Chapter Four

Sound Effects

“Let me guess, you’re at the coffee shop.”

“Yup.” She smiled, as she took a sip out of her iced, apple and cinnamon flavored tea.

“And, as usual, no coffee.”

“Nope.” She smiled again.

“You don’t like it?”

“Of course I like it, I love it.”

“I just assumed you didn’t, since you never order it.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“And when I asked you if you were getting coffee the other day you answered ‘God, no!’”

Sophie let go of her tea cup and started playing with her pen as she explained, “I love coffee. The thing is, coffee makes me want to smoke and I quit smoking months ago. I’m afraid I’ll get back to it if I drink coffee again.”

“You used to smoke?”

“Unfortunately.”

“But you don’t, anymore?”

“No. It was just a phase I went through last year. It was Aaron’s fault.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah. Well, not really, but I was curious since I saw him and his friends do it and I wanted to fit in with them so I could hang out with Chester.”

“Who’s Chester?”

“One of his friends.” She giggled. “I had a major crush on him at the time.” She blushed.

Adrian snorted. “Did it work?”

“Hell, no. Aaron was his usual self and constantly kicked me out of wherever they were.” She took another quick sip of her drink. “Especially since he found out about said crush.” She laughed at the memory of her brother’s outraged expression as he found Chester’s picture on her cellphone and read their exchanged messages.

“So, he was okay with you smoking next to him, but dating one of his friends is off limits?”

“He wasn’t okay with me smoking, he just figured it’d be best if I did it with him than by myself later. That was actually the same kind of reasoning that made him buy me my first alcoholic drink – without me asking him, I might add. But he really came through on his older brother duties after: he hit me in the head any time he saw me smoking and kicked me in the shins when he smelled it on me. It kind of motivated me to quit. And he grabbed my hair when I threw up on my first hangover – courtesy of the drinks he gave me – and only made fun of me for a few weeks. Also, he showed the pictures he took of my drunken figure to his friends, which also motivated me to avoid getting in that sad state again. I think he honestly believes he’s helping me.”

Adrian was laughing. “I can’t decide if your brother is awesome or just batshit insane.”

“He’s both.” She smiled. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for Coach to arrive.”

Sophie looked at the watch in her wrist. “Isn’t it early for your practice, though?”

“Coach decided that our practice should start an hour earlier from now on.”

“Oh, so shouldn’t you be doing warm-ups or something? Running, jumping, whatever you guys do before playing?”

“Yeah, but I figured I could spare a few minutes to talk to you anyway.”

Sophie faintly blushed. “Aw! You’re being nice to me again.”

“Don’t get used to it.” And she could almost feel him shrug.

“Too late.”

“You’re digging your own grave, here.”

“Don’t even try. I know you’re a nice guy.”

He scorned, like it was an insult. “I think I’m spoiling you, Murphy. I should get back to my old ways.” After he spoke, Sophie could hear another guy on the background calling his name. “Well, I have to go.”

“Coach arrived?”

“No, but my teammates are calling for me.”

“Uh, you’re such an important guy,” she teased.

“I’m awesome like that,” after a short break he continued, “Alright, I’m going or else they’ll lynch me.”

“And your coach won’t like it if you’re not ready when he arrives.”

“What can I say, you make me a worse person.”

Sophie laughed. “Like you need any help with that.”

“Well, I have to go. I’ll leave you to your writing.”

“How did you know I was-“

“Murphy, you’re always writing.”

She smiled because he was right. “Talk to you later?”

“You know it.”

“Have fun at practice.”

As she hang up and contemplated her notebook, where she wrote something every day, Sophie couldn’t help but smile at the thought of her peculiar relationship with Adrian. He was still just a voice but, at the same time, he was becoming much more than that. Something close to a friend, maybe. They’d been talking every day for the past week and it was always so natural, now it would be weird not to talk to him.

Still, no matter how natural it felt, she knew that it was pretty messed up to feel so attracted to a voice. Sophie had tried to imagine him, how would he look like physically, but the longer she talked to him, the harder it was to do it. All she knew was that his voice was charming, seductive, fun – and that her attachment to it was certainly unhealthy or, at the very least, weird. Did he feel the same way?

Adrian had proposed for them to meet – after all, they did find out they were only forty minutes away from each other – but Sophie had declined. Not that she wasn’t dying to finally attribute a body and a face to his voice, but because she was scared. What if he was disappointed? What if it was awkward and different in person?

Could she be any more of a freak?

While she was writing on her notebook what she thought was a good plot for a story, her phone began to ring. Heart jumping, as always when her cellphone rang these days, she quickly put the object next to her ear – maybe Adrian’s practice hadn’t started yet or something - but her hopes were quickly shut down by Aaron’s voice that hit her like a shower of cold water.

“Hey, little sis!”

“Aaron, what’s up?” she asked, in spite of her knowing exactly what was coming.

“Well, you know how mom and dad are lame and are still being a major pain about my awesome piercing, right?”

“They just don’t understand you.” She rolled her eyes.

“I know, right? Anyway, I’m supposed to be home by now but the band has a gig next week and we need to practice.”

“School paper, studying at the library, looking for a job, broken leg?”

“Voluntary work at the city’s pound.”

Sophie burst into laughter. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah!”

Their parents couldn’t possibly believe in that!

“Are you kidding? They’ll never buy that one!”

“Why not? I’m such a caring soul.”

Sophie laughed again. “You have to come up with something better than that.”

“I’ve already told mom, she’ll believe it once you confirm it.” He seemed pretty confident about it. “I have a plan. Practice is at Jason’s today and he has a dog, so I’ll have plenty of dog smell and fur on me to make it work. I’ll even let it drool on me, or something.”

“You’re unbelievable…” She could not understand how her mother would fall for such a thing, though she did believe every time Aaron told her he was studying at the library – and since he ‘studied’ so much but kept taking crappy grades anyway, and still she never doubted him, maybe he did stand a chance. Aaron seemed to share her thoughts.

“I can’t keep telling her I’m studying. I think her expectations are getting higher.”

Well, no arguing there.

“Alright, fine. I’ll tell her, don’t worry.” She sighed.

“Thanks, sis!” And he hang up immediately after saying, “You rule!”

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Why was she so loyal to his bullying lazy ass?

Sophie got home a few hours later, after spending some more time at her favorite coffee shop, Papyrus (which also had a small library inside), and walking around several shops, bars and restaurants looking for a part-time job – which could only be described as depressing time wasted.

As soon as she got home, Silvia asked her immediately if she knew what her brother was doing and, making an epic royal effort to say it with a straight face, she lied to her mom once again on behalf of Aaron – voluntary work at the pound. Really? She wondered if ridiculous lying would be enough to put her and Aaron in Hell. Well, if Silvia found out, it would certainly be enough.

Later that night, after returning home from Charlotte’s, she remembered she had homework to do (well, Charlotte reminded her) so she sat down at her desk to do it before going to bed. She looked at her watch – a little past midnight. Her eyes automatically travelled to her cellphone, resting quietly next to her Biology book. Shaking her psycho obsession away from her thoughts, Sophie decided to concentrate on her Math homework.

Twenty minutes later, and as her brain cells melted from trying to decipher a particularly hard exercise, the blessed sound she was too stubborn to admit she was expecting to hear finally echoed through her bedroom.

“Hey!” She smiled.

“Murphy.”

Sophie tried to save her last shreds of dignity by trying to hide her excitement at his call. “I was starting to wonder if you would still call today.” But failed miserably.

“I got held up at a friend’s house, just got home right now.” He sounded different, not happy and relaxed like always, but maybe worried? That seemed out of character for him. “I hope I didn’t wake you up, I know it’s kind of late, but I wanted to talk to you anyway.” She could almost bet he was lying down by the sound of his voice.

“That’s kind of sweet.” She smiled, and before he could tell her it wasn’t, she proceeded, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t asleep yet. I’m too busy trying to figure out a way to not fail Math.”

“Are you being successful?”

“Not really.”

“You’re studying at this hour?”

“Trying to do homework, but failing. Hard.” Now that she thought about it, she had never heard him talk about homework, or any other kind of school related work until now. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

He snorted, which was enough of an answer to her.

“If you’d agree to meet me as I asked you, I could tutor you. But since you’re lame like that, you’ll just have to suffer through it alone.”

Now was her turn to snort at him. “You? Helping me? With school work?”

“What? I’m pretty good at Math.”

“Really?” She was unconvinced.

“Yes, really.” He seemed serious enough. “Forget the jock stereotype for a second.”

“It’s just… you never talk about school-”

“Because it’s so boring.”

“So, you want us to meet so we can be bored together?”

“Sophie, you and I, alone in my room… C’mon... Everything but boring. We would make Pythagoras blush.”

“You idiot…”

“I could help you with Math, you could help me with English – I fucking hate it – and then we could help each other with Biology.” She could feel his tone getting slowly back to his normal mocking, cheerful state, but something about it was still different.

“You’re such a moron.” She blushed again. “Are you okay, though? You sound worried or something.”

“Nah, I’m just really, really tired.” He took a deep breath.

“Why?”

“Practice, I guess. Coach kicked my ass today.”

“Those practices sound harsh.”

“The hot cheerleaders screaming my name make it all worth it.” He smiled.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “I bet they do.”

“My invitation to come see me play is still standing.”

“My answer is still standing too.”

“You’re such a pain.”

“You don’t need me there, you’ve got your ‘hot cheerleaders’,” she said it with a little too much bitterness, which she hoped hadn’t been too noticeable.

“Yes, I do have them, good point,” he teased.

“Good for you.”

“Hey, speaking of jealousy-“

“What? I’m not jealous-“ she tried to interrupt, with no success.

“How’s it going with Mark? Seen him with any other girl lately? Has he talked to you yet?”

Sophie’s eyes immediately found the ground and she was thankful that Adrian couldn’t see how much of a loser she still was. “No…”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“Do you think I should?”

“Hell no!”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“So everything is the same, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m so proud of you,” he mocked.

“Why are you making fun of me?”

“Well, you’re still obviously not totally over him, but at least you’re hanging in there, not taking the initiative yourself. That’s pretty good. I’m glad you found your pride, it was about time.”

“I won’t talk to him.”

“And if he comes to you?”

She was unprepared for that question. “Well, I guess it depends…”

Adrian sighed. “Here we go.”

“If I feel that he’s sincerely willing to change then maybe… I don’t know… Probably… Depends on what he says, I guess, and how he says it. If I feel like he really missed me… maybe he’ll appreciate me more now, you know, give me the attention I want, well, not so much want but more like need. It’s not like I ask for much anyway, I’m not too clingy, I mean, I know I may come off needy sometimes but overall I think I’m pretty independent, it’s just that with a boyfriend I think it should be different, you know? If you don’t spend some time together what’s the point? At least to know the person well enough but I’m willing to make some changes myself too because it’s all about sharing the responsibility and-“

“Oh, Murphy.” He sighed again and this time he sounded more tired than ever. “You really don’t get it.”

“Anyway, there’s no point thinking about this because that will never happen, he’ll never come to me first.”

“Good, I hope you’re right,” he said, with a new tone that she couldn’t quite figure out, “although I think it’ll happen, sooner or later.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I believe he’s just testing you. Trying to see how long it will take for you to beg him to come back. I think he’s expecting it. But since you’ve grown a backbone lately and you haven’t given in yet, he’ll probably see that he doesn’t control you as much as he thought and, eventually, he’ll try to get you himself by spewing up a bunch of crap about how he missed you and how he’s willing to change and all that shit and, of course, you’ll swallow it all and ask for seconds and run back into his neglectful arms until he does the same shit to you again.” His tone was completely changed. He sounded a little… angry? Annoyed or irritated? It was a tone she had never heard from him before.

She was silent for a few seconds and so was he, until she finally broke it, “Are you angry at me?”

“No, why would I?” He sounded genuinely surprised at her question.

“It seemed like it.”

“Why would I be angry at you?” He kept the same surprised tone.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m just giving you advice from a male point of view, whether you take it or not…”

“You sounded a little bit angry.”

“I mean, it’s your life and we barely know each other…”

“Exactly.”

“Why would I be angry?”

“That’s why I asked.”

“It probably sounded that way because I’m tired and when I’m tired I get cranky.”

“Well, that’s a relief, because it wouldn’t make sense for you to be mad at something that hasn’t even happened.” She almost laughed.

“I’m not angry.”

“And even if it does happen, which is very unlikely, I’m almost sure that I would not take Mark back.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“I don’t think so, no.” She honestly didn't. “I’m happy on my own, I don’t think I need him right now.”

“Well, that’s a start, at least.”

“Why are we even discussing this? Let’s change the subject.”

“Good idea,” he said with enthusiasm, “send me a picture.”

“Send you a what?”

“A picture.”

“Of what?”

“Mark!” he answered with a heavy tone of sarcasm, “Who do you think? You, of course.”

“Uh, I don’t know…” She blushed, which seemed to be becoming her greatest talent lately.

“C’mon, what’s the big deal?”

“My cellphone doesn’t take pictures.”

“Nice try.”

“I don’t have any pictures of me on my cell.”

“Just take one now, you moron.”

Sophie was silent and, apparently, Adrian sensed her obvious discomfort.

“What’s the problem?”

“Nothing.”

“C’mon, I’ll send you one of me in return.”

“Adrian…”

“You won’t regret it, I promise,” he said with mischief.

“Why do you want my photo?”

“Well, let’s see, we’ve been talking over the phone for days now, you’re the only person in the whole civilized world without a computer-“

“I told you, my brother has it in his room and he won’t let me use it-“

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pretend to believe it.”

“It’s true!”

“And you won’t send me a lousy photo of you. You won’t meet me for five minutes. I just don’t get it. I just want to put a face to your voice. Don’t you?”

“Yes, but …”

“I mean, I’m starting to get a little suspicious over here.”

“Suspicious?”

“Yeah, like, are you a dude or something? An old lady? A chimp?”

Sophie laughed. “No.”

“Then what is it? Are you fat?”

“No.”

“Because even if you are, I really don’t care.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What? It’s true.”

“You wouldn’t mind if I was fat or ugly?”

“Why would I? Even if you’re statuesque you won’t meet me anyway, so I don’t see what I could gain with it.”

Sophie stayed thoughtful for another minute.

“C’mon, I’ll send you a photo of me after I get yours.”

“I just-I don’t want to spoil the magic.”

“Huh?”

“What if you don’t like me? What if you get disappointed? It won’t be the same and you know it.”

“Sophie…” he said more gently, “You need some self-esteem, urgently.”

“I know,” she answered, “but, you shouldn’t be so confident yourself.”

He smirked. “Why?”

“I have very high standards, you know?”

He laughed out loud. “Then I’m sure you can’t be that bad. And don’t worry, your standards will be met. In fact, your standards will be exceeded. They’ll be blown away.”

“How can you be so confident?” She smiled.

“I told you, I’m just really awesome,” he joked, “You just keep on not believing,” then he continued with a more serious tone, “Look, whatever you look like, things won’t change. Why would they? We’re friends who like to talk to each other. What does that have to do with anything? Or do you think I’m just trying to get in your pants? Is that really how you think of me?”

“A little,” she played.

“Maybe you’re the one afraid of being disappointed. Which makes you the shallow one, might I add.”

“No, that’s not true.”

“So, just send me the damn picture so I can flatter you.”

Sophie giggled. “Alright.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, you’re bullying me into it, but I’ll do it.”

“That’s the spineless girl I kind of know.”

“Very funny,” she said, “Then I guess I’ll just hang up, send you the picture and go back to my Math torture. It’s getting late.”

“Yeah and I’m pretty tired, too,” he answered, “Send me yours and I’ll send you mine afterwards. Deal?”

“Deal.” Sophie smiled. “Bye!”

“Goodnight, Murphy.”

When they finally hung up, Sophie took a deep breath and pointed her cellphone camera to her face, trying to frame it right. Then she gave up and went to her mirror to comb her hair. It was un-combable. Completely out of control.

Fuck.

Her dark curls were too wild that day to tame now and she wasn’t about to go and take a shower on purpose just because of a stupid picture. Deciding that it wasn’t that important – it was only Adrian, after all – she posed again for her cellphone. She hoped her face wasn’t too zombie-ish for a change, although she could swear she had seen dark circles under her eyes that were big enough to get to her bellybutton.

Speaking of bellybutton, should she take a photo of just her face or take one of her body too? She wasn’t sure if she could take a full body picture with her cellphone …

Why would she want to take a full body picture anyway? To show him how skinny and awkward she looked? What an idiot.

Deciding that, in this case, less was better, she tried to pose just her face to the camera. But wait a minute … What kind of face-pose should she make? She went to her mirror to study the answer. Serious, sexy-wannabe, funny, tongue out, winking, sensual, thoughtful, cheerful, distracted, defiant, shy? Looking directly at the camera or looking away? Her dark blue eyes were one of her favorite things about herself, how to make them pop-out? Was it worth putting make-up for? And if she did smile, should it be a wide, teeth showing smile or a small but confident one?

She couldn’t decide, not because there were so many looks it was hard to choose the best, but because she wasn’t particularly fond of any of them.

And how would she know when the camera was at the right position on her hand to frame her face perfectly? She always sucked at that. She was sure the photo would end up being of her forehead or something… Maybe if she did it looking at the mirror, like those pictures people take in front of the mirror so they can see themselves… Nah, those look stupid and fake, there’s always the reflection and sometimes the camera-in-the-face effect. It’s ridiculous - but not as much as her situation.

Why was she making such a big deal out of it? Adrian was right, it was just a freaking picture - for Adrian to see. Nothing that deserved a freak-out of such major proportions.

Whatever, right?

So why couldn’t she just do it?

Tired of it and deciding that she would deal with him the next day, Sophie took a picture of one of her favorite stuffed turtles and sent it. She smiled and sat at her desk, willing herself to fry her brain just a little bit more with Math.

Seconds later, she received a text message:

Wow! Just like I like them – scaly and green. You’re such a dork. I hope you realize this means you’re not getting my picture either, which is your loss, believe me :)

Talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight.

Sophie laughed. Green was his favorite color, after all.

Author's Note - I want to thank everyone who's reading this and also all the lovely wattpaders that have been so supportive. Thanks! I'm having fun in here and it's majorly because of you. Please, tell me what you think. I know this chapter doesn't do much for plot advancing, but I wanted to have a chapter that expressed at what point Sophie and Adrian were, after their first talk. Talk to me, darlings!