Delia

Now

“Your lavender latte,” Corbin said, as he brought our coffees to the table.

I dove into the scrumptious drink, savoring its decadent sweetness, while Kayla fiddled with a cup of green tea that was warming her hands more than it did her insides considering she had yet to take a sip.

“Thank you for checking up on me,” I whispered toward Corbin, grateful for his visits.

“Did you have fun last night?” he asked both of us.

I shrugged. “I guess. You know that’s not really my scene.”

“Ah, it will get into your bloodstream, later if not sooner.” His phone started ringing, and Kayla turned to me, looking a little sheepish.

““I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls last evening,” she said. “I was . . . um . . . caught up.”

“That’s okay,” I told her. “We have time to get to know one another. Maybe even, you give me some dance tips.”

Her whole face lighted up at the prospect.

“I live for dancing. I’d love to! Did you? Have fun?” She repeated Corbin’s question only for my ears.

“Sort of. That guy . . . my guy? I bumped into him again.”

“Yeah, man, I’m in the café next door.” Corbin paused to listen for a second before nodding and saying, “See you when you get here.”

“Who was that?” I asked after he’d tossed his phone onto the table.

“That was Enzo, bringing in his newest recruit. We played a few tracks written by him, and, Delia, you will love him.”

I nearly choked on my coffee.

Corbin had a tell. Usually his smiles brought forth one dimple but when he was feeling mischievous or was up to something, there was a second, less prominent dimple mirroring it on his other cheek.

I nearly choked on my coffee.

It couldn’t be. He’d quit playing, years ago. Surely, the fact that Oscar had joined TISCH right when Corb and Enzo were starting a band was just a huge coincidence.

I was still panicking when the door to the café opened and a surge of new customers walked in. It was so hard not to analyze each new face, and I ended up looking anywhere but at the door. The bean grinders at the end of the long counter. There were bistro-style tables interspersed with booths in the larger part of the coffee hours, while the most remote area had huge, red bean bag chairs and round tables with short legs, which gave the setting an oriental look.

Two people stopped right next to our table, and I still refused to look.

It was safer that way.

There was even a hammock in a corner, currently occupied by a snuggling couple. I took my eyes off them, feeling myself blush, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

It was good that I was sitting, since the guy standing next to Enzo was none other than my dreamy Red.

““Enzo, Kayla. Oscar, Cordelia—oh, I believe you two have actually met before, right?” Corbin said loudly and finished on a grunt because I’d kicked him under the table.

I knew I should have mentioned it sooner, but I didn’t expect them to cross paths . . . eyes. It only meant that I would have to explain later, depending of what the truth of the matter was. Either the boy I’d filled his ears about years ago had erased me from his memory or he hadn’t. I couldn’t tell which was the worse option.

“Nice to meet you,” Kayla mumbled, shifting in her seat and looking every bit of uncomfortable as I felt.  Her sight went quickly from the guys back into her cup, seemingly not noticing Enzo’s leg barely touching hers, when he slid into the nearest chair.

“Hey, Kayla. Hey, Chameleon.”

In the background, I heard Kayla snicker. I nodded in his general direction and did everything I could to avoid looking at Oscar, at the same time feeling his heated eyes fixated on my face. I took another, and another sip of coffee, licking the delicious foam from my lips. But his magnetic force was stronger than me. When I chanced a look, his eyes on my lips made me blush a deep red.

“Where you from, Kayla?”

“Portland, Maine.”

“Interesting!” Enzo’s voice had become softer than usual. “Cape Elizabeth man here,” he explained what was so interesting, raising his hand while announcing their relative neighboring provenance. “Don’t you miss the water?”

“Oh my gosh, don’t get me started. It’s so stuffy in here. I grew up smelling the bay water. It’s something that stays with you wherever you roam,” Kayla mused.

“Give me your phone for a second.”

She hesitated and searched for my eyes. I grinned at her.

“Come on, I won’t bite. Just leaving this number here, you know, in case you miss someone telling you pirate stories,” he joked.

Kayla’s eyes went darker but I had to tear my attention from her for a second, since Corbin was kicking my foot. 

“Don’t you two talk so fast that we can’t keep up!” Corbin teased, his amused eyes going between me and Oscar fast. I knew he was not wrong, but I shrugged either way. I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt over not making small talk with their new band mate.

“We do.” My brother and Enzo stood, and as Oscar stood to follow them out the door, his eyes never left me. Once they were gone, Kayla turned to me.

“Want to tell me what that was all about?”

“Remember how I was talking to myself in the bathroom the day we met?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, Oscar is the guy from my past . . .” I went on to fill her in on years’ worth of drama, and about halfway through, my phone beeped with a text from my brother.

Corbin: I’ll call you later so we can talk through this.

***

The top floor of our dorm was a huge common area that was split down the middle by a patrician wall. One side had tables, chairs, and a few small sofas. The other side was a dancing studio almost completely lined with mirrors. The dancers looked like graceful fish, constantly moving. There was occasional laughter, but the space was quiet enough that you could hear your own thoughts. Therefore, Kayla and I kept our discussion barely above a whisper.

“How come your brother calls you Twinkle?”

“For the longest time, the only song I was able to play, was that lullaby. It drove him nuts! So it started as a mockery of my abilities.” I snickered. “But then in high school when I asked him to quit it, he just said I was the light of his eyes.”

“I mean, is that dreamy, or what?” Kayla said on my behalf, eyes glazed on the rapid movements of her fingers as she sewed an intricate pattern onto her newest pair of pointe shoes.

Apparently, it made them less slippery and prettier.

“Are you an only child?” I asked her and she abruptly stopped her work.

“Yes, you could say that . . .”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but we got interrupted.

“So much man candy, all around,” Leigh said as she slid into a chair beside me.

Kayla gave her a small smile before turning to me. “Remember, try to just ignore him?”

“Who?” Leigh asked, and I sighed.

“Long story,” I told her as the hairs all over my body rose. I had felt his presence in the room way sooner than I saw it. I looked around, not even trying to be inconspicuous about it. Sure enough, he was near the door to the dancing studio, watching two girls who were rehearsing something that looked like Zumba. Then he turned and watched me with the same smoldering look he seemed to have perfected over the years.

“Oh, yum!” Leigh said, following the trail of my gaze. She looked between Oscar and me and probably caught on to the invisible thread of fire that hanged between us. I felt her touch my leg beneath the table and give it a squeeze. What? I didn’t understand.

She got up and walked straight to him, leaving Kayla and I to gape at her.

“Shut up!” Kayla hissed as Leigh lifted herself on her tiptoes and touched Oscar’s side, whispering something into his ear. His jaw tightened, and his eyes shone even brighter, almost feral, and I held my breath. He would reject her in three, two, one.

Oscar leaned into Leigh and said something I wished I were close enough to hear. They lingered in their posture, and I felt an ache I shouldn’t have. He wasn’t mine to possess.

A few seconds later, they disappeared through the door leading to the stairs, and I swallowed hard against my tears. I didn’t know if I felt incensed, humiliated, or jealous. Or which feeling I should give into first.

“So, what are your teachers like, do you know already?” I asked Kayla to distract myself.

“Tough as nails, but I’m used to it, you know? A tough time in the studio means you’ll have an easier time on stage.”

“Tell me something wrong that those girls are doing,” I told her, pointing at the Zumba girls who were standing on their toes near the mirror.

“The one in black is actually really good; I met her at a few competitions throughout the years. We’re on par, actually. The other one, I don’t know.”

“But she was dancing to Latin music earlier,” I said, feeling a little baffled.

Kayla’s laughter was a very crystalline sound.

“Do you only paint with one brush?”

“No, that’s silly.”

“There you go.”

My phone buzzed with a text that surprised me and I showed it to my companion.

LEIGH: I saw the way you two looked at each other. I just thought you guys needed an extra spark or two. I only asked him for directions to the laundry room and he saw me to it. Kiss, kiss!

“I can’t understand that girl,” Kayla whispered after having read the text.

Neither could I. There were times when she seemed shallow and self-absorbed and then there were time she seemed thoughtful. I wasn’t sure which one was her genuine side, but if I had to guess, it was the latter.

“You can’t stop thinking about him, can you?”

“I wish it were that easy, but even if I could, I’m not sure I would want to. There is this magnetic air hanging between him and me. There always has been. When he walks into a room, I can’t look away. We’ve always been like a moth to a flame, you know?”

Kayla lifted her eyes to me, and then something behind me caught and held her attention. She opened her mouth but closed it before saying anything.

I felt it again. Something akin to an electric current near my back. I lifted my own eyes and, sure enough, Oscar was standing behind me, an eyebrow cocked and a smirk I wanted to wipe off on his face. His gorgeous, beautiful face.

“Which one am I?” he asked, and his voice stabbed through me.

“What do you want, Red?” my voice was more disinterred than anything else, and I was mentally high-fiving myself for the composure I was showing.

He grabbed the back of the chair next to me and turned it so he could straddle it. I watched his leisurely, unhurried movements, his long leg going over the chair, his fingers gripping the back as he sat.

“Um . . .” Kayla cleared her throat as her eyes danced between us while she gathered her stuff and stood. “I have to get up early for a recital, so we’ll need to catch up tomorrow.”

“Traitor,” I mumbled and returned to Oscar.

“Can I help you with something?”

My voice reverberated around the room that had become almost empty. I felt cold and hot at the same time, as if someone had put me into a sauna and then threw ice on me. There came that lopsided grin.

“I was wondering when I would see her again.”

“See who?”

“That brave girl I met at camp. I was wondering what happened to her,” he mused, his fingers strumming impatiently against the back of the chair. “When I first laid my eyes on you, you were yelling at boys who were larger than you and who didn’t know any better than to throw stones at us. Back in the Silver Building, you ran into me and the cats had your tongue ever since.”

“Cat does not have my tongue,” I countered meekly. “You’re just too damn confusing!”

“How so?”

“How so? You hurt my heart and then you hurt my head. You don’t write and you pretend you don’t know me. Then you act as if you’ve known me for a lifetime. Then you push me away. Then you nearly make out with my roommate right in front of—”

“That didn’t happen.” His fingers stopped strumming the chair and tentatively touched my arm. One-two . . . one-two, he played a beat I didn’t recognize on my skin. “And are you jealous?”

I scoffed. “No!” Yes.

“Tell me, Dellie? Which am I? The moth or the flame? Which one of us is going to get burned?”

Me.

“You,” I answered spitefully.

It was his turn to scoff.

“I’m curious, little moth,” he said, offering me his answer on the state of things between us. “Why did you break your promise?”

“What promise?” I blurted, withdrawing my hand from his touch and getting ready to flee.

“That day in the forest? You promised you would always love me?”

I felt a wave of nausea almost knock me off my feet.

“You’re kidding, right? What about your promise? What about you saying you’d never forget about me?”

His jaw worked for a while, his eyes clouded. Not being able to bear the silence any longer, I stood and started toward the door.

“I guess those people are both forgotten,” he concluded.

“I guess so.”