It’s so rude of me to force her into a silent car ride. But it’s painfully embarrassing to open small talk on the fucking weather.
We’re barely ten feet into the store, not even to the first produce display, when someone runs up to us excitedly.
“Rosie!”
The stranger’s smile is stretched across her face. She grabs Rosalie’s arms in her excitement, but her aura still isn’t half as bright as my roommate. Rosie greets her with an eagerness I didn’t know people could have when socializing, and the two of them jump into small talk and jokes I don’t understand.
I pretend I’m not there. Rosie doesn’t make a move to introduce me, and I’m grateful for that. It’s relieving not to be at the center of half-hearted introductions when I don’t have to be.
After they talk for what feels like ten minutes, the girl gives Rosie a tight hug and goes on her way. We don’t discuss the random reunion, or the fact that I’m the awkward sidekick to Rosalie’s shine.
“This grocery store is nice,” she says while we’re slowly navigating around the wooden displays and unconventionally small grocery carts.
It’s one of those organic-only markets. The kind that justifies their overpriced seasonings by saying everything is sourced out-of-country. They sell forty different cheeses you have to wait in line for, but no one complains because apparently a lot of people are hosting charcuterie nights on a Thursday.
It isn’t the ideal spot for a spatula. The handwritten chalk signs are geared more towards their unprocessed foods, and not utensils tucked into the least aesthetic section of the store, but I didn’t know anywhere else nearby.
“It is,” I answer through mumbled breaths. My glasses aren’t anywhere out of place, but I lift and move them around anyways.
I could write a twenty-page long dissertation on my flaws. Every single one of them in great detail, their origins, their impact on my life. At the height of the paper, in bold letters, it would be this. Ican’t fucking talk.
When I’m mentally yelling at myself for being so inept and rude to Rosalie, she throws me one of her bright smiles, and waves towards the back of the store.
The embarrassment doesn’t subside, but it gets a bit easier to breathe.
When we’re walking past the jams and jellies aisle—because of course, there’s an entire aisle just for that—she gets stopped again. Another person recognizes my roommate and pulls her into a hug, and she reciprocates like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
There isn’t much you can learn about a person in six days’ time. There are the obvious facts: Rosalie is more extroverted than I’ll ever be, she speaks with a certainty I’ve never had, and—the first thing I noticed—she is unbelievably gorgeous.
Sleek dark brown hair, round and kind eyes, golden skin, and a smile I’m sure someone has fought for in their lives. It’s too bright and addicting not to have been.
Other things have to be observed over time. Through her interactions with me, I’ve learned my roommate is good at navigating awkward situations. She’s able to work around a few sentences with me and not let it phase her.
Through interactions with other people I’m seeing that Rosalie is captivating. A person so enchanting you cross the entire room when you see them, just to say hi.
After she separates from the second stranger of the day, we continue walking towards the small UTENSILS sign, and she gives me a half-hearted laugh.
“I’m sorry about that. Again.”
“It’s alright.” I gulp down my nerves and will myself to keep trying. “Happen to you often?”
“Running into old classmates? Occasionally. Not so much since I’ve enrolled at Brookstone, but sometimes I see people from high school or undergrad, yeah.”
I hum. As much as I want to say something that’ll push our conversation forward, I’m clueless on this. The only thing I can connect to it is the bubbling jealousy in my chest, but I thinkthat’d be better off not mentioned. To be recognized for who you are to people, rather than your last name, is something I’ve never experienced.
I think inevitable silence is going to fall over us again, but Rosalie tilts a smile at me.
“I never asked. What part of the engineering program are you in?”
I push my hands deeper into the pockets of my dark wash jeans and let out a slow breath. The small talk questions are getting more constant, and slowly, easier to answer. “Software engineering. You?”
“I’m in financial engineering.” She takes a pause, staring at me like she’s waiting for something. I’m not sure there’s anything I can say. Aside from being short of words normally, I’d definitely get tripped up trying to express how impressive her major is. My brain can barely handle the numbers and formulas from my current field of study. Financial engineering is infinitely more complicated in that aspect.
That would’ve been the perfect opportunity to transition into a McCarthy conversation, too. Most of Dad’s weird followers know I studied software engineering at Brown. She doesn’t take the chance to bring it up, if she knows.
I can only thing to reply with a nod. For Rosie, it seems to be enough.
“Are you a second year?” She asks while we side-step a family arguing over fruit-flavored gelato.
