Chapter Nine Naomi

Chapter Nine

Naomi

October 2022, seven months before her death

“All right,” Ben says as we make our way across the shadowy campus and out to The Street. “So you’ll come to a game, and I’ll go to your show?”

I turn to him and grin. “Deal.”

Despite the couple of beers I’d had, I’m cold out here. And beneath the rustle of fall leaves, there’s a strange stillness, like the campus is lying dormant. Like it’s waiting for something.

We walk in silence for a minute, past the umber brick and ivied walls of East Pyne, our watery reflections slithering across diamond-paned glass. We duck under stone archways, wind through cloisters, and descend stone steps. We’re walking under a large tree when crows burst from its branches, making me jump.

Despite it being a Saturday night, the campus is oddly empty, and though I’ve walked this path many times, there’s something unnerving about the dark.

I turn to Ben, hoping to distract myself. “Can I ask you a serious question?”

“Shoot.”

“I’ve always wondered…why do men’s soccer players shave their legs?”

Ben laughs. “I don’t know, some guys think it feels better under their shin guards or tape. Why?”

“Well, I think that’s refreshingly subverting of gender norms, and I’m not against all guys doing it.”

Ben laughs. “Somehow I think that might be giving some of my teammates more credit than they deserve.”

He asks me about dance, and I tell him how I’m in five pieces this year and choreographing two of them. “I’m nervous I won’t be able to pull it off.”

“Wow. I mean, I have no doubt you can pull it off, but yeah, wow, that is a lot.” I laugh, and he smiles. “Are you going to keep dancing after?” he asks. “Professionally?”

I shake my head. “There’s no way I’m good enough. And…I don’t know, I want to travel, see the world, then figure out all the career stuff.”

Ben nods. “If you could go anywhere…where would you go?”

“So many places: Morocco, Brazil, Egypt. I’d love to backpack through Switzerland and then end up on some small island in Indonesia, work on a boat, and go climbing and scuba diving every day.”

“You know how to scuba dive?”

“I could learn.” I pause. “I just feel stuck here. Like life is meant to be bigger.”

He looks at me. “You really want to get out of here, huh?”

I shrug. “Nothing keeping me.”

“What about your family?”

I hesitate. I never know what to say when someone asks about my family. How much of the story they want. “My parents passed away when I was a kid. It’s just me and my sister…and…we’re not that close.”

“She older?”

I nod. “Ten years older. She went here too, actually.”

Ben looks surprised. “That’s cool. Got your own little legacy thing going.”

“I guess it is…yeah.” I don’t tell Ben how complicated our relationship is. It’s not really like most siblings. Between our age difference and our parents passing when we were so young, Maya acts more like a parent than a sister most of the time. She thinks she’s helping with all her advice, but the truth is: after Mom died, Maya left. She went to Princeton and left me with Aunt Ella, who couldn’t take care of me, and then handed me off to the St. Clairs. I know she was only twenty-one at the time, but it always stung that she didn’t want me. I feel a tiny prick of hurt in the center of my chest thinking about it now.

Yet still, I adored her. My junior year of high school, I remember telling her how excited I was to apply early to Princeton. I wanted to follow in her footsteps.

But instead of the excitement I’d expected to see, her face had fallen: What about Brown? she’d asked, in a false tone that made me cringe. They don’t have traditional majors. You could choose any classes you wanted!

She’d gone here, and all her friends had gone here, and her entire life was built around having gone here, yet she was pushing me to go anywhere else. I guess she wanted to keep Princeton for herself.

That’s when I realized I had to look out for myself.

“I mean, I love my sister, of course. And Margaret, the woman who took me in, is great, but this place”—I gesture around—“it feels so isolated sometimes. Don’t you ever want to see what else is out there?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah I do.”

Ben tells me about his parents in Singapore. His mother is a caregiver for a wealthy woman. His father was an accountant before retiring in his seventies. Ben grows quiet, and I can tell he’s hurting.

“My dad’s not doing great,” he says without looking up.

I look at Ben. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah…he had a stroke last year. My mom’s got him on a special diet, but…” He shoves his hands in his pockets and grows quiet. “I feel guilty sometimes, being here…when she could really use my help…” He blows out a breath. “Anyway, I don’t know where that came from. Sorry to lay it all on you.”

“No…not at all.” I’m surprised and humbled he’d share something so personal. We walk in silence. Ben is so different from Liam: sensitive and kind. Liam would never open up like this. But maybe that was the least of our problems.