My smile grows wider even though I keep waiting for the moment when they exchange a look that says, okay, fun’s over, the kid should leave now because he doesn’t belong. But it doesn’t come. Carter steals fries off Dorien’s tray. Dorien asks me about my other classes. Then he encourages me to tell Carter about the sculpture piece I’m working on.
Carter wipes his mouth with a napkin then leans forward. “Yeah. What is it?”
I shrink in my chair a little. Carter has never been mean to me, just teasing. Sometimes his teasing goes too far, but when I’ve spoken up, he’s apologized and stopped.
But I don’t talk “art” with him. And I don’t want him talking to June about my art because she goes into teacher mode, like just because she’s older means she knows so much more than me.
I look across the quad and watch some couple walking hand in hand. “It’s just a concept,” I say.
“Everything starts as a concept,” Dorien says. “Then it becomes a thing.”
Carter lightly punches Dorien’s shoulder. “Deep, man. You should put that on a poster.”
Dorien smirks. “You should stop stealing my fries. Doesn’t that affect your performance at the gym?”
“Naw. I have a great metabolism.” Carter grins and the warmth of it reaches all the way to the corners of his eyes.
I sit in the middle of their easy back-and-forth and feel something unfamiliar. Like standing in a doorway and realizing the door is open and nobody is blocking it.
Whatever this is, I’m just glad the focus is off my art.
While Dorien and Carter go on with each other, my gaze wanders again. There’s a group of students crossing the far end of the quad, backpacks slung low, their shadows trailing behind them longer than they are. A guy on a bench is reading with his headphones on, half his face lit by the sun and half hidden behind the book he’s holding too close.
Then I notice her, but she doesn’t notice me. She never does.
Cinna is crossing the far end of the quad with her purse slung over one shoulder, blonde hair catching the last of the good light. The sun outlines her in this thin, shimmery border that makes her edges glow, and I swear she’s the only person on this campus that light actively seeks out. She’s walking with a woman I don’t recognize, maybe some classmate, and her head is tilted toward the person, listening with her full attention, like that woman is the most important person in the entire world. When she smiles, it takes over her whole face, soulful eyes crinkling, beautiful lips spread wide in joy. She does that with everyone—makes them feel important. I know because I’ve watched her do it with June, with professors, with strangers. Everyone.
Everyone except me because I’m invisible to her. She never sees me, not unless June is there, because I’m not someone Cinna looks for. Maybe I’ve been around for so long, lingering in the background, that I’m like wallpaper.
But even though I know she’s simply friendly with everyone, each time she tilts her head toward someone new, the irrational part of my brain gets jealous.
When do I get to be that person?
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and laughs at something the other woman says, and the laugh carries faintly across the quad.
I’ve heard that laugh a thousand times and I never get tired of it.
I was nine the first time I saw her. June brought her home after school one afternoon and the three of us sat at the kitchen island coloring with markers. Cinna shared her good markers with me without being asked, the ones with the fine tips that all the kids hoarded, and when I drew a lopsided dog she told me it was the best she’d ever seen. She was lying, obviously. It looked like a potato with legs. But she said it with those eyes, completely sincere, and something in me decided right then that she was the most important person I would ever meet.
I was nine. I didn’t have the vocabulary for what I felt. I just knew that when she left that afternoon, the house felt dimmer.
Over the years I watched her from the sidelines. I observed when she came over to study with June. Or stayed for dinner. Or showed up at birthdays and holidays and random Tuesday afternoons, and every time she walked through our door, she brought this warmth with her that had nothing to do with politeness. It’s a warmth that comes from her soul.
I’ve seen her give her jacket to a stranger at a bus stop. And spend twenty minutes listening to a freshman cry about a bad grade in the hallway outside Visual Studies, a girl she’d never met, just sitting on the floor beside her like she had nowhere else to be. I’ve never met anyone who gives that much of themselves to other people and never seems to run out.
That’s the part that kills me. I can handle the jealousy and handle watching her tilt her head toward every person who isn’t me. What I can’t handle is that she deserves to get every ounce of that love and attention back—a thousand times more than she gives—because her heart is genuinely that good.
Yet I’m over here resenting the world for noticing what I noticed first.
I realize I’ve been staring too long when I have that sixth sense of eyes upon me.
I look over to find Carter watching me. He doesn’t say anything, just holds my gaze for half a beat with an expression that’s hard to read. Then he takes another sip of his soda and asks Dorien about a movie coming out next week.
The moment passes, and I’m grateful.
When I get home that evening, the porch light is off, and the upstairs windows are dark. But the kitchen glows. I can see the light spilling out onto the side yard through the window above the sink, and as I come up the walk, I can hear voices. Two voices. Laughing.
I let myself in through the front door and kick off my shoes in the entryway. The kitchen is past the living room through the archway, and the light from it paints the hardwood floor in a long, warm rectangle. I walk toward it and stop just before the threshold.
