Youssef
COLD: Adjective used to describe a sound quality that is digital and harsh
Nabil is practically jumpingup and down on the sidewalk. He grabs my shoulder and shakes me as he lets out a long string of Arabic swear words before I can even answer.
“Can we please not call her ‘high school girl’? It sounds bad. She is clearly not a high schooler.”
“Yeah.” Nabil stops bouncing and smirks at me. “Clearly. I mean, damn.Damn. You don’t really notice it at first because she’s got like, the hoodie and her hair is all hanging in her face, but when I walked up to her at the booth it was likewhoa.”
Whoa.
I kind of want to knock him in the ribs again for saying it, but I can’t blame him. There is no other way to react to Paige’s face than ‘whoa.’ Even at fifteen, she was stunning. Literally stunning—like, freeze on the spot and forget how to breathe kind of stunning.
She had the same hair back then too: thick, dark curtains hanging over her shoulders and always shielding her like blinders. I remember the first time I looked down the hall and saw her tuck one side behind her ear as she grabbed some books out of her locker. I’d never noticed her before. She was just a freshman, and it was only September, but after I got that one short look at the lines of her profile before she slammed the locker closed and turned away, I couldn’tstopnoticing her.
I could never stop any part of what I felt when it came to Paige.
“I should go.”
“What?” Nabil blinks like he’s only just noticed I’m not as ecstatic as he is.
“I’m gonna go. You should stay and talk shop, but I’m leaving.”
“No!” He steps in front of me like he’s ready to ignore the three inch difference between our heights and throw me to the ground. “You need to talk to her!”
“I did. She...I don’t think she wants me here.”
“Bullshit. You guys looked like you were ready to fuck on the DJ booth.”
“Don’t—”
He raises both his hands in a gesture of innocence and cuts me off. “Hey, man, I just speak the truth I see, and the truth is that you and that girl have some unfinished business. How many times have you been drunk and going on and on to me about how much you wish you could see ‘that girl from high school’ again? Well, fate has answered, brother.”
I lean against the brick wall behind me, and Nabil comes to stand by my side when it’s clear I’m not going to take off running. It’s past two in the morning now, but the street is still filled with diehard partiers waiting for Ubers or flocking to food trucks and twenty-four hour restaurants. I’m sure I have a string of texts from Mohammad asking me where the hell I went, but I leave my phone in my pocket.
“I just can’t believe she’s in there. I can’t make it feel real. Like, Paige Rivera is right there.” I jab a finger at the door of Taverne Toulouse.
“Riverrrra.” Nabil puts on a bad South American accent and rolls the last r. “Sexy.”
“Fuck off.”
“Ooh!” He pretends like the growled threat hurt him. “Shit, you really like her, don’t you?”
“I don’t know her. Not anymore.”
Maybe I never did. Things wouldn’t have ended the way they did if I knew her.
“I think you’re making this way too complicated.” Nabil claps a hand over my shoulder. “You met a girl in high school and you guys had this crazy, once in a lifetime connection, and then some shit youstillhaven’t told me about happened and you haven’t seen her in years. Then one night you walk into this bar and there she is, up there spinning some fire tracks. She’s become a DJ, and what do you know, you’re a DJ too! Small world. You find her after the show, and there’s some tension and stuff, but you have so much to say, so you get noodles with all your drunk friends and spend the night catching up on your lives. Simple.”
“Wow, you should pitch that to Hallmark.”
He punches me in the arm. “Youssef, don’t be an asshole. This is so obvious, man. I mean, what even ended things between you? You’ve never given me all the details. It was, what? Five years ago? Six? You were teenagers. How bad could it be?”
“We just—”
The bar’s door swings open before I have a chance to lie and say ‘drifted apart.’ A group of about six people come out, led by the girl with pink hair who almost made me beg for my life in the kitchen. She waves and smiles like we’re old friends before turning to hold the door open for everyone else.
The last person out is Paige.
