Page 93 of All Our Almosts

“How big? Wait, no, nevermind, I don’t want to know. Just keep talking.”

“And he really talks me through it. He’s always telling me how perfect I am and it feels so good and all that. Oh my god, I’m blushing so hard right now.” I flop back on the pillow, palms pressed to my cheeks.

“Sophie, you are certifiably insane if you let this man get away.”

“I know,” I say to the darkness. “I know.”

Lia hands me her phone.

“Why are you giving me this?”

“Just read it,” Lia says, gesturing at the screen. “I have no idea what compelled him to text this to me, but it seems like something you should see. To be loved is to be known, Soph.”

On the screen is a long text from Andy. Our ice skating bet.

Andy: Hey, I just wanted you to know my top 10 favorite things about Sophie.

10) She refuses to read nonfiction, but will read the densest, most opaque fiction you could ever imagine.

9) She has never once made a hot meal for herself, and when other people do it she acts like it’s a Herculean feat.

8) The way she rambles at a million miles an hour when she’s excited, or when she’s deflecting.

7) The mischievous half-smirk she does when she’s about to outsmart you.

6) She’s gorgeous. I felt like I had to put this in the bottom half in order to remain a feminist but I mean, come on. She’s so beautiful it drives me a little crazy.

5) The stupid bits she always comes up with. I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal with her where the food didn’t become a prop in some running gag. We could be staring at a wall watching paint dry and she would still find a way to entertain both of us.

4) She wears all of her emotions on her sleeve. Panic, calm, happiness, sadness. You always know where you stand with her. And seeing her go from panic to calm or sadness to happiness, and knowing you helped make it happen, is the best feeling in the world.

3) The assiduous way she pursues her dreams, even when people who should be her biggest support system try to get in her way. Her determination. Her dedication and drive.

2) Her warmth and optimism. Those sound like two different things, but in Sophie they’re one and the same. She finds the best in everything around her.

1) She is the only person in the world who makes me feel like I am okay, and there’s nothing wrong with me. She makes me feel loved and appreciated just for being myself, just by being herself. I hope someday I can make her feel that way too.

29

People say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, but it never quite feels that way in the Northeast, where March comes in like a dark, roaring blizzard and out like a slushy, unending question mark.

The sun sets a little later, the ice melts a little faster, the B line still experiences 20 minute delays, with shuttles from Sutherland to Boston University East.

I worry about whether I’m making the right choice.

This will be my fourth night at Lia’s, and as much as we both love a sleepover, I’m definitely overstaying my welcome. But this time has served its purpose: with each day I’ve felt more and more sure of what I have to do with Andy. It’s just that when I think about actually having the conversation… it’s too terrifying. So much history, the tenderest feelings of one of my favorite people in the entire world, all resting on a few minutes of discourse. My head could explode from the thought.

It’s snowing pretty hard when I step off the train and start walking towards Lia’s building. All-season athletes jog past in bright jackets. A yellowed armchair sits abandoned on the curb, collecting a layer of fine white flakes. The nearby stoplight flashes red as six lanes of cars and two trains honk furiously to claim right of way. An older man in an unzipped coat and a Bruins hat tosses blue salt across the pavement.

Normally I hate all situations that make me cold—snowfall being an obvious one—but this particular, contemplative headspace I’m in makes the storm feel sort of nostalgic.

During my and Lia’s sophomore year, there were two days when Ashmore classes were canceled due to record-breaking snowfall and it was an absolute free-for-all. I remember it so well. Andy and Nolan trekked through snow banks higher than their heads to come over to our dorm room, and we greeted them with boozy hot chocolate and a night’s worth of dumb games. Truth or dare, smash or pass, text or shot—the third being our favorite, where you had to either send an embarrassing text or take a shot.

We kept score on a whiteboard with our initials scrawled along the top: N. A. S. A2. I’m pretty sure I squealed out loud when she realized it spelled NASA, and we did bits all night long about being members of an elite scientific community.

It was stupid, but we didn’t know it in the drunken haze of a late night with new friends that felt old. And when we re-read the whiteboard in the morning, after falling asleep in various corners of the living room as only college kids can do, it was Nolan who decided the name would stick.

“I love it! N-A-S-A.” He pointed to each of us in turn like the meaning wasn’t both abundantly clear and recently established. “It was meant to be.”