“Martin was there,” I say before I can stop myself.
Stella sighs. “Ah.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It clearly does. He’s an idiot, Soph. You’re too good for him.”
I’ve heard it all before, and I’d rather argue with my sister than listen to it again.
I’m too nice. Too friendly. Men are idiots for not wanting, for not choosing, for not thinking of me as anything other than a friend.
I have been friendzoned by most of the men I know, and I’m sick of it.
Martin is the last straw. He’s a teacher at the high school that I met when I volunteered to teach an art class to the grade nines.Heaskedmeout, and it was good. It was so good, and we talked and laughed, and when he kissed me, I felt the tingle straight down to my toes.
I walked home with my head in the clouds.
That was a week before Christmas, and I haven’t heard a peep from him since. I even scraped up my courage and sent him a text. And then after days of being unread, I threw away my self-respect and sent him another one.
This was after a half-bottle of wine and a very long shift at the restaurant, and it wasn’t my best work. In fact, I’m still cringing over some of the things I said.
It’s no wonder Martin didn’t want to talk to me tonight. He didn’t even look me in the eye.
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeat.
“Sophie, it does matter,” Stella argues.
“It really doesn’t, and you have to believe me because I hate feeling sorry for myself, and I’m going to end up feeling like that if we continue this conversation. And then if I’m feeling sorry for myself, I’m going to go home and eat that entire bag of potato chips that I hid for my next pity party, and I don’t want it to be tonight because I had a hard enough time doing upmy jeans tonight and I don’t need to eat a bag of chips,” I finish, breathing hard at my vehemence.
“The stand-up jeans or the sit-down ones?” Stella asks.
“Stand-up.”
“Don’t worry about it, I can never do mine up.”
“It irks me that I wore the stupid jeans because I thought Martin might be there.”
“It seems that everything is irking you tonight,” Stella points out
“Yes.” It’s the only thing I manage because I don’t want to tell my sister that she is also irking me. So much for shaking off the funk.
“Want me to listen to you breathe into the phone until you get home?” It’s what both of us used to do—when one of us would walk anywhere at night, she would call the other and stay on the phone until they were home safely. It’s not that Battle Harbour is a dangerous place, but we grew up listening to our mother go on about how rough some of the fishermen were.
“No, it’s fine. I’m almost there.”
“Okay,” she says reluctantly. “Talk tomorrow.”
“I thought you were home tomorrow.”
“Day after.”
“Okay. Say hi to Gunnar. Have fun.”
“I won’t, but thanks.”
I take a deep breath as we end the call. For a few minutes, I walk in silence, thinking thoughts about Martin and why he didn’t even look at me tonight.
The crunch of snow, the soft clips of my boots. The faint buzz of electrical wires and the even fainter hum of music in a nearby house.
