"I miss you, you know."
I heard Gage tuning his guitar in the background. We'd only been on the phone for ten minutes, and he managed to express how much he missed me four times. I knew that he truly meant it though, and it made me miss him even more.
"I know," I said, flopping down on the bed on my side of the dorm, "but I'm only three hours away, so I'll still visit a couple times a month. Just because I'm in college now doesn't mean that I'll never see you again."
"Yeah I know," Gage replied, "but Celia, you're like, my best friend and stuff, and like, I haven't seen your for two months. It sucks not hanging with you at school." I heard a crack, and then a high pitched note that I'm pretty sure guitars aren't supposed to make. "Shit." Gage is the only person I know that can break two guitar strings in less than a week. He sighed. "There goes another one." The door to my dorm opened, and my roommate, Maia, poked her head in.
"Maia's home!" she yelled. I giggled and put my finger to my lips. "Oh," she said, and then whispered, "Sorry!"
"Is that your room buddy-friend-thing?" asked Gage.
"Yeah, her name is Maia, Maia Oshiro."
"Oh yeah. You told me before, but I – uh – forgot." Maia threw her school stuff onto her bed, and then signaled for me to hang up the phone.
What? I mouthed.
"I have news," she whispered, "and it's big!" I rolled my eyes, and held up a finger.
Just a second, I mouthed once again. She nodded and threw herself on top of her things on her bed, shoes and all.
"Hey," I started, "I gotta go. Maia's gonna self-destruct or something." I glanced over at her. She was laying with one arm behind her head, and the other was giving me a thumbs up. "I'll call you later, Taylor." I know Gage hates when I call him by his last name. He moaned.
"Kay, fine. See ya – I mean, talk to you later."
"Peace, bro." I ended the call and sat up. Maia smiled nervously. "Now," I said, "Whatever could be so important?" I felt slightly guilty about hanging up on Gage like that. He was right, I hadn't seen him since I left for the University of Maine in September, and then I only called him a couple times a week, each conversation lasting less than about fifteen minutes. I knew it'd be a change for the both of us, but it seemed to be hitting him pretty hard. I was a senior last year when Gage was a sophomore, and we were always together. We were in the marching band, so we practically lived in the music wing of the high school with the rest of the band kids. When we weren't in band, we saw each other at lunch, then in the hallways, and on the weekends we roamed aimlessly around our neighborhood, never finding anything of substance to do, but still somehow entertaining ourselves. We hadn't even heard of each other before last year, and because of the age difference, my senior friends weren't so keen on him. For some reason they thought that he liked me and that the feelings were going to become mutual, which I assured them that they weren't. I hadn't even thought of Gage and I in that way before they brought it up, and honestly, I didn't really want to think about it. He was my friend, and I was comfortable with us the way we were. We met through an ex-boyfriend, and after things went sour my heart packed up and got the hell outta Dodge. I wasn't ready to feel that way again about anyone. Gage and I remained friends, much to the dismay of my friends and ex-boyfriend, but we didn't care. Now that I don't see him every day, whenever he calls, this huge wave of…something washes over me. A pleasant something, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. Like I said, I'd rather not think about it.
"Hellooo?" Maia's face was barely an inch from mine.
I jumped back, startled. I'd been strolling so deeply down memory lane that I hadn't notice her get up. She was standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. "Are you awake?" she asked. "It was like you were asleep, but sitting up at the same time, like a zombie or something." She sat down on my bed and stretched out, nearly pushing me onto the floor.
"Uh - sorry," I began, "I was thinking about something."
"Apparently." Maia replied. She pulled the hood of her UMaine sweatshirt up to cover her head. "Why weren't you in AP Jap today?"
I laid down next to her. "I'm a bit ahead, so I thought I'd stay here and study for my Calc exam, it's really kicking my ass right now." Maia and I both take advanced Japanese language courses. I take them because I'd like to live there one day, but Maia takes them because she's fully Japanese but was adopted, and wants to know more about her culture. I always wanted to ask what it's like being adopted, but I just never got around to it.
"Well, you chose the wrong day not to come," Maia continued. "We have a new kid, fresh from Japan!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, he's just in the class to like, reverse learn, you know what I mean? He says it helps him with his English, but when he was talking to the professor, it seemed pretty alright to me. Still has kind of a strong accent though."
I sat up and looked down at her, giving her the you're-not-fooling-me look. She felt me move, and pulled back her hood a bit. Just as I suspected, she was staring up at the ceiling with a far away, kind of glazed over look in her eyes and fighting a smile. She glanced at me, and did a double-take. "What?" she said with a fake innocence, her smile surfacing.
"What do you really want to say about this new guy, huh?" I already knew the answer to this question, but I decided to ask anyway. She didn't respond, and continued staring at the ceiling. I adjusted the pillows against the headboard so I could sit up. I gave her about fifteen seconds before I took the plunge. "Is he like, cute or something?"
It was like I lit a match to her butt. "Oh my God, yes!" Maia screeched, "He's delicious!" I snorted. Who describes a human being as 'delicious'? "He's totally smokin', like for real. Well, from what I could see. He sat at the back of the classroom, and his hair was like, completely covering his face."
"So," I said, "you couldn't see his face, but he was, what did you call it – 'delicious'?" I smiled big, and was promptly whacked upside the head, courtesy of the nearest pillow.
"You know what I mean!" Maia said, pushing herself up off of the bed. She walked across the room and sat down at the desk in the corner. She opened my laptop aand scrolled through my iTunes inventory, selecting my entire Perfume playlist; "Kiss and Music" blasted through the speakers. "He was like Neo from the Matrix, you know? Like, trying to fly under the radar, but he knows he's totally bad-ass at the same time." I rolled my eyes.
"It would be kind of interesting to see an asian Neo." I thought out loud. Keanu was hot as Neo, but a 'delicious' asian guy replacing him (Hero JaeJoong for example) – that would be smokin'.
Maia spun around in the computer chair. "Now you're catching my drift!" she exclaimed, kicking her legs as she spun round and round.
"Okay, okay," I picked up my Japanese textbook from the floor beside my bed. "can you brief me on what I missed today?" Maia stopped spinning, and I was surprised to see that she didn't appear dizzy in the least.
"Only if you promise to help me talk to Neo Thursday in class." She replied. I agreed, only because I knew it would be the only way she would fill me in on what I missed today. I was sure she'd forget about it in a couple of hours once we're knee deep in vocabulary terms.
At least, I thought she would.