Resonate

Two introverted college students cross paths.

 

            Faina touched the ring he’d given her. She wasn’t sure exactly what his name was. They shared a class. She never would have noticed him and she was sure he didn’t recognize her- at least not for the right reasons. The quiet, fat girl since she was five, Faina knew what to expect from members of the opposite sex.

            They didn’t even sit close to each other, but she’d gotten a text message during the class. She checked her phone right after class and read it- mom was still sick, come to the hospital after school (no thanks, as usual)- so she got up as he was leaving.

            He noticed it before she had. It was a cheap ring. It probably came out of a vending machine for a quarter, the type that would be a good gift for a five-year-old and grounds for a break-up for anyone else. It was silver with a black strip running through it and so transparent Faina hadn’t seen it on the ground. But he had. He picked it up and gave it to her. He hadn’t said a word.

            Faina couldn’t stop thinking about his face. He hadn’t smiled at her. Their eyes met, but only for about five seconds. Each one of her mother’s doctors had given her more in terms of contact. But not one of them was that gorgeous.

            Tall, dark and handsome was the standard for male beauty. In Faina’s eyes, he measured up. Some girls thought he wasn’t tall enough, but she was only five-two. He was somewhere around five-ten. His racial background both Asian and Caucasian. His dark eyes looked serious and smart. His body was hard and finely-muscled.

            He was probably off at some bar with some girl- tall Asian or tall blonde- drinking beer and shooting pool. She would leave him. He’d use it as an excuse to drink and then replace her. They might be serious, but he’d still replace her. Then he’d take the son he’d had with someone else and say “Back when I was in college, I knew this girl...”

            What would she have to tell her daughter? Not much.

            It was nine o’clock on a Thursday night on a long week-end. While everyone else was out, Faina was in. After listening to her mother harass her for the span of the hospital’s visiting hours, having dinner with her father harassing her about her weight, and coming home to housework, Faina had crashed. She was in front of the television in her childhood bedroom, watching a made-for-television movie that was intended for ten- year-old girls having a slumber party and eating junk food. But she had company. The dog curled up on her bed. The dog didn’t have a name. Her father had insisted on buying it when he got sober.

            “But you don’t have time for a dog,” Faina said. He didn’t have time for anything except his career. He had to make time for his addiction.

            Her father hired a professional dog walker, a perpetually smiling twenty-something who didn’t complain when he also asked her to feed the dog. He also hired a dog groomer to come to the house. For the most part, he seemed to forget about the dog.

            But Faina liked having a living thing around the house.

            The movie designed for twelve-year-olds featured a lead character who was a college student, like Faina. She was searching for love, like Faina. But she had the perfect body. Her only problem was that she’d rather stay in than head out. A guy with perfect hair and a perfect body was in the process of forcing her out.

            “Is this really how you want things to be?” he asked her. “How you want things to look?”

            Was the ring how she wanted to look?

            She’d probably never see the boy again. If she did, he might think it was weird she was still wearing his ring. She should disguise it.

            “What if I change it into an engagement ring?” Faina asked the dog.

            The dog didn’t get up.

            It was a dumb idea. That would be a complicated spell and Faina had no idea how to conjure up a fiancé. A spell to take a few inches off her waistline would be more worthwhile, but the mere thought of casting a spell on herself made Faina queasy. Magic was somewhat unpredictable. So was her body. Mixing them wouldn’t work out.

            But she could change the ring. The lead actress with the perfect body- her character’s name was Sam- wore a nice ring- silver, like hers, with an obviously fake plastic red gem in the center. Faina was sure she’d seen it in a few scenes. Sam’s hobby was going to coffeehouses and writing in a notebook, with the ring glimmering as she tried to write the perfect poem. Sam was always alone. Her boyfriend wanted that to stop.

            She hadn’t met the boy, but she could have the ring.

            Faina held the ring in her hand and made a fist. She clenched and channeled her energy. When she released her palm, an exact duplicate of Sam’s ring was on the palm of her hand.

            Faina smiled, but not sincerely. It was only what she’d expected to happen.

**

            Draven tried to remember exactly what her face looked like. She wasn’t a beautiful girl, not by any stretch of the imagination. But she was cute. Really cute. If she lost some weight, she would be beautiful.

            His mix tape, the one he’d held on to since high school, had about a half-dozen songs that used the word “beautiful” more than once. It was always something you could see but not hold onto because beautiful girls just left in the end. All the songs came out in the mid-nineties. He’d taped them off the radio, before it broke. The tape deck, along with the pick up, stayed stubbornly intact.

            Draven had to make the same drive just about every Friday night. It took him exactly an hour to get from work to home where he would study, sleep for a few hours then get up ungodly early to get to his other job. He did the drive in the summer, with less traffic because people were on vacation and fewer stressed-out commuters, but Draven liked driving it in autumn the best. In autumn, he got to drive in the dark with the streetlamps allowing the same roads he always passed a degree of mystery.

            Once he’d had to drive during a hurricane. His mother had chided him. Why hadn’t he called her; she would have picked him up? Or why did he spend the night at his dorm and call in sick for once? He’d had the same job since high school. Russ would cover him. Russ, the combination of father and older brother who was the only male mentor he’d had all his life who was sane. But Draven wouldn’t have been able to handle the rest of the week without that hour of freeway driving to reflect. People told him how lucky he was, how this was the best four years of his life. Thank god it was almost over. The exhaustion of working two jobs and going to school full time and being a student athlete was starting to cut into him like a knife. That one hour, listening to the same songs over and over again, was the only thing he could do to keep the knife off his throat.

            He loved everything he did and he hated everything he did. But nothing ever seemed worth stopping for.

            Except, maybe, making that girl smile.

            But he was so busy he didn’t even know her name.

**

            Faina should have been in bed, or at least watching a movie intended for someone who was closer to her own age. They had HBO. Faina couldn’t remember anyone telling her they’d gotten it, but one night she’d discovered that that hitting certain buttons on the remote lead to commercial-free movies that college students, like her, were supposed to watch. She’d watched almost all of them, in theaters or on television, but she rarely saw anything that was on HBO twice. She lost track of the number of times she’d seen Labyrinth.

            Labyrinth came out around the same time her parents were talking about making her a big sister. Her babysitter brought it with her once, to demonstrate to Faina how a good big sister should behave and to make her job as easy as possible.

            The baby brother or sister never materialized, but Faina fell in love with the movie.

            She owned every DVD of Labyrinth that had ever been released, but she preferred her VHS version over everything else. She liked the noises it made when it hit certain scenes.

            It was getting close to midnight.

            The tape made a noise and it was in a place where Faina normally didn’t hear it.

            The VCR or tape might give out soon. Then what would make her that happy?

**

            Draven’s room even smelled the same as it had when he moved in, ten years ago. Draven wasn’t sure what was giving off the smell. Most of his stuff was stashed in his dorm room. All that was left scattered possessions from childhood and the clothes he would have worn on the dates he never had time to go on. And his weapons, along with the trophies he’d won with them.

            “The insanity will stop,” he whispered. A promise and a lie to himself. The insanity never stopped. It just mutated. He’d gone through eight school districts before college, worked countless part-time jobs and gone through two sets of parents.

            All he had left was midnight in that bed.

            The girl who smiled at him after class looked so normal he was surprised they were going to college together. Normally, he studied at that hour, but since it was a three-day weekend, he could wait. Instead, he guessed what her life was like. She was rich. Even though she was overweight, she wore brand-name clothes. If she’d ever worked, the job was either a paid internship or teaching some hobby-like acting- she’d studied after school for years. Her parents would never get the money back, but it was great that she was working.

            Girls like that, no matter what they looked like, were never untouched. She’d had a boyfriend. Probably more than one. She might even be a serial dater, one of those girls who could pull up a mediocre boyfriend on any given Friday night. One replaced the other. Eventually, their first names would repeat and she’d have to list using last initials “But then, Pat H. went to college, but we couldn’t really make it work long distance so I went out with Josh C. But we just didn’t have that much in common. Then I met Kevin A. and for a few weeks, it was amazing...” And so on.

            Not that she was necessarily a s**t, but he’d met a lot of plus-sized girls who compensated with sexual favors. Her boyfriends probably treated her right, but never gave her more than she’d admit to wanting.

            He was better off staying uninvolved and driving the road that everyone promised him was going somewhere. All it seemed like he was headed towards was more exhaustion.

            If she was a s**t, she wasn’t worth it. If she was sweet, she was.

            Draven might never find out.

**

            Faina finally crawled into bed, with the lights out and no distractions at two in the morning. She’d stayed up an extra three hours and hadn’t done anything. She had a test that Monday. Three hours of studying could have made all the difference.

            But she’d deserved it. If she didn’t spoil herself, who would?

**

            Faina checked the clock before she picked up the phone. It was quarter after six; a little late for an emergency but still too early to call.

            “Hello?” Faina asked.

            “Honey,” Frank, her father, said. An obstetrician, he kept strange hours. “Could you get over here in like an hour?”

            “An hour?”

            “I know it’s early, but your mother’s in critical.”

            “What happened?”

            “We’re not quite sure yet.”

            “I’ll come as quick as I can.”

            Faina hung up and got out of bed.

**

            Somehow, Faina hadn’t hit traffic or caused any accident, despite the fact that she drove to the hospital like a maniac. So far, so good.

            She had the floor plan of the hospital memorized. She knew where to park and where to meet her father.

            “What is it?” she asked when they met.

            “It’s her liver,” he said. “Worse than they thought. That’s all they’re telling us so far. We just have to wait. I have to get back to work. Why don’t you get some breakfast?”

            He’d dragged her all the way out of bed just to instruct her to get breakfast.

            “Can I see her?” Faina asked.

            “No,” he said. “They have to run tests.”

            “Can you wait with me?”

            “Faina- I have a patient. She just had a baby and it would be really irresponsible for me to just leave her. I took a break. This is all the time I have.”

**

            Normally, Faina would have gone to the hospital cafeteria, but normally she didn’t get dragged out of bed at six o’clock on a Saturday to sit and wait. She still had her cell phone. As long as she stayed close, she could go wherever she wanted.

            Faina discovered a diner close to the hospital that had a counter where it wasn’t too awkward to eat alone. They were open twenty-four hours, probably for the convenience of hospital employees who worked strange hours. Visiting hours were in the evening. The family members of patients weren’t supposed to come in for breakfast.

            That morning, Faina headed over to the diner.  She’d missed out on making her own breakfast and eating it in front of the television, while doing her homework, but she could still get some French toast.

            She sat down at the counter and ordered French toast and coffee. When she looked around, she realized she was the only one who came alone and wasn’t surprised. Even so, there was a certain degree of intimacy, knowing that they had endured some form of trip and they were eating breakfast while everyone else was in bed.

            Free time didn’t exist in college. Or it shouldn’t exist. She was supposed to do community service or join a club or find someone to hang out when she wasn’t in class. But at the diner, you had no choice other than to sit and stare while you waited for breakfast, if you came alone.

            A waitress brought Faina coffee. Faina smiled. The waitress ignored her, although she seemed grateful when a thinner girl had smiled at her. She got the same service, but she was less visible. Faina had daydreamed of jumping into someone else’s body- someone the same age, but thinner- since she was a child. She was curious.

            Faina stared out the window, when she saw someone who looked familiar. A man- probably in his twenties. She made three guesses on his ethnicity before she realized he was biracial- like the boy who had given her the ring the day before. It couldn’t be the same one. He’d gone to a party the night before. Any guy who looked that good had to get invited. There was no way he’d be up by seven on a Saturday and at the same diner. They weren’t that far from campus, but that dinner usually stayed off the collective student radar. There was nothing that distinctive about it that made it worth the trek. Faina knew that as well as she knew that strangers didn’t find the same degree of appeal when they looked at her.

            He walked through the door. Faina stared at his face.

            He sat down next to her. The waitress came immediately. His looks probably made him an important customer.

            “Coffee?” the waitress asked.

            “As usual,” he replied.

            “Back in a minute, Draven.”

            Draven. His name was Draven. Faina knew she’d seen that name somewhere, sometime before her mother had gotten hospitalized. During the first semester of her sophomore year, she had an hour and a half break between classes. It coincided with lunch, but even Faina was left with some spare time. So she’d started reading the school paper. That was where she thought she read the name. They interviewed him because he’d won a karate tournament and he was a low-income student, but hadn’t let that stop him from getting an almost perfect GPA. She’d seen the picture and tried to remember it. He was gorgeous, she remembered that. Like a movie star. In her memory, his face had gotten lumped up with all the movie posters she’d seen that year.

            But there was a gorgeous man named Draven at her college. And he had to be sitting next to him. Faina tapped her ring against the counter. She was still wearing it, but Draven wouldn’t be able to recognize it.

            “Just coffee,” Faina mumbled. She hoped he hadn’t heard her. Most of her classmates didn’t answer, even when it was something important.

            “Already ate,” the man- Draven- replied. “Usually I just come here for coffee ‘cause it’s not allowed in the house.”

            No coffee? Faina’s father lived off of it and she couldn’t imagine her mother refusing to swallow or inject any substance. It was something else when it came to food.

            “Why not?” Faina asked. “It’s so good.”

            “That’s what I think. But I was raised mostly by hippies and they don’t believe in it.”

            “That it exists?”

            Draven smirked. “That would simplify things. They think that it kills and it’s helping out all the people we’re not supposed to help out. I forget who it is these days- the dictators or the greedy businesspeople. So I just come here and get it cheap.”

            “Oh.”

            “I’ve only ordered the food twice.”

            “It’s good.”

            “Tastes good. There’s nothing good in it.”

            Faina sighed. “You’re right.”

            “You ordered, huh?”

            “It’s been hectic. I need energy.”

            “Hectic? It’s a three-day weekend.”

            “My mom’s been in the hospital for the past few months. It’s her liver. So everything’s insane.”

            “I’m sorry- months?”

            “They keep finding new things. And my dad’s a doctor- GYN-OB, nonetheless, so he works crazy hours. I’m just trying to hold things down. So I ordered.”

            “I wasn’t trying to say-.”

            “I know why I should eat well.”

            “I didn’t say you were fat. God, I gave you a ninety-cent ring yesterday and we already sound like an old married couple. Guess it’ll make it easier if I know your name.”

            “Faina.”

            “Draven.”

            They shook hands.

            “What’s your major?” Draven asked.

            She’d seen this happen to skinnier girls. Guys started asking them questions. They wanted to know, or at least pretended to want to know. But those rules weren’t supposed to apply to Faina.

            “Business. You?”

            “Computer enginneering. I might start a business one day.”

            “Cool.”

            He’d already won a karate tournament. That couldn’t be too hard after a childhood spent perfecting a sport. Especially if he was selling computers, which was what everyone wanted.

            “How did you know how much the ring cost?” Faina asked. The instant later, she regretted it. She shouldn’t tease the only boy who’d been nice to her in months.

            Draven shrugged. “Guessed. I think it came out of a vending machine and someone had to keep putting in quarters.”

            “That’s obviously not an engagement ring. There’s no reason we have to argue, then.”

            “Guess so. I see you aren’t wearing it. Would your boyfriend mind?”

            Boyfriend. The word alone conjured up a few emotions for Faina. She’d never had one. “You’re too timid,” the therapist they made her see while her father sobered up told her. Her mother had different reasons, most of them stemming from her appearance.

            “I don’t have a boyfriend,” Faina said. She’d said it so many times it didn’t even feel like a confession. She hadn’t even been on a date. That world was foreign to her and she didn’t know how to get into it.

            “So no one’s being an a*****e by leaving you to sleep off a hang-over? That’s a surprise. I thought all you rich kids had someone.”

            Faina shrugged. “We’re not that rich and no one ever asked. What about you?”

            “I’m too busy.”

            “But you’re not too busy to have breakfast here.”

            “Touché. I had a girlfriend back in high school, but it ended badly.”

            “What happened?”

            “She left me for another guy on prom night. Junior, not senior. It kind of turned me off to the whole thing.”

            Faina grimaced. She’d been the victim of bullying more times than she could count, but no one had ever betrayed her like that. “I’m sorry.”

            “Having a dying mother would have been a lot worse.”

            “It’s nothing. It’s just-.” Faina sighed.

            “Just what?”

            “The same thing as before. She’s been using since I can remember. This is just a continuation of what keeps happening. I can’t imagine her dead and I can’t imagine her sober either.”

            “My mom used to be a drug user. She quit and ended up working three jobs. But we’re close. Things got a lot better once she cleaned up.”

            “Wow.” Faina had read and overheard countless stories about drug-addicted family members. She liked Draven’s the best because he’d ended up at the same school as her and he was close with his mother.

            “At least I was too young to hold things down,” Draven said. “You look stressed.”

            Faina shrugged. “It’s been like this for months. I’m getting used to it.”

            “I hear you.”

            There was a pause that wasn’t exactly awkward, but wasn’t comfortable either.

            “Why are you so busy?” Faina asked.

            “Martial arts stuff, mostly,” Draven said. “I have karate practice on weekdays and I teach on weekends. That’s where I’m headed later on.”

            “You teach?” Faina couldn’t remember reading that in the article.

            “Yeah,” Draven said. “And I have a part-time job on the side.”

            “How do you ever find time to breathe?”

            “I don’t have a dying mother.”

            “Oh.”

            Another reminder that Faina was not like everyone else. She had to do more, but being a good daughter wasn’t something she could put on a resume. And it kept her from getting to know people on campus with activities like joining a club.

            “I’ve always wanted to learn karate,” Faina admitted, quietly.

            “Why didn’t you?” Draven asked.

            “Not allowed. My mom told me that girls don’t do karate. They do ballet. So that’s what I did. I hated it and eventually they kicked me out.”

            “They kicked you out?”

            “Ever see a fat ballerina? I couldn’t really do the same stuff the other girls could. Too much inertia. They let me stay longer than I should have, but eventually there was no point. I was way too far behind the other girls.”

            “That sucks. Karate’s not like that. You should do it.”

            “I don’t have money.”

            “I’ll do it. For free.”

**

            Faina had seen plenty of movies where girls did stupid things to spend times with guys. She thought it was dumb. And she was doing almost the same thing.

            Wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt, Faina had to make it to one of the gyms on campus to meet Draven. She hadn’t really thought about doing karate for years. Getting kicked out of ballet had put a sour taste in her mouth regarding sports in general. She’d been to the gym a handful of times since then and probably still had a membership, but Faina wasn’t athletic. Draven was.

            Draven gave her directions that looked wrong. Faina had to go through the basketball court first, even though Draven had said there would be padding. The basketball court was completely empty. She and Draven would be the only ones using that building.

            Draven propped the door open and was standing behind it.

            “Is it always this empty right now?” Faina asked.

            “This week, yes. People have midterms or hangovers. Whichever. Come in.”          

            Faina came in.

            “I haven’t even thought about doing this for years,” Faina said. “I don’t really work out.”

            Draven leaned over, mimicking a posture Faina thought she recognized from movies. Like he was about to kiss her. But he wouldn’t. Boys never did.

            More than the contact between their lips, Faina remembered seeing his brown eyes close to hers. They radiated understanding. The kiss itself lasted only a few seconds, with the salty aftertaste lingering in her mouth.

            “Now you have incentive,” Draven whispered.

            It stuck with Faina throughout her first karate class