The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter Three

"Good book?"

I jump, a small squeak escaping as I drop the journal onto the cafeteria table. The redheaded girl has taken her headphones out and is leaning toward me, little teal earbuds dangling from her hands. She's eyeing the journal, and I silently beg her not to pick it up. It suddenly feels shameful to be reading someone else's private thoughts, and I feel caught by this stranger.

"It's uh, it's just a book," I flounder. The corner of her mouth edges up into a smile, and I'm not sure if she thinks I'm an idiot or if the smile is genuine.

"Is this your first year?" she asks.

"Yeah, is it obvious?" I manage not to stammer.

"No, I was just hoping you were a freshman too. I'm totally lost here," she laughs.

"Oh! Well yeah, I'm a freshman. And so, so lost." I smile, willing my inner cool confident girl to the surface. I try to imagine what Aria would do, and I find myself going out on a limb. "Hey, do you know what kind of store sells moonstone?"

"Do you need that for a class?" She looks confused, and I don't blame her.

"No, I just think it's pretty." I could kick myself for not having an explanation ready, or for asking such a weird question in the first place. "Don't worry about it, I'll probably just order some online or something." I look away, sure that she thinks I'm terminally strange.

"Don't even think about it!" She declares, gathering up her stuff into a dark green canvas bag. I stare at her incredulously for a second before she continues. "We're going on a quest!"

#

An hour later we're standing in a tiny store that smells like my grandma's spice cabinet. Colorful geodes line one wall, and when I turn around, I find myself staring into the eyes of a huge white cat. I'm not sure if it's alive or just a startlingly realistic curio, so I take a step closer.

"Mrrow," she says, as if to set me straight. I reach out and pet her, and she bumps her head against my palm, purring loudly. The redhead- who has by now introduced herself as Veronica- crouches beside a bookcase, browsing the eclectic mix of books there. I glance at a few of the spines, wondering briefly how many different books on crystal healing any one person could ever possibly need. Still, I like this place already. There is a feeling in the air as though no one could ever be upset here. I remember feeling this way about the art classroom in high school, like I had found a place where nothing bad would ever happen.

Veronica and I explore the little shop for a few minutes, then ask the woman behind the counter to help us find some moonstone. She directs us to a shallow rectangular tray on one of the shelves, the contents of which consists of several pieces of tumbled moonstone in slightly different sizes and shapes. I pick up one at a time, looking at a few of them before one feels right. I can't quite explain it, but this piece just feels magical. I pay for the stone and Veronica and I hurry back to campus just in time for her to drop me off in front of the building where my next class is.

I can't believe I just went on an adventure with a total stranger, to a metaphysical shop, no less. I'm not sure if Aria's journal has been a good influence or a bad one, but I know I feel less intimidated by my surroundings than I did this morning. I find a seat for my American Literature class, happy to be in my element for a change.

We go through the motions of the usual ice-breakers and the syllabus review, and I do a happy wiggle of excitement when I see a healthy dose of Edgar Allan Poe on the schedule. I suspect this will be my favorite class- I've always loved the dark spooky tales with unreliable narrators. It makes me wonder again if that's what the journal is: unreliable.

I want to believe in magic, and strangely enough, I want to believe in Aria. Aside from Veronica, I haven't made a lot of friends yet, and it would be nice to think that maybe I'll meet Aria one day. I could give her back her journal, and we could talk about magic and boys and she could tell me if the spell in the journal is real. I imagine we would be great friends. The girl with magical powers and the girl who has wished for magic her whole life.

I'm so caught up in wondering what Aria is like, I almost miss the professor reminding us to read two chapters before Wednesday. I've got to try harder to concentrate, especially in a class I like as much as this one. When I get back to my dorm, I start to open up my textbook to get a head start on the reading. The journal in my backpack peeks out at me, demanding to be read. I decide it can't hurt to read just for a few minutes. After all, I have plenty of time left to do the reading for class.

Aria writes about her perfect winter vacation with Everest, and how at the Christmas party, her friend Isaac dared her to kiss her roommate, Hanna. I laugh at her description of how she jumped back and bumped her head, startled because Hanna leaned in and kissed her first. She writes that she was afraid she would like kissing a girl, even though she didn't think it was wrong, she thought it would mean she didn't love Everest. The evidence was inconclusive: because she jumped back, the kiss was over too quickly for her to be sure whether she felt anything or not.

Truth or dare sounds like a dangerous game to me. I don't know why, but the story makes me feel kind of the way I do when I read sexy fanfiction at night sometimes. I skip to the next page and keep reading, but the next few entries are really just long descriptions of dates with Everest. There are a couple of pages where she complains about a professor who was rude to her, and I wish she said who it was so I could be sure to never take one of their classes. I'm starting to get bored, even the juicy stories about her and Everest are getting repetitive. I'm about to close the journal when the beginning of the next entry catches my attention.

#

Dear Diary,

I can't stop thinking about that kiss at the Christmas party. Not because I like Hanna or anything, but I think I might've liked a girl once. Or maybe I still do. Lena and I haven't spoken since we got in that big fight after graduation, but the way I've been feeling about it isn't the way you usually feel when you fight with a friend. It's more like the worst breakup I've ever been through. I can never seem to get her out of my head, and half the songs on the radio remind me of her.

I was going home to visit mom and dad the other day and when I drove past her road, I had to pull over because I was getting choked up just missing her. I thought I was doing better since I've had so much to distract me this semester, but after Hanna kissed me, all these feelings about Lena just stuck in my head like little bits of broken glass.

I want to not miss her.

I want to believe that I only miss her as a friend.

But it's her birthday today, and I tried to paint to clear my head, and I ended up painting something that looked an awful lot like Lena kissing me. She's never kissed me in real life, but we came close once.

It was really late, and we'd been up all night talking. She was bragging about the crazy things she did at parties, and I was pretending to disapprove and wishing I had even been invited. I'd never go to those kinds of parties, but the way Lena talked about them made me wish I could go, just once. I remember asking her if she'd ever kissed a girl, and when she said yes, I just stared at her in awe for a second before I asked her what it was like.

She leaned in, meaning to demonstrate, of course, and I wanted to kiss her so badly it ached. That scared the shit out of me. As soon as she saw the terrified look on my face, she pulled away, and we never talked about it again. She probably thought I was appalled- good Texas girl that I was, raised in church and all that. But I wasn't appalled. I wanted to taste her. And nothing in my entire life had ever scared me as much as that wanting did.

What if I like girls? Would it matter? I still like boys, and this is Texas, and I don't want to get into any scary situations. Even more so, I don't want to break my mother's heart or watch my dad's face turn purple. I think I kind of don't want to know what I'm missing, because if I like girls more than boys- more than Everest- I don't know what I would do about it. Still, if I could go back in time and find out what Lena's lips felt like, I would.

-Aria