I passionately grab the nape of Sophie’s neck and kiss her, hearing her moan as I bite down on her lip. My hands travel down her spine, unhooking her bra from the back. She’s tugging at the belt buckle of my pants eagerly.
“Soph,” I say in between kisses. “Slow down a bit.” She continued kissing me, tugging at every piece of clothing on my body. She was more aggressive than what I was used to, and the longer she demanded me to undress, the more turned off I was getting.
I slightly push her away from me, looking at her in the eyes. “Sophie.”
“What?”
“For fuck’s sake, you’re acting like an animal today,” I lightly joked, trying to read the expression on her face. “What’s up with you today?”
“Is it a crime to want to be intimate with your boyfriend?” She asked back. I scoffed, not really believing what she was saying.
“Not at all, but damn; you walked into the door less than 5 minutes ago and we’re both halfway naked.” Sophie looked at me as her face began turning red. She seemed uncomfortable. “My family is out for the entire day, so it’s not like we have to rush to be out of–“
Sophie’s cellphone rings, and she turns her head toward it. I couldn’t help but look at the screen, noticing Allen’s name across it.
“Hey, Ali.” Ali. He gave him a nickname. “Yeah, I’ll meet you at Grand Army Plaza in about 20 minutes, then we can go to Juilliard for class.” She smiles as she speaks to him, something that immediately angered me. “Text me when you get there.” She hung up the phone and looked at me; that smile quickly fades.
“That explains a lot,” I said, getting up from my bed, grabbing the t-shirt that Sophie flung across the room.
“Juilliard has taken up so much of my free time that I figured I’d do both,” Sophie admitted, sitting at the edge of my bed.
“So, you figured you could come here, have a quickie, and then run out to your class?” I stated out loud more than questioned. I knew that was what she was thinking of doing, considering the fact that this isn’t the first time she’s done something like this.
“Well when you put it like that, it makes it sound horrible,” Sophie said, grabbing her shirt from the floor and quickly puts it on. “I wanted to see you before class today. I had a lot going on with the program and wanted just a moment to decompress with you.” She seemed sad, and I hate that she felt ashamed that she couldn’t just tell me how she was feeling.
“Scout,” I sighed. I walked towards my bed, sitting next to her and placed my hand on her thigh. “You know you could just talk to me… let me know what’s going on–“
“We don’t ever get the chance to see each other these days because of me,” she admitted, looking down at her fidgeting hands. “I feel like whenever you’re free, I have class at Juilliard and whenever I’m free, you have dual major rehearsals.”
“I know we’ve been super busy lately, but I don’t want our time together to just be us making out or having sex. What we have is worth more than just that–”
And there it goes: the alarm on Sophie’s phone rings, and on the screen the alarm is labeled, “Juilliard”.
…
I saw Sophie sitting next to Allen and a couple of his friends at lunch today.
Mollie wasn’t in school, and I was too late getting the exact room I wanted in the West Wing to practice. The rest of the gang are on a field trip for I walked into the lunchroom, not really knowing where I wanted to sit. I used to sit with Sophie at her table last year. It felt like it was the first day of freshman year all over again, trying to find some vacant spot to sit without accidentally sitting in someone’s spot. Eventually, I opted to sit at the table closest to the exit; aka the table everyone tends to avoid. Yet, there’s one person already sitting there.
“Hey,” I said to the guy sitting at the table. “Do you mind if I…?”
“Nah bro, you’re good,” the guy said, moving his things closer to his side. I sat down with my lunch tray, eating with a complete stranger during the period I should be hanging out with my friends. “Is this normally where you sit? I could–“
“Nah, I don’t; I’m usually not in the lunchroom during lunch,” I began to explain. “Just needed to find a spot for today.” I look behind the guy toward the other tables, noticing Sophie and Allen sitting next to each other rather closely. I could feel my face getting hot and my temper short-circuited. I looked away quickly, back at the guy sitting across from me. He’s reading some sort of book as he eats his lunch.
“You got a quiz on that book for English class?” I asked, trying to create some sort of small talk. The guy looked up, folding the book forward to reveal the cover. It reads The Likeness by Tana French.
“Oh no, this is a book I’m reading in my spare time,” he answered, placing an index card to mark the page he was on. “I had read the first book over the summer and got the rest of the series to read.”
“Oh…cool…” I said, not really interested in discussing book plots. “Do you always read during lunch period?”
“Nah, the people I usually hang out with are absent,” he mentioned, putting the book away in his bag. “Just thought about killing some time before vocal class next period.”
“You’re a vocal major?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “Freshman?”
“Junior,” he corrected me. “I just started here at Waverly.”
“Wait, that means you’re also in my vocal class,” I said out loud, beginning to put two-and-two together.
“You do look familiar,” the guy said, looking at me now. “No offense, but you look like Mr. Kamalani.”
“That’s because he’s my dad,” I said, not even phased by the observation. His eyes widened, shocked over the newfound information.
“Dude, I’m sorry,” he scoffed. I laughed, shaking my head as I always do when I give that information out to people. “I know you probably are sick of people pointing it out.”
“In the beginning; yeah, but this far down the line I’m just like whatever about it,” I said, eating my lunch. “He actually failed me for a marking period last year.”
“That had to be hella awkward.” Hella. Where is this dude from?
“It was more awkward having my step mom come up for parent teacher conference because of that,” I said, remembering the sheer panic on my dad’s face seeing Jennifer walk into his classroom. “I’m Milo, by the way.”
“Weston,” the guy said, smiling as he greeted me. Before I can say anything else, I hear a loud noise from across the lunchroom. In true, Laurie fashion, she’s terrorizing Sophie, just having knocked over her things on the table. Coincidentally, Allen was not with her at the moment.
“It was nice meeting you,” I quickly said, grabbing my things quickly. I rushed to where Sophie was sitting. The group of girls laugh as Sophie kneels down to get her things from the floor.
“Grow the fuck up already, Laurie,” I said, kneeling in front of Sophie. She looks up, not saying anything to me.
“Wow; didn’t expect you to be the one sticking up for her.” What does that even mean? “Where’s your little boy toy, Allen?”
“Shut up!” Sophie gets up from the ground and pushes Laurie. The other girls begin to throw punches at her. I immediately jumped in front of her, trying to keep all the girls away from Sophie.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I said, pushing the other girls away. When a lunch aide finally comes to stop things from getting too serious, Laurie quickly picks up Sophie’s bow for her violin up, snapping it in half.
“Bitch,” she says as one of the school security guards blocks her vision. Before I could turn to Sophie, she’s already running out of the lunchroom, and into the West Wing. My body immediately runs after her.
“Sophie!” I called out in the hallway. “Sophie, wait–“
“What were you even trying to do?!” Sophie scolded.
I was confused. “I was trying to save you from getting beat on my four girls–“
“I don’t need your help!”
“She broke your bow, for fuck’s sake!” I angrily said. “We have a rehearsal for the showcase 8th period and you’re now out of a bow for your violin.” Mr. Harrison made it very clear during freshman year that reeds, mouthpieces, and bows were always required for rehearsals, and if we didn’t have one during a rehearsal, we would be forced to sit on the side while everyone practiced. Sophie knew this, and it seems like she was freaking out more about the fact that it was me that stood up to Laurie and those girls; not Allen.
“That has nothing to do with you.” She swallowed hard, walking away from me. I stood there, watching her body leave through the exit doors of the West Wing, as if that wasn’t the same body I used to hug, kiss, and caress just a couple of months ago. How the hell did we go from being lovers to complete strangers?
Even more so: when did we go from being lovers to enemies?
Letters From Liz. 