SPELLBOUND HEARTS

Redville, USA, 1995

Our eyes met across the ancient courtyard and for a moment, the entire world came to a halt. Raindrops hung in mid-air like sparkling diamonds, people froze in unnatural poses like mannequins. I felt my breath being suffocated in my throat. The beat of my heart echoed in my ears and there was nothing but us two.

A sharp pain in my shoulder brought me back to reality.

“Are you daydreaming again, Kate?” my best friend Sarah laughed as she playfully punched me in the arm again.

I looked at her, dazed. It was a sunny but crisp fall day and we were sitting on the limestone benches of our college campus. It was an impressive stone building with tall towers and an enormous courtyard, lined with porticos and arches, built to resemble its sister school in faraway England. Its facade and interior design were part of the reason I chose to come here. The other was the appeal of the adjacent town and the low number of students the college accepted each year.

See, I longed for adventure, but adventure never longed for me. I once got scared of my own shadow. It was embarrassing. Before I left my hometown to come here, I felt like I was going to throw up. An iron rod had nestled in the pit of my stomach and wanted to anchor me in my bed. My parents, bless their hearts, had to pull me out of the car and shove me in my dormitory room. Not that they wanted to get rid of me, but they thought change would be good.

And they were right. Last year, when I was a freshman, I truly stepped out of my comfort zone. I stayed past my self-imposed curfew on about a dozen occasions, went to four parties, took a sip of both wine and beer respectively, and once, I ate a chocolate mousse not as the dessert it was intended to be but as a snack. All these things probably didn’t seem like a big deal to most, but they were to me.

I just never broke the rules. Ever. The thought sounded exciting, but in practice, it terrified me. I was the good girl. I’d always been the good girl. With my wavy, all-American blonde hair and impeccable shiny smile, I was the epitome of perfection. I had to be perfect. I needed to be perfect. Long ago, when all the kids played outside in the mud and I stayed home to read, I had made my peace with being one of those people who never painted outside the lines.

That led to many lonely days and nights, but it all changed last year when I met Sarah — a lovable, larger-than-life goofball who, for some unknowable reason, adopted me as her best friend.

“I’m not daydreaming,” I giggled back at her, feeling my cheeks burn. Of course, I was blushing because Sarah was correct. I had been daydreaming and what was worse, it was happening more and more often.

The truth was, college wasn’t living up to my unrealistic expectations. I considered myself a romantic at heart. A romantic with zero romantic encounters under her belt — did it get more poetic than that? It was painful, not to mention embarrassing, to admit part of me longed for love. Not just a crush. No. A fairy-tale-weak-at-the-knees-passionate-all-consuming-movie-magic love. That’s what I wanted. That’s what I needed.

Not that I hadn’t had suitors. But just like everything else in my life, nothing short of perfection was good enough for me. Some said I was too picky. Heck, even I began to consider the possibility of my standards getting in the way. So what if he didn’t pick me up for our date? And that he didn’t open the door for me? Perhaps he had other qualities that made up for the lack of basic manners. Granted, not qualities I saw or found pleasing, but I could have been missing something.

Lengthy discussions about cars and the latest tech gadgets perhaps impressed some women, but that just wasn’t me. And I tried. I took a book out of the library and learned about the different car makes and models and about how internal combustion engines worked. Despite being equipped with all this information, I still found myself yawning on more than one occasion. Ultimately, without fail, at the end of each date, I felt a sense of relief when the security of a sturdy door separated me from the ever-so-eager young man on the other side.

“Are you coming tonight?” Sarah asked, bringing me once again back to my bleak reality.

“I don’t know. I think I might skip it,” I mumbled, taking a bite out of the sandwich I had been holding for the past ten minutes.

“Oh, come on! How many other welcome parties are we going to have?”

“I just don’t like all the commotion.” Sarah rolled her eyes.

“I swear, you sound like you’re ninety. It will be fun. Besides, I hear that guy you like might be there.”

“Who?” I blushed. “I don’t like anyone.”

“Mark. Don’t tell me you’re not into him, because that will be an outright lie. And if you lie to me, you’ll owe me. And if you owe me, you’ll have to come to the party. So that settles it.”

“What?”

“You’re coming to the party.”

“How did we reach that conclusion?” I laughed.

“If you like Mark, you should come. If you don’t like Mark, you’re lying and you owe me, so you’re coming. Simple.”

“All right, all right, I’ll come.”

“But you can’t come wearing jeans.”

“What’s wrong with my jeans?”

“Just… wear a dress, will you?”

I blushed again. “I’m not a dress-wearing kind of gal.”

Sarah eyed me with suspicion.

“Fine. But mark my words, Kathrine Chambers. One of these days, you’ll beg me to dress you up.”

“I’d love to see you try,” I giggled, despite Sarah’s grimace.

***

Sarah was correct, of course. I liked Mark. But it was only that — a fleeting sensation of no consequence. He wasn’t my knight in shining armor. He was just a guy I took a few classes with, who I happened to find visually pleasing. Was he a gentleman who was going to sweep me off my feet? I highly doubted it. But there was a tiny part of me that hoped I was wrong. Perhaps everything I had seen in movies and read about in books was possible? Perhaps it could happen to me?

Past experiences had taught me books, and movies were not real for a reason. You couldn’t just lock eyes with someone and know … could you? Of course not. You had to get to know a person. But even then … would that provoke them to send you a hundred roses just because they couldn’t get you out of their head all day?

Some women just seemed to possess that something, that it-factor that drove men wild. They could wear the ugliest of clothes and still look like a movie star. They could just be going about their day and men would open doors or carry their bags for them. They could go to a bar for a girls’ night out and out of all ten women, men would buy only them drinks. I had seen it. I had lived it. I wasn’t one of those women.

On the contrary, I was forgettable. The type of girl men’s eyes only grazed in an attempt to find someone prettier or fitter, or … whatever it was men were seeking. Well, whatever that was, I wasn’t it. Which was why I was terrified of the party tonight.

Mark and I only spoke twice, but both times I managed to make a fool of myself. So tonight, I had to make amends. It was now or never! Or perhaps … I could curl in my bed with a good book instead and worry what Mark thought about me some other time?

Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. After our last afternoon class, she dragged me to her dorm room.

“Try this,” she said, presenting me with what I could only describe as a bandana. I stared at it with suspicion.

“What’s that?”

“A dress, duh! Come on, try it on.”

“My t-shirt has more fabric than this,” I commented.

“Oh, Katiya, you’re too innocent,” said Sarah’s new roommate, Natasha.

Natasha was a Russian exchange student and her ’r’s hit hard. She also insisted on calling me ‘Katerina’ or ‘Katiya’, which I assumed was the Russian version of ‘Katherine’ or ‘Kate’. That actually made me feel special. Like I was living in the world of Ana Karenina. Long ball gowns and dances — a romantic era, long forgotten, and a secret only Natasha and I shared.

“I just don’t like to be … exposed,” I said.

“Wear my dress and you won’t be exposed,” Natasha said, pulling out an even smaller piece of fabric.

“That’s very sweet of you both, but I think I’ll stick to my jeans and t-shirt that cover an appropriate portion of my body.”

Sarah sighed but ultimately gave in after I allowed her to put a little makeup on me and do my hair. The entire ordeal led to my head not matching the rest of my body. I looked ridiculous.

“Fine, I’ll wear a dress,” I said with exasperation. “But I’ll be the one to choose it.”

Sarah was gleefully jumping up and down in her spot, and Natasha gave me a thumbs up. I rummaged through the girls’ closet and at last found a white dress with pastel flowers coloring its edges. The style was quite girly — tight around the torso, with a delicate V-neck and spaghetti straps, flowing beautifully below the waist and cutting off right at the knee.

“You look … how do you say … gorgeous!” said Natasha, eyeing me up and down.

I blushed. The dress wasn’t indecent, but it was the type of clothing that would draw attention and I was perfectly fine blending with the background.

“All right, now you just need these!” said Sarah, presenting me with high heels.

“Oh, no, I’m wearing my Converse sneakers.”

“But … but …” Sarah stammered.

“I’m putting my foot down,” I said. “Be kind to me. I’m making progress, aren’t I?”

Sarah sighed. “I suppose you are. All right, fine.”

Feeling a sense of triumph and relief, I started tying my shoelaces. All in all, I didn’t think the outfit was that terrible. It was definitely a far cry from what I was used to, but I felt like the Converse anchored me in to my real self.

The party was a mere ten-minute walk away from the dorms. On the way there, Sarah voiced out the question I had been avoiding the entire week since we had been back to college.

“Is Trisha meeting us there?”

My insides did a double flip. Trisha had been my roommate last year, but had requested a transfer this semester.

“Um, no, actually, Trisha isn’t my roommate anymore,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

“You’re kidding! What happened?”

“I … don’t know. I think she may have had some issues with me,” I said, hoping against hope I didn’t repel all people the same way I had apparently repelled Trisha.

“Why? What did you do?” asked Natasha.

Before I could answer, Sarah chimed in. “She didn’t do anything. Trisha was just horrible.”

“She wasn’t,” I said. “We just didn’t get along, I suppose. She’s a very messy person. She would misplace something, like her makeup bag, and then would accuse me of stealing it. Two days later, she would find it below her bed and would apologize.”

“She was the worst. Good riddance!”

“She wasn’t that bad,” I insisted. “Sometimes weird things were happening in the room or around it and she just wanted some peace and quiet, I guess.”

“Whatever. I told you we should’ve put in a request to be roommates, didn’t I?”

“Yes, well, then we wouldn’t have met Natasha,” I pointed out.

“Yes, and you need me in your life to bring some … how do you say … spice,” Natasha giggled. “So who’s your roommate now?”

“I don’t have one yet.”

“Odd,” said Sarah, throwing an arm over my shoulders. “But that doesn’t matter right now because we’re here!”