 |
| Subria |
Subria returned to Sinai without
speaking to Shiloh. He called her house
repeatedly before she returned to school, and each time Renee or Steven came to tell her that Shiloh was on
the phone, she refused to take his calls. When Subria was back at school, she kept up with her
studies, but also threw herself into the social scene at school in a way she
hadn't before. With all the time she had
used to call Shiloh and write emails to him, Subria started spending a lot more
time with Sonji, Tamina, and April, going to Dairy Queen to get Blizzards, and
out to Whataburger for dinner sometimes.
She spent a lot more time at basketball games and tailgate parties.
One night after a dorm party at
Corinthian Hall, April, Sonji, and Tamina had already left the dorm, so Subria
jogged outside to catch up with them, only to realize that there was no more
room in Tamina's car. This was strange
to Subria, since Tamina always gave the three of them rides when she could, and
they had come to the party together. The
other people in the car lived in a dorm not even a hundred yards from where
they were standing. Subria's dorm was
about a twenty minute walk from Corinthian Hall.
"Sorry, Bria," Tamina
yelled from the driver’s side. "Maybe
Kevin can walk you back to the
dorm."
And then it finally hit Subria.
She was being set up. "Kevin,
do you mind?" Tamina asked as Kevin approached the car.
 |
| Kevin |
"No. It would be my pleasure to walk you home,"
Kevin said, as he winked at Tamina.
Subria smiled nervously, and waved at the girls as they drove away.
"Did you have fun tonight?"
Kevin asked her.
"Yeah, it was nice to get out of
the dorm."
"You spend a lot of time in
there."
"Well, I have to, if I want to
keep up my GPA."
"Yeah, but all work and no play
. . . Don’t you like to hang out
sometimes?"
"Sure, but it’s hard to hang out
like I want. When I was in New York, all
I had to do was hop on a bus or train to go to the movies or something. Now everything is so far away, and I don’t
have a car."
"Yeah, but Tamina does."
"We go out with her sometimes,
but I don’t want her to feel like she always has to take us around. Anyway, maybe you hang out a little too much,
Kevin," Subria said, grinning.
"What do you mean?" Kevin
asked, intrigued.
"I heard about you getting
written up. How many times has that
happened?"
"Only about three," Kevin
responded with a mischievous look.
"I would be so scared to get
written up even once," Subria admitted.
"They don't really do
anything. All they do is write your name
down. Just like getting your name on the
board in elementary school. Nothing ever
happened to me when I got my name on the board."
"Well, I hear that if you get
written up a certain amount of times, it can lead to disciplinary probation."
"Well, I'll worry about that if
it happens," Kevin responded. "So,
you were talking about Tamina and her car?"
"Oh yeah," Subria
remembered. "You want to know
something funny?"
"What?"
"You know the school shopping
trips?"
"Yeah?" Kevin responded,
recalling that Sinai had bus runs into town twice each week.
"April and I go to the movies
instead of shopping at the Northlake Mall.
One time, the bus was waiting outside the theater for us instead of in
front of the supermarket like it usually does.
It was so embarrassing, but it was worth it."
"You’re lucky they didn’t leave
you," Kevin said, laughing.
"I know, right?"
By the time Kevin and Subria arrived
at her dorm, there was still about half an hour left before curfew, so Subria
decided to invite him into her common room.
"So, how’d you end up at Sinai,
Kevin?" Subria asked, as she walked over to the snack machine.
"My parents wanted me to
come. I didn’t really want to come down
here."
"Where did you want to go?"
"I got offers to a few Ivy
League schools. I even received a few
scholarship offers."
"For what?" Subria asked,
shaking the snack machine after her chocolate chip cookies didn’t come out when
she put her money in.
"Do you need help?" Kevin
asked.
"No, I do this all the time,"
Subria responded, as her cookies fell into the slot, and about $5 in coins fell
into the change slot.
"Subria, I’m surprised at you!"
Kevin said, feigning shock. "I
never took you for a thief!"
"Be quiet. I didn’t mean for that money to come
out. I keep calling to ask for them to
fix this machine, but no one ever does."
"So why don’t you just stop
trying to buy stuff from that machine?"
"Because the cookies are
good! Wait till you see what I do with
them," Subria said, opening the cookies, grabbing a couple of paper
towels, and putting the cookies in the microwave. She entered 30 seconds. "So, you never said what your
scholarship offers to the other schools were for."
"Track."
"You too, huh?"
"Why, you run?" Kevin
asked.
"Yep. I’m a sprinter. I have been ever since I was eight,"
Subria responded, taking the cookies out of the microwave. She touched one of the chocolate chips to see
if it was warm enough, and she burned her finger a little. She grimaced in pain, and put her finger in
her mouth.
"Are you okay?" Kevin
asked.
"Yeah, I’m fine. Here, taste this," Subria said, passing
Kevin a piece of one of her cookies. "It’s
better with milk, but it’s still good."
Kevin put the cookie in his
mouth. "Umm, that is good.
No wonder you shake the machine," he said smiling. "So, what events do you run in?"
"The 100 and 200. I’m better at the 100, though," Subria
commented.
"I run the 400 and 800,"
Kevin shared. "I do the long jump
and triple jump, too."
"Are you going out for the team
here?" Subria asked.
"Yeah, I guess. What about you?"
"My dad would have a heart
attack if I didn’t."
"At least your father cares."
"I guess you could look at it
that way," Subria said looking at the clock on the wall. "Well, it looks like it’s time for you
to go. Thanks for walking me home."
"No problem. I guess I’ll see you at track try-outs
tomorrow, huh?"
"Sure. Have a good night."
"Hey," Kevin said, turning
back and peeking through the front door of the dorm, "let me know if you
ever need me to take you somewhere. I
have a car, and I really wouldn't mind."
"Wait, so . . ." Subria said, confused.
"Good night, Subria," Kevin said, smiling as he walked away.
After that night at the dorm party,
Kevin, Marcus, Amaru, and Malcolm started to hang out with Subria and her
roommates, and inevitably, because there were four guys and four girls, they
began to pair off. Subria told herself
that she and Kevin were just friends.
Although Subria was having issues with Shiloh, she didn't consider
herself available, but that walk home left a splinter in her mind.
***
 |
| Shiloh |
Subria returned home from college for
summer break, and all that time, she still hadn't been in touch with
Shiloh. He called the day after she got
home. She suspected that her mother had
informed him that she was there. Subria
decided it was time to iron things out with him.
"Hey! How are you?" Shiloh asked.
"I'm okay," Subria
responded, rolling her eyes and sighing.
She wasn't going to make this easy for him.
"I've been trying to get in
touch with you for months, but you haven't been returning my calls or emails,"
Shiloh said, almost whining.
"I know," Subria said.
"I just wanted to know if I
could come over so we could talk," Shiloh said.
"Whatever you have to say to me,
please just say it," Subria responded.
"Okay, well, I know you're mad
about Arisleyda, but I told you that it wouldn’t be a good weekend for me."
"Shiloh, really? You lied to
me!" Subria shouted, realizing that the passage of time hadn't dissipated
her anger at all, especially with him starting by making excuses. "When did that
become okay? I mean, is that a part of
your new walk with God? Being deceitful?"
"Of course not," Shiloh
said, "but I just thought it would be better if I could just handle it
without upsetting you."
"Handle what, Shiloh?"
Subria asked.
"Well, things didn’t end so well
with Arisleyda when I broke up with her, and I wanted to see if I could bring
some better closure to the whole thing.
Why did you have to make a big deal out of this? You haven't spoken to me for three months!"
"I can’t believe you’re trying
to flip this on me," Subria said. "You’re
something else, you know that? Since
when did your x-girlfriend’s feelings become more important than mine? And although you allegedly have this new
spirituality thing going on, you still have a lot left to learn, like avoiding
the appearance of evil, Shiloh. What do
you think she thought about you letting her stay with you? What do you think your roommates thought?"
"Subria. Listen to me –"
"I don’t want to listen to
you! She could have found some place
else to stay, Shiloh, and you know that.
Don’t insult my intelligence.
Tell me that nothing happened between the two of you." Subria
demanded.
As much as Shiloh wanted to, he
couldn’t tell her that. His silence
spoke volumes.
"Please, for the first time
today, be completely honest with me," Subria begged.
"Okay, she tried to kiss me, but
I pushed her away, Subria! That has to
tell you something!"
"Yes, it does tell me something,"
Subria responded. "It tells me that
she still has feelings for you, and you either don’t want to see it, or part of
you feels like you still owe her something.
Which is it? I think I have the
right to know."
"Subria . . ."
"No, really Shiloh," Subria
said, "if you don't see anything wrong with what happened, then I don't
know if I want to be your girlfriend anymore."
"Subria, I didn't do anything
wrong," Shiloh said.
"Then there's nothing left for
us to talk about," Subria said, hanging up the phone.
No comments:
Post a Comment