The Trouble with Flirting

  We’re about five minutes in when I become aware of a noise outside growing louder and louder. A noise like wind howling through thousands of leaves. I slap my popcorn-free hand down on Adam’s leg and say, “Can you hear that?”

  He fumbles for the remote and presses Pause—yet again. The noise from outside fills the room.

  It isn’t wind. It’s rain. Rain pelting down so hard it sounds as if it’s trying to break through the roof to attack us.

  Adam looks at me, lowers his voice to a deep rumble, and says, “Winter is coming.”

  Adam’s Game of Thrones reference might have made me pack up laughing, but I no longer find it funny when I leave for campus on Monday morning and it’s still raining. Winter is certainly getting a head start in the rain department. I considered using the weather as an excuse to avoid the friends who aren’t my friends anymore, but in the end I decided to face the inevitable on day one rather than putting it off until tomorrow or the next day.

  So here I am, shivering inside The Tin Man, waiting for a break in the rain so I can dash to lectures without getting drenched. I pull my phone out of my bag and type a message to Adam.

  Livi: It seems silly that we don’t share lifts to campus. Why don’t we do that?

  Adam: Because I leave about forty-five mins before you when traffic isn’t as bad and I can still get a parking close to lectures. Or I leave even earlier than that and go to gym. Speaking of which, you should come with Luke and me now that you’re a gym member.

  Livi: How about I get a lift with you on rainy, non-gym days?

  Adam: You just want me for my umbrella.

  Livi: Busted.

  Adam: Umbrellas don’t work so well with sideways rain. Just run.

  Livi: I’m wearing heels.

  Adam: It’s like you’re asking me to say I told you so.

  Livi: Ooh! No rain!

  The break I’ve been waiting for arrives, and I shove my phone back into its pocket inside my bag, climb out of my car, and hurry up the hill. I’m looking good in my super skinny jeans, high-heeled boots, and the jacket I got during Expedition Retail Therapy at the beginning of the holiday. It turns out I’m not brave enough to wear any of my comfy clothes to varsity. Even though I’m no longer part of the cool crowd—or any crowd, for that matter—I still want to turn heads with my fabulous fashion sense.

  I arrive outside my first period lecture theatre and peek inside. I scan for Jackson first, because he’s the one I really, really don’t want to see. He isn’t here. Allegra, Courtney and Amber, however, are present. So is Charlotte, although she seems to have latched onto another group. The we-take-our-studies-seriously-but-look-gorgeous-while-doing-it group.

  So. Where to sit, where to sit …

  I wonder what would happen if I slid into the seat next to Allegra as if last Friday night were no big deal? Perhaps we’d have a little argument about how I ran off and didn’t contact her for the whole holiday, but then we might laugh it off and things would get back to normal.

  Do I really want that, though? The kind of normal where every conversation is as shallow as a puddle, no party is considered complete without the addition of a few recreational drugs, and couples are comfortable crossing lines I can only see myself on the other side of when I’ve found the guy I know I’ll love for the rest of my life?

  No. You don’t want that. Even if it means sitting alone.

  Crap. I really don’t want to sit alone.

  It’s FINE. Just remember CONFIDENCE. You can be cool—on your own—as long as you’re exuding confidence.

  Confidence. Got it.

  I saunter in, looking out for an empty seat. I’ve targeted the perfect spot, four rows from the back, when I notice the loner Indian girl in the back row, and suddenly my feet are carrying me quickly to the seat next to her.

  “Hi,” I say brightly as I sit down and drop my bag on the floor. I hold my hand out to her. “I’m Livi.”

  She stares at the hand as though it presents a health risk. She folds her arms tightly over her chest. “Did you get lost?” she asks.

  “Wow.” I lower my hand. “You’re really friendly. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you come to campus completely overdressed?”

  My mouth hangs open for a while before I respond. “Okay. Not only unfriendly, but downright rude.”

  She gives me an icy smile. “I didn’t come to university to make friends.”

  “Clearly. It appears you’d rather make unpleasant memories.”

  “I came here to work hard and graduate summa cum laude.”

  I remove my books and pens from my bag and lay them out neatly across the desk. “Looks like I chose the right person to sit next to, then.”

  “I don’t think so. Why don’t you—”

  Our lecturer chooses that moment to launch into a new section, and whatever Rude Unfriendly Loner Girl was about to tell me is forgotten as she hastily picks up her pen and turns her full attention to the front of the room.

  Salima, the label on her textbook says, which is helpful, since I’m pretty sure she wasn’t about to introduce herself.

  ***

  Salima is out of her chair and heading for the door before I’ve packed away any of my things. Great. So much for making a new friend. Allegra glances my way as she walks out with Courtney and Amber. I grab my phone, bring it to my ear, and laugh as I answer a non-existent phone call. Then I have to continue the fake phone call, feeling like a complete idiot, as other members of our class look my way before heading out of the lecture hall.

  Ugh, I can’t believe I just did that.

  I slowly pack my things away as students file in for the next lecture. Maybe I should give my next class a miss. I think Adam’s free now. I could meet him at the library or computer lab or … wherever it is he usually hangs out during his free periods. But if I miss classes, I’ve got no one to help me catch up on the work. Blast it. I hadn’t considered that particular side-effect of friendlessness.

  I take my time heading to the next lecture venue. Perhaps I’ll slip into the seat beside Salima just as the lecture starts so she won’t have time to say anything rude. At least I won’t have to sit alone that way.

  I’m almost at the door when someone heading the same way almost walks into me. I take a step to the side, catching my balance, and look up. Icy adrenaline kicks my heart into top gear. “Jackson?”

  I stare at him. He stares back. “Well?” he says eventually, gesturing to the door. “Are you going in, or are you just going to stand there all day? Perhaps you’d like to push me into the door.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Perhaps I would. But I thought you might have something to say to me first. Something like an apology.”

  “Ha! An apology? If anyone should be apologising, it’s you, after throwing me into a glass table. Have you seen my hands?” He shoves them in front of my face so I can see the half-healed scabbed cuts across his skin.

  “That wasn’t intentional, that was self-defence. You’re the only one who did something wrong that night, and—”

  “Oh really?” He looks at me with complete contempt. “And what exactly did I do wrong?”

  “You …” I look down as someone hurries past us into the lecture. “You … tried to …”

  “To what? Put my hands on you? Touch you? Yes, Livi, because I wanted you. And from all the signals you were giving me—from our making out, from your flirting—you wanted me too. So I only did what any guy would do, and suddenly you’re freaking out like, I don’t know, I’m trying to rape you or something.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment to hold the tears back. How did this end up being my fault? “I did want you, Jackson. But that … what you did … was seriously inappropriate.”

  “No it wasn’t, Livi. That was normal.”

  “Not for me!”

  “Oh, God, don’t tell me you’re one of those girls.”

  “One of what—”

&nb
sp; “You want to wait. You don’t want our relationship to be physical now. You probably think I’m The One, and you’re expecting me to produce a ring before you’ll to go anywhere near a bed with me. Or the corner of a room, apparently.”

  I shake my head. I can’t believe what a jerk this guy turned out to be. “Yes. I do want to wait. And there are plenty of people out there like me—girls and guys—who are happy to wait for the—”

  “Ya, they’re all a bunch of weirdos.”

  “—wait for the right person!” I yell at him. “When I get married one day, I don’t want to have the ghosts of all the girls my husband’s ever slept with in the bed with us, and he shouldn’t have to deal with that from me either. And one more thing.” I point my finger at him. “You are so far from being The One, it’s not even funny.”

  I spin around and storm off, having no intention of going into that lecture or any other today. A light drizzle dampens my face as I hurry back to my car. I fling my bag inside and climb in, slamming the door shut. My fingers shake with anger all the way home. Adam’s car is gone, and so is Luke’s, so I drive into the empty garage.

  I leave my bag in the doorway to my bedroom and throw myself onto the bed. What is wrong with me? I pick a hot prince and he turns out to be a jerk. I pick a hot regular guy and he turns out to be a jerk too. Is there such a thing as a decent guy who’s also hot? Am I being shallow by wanting to love someone good-looking?

  I probably am.

  Frustration and loneliness and anger and hurt well up inside me and squeeze themselves out in the form of tears. I just want to be liked. I want to fit in somewhere. Somewhere I don’t have to worry about anyone making fun of me for who I am and the things I like. Is that too much to ask for?

  Without really thinking about it, I roll over and kneel on the floor. I reach beneath my bed and pull out the violin case. The bottom drawer of my desk is packed with flip files of music, so I pull that open and take out a stack of files. I tuck them under my arm, pick up the violin case, and head to the lounge.

  It’s a ritual my hands haven’t forgotten: Unclip the buckles, flip open the case, remove the violin, attach the shoulder rest, tighten the bow, slide the bow across the rosin several times. I fit the instrument against my neck, and already the tension, stress and overwhelming emotion begin to slip away as my mind prepares to focus on one thing only: the music.

  I walk across to Adam’s piano and play an A, then slowly draw my bow across the A string of the violin. It’s horribly out of tune, but the simple act of creating sound from a string leaves my heart feeling like it’s come home.

  Why did I wait so long to do this?

  I twist the relevant peg until the A string is in tune, then move to the D string, G string, and finally the E string, twisting the pegs and fine tuners while listening for the resonance of the perfect fifth intervals.

  The violin is ready. I should probably play some scales or arpeggios to warm up, but real music is what I’m longing for. I position my fingers on the strings, close my eyes, and breathe in deeply. I forget the pile of music lying on the coffee table as my memory takes over and I bring the bow down to play the first note of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

  The music soars, and along with it, my heart. My pitch is off here and there, and my vibrato isn’t quite what it used to be, but I’m lost in a land of wishing stars and lemon drops and dreams that really do come true. Slowly, bit by bit, as the music rises and falls, pieces of my soul I didn’t even know were missing fit themselves back together.

  With the last long, wavering note, I breathe out slowly.

  Content. Finally.

  “I could listen to you play all day.”

  I blink and look around. Adam is leaning in the doorway, watching me with a smile. Was I so lost in my musical world that I didn’t hear a car driving up outside the window or the front door opening and closing? I must have been.

  “You’re so graceful,” he says. “The way your arm moves with the bow. It’s like you’re not only a musician, but a dancer too.”

  I look down to hide my warm cheeks. “Makes you wonder how I can be so clumsy when I don’t have a violin in my hands.”

  He laughs quietly. “What are you doing home already?”

  I shrug and sigh. “Bad morning, I guess. What about you?”

  “Second period free, and my third period lecturer is sick, so I thought I’d come home for a bit. Do you, uh, want some accompaniment?” He gestures to the piano.

  I give him a wide smile. “That would make me happier than you can imagine.”

  Adam crosses the room and sits at the piano. “How about the G-string one you love?” he says with a smirk.

  I roll my eyes and laugh. Adam can never mention Bach’s Air on the G String without making a reference to underwear, which I’m sure was the last thing on Bach’s mind when he was writing Suite No. 3 in D major. G-strings hadn’t even been invented back then.

  I look through my files until I find the right sheet music. I pull out the piano accompaniment and hand it to Adam. He places his hands over the keys. I get my bow ready. He looks at me. I nod and murmur, “Three and four and …”

  The music begins.

  Day five after the holiday. I hurry into my first period lecture towards my new spot next to Salima Who Never Talks To Me, only to find that she isn’t here. I’ve only recently begun paying attention to her, but I doubt she’s ever missed a lecture before, and I’m pretty sure being late isn’t part of her summa cum laude plans. I crane my neck as I search every other row in here, but I don’t see Salima. Perhaps I scared her off for good when I sat next to her in yesterday afternoon’s mathematics tutorial and read every question out loud while she ignored me and answered them on her own. I made no effort to hide the fact that I was looking at her answer page for ‘assistance’ with my problem-solving theories. Perhaps she didn’t like that.

  The lecture begins.

  Salima still isn’t here.

  Oddly enough, I’m starting to worry about her. It’s clear she doesn’t like me, and if I didn’t arrive at the last minute for every single lecture, she’d probably move away as soon as I sit my butt down next to her. But I can’t help feeling that Rude Unfriendly Loner Girl isn’t who she really is, and I’m determined to get her to talk to me. I think we could be friends. So it worries me that my potential friend, who thinks lectures are the most important part of every weekday, hasn’t shown up yet.

  It also means I’m sitting alone, which isn’t great.

  The lecturer starts shouting things from the front of the room, and I write down everything that shows up on the projector screen. Whenever he heads off on a boring tangent, I doodle music notes and treble clefs in the corner of my page before the next slide comes up and I carry on writing. Doodling means my eyes are stuck on my notebook rather than wandering a few rows forward to where Allegra, Courtney and Amber are sliding cell phones back and forth across the desk and quietly giggling at whatever’s on them.

  After about fifteen minutes, I notice movement from the corner of my eye. The long desk that spans from one side of the row to the other wobbles slightly as Salima hurries towards me and sits down, leaving one empty seat between us. Breathless, she hastily tucks her long black hair behind her ears, grabs a pen and pad of paper from her bag, and frowns at the screen. Her lips move silently. She writes something down, then frowns again.

  I clear my throat. When she glances over at me, I raise an eyebrow and nudge my notebook towards her. Time to make friends, Salima! She eyes the notebook as if it may bite her, then relents and slides it closer. She quickly copies down everything she missed, then passes it back to me, hesitantly mouthing, Thank you.

  Score! We are totally on our way to becoming best buddies.

  The lecturer takes off on another boring tangent that ends up with him answering a complicated and pointless question posed by someone in the front row. He leans against the front desk as he gets deeper into a discussion with the student, and the res
t of us shuffle around and start chattering, because we can’t hear a thing the guys at the front are saying, and it doesn’t really bother us.

  I lean towards Salima and say, “I doubt you’ve ever been late for a lecture before.”

  For a moment, I think she might ignore me, but after taking down a few more notes, she says, “My stupid car. My parents insisted I live off campus so I wouldn’t be distracted, but that means I have to fight through traffic every day, and when my car misbehaves, like today, then I wind up late. I’ve never been as late as I was today, though, so … thank you.” She glances up quickly, then turns back to the page in front of her and writes something else down. What exactly, I have no idea, since nothing new has gone up on the projector screen in the last five minutes.

  “Your parents sound like hard-asses,” I say.

  She looks up, startled, then laughs.

  “Oh my hat. You laughed. I didn’t even know you could smile.”

  She laughs again, then looks quickly to the front of the room to see if she’s missing anything.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’m sure that boring discussion is going to go on for at least another three minutes.”

  She gives me a smile. A SMILE. “I’m sorry I was so rude to you on Monday. I know who your group of friends is, and I assumed you were sitting next to me as a joke. But you actually seem like a nice person, Livi. I’m sorry we can’t be friends.”

  Can’t be friends? I’m confused for a moment until I realise she’s joking. “Oh right,” I say with an eye-roll. “Because you didn’t come to university to make friends.”