I Like Women.

Obviously.

This is not new information.

It was not new information when I left Oceanside.

It was not new information when I crossed Kansas.

And it was definitely not new information sitting in a small classroom in southern Vermont while twenty people auditioned for the role of Interesting Young Person.

But there is a difference between liking women in theory and suddenly being aware of a specific woman existing in the same room as you.

Which, unfortunately, had just happened.

The professor said something about rotating again.

Or maybe he said wrap it up.

I was not listening.

Chairs scraped.

People moved.

Clara did not.

Eventually someone else sat down next to her and the little orbit around her shifted like gravity had quietly changed.

Which meant I ended up across from her.

Not on purpose.

Which is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you are very much trying not to do something.

Someone said, “Okay, name, major, reason.”

The same thing.

The guy next to me went first. Anthropology.

The girl beside him said psychology.

Then someone looked at me.

“Rowan,” I said again.

“Undeclared.”

And then I made the mistake of looking up.

Clara was still watching me.

Not intensely.

Just… attentively.

Like she had not stopped listening since the first time.

Which is unnerving when you have not actually said anything worth listening to.

“Why Northbridge?” someone asked.

I almost said it again.

Trees.

I did not say trees.

But I hesitated long enough that Clara tilted her head a little.

Not mockingly.

Just curious.

Which is somehow worse.

“I wanted something different,” I said.

Clara smiled.

Not a big smile.

Just a small one, like she had heard the sentence before and was deciding whether to believe it this time.

Then she said, very quietly,

“You said trees earlier.”

And that was the moment the entire room disappeared.

Because now there was only one problem in the world.

Clara Mercer had been listening to me.

I'm Not That Interesting

I'm not going to argue this point. I'm not.

I didn't leave Oceanside because exciting things happen in Vermont.

I left because… because trees?

No, that couldn't be right.

I left because—

Dear God,

There is nothing more terrifying than realizing a girl has been paying attention to you.

“You said trees earlier.”

Clara didn't say it loudly.

She said it like someone pointing out something obvious.

Like the sky being blue. Or snow being cold.

Which meant everyone in the group turned to look at me again.

Because now the question had changed.

Not Why Northbridge.

Why trees.

Which is a much worse question.

I could have laughed.

That is what people do when something honest slips out.

But Clara was still watching me.

Not impatient.

Just waiting.

Which somehow made it worse.

“They're… different here,” I said.

This sounded stupid immediately.

Clara didn't rescue me.

Most people would have.

“Oh totally,” or “yeah the foliage,” or something polite.

She just kept looking.

“How?” she asked.

Which is how you know someone is actually listening.

I looked down at the desk again.

The grain in the wood ran in long slow lines like rivers.

“I grew up near the ocean,” I said.

Clara nodded once, like she already knew that somehow.

“Trees there are landscaping,” I continued.

Another pause.

“Here they feel like they were here first.”

The room stayed quiet for a second.

Which meant I had said something weird again.

Then Clara smiled.

Not big.

Just enough to acknowledge the answer.

“Yes,” she said.

Just that.

Yes.

Like it was the most normal thing anyone had said all morning.

The professor clapped his hands somewhere behind us.

“Alright everyone, let's come back together.”

Chairs moved again.

People turned away.

The little orbit broke.

When I looked up again Clara had already stood.

She picked up her coat.

Then she paused beside my desk.

Not close.

Just close enough that I could hear her without anyone else noticing.

“Good trees here,” she said.

Then she walked away.

How All Small Human Rituals End.

The professor clapped his hands.

Which is how all small human rituals end.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s come back together.”

Chairs moved and people stood up, the room filled again with the normal noise of twenty people existing in public.

I heard someone laugh, someone asked about the reading, and someone zipping a backpack with unnecessary violence before the moment dissolved.

Which is good.

Moments should dissolve. Otherwise you have to do something with them.

I packed my notebook slowly, not trying to look like I was doing it to buy time to look at Clara in my periphery, but slowly enough that when I checked my periphery, she was gone.

Outside the classroom the air had shifted.

It was still August, technically.

But Vermont August is not Oceanside August, and a southward dip in the jetstream had brought unseasonably cold air into New England.

The wind had a cool edge to it like it had somewhere better to be.

Students spilled out onto the path in little clusters already talking about lunch.

Which is another strange thing about college.

Everyone eats together immediately.

Like migrating birds.

I followed the path back toward the dorms—brick buildings with white windows, occupying space between trees that seemed entirely unconcerned with the fact that a small liberal arts college had been built between them.

Which I respected.

My roommate was sitting cross-legged on her bed when I opened the door.

Laptop open, granola bar halfway to her mouth.

She looked up.

“You’re Rowan, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Elise.”

She gestured vaguely at the room like she owned fifty percent of it.

Which she did.

“I already claimed the outlet by the window,” she said. “But you can have the good chair.”

“Sounds good,” I said, and she nodded like a contract had been signed.

“Orientation class?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

I considered explaining the entire existential crisis involving trees and mysterious literature majors.

Instead I said, “Icebreakers and small breakout groups.”

Elise winced in immediate solidarity.

“Those should be banned.”

This was correct.

Like a mountain.

Over the next week, campus settled into a rhythm.

Morning classes.

Then coffee taken like a morning cigarette.

Students walking everywhere with the determined expression of people who had just discovered backpacks. And as someone from Oceanside, I was deeply, intimately, and regrettably familiar with people who had just discovered backpacks.

Northbridge was small enough that you started recognizing people immediately.

The same faces at the café.

The same people in the quad.

The same people pretending they understood the reading.

And Clara Mercer.

She appeared in my literature seminar every morning.

Always already sitting when I arrived.

Always in the same place.

Same wool coat folded over the back of the chair. Like boots.

Same still posture.

She spoke when the professor asked her something. But never volunteered.

Never filled space just because it existed.

Which meant that when she did talk, the room tended to go quiet.

I noticed something else after a few days, too. She never stayed for lunch.

Class would end, students would drift toward the dining hall, and Clara would leave in the opposite direction.

Always alone. Always before the sun had fully climbed over the trees.

Always; I noticed this.

Which is not the same as investigating it.

Sometimes she would look at me again.

Not long, exactly, but enough that I remembered the first day.

You said trees earlier.

Such a strange sentence to carry around in your head.

But there it was,

Like a mountain.

Old.

Quiet.

And perfectly content to let me rearrange myself around it.

_Art by NikDrawson