Read Online A Year Straight by Elena Azzoni - Free Book Online

then back into Brooklyn. I’ll be kicking myself someday, when someone other than me makes millions off a shuttle business between the two hipster destinations, Ditmas and The Burg.
    From the few times I’d subjected myself to one, there were certain things I had come to expect from a party in Williamsburg. There would be eccentric music pumped through an expensive sound system—songs by artists I had never heard of but that everyone else claimed to know. The loft would be covered in art I didn’t understand, like lightbulbs
piled up in a corner. And there would be lots of guys clad in thick-rimmed oversize glasses, tapered jeans, and turquoise nylon Windbreakers two sizes too small. A few times early in the evening, one of them would come over to me and seem to be flirting, only there would be no smiling or laughing involved, because hipsters don’t express emotion, so it was a little hard to tell.
    â€œDo you work at The Wilderness with Ben?” The question was aimed at me by a smug-looking guy as he nonchalantly popped the top off his Chimay. He didn’t offer me one from his personal stash.
    â€œNo,” I answered. “We went to school together.”
    â€œOh, where did you guys go to school?”
    â€œUMASS Amherst,” I answered, prepared for the follow-up sigh of disappointment that I was accustomed to in a crowd like that. An air of judgment hung around the room. Whenever I’m around insecure people, I start to feel uncomfortable myself, like my arms are no longer attached to my body. In my head I concocted a defense: I chose UMASS—it wasn’t my safety school. I’m not even from Massachusetts. But that would only make me sound as self-conscious as I felt, so I kept the thoughts to myself and instead sipped my PBR and drifted off to a daydream.
    I’d been accepted to the University of Rhode Island, into the Department of Marine Biology. Having known since junior year that I’d end up at URI, I paid little attention to
the surroundings as my mom drove me in her maroon Isuzu Trooper to check out my future school. We parked the car and grabbed some lunch before beginning the campus tour. An even bigger fan of dessert than I am, my mom ordered a piece of chocolate cake for us to share.
    â€œThis is orgasmic!” I gasped, the molten cake melting in my mouth. I was seventeen. My mom spit out her coffee. She’d never heard me say the word orgasm before. In fact, I’d never said it before then, let alone had one. But I was checking out a college. I was almost an adult.
    The tour left me feeling unsettled. The campus was beautiful and the people were nice, but URI just didn’t feel right. Although for two years I’d been set on going there, I said, “Let’s check out UMASS, too.” Part of becoming an adult was learning to trust my instincts. Pulling up to the entry of UMASS, I knew instantly that’s where I was meant to go. The campus was pretty ugly, half New England colonial, half seventies contemporary. But when I saw a girl sitting on a curb lighting a cigarette, I thought, “That will be me.” I had grandiose plans of taking up smoking and dyeing my hair black, neither of which I did. My personality followed me two hundred miles to UMASS, where it turned out I was still me. So why did I feel oceans apart from myself at that Williamsburg party in my very own borough?
    â€œThere you are.” I was greeted with icy eyes as a woman who was apparently the guy’s girlfriend put her arm in his
and pulled him away toward their circle of friends. Um, okay. Was he flirting after all? This happened several other times throughout the night. A guy would attempt dull conversation, and a girl would come over and claim him. Look, I’m not trying to steal your George Michael look-alike, okay! It was new for me, being seen as a threat to other women. We’re not supposed to be enemies.
    I was moping in the corner,