"What were you waiting for, and how did it feel once you got it?"

“Did you know that in my lifetime I’ve never felt like someone else cared?” She looks at me with these big eyes. I have no response. 

“My mother used to tell me that when I was a child I just let all of my emotions bleed onto other people. She thought I really needed to learn how to control it, and so she’d send me away, back up into my room, when I came into the kitchen with a sour face.”
“Why don’t you think someone else cared?” 

“My mother never attended my soccer games.” 

“You told her you didn’t want her there.” 

“I didn’t want her to see how much I sucked.” She picks a scab off her knee. “But when Evan came to watch me perform my trumpet in the beginner's recital a month ago, I was really happy, you know?” 

“Maybe.” 

“I didn’t tell anyone about the performance, or I just told people that I was nervous and all antsy about it, but Evan, he’s just so much older than all of us.” She plays with the drawstrings of her sweatshirt. “The day of the performance, I saw him in the dining hall. I was wearing my fancy black dress and Stella’s size 9 black heels.” 

“Did he say hi first?”

“Yeah, ‘course he did. He said hi, and I don’t know why I said it, but I just told him I was heading off to my recital.” 

She pauses. I laugh a bit. 

“He just responded, ‘Thanks for reminding me! See you there!’ And, like I said, I was just so antsy and nervous and didn’t feel like thinking or whatever that I just smiled."

        I laugh a bit. 

        She continues, "I’m sure he could see the panic in my face so he followed it up with, ‘You’ll do great.’ Evan’s really like a dad.” 

“He reminds me of one of my older cousins.” 

“Yeah.” 

“And then what?”

“Well, then he just showed up to my recital and was the only student there who wasn’t performing.” She laughs this time. “My trumpet teacher wasn’t even there, but Evan came. And he has perfect pitch, I think, so it was nice of him to lie and tell me I did a good job.” 

“Evan’s a cool person.” 

“Yeah. I really forgot that people cared.”