It was about six years ago when I met her for the first time, being a late addition to the Dutch teaching course I was taking when I was 18. Fresh out of high school, thinking I know everything there is to know in the world and being willingly (and stupid enough) to take the two-hour train trip each day to get to classes. I had an immediate dislike for her, maybe it was the fact that she always spoke up in class, critiquing the ideas of the teacher, wanting more information than was necessary on any given subject and to top it all off actually wanting to get something out of these classes instead of hoovering up college credits and skyrocketing off to a working life as soon as possible.
She was smarter than me, and I hated her for it, but to have a stubborn 18-year old-me admit to that would be as easy as convincing a toddler to invest into a retirement fund. You could try, sure, but your energy would be better spent elsewhere. We clashed at every point in every forced-upon-us group assignment. Was I in favor of A? You could bet your ass she'd be firmly in camp B. Would I be jumping for joy at the thought of B? She would've already started painting banners to feverishly support A. On the surface we were civil, but under our skins the blood was boiling and every single interaction rose the temperature of our tension. It also didn't help that she was absolutely gorgeous. Standing at a good 6'0, long, wavy deep-red hair framing her face and dazzling green eyes that even in the fiercest disagreements looked beautiful, she was a sight to behold. She worked out, and despite her outfits hiding her assets for most of the time, on the few days that the sun did properly shine, she didn't mind showing off an ample amount of cleavage or her taut, well-trained belly. But alas, I fooled myself into being a principled man and therefore I shan't sleep with women whom I disagree with, or something like that. I still find it mind boggling how incredibly, incredibly dumb 18-year old me was.
The only thing we could agree upon was that we were both the best writers of our year by far. I admired and appreciated the rawness and honesty of her stories and she admitted to liking the page long poems I produced in the creative writing class. Maybe it was a combination of undiagnosed ASD, a fresh heaping of gifted child-syndrome and a very brief (and in retrospect- mildly embarrassing) period of thinking that The Catcher In The Rye was the greatest thing ever and consequently building my entire personality around it, but my work was enjoyed by some classmates and the creative writing teachers, who both encouraged her and me to pursue writing beyond these classes.
Yet that mutual admiration couldn't prevent us from reaching a boiling point. In one of the last assignments of the year, in which we as a class were tasked to write and perform a play. I was set to write, she was set to direct. In overlong production meetings we clashed over every single line, every single characterization and every single plot element. By the time we were on the train ride home we were both too tired to even argue anymore and would just quietly sit somewhere in each other's vicinity. She with her large, branded headphones on and me diving into a Russian literary classic that I dredged up from the library and didn't understand at all, but being to stubborn to put the massive tome down.
In the final week of rehearsals, where scenes were still being added and rewritten on the fly, the bomb burst. Maybe it was her ever changing mind that forced me to do so many rewrites that comparatively the DCEU could be considered coherent, or maybe it was my stubbornness that made me treat my own scenes like they were Biblical, unchanging and everlasting, but at one point, in front of a rehearsal room filled with a bunch of shocked, yet mildly amused student, we ended up yelling resentments at each other. I called her controlling, self-centered and pedantic. She called me pretentious, infuriatingly childish and impossible to work with. We threw notes and pages of script at each other and stormed out of the room. Two hours later we had a tough conversation with the teacher overseeing the project. Fifteen minutes later we were both kicked off of the project. We never spoke to each other again, avoided each other when possible and as the year progressed we saw less and less of each other, especially since both of us wanted to move on to greener pastures, not liking the way Dutch was taught in the country and dreading the though of being stuck for another three years with the most horrible person alive.
Years later, after taking some time to work and figure out what I wanted, I moved across the country and decided that since I everyone will throw their life away eventually (I might've still been dealing with some leftover edginess from my Catcher in the Rye Days), I might as well get an early start, causing me to enroll in philosophy. Although I have to admit that my major was hardly my focus. I moved to a university city after all, filled to the brim with music venues, college girls as far as the I can see and more coffee shops and bars than one could shake a stick at.
After maybe six months of classes on ethics, formal logic, whatever-the-fuck Heidegger is supposed to be saying and some wild ancient Greek philosophy, I decided to dedicate most of my time to my writing career. Being in a large city has its perks, and a vibrant literary community was one of them. I signed up for the literary student society, started performing my work at open mics in bars and other venues and for all intents and purposes I did really well. I won some small, local awards, bluffed my way through some slam championships and got the attention of the cities' leading literary organization, who were willing to offer me extra schooling and opportunities to professionalize and further my career.
I was doing well, and by the time my second year of philosophy(-ish, I decided to take it slow) rolled around, I got my first big project. I was to be paired up with another writer, another young talent from the city, in order to produce a performance for a large literary festival, a place where actual writers and actual publishers would be in the audience, as opposed to your friendly neighborhood local newspaper-poetry-critic, one-and-a-half homeless guy and maybe one or two wildly lost German tourists, depending on the weather. They said they had their eyes on some candidates for the program, but without knowing who I'd be partnering up with, I said yes, signed some paperwork and figured that it would only be sunshine and rainbows from now on.
On a day in the early fall I was heading out for the first project meeting, apart from a last-minute notice that our playwriting coach would be a bit delayed, the day seemed to be going well. I never minded going to the library, where the literary organization had its offices. It was not the most beautiful building in the city, mind you. The heart of the city was filled with 400 year old university faculties, a towering church from the late middle ages and proudly postmodernist museums, so a vaguely modernistic, mostly concrete, somewhat glass-built U-shaped shape in the middle of the city stood out for the wrong reasons. The replacement of the library was already being built, so the municipality was not to keen on maintaining its already existing structures. Still the place held a charm for me, maybe it was because I had grown quite fond of this city, but I never minded getting lost in the mildly unorganized floors, nooks and crannies looking for a new book to devour or just hanging out with the city poet in the few office hours that he had. I let the attendant at the entrance know why I was here and after leading me past a book depository, several maintenance rooms, a kitchen, four staircases and a frankly Kafkaesque maze of hallways I ran into Martin, who ran the day to day operations. He greeted me, asked me if I wanted any coffee and told me to go to the mostly empty office two doors down from his, with it being converted into a rehearsal space for projects for a few years now. I asked him the usual (sugar and milk- sue me) and entered the office.
It took me a few seconds to realize who was in this room with me. She had her back turned to me at first, my eyes instinctively going towards a well-shaped ass, clad in tight, dark jeans. As my eyes took in the rest of her, she turned and our gazes met. Time froze for a few seconds as the both of us, mildly startled, were looking for any way out of this situation. I relented first: ''Sophie- Hey.'' I paused uncomfortably. ''Long time no see.'' I added, graciously adding a fresh heaping of awkwardness to an already socially delicious interaction.
''Fuck.'' She blurted out. ''Hey Frank.'' Her eyes darted towards the ground. Before either of us could destroy our moods even further, Martin walked in with two cups.
''Your coach is on his way, his train is a bit delayed. He should be here in an hour or so.'' He pushed his glasses back on his nose, briefly touching on the strange atmosphere. ''Have you met before?'' he asks, a friendly smile of genuine interest on his round face.
''Yes, I've heard of you.'' she says, quickly putting on a smile to defuse the tension somewhat. ''I'm Sophie, pleasure.'' she says, extending her hand and looking me in the eyes for the first time, a threatening fury hiding in those emerald greens that swore vengeance if I didn't play along. ''Frank, pleasure to meet you too.'' I replied, quickly shaking her hand before letting go. ''She only just moved to the city from Rotterdam, but she comes highly recommended and has an absolutely amazing resume.'' Martin continues. ''-and Frank here is our local talent, I bet he'd love to tell you about the city and the literary scene. Maybe he'll even give you a tour!'' His enthusiasm forced a small, brief and deeply fake smile on her face. ''We'll have to see.'' she replies in a friendly enough tone.
''Yeah, we'll see.'' Hiding my deep sense of discomfort under the same veneer of friendliness. A silence falls in the room as Martin hands us some pen and paper. ''This is the program for the festival, at least the bit that's been confirmed. Great news for you, you'll be the opening act!'' he adds as he joyfully claps his hands, and honestly, that idea got me at least somewhat excited. ''Well. I still have plenty of work to do, so I'll leave you two to it.
''Is there a place to smoke?'' Sophie asks as she reaches into her purse on the table, grabbing a pack of cigarettes.
''There is!'' Martin replies. There's rooftop access at the end of the hallway. It's technically not allowed, but the municipality doesn't really care anymore, and the view is great.''
''Good'' Sophie says quickly as she leaves the room, cigarette and lighter in hand.
''I'll go have a smoke with her.'' I say to Martin as I leave too, quietly following Sophie as she actively makes an effort to almost drop the door to the rooftop in my face.
She sits down at the small passageway between the top floor and the edge of the roof and I quietly join her, a few feet down. I grab a cigarette and light it, taking a slow drag as I look over to her, her foot impatiently tapping on the tiles that are laid on the roof.
''So. This is awkward.'' I say after a few seconds of silence, Sophie still actively avoiding your face.
''You think?'' She replies, short, angry.
