( 1 ) "If you have to remember to be happy, what does that say about today?"
I’m at a moment where you listen to that one song that comes up, that one that reminds you of the life you used to live when you were happy, and when you saw that one girl who really mattered to you, and you wish the song would keep going, but the time is limited, just like the happiness you had in the past, and you’re wishing it wouldn’t stop, but you see the end coming again and again, because all that’s left is a memory and you love that girl and you can’t do anything more because it’s over and yet it still keeps going in your mind and in your heart through every bar of that song that brings you back.
That’s where I am right now. Thinking about college and thinking about Octavia and wishing she were here.
My name is…
--
“Vinyl! Vinyl Scratch!”
Somewhere out there in the university cafeteria, someone was yelling my name. I couldn’t see through all the faces in the crowd. So many faces passed by in memory. It was…faded. As were all the faces that I saw. It’s hard to think about this, living in the memory, but I saw around me the blur of the crowd and every now and then, a face would solidify in my mind. I felt a tremor in my heart. The memory had settled itself and I was here. For now.
“Vinyl!” The voice called out again. The mint green wonder that was my friend Lyra ran over to me from a nearby table. Her embrace was warm feelings and every detail of her face and the way she would hold you close and rub ever so slightly on your back with her arms to let you know she really missed you. And I miss that. And her.
“We’ve been waiting for you for a while. Did you get lost somewhere?” Lyra asked. The conversation was familiar. I’d played it so many times in my head it had become second nature to me. She still held on to my arms while she talked, a sign that she missed someone to hug and someone to hold. Even then, I tried not to move. Didn’t want to break the moment. Didn’t want her to stop holding me.
“I’m fine, Lyra!” I don’t move my arms. “Gosh I missed you guys sooooo much!” I put my arms over hers so she won’t leave. “I’ve got a lot to tell you about my trip out of town!” The sensations come flooding back. “Let’s go say hi to the others!”
Lyra let go and I felt sadder for it. Why was I always rushing back then? Why was I always looking to move on to the next event or the next talk?
Why couldn’t I just sit down and enjoy it while it lasted?
I sat down and started talking…and I can’t remember what we talked about. I strain. I think about what we were holding, maybe what we looking at…anything to stir the memory. But it’s a faint recollection. Frosted over glass in a museum that only I can enter and yet I want to show everyone. I imagine I’d tell them “There’s this beautiful exhibit I made to my friends and all the times we sat at the lunch table in the university cafeteria. Look, I got the chairs and we always sat in this formation! Lyra liked to stare up at the balcony cause she’d wave to her friends and always invite more down to see us so we’d never be alone. And I always sat facing towards Lyra across from her because I loved to see her reaction and remember how she always looked at others with such care and love and kindness. No one is like that anymore. Not even her. I have to remember it for her…” But no one can see that museum in my mind.
After lunch, Lyra, my friends and I would go to our separate courses. I had mostly music, of course, but there was some art. I wanted to be able to express myself in more ways, just in case it would be useful with my career later. Helped that the musicians, the actors and the artists all practiced in the same building. I met so many friends there, and I always made a point to say hi to each and every one of them every day I saw them. Yet, even now, I can’t remember most of their names…
Argh…the memories are fading. I need to remind myself with some music…
It was in the music wing where I met Octavia Melody for the first time. I’d like to tell you there were some sort of sparks that went off upon our first meeting. Hah, not so. I think I almost dented her Cello by bumping into her a few times. Totally accidental. She’s slightly younger than me and had just moved to the university from up north. The reason we met was actually one of the most bland reasons ever. She was always practicing. Every time I went to see my friends (when I probably should have been practicing. Heh) they were almost always in rooms around wherever Octavia was playing. They said the practice rooms were supposed to be soundproof. Well, if you sat in the rooms next to Octavia, you’d be able to hear when she poured her heart and soul into her playing. All these beautiful melodies flowing forth from every measure…it was like she would hold perfect performances by herself every day. At the time, it was so strange to me because whenever I saw her on-stage, she looked nervous and always seemed on the verge of making a mistake. When she finally overcame her stage fright, I didn’t realize until later the reason she wasn’t nervous on-stage was because of me. I…
I need to think about something else right. Something other than the not-quite-soundproof rooms and Octavia Melody…
It’s hard sometimes to hold the memories. They’re so fragmented. Remembering is not an easy task, what with all the responsibilities I have now. You can’t just walk from one memory to another like you would rooms in a house. Memories work like dreams, and honestly are probably the same thing. You move from one to the other through association, through emotion. If I remember Octavia in the practice room, playing and looking up at me with that smile she gave so readily, so eagerly to someone who cared to listen, then…then I might remember that same smile when she was in my dorm, showing me her favorite musicals on the television I bought just so we could play the DVDs. It still works even today. Probably the only TV in my house that still does after all these years…
I try so hard to put these events in chronological order, but the mind doesn’t work like that. I may remember all those wonderful times at the lunch table one after another, even though they happened over a span of several years. But with Octavia…
I…I can’t approach her memories directly…not anymore…
--
My dorm was a very safe space for me. I’d never lived alone until that first year of college. I shared a bathroom between the bedrooms with some other girl. I don’t remember her name. We never talked honestly.
My room did not have the best view. It looked out onto the center parking lot of the dormitories. Lots of concrete, lots of students walking back and forth. I wasn’t disappointed. I was too focused on all the awesome benefits of living alone. I put all these posters all over my room. Favorite bands, including disc jockeys I absolutely loved, were placed on the ceiling right above my bed. Said good night to each one before bed to remind myself what I was working towards.
The best view was down the hall, in the kitchen/laundry room, staring out towards the beach and the beautiful water and the sun casting off the rolling waves. Sometimes I would sit in there and write in my journal. I remember the blue table, the curved blue wooden chairs with the smooth cool surfaces I’d sometime lay my face down on top of and stare out the window. Weird how all the little details stick in the memory so much…
Strange to say, but I cherish all those lonely moments just as much as the moments together with my friends…speaking of…argh…the memories are fading again…maybe if focus on more specific events…
--
I remember the first time Lyra admitted to me she had a crush on a girl at the school. Bon Bon was a criminal justice major. Lyra was a musician. I have no idea how they first saw each other. I do, however, remember that first talk with Lyra about it like it was yesterday.
“I…I have to…um…” Lyra looked around nervously. We were outside in the atrium right next to the concrete statue of a local civil rights leader.
“Who are you waiting for, Lyra?” I asked.
“I…I really like someone and I wondered if I could talk to you about it?” Lyra asked. She always had this adorable look whenever she was nervous. It really endeared others to her. I feel like Lyra must have practiced it, maybe talking to herself in the mirror. I remember how bad her anxiety was. I always wanted to help her with it, but…why didn’t I? I was too busy, I think. Always focused on something else. Geez…how much easier could her college experience have been if I had just been there for her a little more?
Lyra, I’m sorry I never supported you as much as you deserve, I imagined myself saying in the memory. You were such a good person. You always cared about all of your friends so much, but I was always too busy to support you. Too busy to spend more time with you. My gosh, Lyra…how much more time could we have spent together if I had just gotten up from my self-imposed isolation in my dorm, walked over to your door, knocked and asked to talk with you? How many more memories could we have had if I had just stopped once, during a key moment in your life, to tell you how much you mattered? If I had just stopped by your room like you asked me too before that first bad date with Bon Bon…or if I had called you up after you had that fight with your parents because they wouldn’t accept your sexuality…or if I had read between the lines in the birthday card you gave me and understood that it was you trying to tell me how much you cared about me…if I had done those things…I wonder how different life would have been. I probably wouldn’t have been with Octavia after all…
In the memory, the conversation has not changed. No matter how much I wanted it to, the talk still continued as it always had.
“You can talk to me about whatever you want, Lyra!” I hugged her. We always sat side-by-side, like co-conspirators, because most of the time that’s what we felt like. And I could tell she was happier this way.
“I…I’m in love with someone…” Lyra always felt passionately, even if the other person didn’t. Poor girl. I miss her heart. “She’s a criminal justice major…”
“She?” I asked, and even now, the way I said it, with the surprise in my voice, that sign of inexperience with a topic that throws you off just enough that your response throws them off…I remember Lyra pulling back. I remember the rest of the talk being harder for her and who knows how much information she withheld that first time because I didn’t respond like I should have…
“Well…yeah…” Lyra said and shrank back. I hugged her quickly, so at least I did that right the first time.
“Hey, it’s okay? Is she cool?”
“Super cool! I mean, she’s…” Lyra’s mind seemed to trail off to wonderful places…and in my mind, I beheld the irony of remembering another person remembering… “She’s so pretty.”
Bon Bon wasn't just pretty. She was confident, fair and quietly compassionate. She carried herself in a way that said she was the boss in everything she did. She had that youthful enthusiasm which officers of the law lose soon after they experience the reality of their job. I remember watching Bon Bon hold a room with her presence, and yet, when she was done talking, slink off into the background as though she were never there. I remember seeing one or two of her presentations, though I only recall one slide where she had made some dumb pun about guns and cats. Can’t even remember the exact joke.
Lyra and I would sit down in the back of the small criminal justice rooms and successfully fail to hide at all amongst the majors who were supposed to be there. They all presented themselves differently and us…well we wore bright crazy colors and managed to find ourselves sitting right next to some of the biggest, burliest guys around. “Sup?” I would say to their stares, nonchalantly, trying my best to be cool and convincing at least myself that it was working.
Lyra, meanwhile, was too busy staring at her crush to notice any of my awkward social graces. In fact, Lyra’s staring habit was so bad that some of the other students would notice when her gaze would travel downward whenever Bon Bon had her back turned. One stallion caught her staring so long that he wrote a note and placed it right in front of her on the desk. It read: Citation for gratuitous ogling of Bon Bon’s Bun Buns. Lyra was so embarrassed, she got up and walked out. I walked out with her, but made sure to grab the note and smile at the student who wrote it before I left. I still have it today.
Lyra was not around to watch one of my masterful failures at coolness which happened during the first time I ever tried talking to Octavia Melody.
We were both sitting at the campus bus stop. Yes, I did live in the dorms, but the buses took students across the land bridge into the city so we could actually have some fun for a change. Octavia was already standing at the bus stop with her arms leaning on her cello case propped up against the glass.
“You got a performance?” I asked her.
It took a few moments for Octavia to turn, notice me, realize I was talking to her, and then turn back around before answering. “No. Practice.”
“When do you not practice?” I asked.
She hesitated again. “Whenever I can. Something you and your friends could…easily do if you didn’t talk so much in the practice rooms next to me. You’d…probably sound really good.” I remember how she cut her sentences halfway through whenever she was nervous. If I listened closely, I could swear that her speaking almost seemed like it had a slight rhythm to it. I swear that up until…um…I mean…for as long as I remember her, Octavia always seemed to be moving to a tune I could never hear.
Hey, I wanted to get up and say. Please, just let me change this one memory… Hey, I’m sorry…
But the memory continued unabated with Octavia herself interrupting me. “I’m sorry,” she said. Strange, how I don’t remember the apologies clearly. “I shouldn’t be so snappy. If you’ll excuse me, I have a bus to catch.”
“Hey wait,” I said. Some part of me must’ve realized deep down how I felt about her, for me to stop her out of nowhere like that. “I think you got the wrong idea about me. Can I hear your practice?”
Octavia moved up to the bus and then stopped for a second. “Right now?”
“Yeah. I ain’t got nothing better to do. Show me how to be a better musician.”
She seemed to stop for just long enough, until that damn bus driver told her to hurry up. I could’ve sworn Octavia was seconds away from telling me to join her until that moment. Always the little things that change the future… “Perhaps another time,” and another place, I thought. “Ask me tomorrow.”
If only I had that one extra day with her. What could have happened at that practice off-campus if I had gone with her, been a little more assertive about it, so she could at least have the bus ride to think about it?
I watched the bus drive off and out of sight. And afterwards, I went and did some trivial thing that didn’t stick in my mind. Something that wasn’t spending time with Octavia at her practice and getting to know her even better than I did with what time I had…
This…this hurts…
--
I loved watching Lyra try soooo hard to get Bon Bon to notice her. It was adorable, and very endearing, but also a little sad because Bon Bon was like a rock wall. Lyra was still fighting her own feelings about it, and yet absolutely could not stay away from Bon Bon whenever the chance to hang out presented itself. Here are some of the fantastic ways Lyra would “casually” display her interest in Bon Bon whenever the criminal justice major asked us to hang out with her:
“Oh burgers! I love burgers! They’re best with big fluffy bons…buns!”
“You gonna go shopping for clothes? Nice! I could use some tight pants too!”
“Who doesn’t love mud-wrestling? Are…are you gonna participate?”
Lyra’s adorable.
She did everything she could to ask advice from her friends. She didn’t want to come off as awkward (too late), she wanted to know everything there was about impressing girls (and Lyra was liked by more girls than she EVER knew) and most of all, Lyra wanted to know how to kiss better than anyone (and she flat-out asked me to show her. Even to this day, I don’t know why I didn’t get around to showing her. Why I didn’t just say yes with her. Well…maybe deep down I thought she would be so much happier with Bon Bon. Probably for the best considering where my life went…)
I remember…I remember the first time Lyra struck out with Bon Bon. The date went sour quick. Lyra, a city girl who grew up being everyone’s friend and no one’s lover, was constantly trying to impress the reserved country girl Bon Bon whose mere presence commanded a silent respect. You would think that would work, and yes, it did. But…I recall Lyra explaining it perfectly thanks to her high level of awareness and her constant replaying of the events in her mind before she told me:
“It was a DISASTER! I did everything I could to make her like me! I showed up early. I picked out my best dress. I made sure the reservation was ready ahead of time. I made sure it was a place she liked to eat at! I paid for the whole tab! I walked with her along the seawall afterwards, but she wouldn’t even let me hug her or show any sign of affection! What did I do wrong?”
I sighed and held Lyra close. She always calmed down in my arms. “Lyra, you’re trying too hard. You’re super nervous and it shows. It’s hard to feel comfortable around someone who’s nervous! And you need to be yourself instead of trying to be whatever you think Bon Bon wants.”
“I AM myself! This is me! This is how I am! I care about others and want them to have the best possible! I would do the same for any of my friends!”
“Yes,” I said, “but what would you do differently for someone you really loved? Show that instead!”
I can’t believe I managed to pull off that gem of wisdom so early in my college career.
It took Lyra several weeks to get the courage to ask out Bon Bon again, and every day was like torture to her. I went over to her place several times just to hold her, calm her down and help her understand that things were going to be okay. I’m sure this was the start of her lifelong anxiety problems. Lyra needed to be needed. I always made sure to help her understand how valuable she was. That always cheered her up.
Her dorm was always so messy. I never saw Bon Bon’s initial reaction to walking into Lyra’s dorm, but I’m sure it was one of complete shock. Bon Bon was always so tidy and neat. Lyra was the playful slob who always threw stuff wherever it was most convenient. Every time I visited her, she had to spend a good few minutes moving stuff around so I sit somewhere. I have no idea how one girl can have so many clothes in her room, and yet I NEVER saw her wear some of those outfit.
Lyra wrote so many poems for Bon Bon, and to this day, I don’t know if she’s ever shown her. So many heartfelt stanzas. So many little expressions of love and passion. It seemed that the Lyra I knew before Bon Bon and the Lyra I knew after Bon Bon were two completely different individuals, yet both were caring, sweet and passionate.
I remember…the one time Lyra kissed me. She was absolutely terrified that night. Her parents had just heard about her and Bon Bon going out from a mutual friend who was attending the university. Lyra was not allowed to come home for the holidays. It was a harsh, cold punishment and to this day, I still haven’t forgiven her parents for that. Lyra cried in my arms for nearly two hours. When I say that, I don’t mean she cried, stopped, was silent, then started again. No, she made pitiful sounds of pain and anguish that did not relent for nearly all of that time. I made sure not to let her go. Even hummed some comforting music to her.
At some point near the end of the two hours, with her eyes still closed, she leaned up, and locked lips with me. I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed there and gave a half-hearted return. She didn’t seem to notice, and curled back into my arms, where she started to snore. I didn’t say anything to her about it the next day and she didn’t bring it up. I sometimes wonder if she was so distraught that maybe she forgot. Or maybe she was already asleep when she did that and only I was completely aware of it. I never told Bon Bon.
I did tell Octavia though…
--
“What…what was it like?” Octavia had asked in the practice room of the music wing.
“Kinda…kinda soft…softer than a guy, ya know? Like there’s a different kind of tenderness there.” I told her. She was locked in attention with me. She clasped the edge of her cello and leaned on it in a way that I know she would never do had I not been talking about that very subject.
“What’s…what’s it like to kiss a guy?” Octavia asked.
“You’re never kissed anyone before?” I asked.
Octavia shook her head and lowered her gaze like she always did when she tried desperately to deny something she didn’t want to think about it.
“Octavia, let me ask something and don’t be offended but…are you a virgin?”
“VINYL!” she shouted and then caught her voice before whispering. “Really?! That’s none of your business!”
“Okay okay,” I responded, knowing that answered my question more or less. “It’s just…you seem so interested about these things and I’d love to tell you about them but they’re so personal.”
“Well if you don’t want to talk about them…”
“No no, it’s not that,” I remember saying. Somewhere in my mind, I must have been leading the conversation to its inevitable conclusion because my words started moving towards something with great haste. “It’s just that…I can’t really tell you how some of these things feel. You have to feel them yourself.”
Octavia nodded, got ready to play and then practiced for a few minutes. This was the nature of our conversations. A few minutes of talking followed by a few minutes of playing. I bet if I hadn’t gotten to know Octavia, she’d have been able to make the local Philharmonic Orchestra. After all that practice and to miss it by so little…I was that little that got in her way. I know it now. And even then, I felt that Octavia knew it too.
A few minutes passed with some of the most sublime Cello music I’d ever heard, before, seemingly out-of-nowhere, Octavia said. “I wanna feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“A kiss. I want to know what a kiss is like.”
“Well, find a guy who really likes you. You’re super talented. I bet you’ll have your pick of the group, Octi.”
She went silent for a bit, then started up her playing again. She cut off her song halfway through before speaking up even more suddenly than before. “Why can’t I practice first? I don’t want to ruin it…when I do it for real.”
At this point, I knew where my talk was heading. “You saying you need a kissing partner to practice with?”
She crossed her legs. “Yes. That’s how you succeed. By practice.”
“Who do you want?” At this point, I was only trying to confirm what I already knew. My heart was racing then as it was now, just thinking about that wonderful moment.
“Um…” She sounded so unsure of herself and that became more rare as the days went on. I miss those first moments. She moved closer in her seat next to mine. “Do you know anyone?”
“Well…” I said. “Lyra’s kinda taken. Bon Bon’s absolutely not an option. A few other of my friends might be interested, but no promises…”
I caught her taking a huge intake of breath. It wasn’t until later that I found out Octavia really enjoyed the perfume I was wearing. Perfume which I would not have worn at all (because I don’t usually wear anything like perfume) had Lyra not given it to me as a holiday gift for staying with her when she needed me the most. No doubt that perfume was the deciding factor that day when it came to Octavia’s next actions.
“What about…you?” Octavia asked. Her eyes had locked on mine. When I stared a little longer than she expected, she looked away. “Of course, that’s silly because you’re not interested in girls…”
“Whoa whoa,” I told her, knowing exactly where this was headed. “Octavia, I never said I didn't like girls." Octavia's gaze met my instantly after I said that. "Are you saying you want me to teach you how to ki…”
She was already moving towards my lips before I knew it. When our lips met, it took every bit of self-control and awareness I had left to grab her cello and push it to the side instead of letting it fall and ruin the moment (and Octavia’s career). I wrapped my legs around Octavia and felt each intake of her breath like she had just broken the surface of a raging sea and was struggling to stay afloat before diving under again.
“Am…am I doing good?” she asked in-between kisses.
“The best,” I said. “A+,” I told her and smiled.
She giggled and nearly lost herself in the laughing before kissing once more and stopping long enough to ask a question that changed the rest of our lives. “Can…can we go to your room for some extra credit?”
--
Author's Note
This story was inspired by me re-watching the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and remembering my college years since that movie was very important during that time. And then crying. A lot.
The song "Ramona" by Beck has a lot of meaning for me, and was the catalyst for me writing this entire story.
