The Siren

I gave an enthusiastic nod, and he reached to taste it himself. “Hey, not bad for my first cake, yeah?”

I grinned. Not bad at all.

I greased the pans, excited that because they were two different sizes, we were going to end up with something that looked like a tiny wedding cake.

“I don’t want to make a big deal about this or anything, but I think it’s kind of cool how you do everything you do.”

I squinted at him.

“I mean, you use sign language, and it’s hard to communicate. But you’re into art and you can seriously cook and, for goodness’ sakes, you can even jitterbug. By the way, I told my mom, and she wants a video. Totally doesn’t believe me. But, yeah, I think it’s nice that you don’t let a little hitch in life slow you down. I admire that.”

I smiled. For a minute, I admired myself, too. He didn’t know how deep my problems ran, but he was right all the same. It was no small thing to try, to find out what you cared about in life. Even this moment, with this wonderful, temporary boy beside me, was a tiny miracle. I ought to give myself some credit.

I went to write my thanks but had a hard time getting more ink out of the marker.

“Ah, I thought it might die. You wanna come by my room real quick to get another?”

Stay calm, I thought. I nodded as nonchalantly as I could.

“Awesome. It’s this way,” he said with a wave, and I followed him down the hall. “I think my roommate left for a while, so at least you’ll be spared that horror. I swear, it’s like he took lessons in how to be an ass.”

I grinned as we came upon a door with the obvious blank space where the dry-erase board should be. On two little leaves that his RA had placed on all the doors down the hall were two names: Neil Baskha and Akinli Schaefer.

Schaefer. I longed to say it out loud. The shape of the word was so pleasant in my head, I couldn’t wait to breathe it into the air. But that would have to wait until I was alone … and not distracted by the disaster that was his room.

To be fair, it was only half a disaster. It appeared that Neil’s religious practices acknowledged neither trash cans nor recycling bins. Probably so he could build that haphazard altar of Mountain Dew cans by the window. Akinli’s things seemed much homier. Instead of a store-bought comforter, he had a quilt. Instead of posters, he had pictures. Instead of beer cans, he had three bottles of Port Clyde Quencher root beer that he appeared to be saving.

He had said he was an only child, but there was a slightly older boy in a few of the shots who had the same eyes and chin. I saw his parents and one picture of him as a child holding a lobster in each hand and smiling so big I couldn’t see his eyes.

“Here we go.” He pulled out a new marker from his desk drawer, and I was drawn back from my quiet observations. “Sorry it’s kind of messy in here,” he said sheepishly, noticing my wandering eyes. “Neil … well, he’s a character.”

I smiled, trying to let him know I cared less about that than I did all the little pieces of himself I got to peek at, if only for a second.

Back in the communal kitchen, we played a game of hangman on the whiteboard between whipping up frosting and waiting for the cake to finish baking.

It was all so plain, so simple, and I was grateful for every single moment. When we managed to get both layers on—even though the top one wasn’t quite centered—and covered the whole thing in buttercream, Akinli posed dramatically in front of our creation.

“The moment of truth. Have I overcome a long and difficult season of being the worst cook in America? Kahlen, the fork, please.”

I passed it to him, picking up one myself so I could taste it, too. I didn’t want to brag, but I was sure Aisling would be impressed.

“This. Is. Amazing!” Akinli yelled, taking two more heaping forkfuls before stopping to breathe. “We cannot keep something this beautiful to ourselves. Come on.”

He picked up the plate and headed into the hall.

“Who wants cake?” he yelled.

A girl with her hair in two French braids stuck her head out of an open doorway halfway down the hall. “Me!”

Beside us someone opened his door, too. “What you hollering about, man?”

“We made cake!”

The guy’s face turned from irritated to jubilant. “Cool.”

Within minutes, half the floor had spilled out, using everything from spatulas to paper cups to get some dessert.

“I mean, I did an incredible job,” Akinli said to someone, “but it was mostly Kahlen.”

A few people patted my arm and thanked me for cooking or sharing. One girl said she liked my skirt. I wanted to burst, I felt so happy. Was this what it was like to be a normal nineteen-year-old girl? Living in a dorm, letting other peoples’ lives spill over into yours, if only for a season? Studying one thing with absolute focus while having dozens of things change around you and learning from that, too? Having a boy see you, acknowledge you in such a way that you felt sure no one had ever experienced that feeling before, all the while knowing you’d joined a long line of people who did the same dance to find the person they spent their lives with.