TWO WALLS - the summer i turned pretty (conrad fisher)

twenty-one

21. chapter twenty-one
—filthy truths

IT WAS THE SOUND of the breeze on one side of my ear and not the other that finally brought me to the realization that Conrad was not in fact right beside me. Halloween was only weeks away, so it was pretty chilly out and I had forgotten my jacket inside too.

I decided to let myself suffer rather than disturb Anya from her beauty sleep.

"How come there are people that we can speak freely to—whether it be on the phone or in person—where we feel this sort of connection with them that we don't hold our feelings in and we can truly be ourselves when we're around these specific people. Then when we're not with those people and with others instead, it's difficult to even keep direct eye contact with them while speaking."

"Well, you better. I'm not most people." He smacked his lips as if to show how confident he is that I was talking about him.

I couldn't help but scoff.

"You not correcting me is telling me exactly everything I need to know," he said. The way he talked and the tone of voice made me realize, once again, that he was smiling. Hard. It made my chest warm up, my mind getting the glimpse of his smile that I have yet to see in person since this summer.

"I'm not correcting you because I don't want to hurt your feelings." My cheeks hurt from how much I have been smiling these past few hours.

"Sure."

"Just face the fact that I just took a blow to your ego." My favorite thing to do was torture him by teasing. He pretended like he hated it, but I knew that it brought even more smiles to his face.

"It wasn't a blow. It was actually a boost to my ego, so thanks."

"Yeah, whatever." I remained with my legs crossed, other on goers walked past me while I sat at the bottom of the steps of my dorm building, none of them paying any attention to me. It was pretty normal for people to be outside this late. Everything about college screamed independent and free. It was rather nice not having to ask for permission to do things all the time.

"How's NYU? Have you been to the city yet," Conrad asked mid yawn.

"I hadn't really had the time to go yet, which is pretty sad, but it's been a bit rough," I said, automatically feeling guilty. Not as rough as he's had it, obviously.

"What's been rough?"

"It's not important," I chuckled awkwardly, fully aware that I probably dug my hole even deeper. I didn't want him to feel pressured to check up on me when he has things going on, big and scary things. The worst thing to be is a burden. He's going through enough already.

"Really," he asked. I could feel his disapproval over the phone. "Don't do that."

"I'm not doing anything."

"I know you think that your problems are small simply because they seem like they are, compared to other things." His tone was soft and comforting. He has always been good at that.

"I'm not—"

"Sonia, yes you are."

Clearly, he wasn't going to let it go.

"Fine. NYU is a lot different from the academy," I said, in the fastest way possible.

"In what way?"