Chapter Three
The best thing about hamburgers the size of your head is that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. I used those minutes of chewing as a respite, an excuse to dive down into myself and try to get my words in order. The truth was, although I knew what I had to say, I didn’t know if I could. That phone call with Mom echoed in my ears. Noah would ask me why, too. And I’d have to have something better this time around.
Three-quarters of the way through the burger, I set it down for a moment and realized I was close to full. I also realized Noah had finished his and started in on his mountain of fries, which did not present the same sort of speech obstacle. My grace period was just about up. I decided to bite the bullet. “So.”
Noah raised his eyebrows encouragingly. “So?”
I felt my already-slim resolve foundering slightly. I tried to shrug it off by laughing. “I kind of can’t believe you don’t already know the story.” This as if my dropping out had been infamous across campus. I was suddenly aware that it likely hadn’t been a thing at all. The enormity of my choices applied to me, and me alone.
“Why would I?” Noah’s innocent reply only confirmed my thoughts. Not only was I a coward and a quitter, I had a vastly inflated sense of my own impact. Good job, Colin. You’re one hell of a winner.
I shrugged. “I dunno. I figured Steve might have mentioned it.” A plausible assumption, if lame and presumptuous. Man, I was just getting better and better.
“Nah.” It was Noah’s turn to laugh. “Steve and I broke up before graduation even happened.”
My face flushed red. “I’m sorry to hear that. And sorry I brought him up.” I’ve never had the most social grace, but I was truly outdoing myself here.
Noah only mirrored my shrug. “It was mutual, and way for the better. But that’s a story for a different day.”
He was much better at metering his verbal output. I took another bite of the burger, chewed, swallowed, put it down on the plate. We were fast approaching the point of no return. “Well, maybe it happened at the same time as I was leaving,” I said, in the same tone of voice two moms might use upon discovering their kids share a birthday. “I don’t think I saw either of you for a little while beforehand.” I didn’t add that I’d fallen out of touch with Steve instantaneously. It seemed best to not keep talking about Noah’s ex.
“Can I ask you something, now that you’re committing to telling me about this?”
“Sure,” I said, masking my apprehension behind the crescent shape of the burger.
“Did you flunk out?” He was looking at me very seriously with eyes as dark as his hair. The expression he wore was no longer light or playful. “Because if that’s what happened, I just wanna say you don’t need to be ashamed. I won’t judge you.”
The sentiment was so nice I wished it applied to me. “Uh, no,” I told him. “I left because I…wanted to.” There. That was it, in plain English. And it was simple. I had wanted to leave, so I left. It was my desire that made no sense.
“Okay.” Noah fiddled with a fry. He dipped it into his ketchup cup, and I forced my eyes elsewhere as he put it in his mouth. I didn’t want to see his lips closing around it. “Why did you want to?”
I fidgeted slightly. “This part’s dumb.” I was used to qualifying any account of the end of my college career with an acknowledgment of its nature. Most people gave me a sympathetic smile, but did not disagree.
Noah said, “Probably not.”
“It was the pressure,” I admitted. As I talked, I pressed in the buttons on the lid of my drink cup. The plastic popping punctuated my sentences. “It got to me. I always said it wouldn’t, but it did. They were right, I was wrong. And so…this is where I am.”
He took a moment to absorb that, the elevator pitch for my yearlong slump. While waiting for him to say something, I picked morosely at my own French fries. I braced myself for laughter, or worse, pity.
“I get where you’re coming from,” Noah said finally. “You were a performance major, right?”
I nodded. “Piano.”
“Sure. There’s a lot of ways to screw that up, I guess. But I don’t see pressure as a bad thing.”
Spoken like a true non-performance major, I thought, somewhat bitterly. Then I bit my tongue as it dawned on me that I didn’t know what Noah was studying. I sighed. “What about when it’s crushing and relentless? I thought it was going to kill me.” A little bit of melodrama, but not much. If not for my life, I had definitely feared for my sanity.
“Or make you a better person.” Noah popped another fry in his mouth. “I’m just saying, you never gave yourself a chance. Maybe you would have thrived in that environment.”
“Nope. I knew it wasn’t meant to be. I had to cut my losses.” Trying to lighten the mood, I grinned wryly. “And then I entered witness protection to save myself from the wrath of my mom and dad.”
Noah turned a French fry pensively with thumb and forefinger, studying it like an artist. “You think you’ll ever come back?”
I stared at him, aghast. “To where? School? Here?” Even a year later, the idea struck me as inconceivable. “No way. You’re lucky I showed my face outside the library.”
“But you were in the auditorium,” he pointed out.
I flushed again, cornered. “I know the ins and outs of that place,” I said defensively. “I can’t imagine it’s suddenly got hundreds more people coming and going.” Anyway, I sneaked over there a couple times a month at most, and only because I missed sitting at a real piano. My Casio keyboard just wasn’t up to snuff.
“Whatever you say.” Noah watched me knowingly. I hated how exposed I felt, as if he knew the blueprints of every secret I’d ever had. At the same time, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it a little. It was nice to feel like I didn’t have to have my walls up a hundred percent of the time. No, nice isn’t the right word. It was…freeing.
And after a year cooped up behind the counter of a stuffy little music store, a year of wrapping up in blankets alone on my couch, I needed to be free.