Overshadowed — Unraveling (Pt. 2)

Thunder clapped, and almost immediately thick bullets of rain started to pelt the window pane with ferocious intensity. The glass had a yellowish tint to it, which cast a sickly green hue on the room when struck with the fading evening light from the overcast sky. Ash, shrugged over the high-top table, nursed his bottle of beer and brought it down somewhat heavily on the wood. It had been a long week. He wasn’t paying attention to Lente’s story, but the carelessness of his inattention was called out by his interrupting clunk of glass on wood, and he quickly attempted to rejoin the conversation.

“Yeah, it really is unreasonable to ask that you finish the paper by Friday,” he said, trying to empathize, “especially when he gave you no time to prepare.”

Lente smiled, but her mingled frustration made it come across as more of a grimace. “Thanks, Ash. I’m just so pissed at him right now.”

Ash was no stranger to Lente’s academic woes. Despite the lack of career prospects it offered, philosophy was no easy subject, and Lente frequently complained about the intensity of the teaching staff. Her older, mostly male, professors had always bothered her with their apathy towards their students and their insensitivity to the constraints of the real world, like needing to sleep for more than three hours a night, for example.

Jan chimed in sarcastically, “You can always just quit the job at the library, that’ll give you more time for writing.” Jan knew very well that without the money from her part-time job, Lente wouldn’t be able to afford her housing payments. He also knew she loved the work, the mixture of solitude and the fact that it afforded her the time to let her thoughts run free made Lente’s working hours her favorites of the week. Except maybe spending time with her friends.

“Oh good idea,” she bantered back, “I’ll let you write my resignation letter so that you can also tell them that I’m too busy to do even that myself.”

A moment of silence passed as everyone took a sip of their drinks. “Anyway, I met this cool guy the other day,” Jan mused, “said he was studying etymology and ancient languages and taught me a lot of interesting stuff about Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

Ash felt something in his stomach. Was it jealousy? Annoyance? Hunger? “If you want to learn about languages, you can always ask me,” he blurted out, a little bit too indignantly.

“I know,” Jan replied, “but the last thing I want to do on my Thursday evenings is get a lecture from Professor Ash on language. I’d much rather you tell me some more of the whacky shit about the Egyptian or Greek gods or something.”

Ash smiled. He also found reading mythology to be the most exciting part of his studies. “Fine, but you know you have to understand the language first to be able to read the good stuff, right?”

“That’s what you’re for,” Jan retorted, and everyone laughed.

“But he is really friendly, we should invite him next Thursday,” he continued, “he introduced himself to me when we accidentally mixed up our coats and I almost walked out with his keys in my pocket. We chatted for a bit and I think you’d really like him.”

“Like how we met?” Ash asked, somewhat surprised.

“Is that how we met? We’ve been friends for too long, I don’t remember anymore,” Jan laughed and took a swig from his beer.

“What’s his name?” Lente asked, suddenly curious about the stranger.

“Sol,” Jan threw back, “don’t remember where he’s from, but I liked his name.”

“Oh, I think I know who you’re talking about!” Lente exclaimed, seemingly excited, “Tall guy, long blonde hair, really good posture?”

“Yes,” Jan clicked his tongue, “that sounds like him.”

“He stopped me at the student center the other day and asked me to go on a date,” Lente said more quietly, blushing a little. Ash, who still harbored a crush on Lente, went slightly tense.

“Well?” Ash asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I was a little surprised…people don’t usually do that…and he was in a rush so I was overwhelmed,” she giggled, “but I gave him my WhatsApp, so we’ll see. I remember he said something about languages, Jan, that’s what made me think it was him.”

Ash felt a sudden resentment towards this Sol and thought that he very much did not want to invite him to spend time with his friends next Thursday. Thunder clapped again. “Sounds like we’re not going out tonight,” Ash said gloomily.

“Something is going to stop you from wanting to go dancing?” Jan said, in what sounded like genuine surprise, but was also a bit overplayed.

“Just not feeling it tonight,” Ash grunted back. Between his mother and this recent news, it wasn’t wholly untrue. Jan then started talking about a party that weekend and Ash’s focus drifted again. 

He was then struck by a thought—a stranger walking into his usual bakery, wearing his coat, placing his usual order, and walking out humming to himself, like Ash usually did. The daydream continued as he saw this stranger confidently waltz over to the student center, and with the courage he wished he had, confess his feelings to Lente. He watched her smile demurely and look up at him with desire in her eyes as she reciprocated everything that the stranger—or was it he himself?—had just said. 

Ash sighed. There was so much he wanted to change, but he didn’t even know how to go about starting to change it. The rain continued. The thunder rumbled. The night fell.