warm, smells like rainy leaves and her shampoo, the softness of a chinchilla and the light chill of an autumn night. It’s like her body is free and her heart is in her hug. It’s as contradictory and beautiful as love itself.
There is nothing to say. Just them two walking down the rainy road, holding hands with arms outstretched to take up the space they’re given.
“How’s it going with Carla?”
Jack grinned as he changed lanes. “Pretty chill. I think we’ve established we’re official but on the DL.”
“Why so secretive?” Alicia asked.
“Uh… She’s worried people will judge her for getting in a relationship right after breaking up with Neal.”
“Right after? Bullshit, it’s been two months.”
Jack shrugged. “Her words, not mine. Shoutout to double standards, ‘cause I broke up with Gabrielle around the same time, and I know I won’t get judged for being with Carla.”
“Also bullshit. How long is Carla in mourning for?”
Jack laughed out loud. “I think she wants to wait another month, at least. A quarter of a year is a respectable period of mourning for a young gentlewoman,” he said in an affected tone.
Alicia snorted. “Honestly, it’s nice that she’s moved on already. She’s heading into her next love story instead of rereading the last one for too long.”
“Instead of prolonging the period of sorrow and tragedy.”
“Exactly! And I mean – aw, man, not this song.”
“What’s wrong with ‘Thinking Out Loud?’” Jack said. He seemed to be taken aback at the thought that anyone could be less than enthusiastic about Ed Sheeran.
“I dunno. It’s too sweet. Like drinking syrup.”
Jack shrugged and changed the station. Alicia made a face at “Stitches,” but didn’t comment. At least it wasn’t sappy.
“Anyways. Carla broke up with Neal, so she wasn’t even in real mourning.”
“Right, so, on the topic of double standards…”
“She’s still expected to mourn at least a little? As the girl in the relationship?”
“And if she mourns a little, she’s expected to mourn fully.”
Alicia groaned and threw up her hands, hitting the car roof a little. “Remind me to never get into a relationship with a guy.”
“I mean, I didn’t think you ever would?”
Life as they know it is pink. A bit of a dry, light pink, a color you’d call rose and identify on the walls of an old-fashioned café. The color of jazz trumpets and strawberry lemonade.
They take a stroll – there’s no other word for it in this pink weather – in search of ice cream, but when the ice cream parlor is closed, they opt for lemonade. It’s not strawberry, and looks deceptively yellow, but don’t be fooled – it’s pink too.
It’s half a degree cooler than beach weather today. It’s warm and sweet and tart out, like the lemonade sticking in their throats, and if you look around you might see a blue sky, green leaves, a gray walk – but today, for them, life is tinted with rose-colored glasses, and there’s nothing in their way.
Alicia: Anyone’s lounge free? There’s a rom com playing in mine .-.
Kumiko: You don’t like rom coms?
Alicia: The characters’ bad decisions are stressing me out?
The study group wasn’t completely efficient – mostly because Alicia’s sister texted needing relationship advice, which Alicia was fully unqualified to give – but it was certainly better than having to watch 27 Dresses.
Sometime in the first hour, Kumiko asked her about a Chem practice problem. Alicia looked and cringed internally – proton NMR spectroscopy. Her weakest weak point. She could see it now: Kumiko exposing Alicia as a fraud who didn’t know anything about chemistry, Chris reacting in shock, both of them kicking her out of the study group. But then she realized–
“Oh, the chemical shift is farther upfield for this one because…”
Alicia explained her way through it, and it made sense. “Oh, okay. Thanks,” said Kumiko.
“No problem,” Alicia said, completely taken aback. She’d scored solidly below average in her last two Chem classes, and bombed the first midterm this quarter. By now, she’d given up on really understanding Chem. Getting NMR right, and especially being able to expound upon it, was unfathomable. So how…?
Alicia couldn’t explain why she thought Kumiko had something to do with it.
Over the next few hours, their separate work converged. They solved practice problems together. It blew Alicia away – she had forgotten what it felt like to understand chem, and to see science with a sense of wonder, and to work with someone this well. She kept getting the sense that they were on the same wavelength.
They dance (they don’t really). They walk to the side of the hill to see the city lights. This isn’t something they’ve ever done before.
Neither of them care for the view. The distant city is too far and detached from their little world above. But music soars in her heart, though she doesn’t know the words, and there is a warmth in her that’s more gentle than thermal.
They hold hands and wonder if they’ve finally fallen in love.
The music takes her over and she pulls her into a ballroom embrace. She can’t hear the music, but she steps and follows her and they only step on each other’s feet a few times. She hopes what’s in her heart – the color gold, smooth as satin, a flame warmer than the lights they aren’t looking at – is in hers too.
Their steps slow as the music slows, and they draw nearer. Her head rests against her shoulder, a cheek resting on top of her head. They could kiss, but why would they when they can stay in this embrace instead?
This is what it’s like to stand in love, they think.
It was so thoroughly not-a-big-deal, Alicia couldn’t even pinpoint what happened later.
She remembered getting to the lecture hall early and listening to the Hamilton soundtrack. She remembered Kumiko and Chris arriving in chem and sitting by her, like always. And at some point Alicia thought to herself, “____________”
(It was something along the lines of, “Kumiko’s kinda cute,” but the words don’t capture the feeling, which was more about the person and less about her looks.)
“So what do you like about her?” Jack asked her five days later. Five days of Alicia’s feelings snowballing down a hill, in which the hill was getting steeper and the bottom was nowhere in sight.
“Um…” Alicia kinda shrugged. “I’m still trying to put words to it. She’s… I want to say genuine? It’s like she knows exactly who she is, and doesn’t have any reason to be anything else.”
“Confidence is sexy,” Jack said, nodding as he poked the boiling tortellini. “Shit, can you… Can you hold this for a sec?”
Alicia took the colander and held it over the sink while he poured a bit of water out of the overflowing pot. “I don’t know if sexy is the right word,” she said. “I mean, she’s cute, I just… I dunno. That’s not why I fell for her.”
Jack placed the pot back on the stove. “Is genuineness the main thing you like about her?”
“I think so? I’m still working it out. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll manage to overanalyze both her and my attraction to her over the next… however long I like her.”
