Page 88 of Semantics

“Nothing. Why?”

“Why? You’re here. You left for Stella’s less than an hour ago, and considering what you two had planned, I don’t think you finished it, if you catch my drift.”

“We didn’t even start.”

“Why not?”

“Because of me. Because I’m… struggling.”

“With sex? Sex with Stella?”

“No. I don’t struggle with that, trust me.”

Violet shook her head and looked at the open door that led to the kitchen.

“Sarai went out. Enya is in her room. We can talk out here,” Arlowe told her.

“When I got to Stella’s, she’d cooked dinner, and there were… date things.”

“Date things?”

“Candles, folded napkins, and intentions to play soft, slow music while we make love.”

Arlowe chuckled and said, “But you two don’t do that.”

“I know. That’s what I said.”

“But you both want to.”

“No, we don’t. Well, I don’t. I don’t know about Stella anymore. She said some things.”

“Violet, you like her.”

“There’s a plaque in a box in my closet that would disagree with you.”

“That you won when you were twenty-two. God, what happened between the two of you back then? All you’ve ever told us was that she was annoying and competed with you in everything, when all you wanted was to coast and have fun.”

“It was a little more than that,” Violet said.

“What happened, then?”

“Look, I haven’t exactly been honest here, but you can’t tell the rest of them what I’m about to tell you. I know we tell each other everything, but–”

“Vi, it’s fine. I won’t say anything.”

Violet looked around the garage as a terrible stall technique and finally said, “I had a crush on her back then.”

“What?” Arlowe asked loudly before she covered her mouth. “You hated her.”

“I did. Well, I didn’t like her very much, but Stella was just… annoying and frustrating, like I’ve said a million times, but I watched her with some of the other students who weren’t me, and she was nice and funny with them. Part of me hated that because she seemed to be able to make friends with anyone she met, and I’d only made friends with you all because our flights landed around the same time.”

“What? That’s not true, Vi.”

“It is, Arlowe. I mean, I know myself. You introduced yourself to me. Well, sort of. Then, we left on the shuttle for the dorms, and the three of you became the best friends I’d ever had, but I know that had we not met that way, I would’ve just fallen into my old habits: wanting to have fun and not doing it because I’d feel like I should be studying; wanting to go out and make friends in a new city, but staying in my dorm room instead. The program wasn’t what I’d expected. It was supposed to be tough, but not too tough, and I expected to sail through it. I chose it because of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got into three semester abroad programs. One was at Oxford and would’ve been a pain in my ass. One was in Barcelona. I applied there because I’d be learning in a different language. My Spanish was basic, but I got into the immersive program, and that would’ve been hard, too. The Amsterdam program was good. It was solid. And it was taught in English, so I didn’t have to learn Dutch. I thought I’d be able to have the best of both worlds: have fun in Amsterdam and earn top marks to impress my parents. It’s also possible that I told them that the program was in Dutch to make it sound like more of a big deal to excel in it than it actually was.”