is so put together, yet so close to my age.
“I don’t know about talent, but you’ve definitely got skills,” Rio adds. “That one run during ‘Shut Up and Drive’ was hell—that arranger must hate woodwinds—and you nailed it.”
All eyes are on me. Rio has an incredulous look, while Dani’s pointing at me.
“I told you!” Dani says. “I tapped out about three notes in.”
I respond with a glance at my cider, then say, “It’s nothing, really. There was this arpeggio drill I used to do that was similar.”
Rio laughs. “I bet. Tell me again why you’re not in the academy?”
My cheeks flush with heat. “Decided to take a different path. That’s all.”
The conversation they ease into is stilted, brief, as if they don’t really know what to talk about when they’re not discussing class. Ajay’s explaining how he fell in love with Scandinavian rap, which is a thing I wasn’t aware even existed until now. But otherwise, it’s clear that even if they’re a bit cliquey, this friendship is relatively new and malleable.
I still feel a little out of place here—especially when I catch Pierce whispering to Rio, then meeting my gaze—but I feel a calmness come over me too. The table is a mix of so many races, cultures, and sexualities, and it feels like the most normal group in the world.
Some people back home would hate this, or at the very least be uncomfortable. They’d try to cover it up with strained smiles but inevitably say something off, a comment that points out our differences, regardless of the many similarities that bring us together.
They’d want us to feel like we’ll never truly belong. But here … it’s clear that everyone belongs.
“Marty, Sophie,” Pierce says. “Help us settle this debate. From your perspectives as foreigners—”
“Oh, I never asked,” I cut in, looking at Sophie. “Where are you from?”
“I’m a Kiwi, y’idiot.”
I stare blankly at her.
“New Zealand. Christ, Marty.”
My cheeks burn as the others laugh, but she gives me a smile and an elbow nudge to make sure I know she’s just joking.
“We’re planning out our weekend trips,” Pierce continues. “Before the end of the summer, we want to go to three different places—we decided on Brussels, Belgium, and Cardiff, Wales. For the third, I want to go to Florence, Dani wants to go to Copenhagen, and Ajay says anywhere but Scandinavia because he’s going to Denmark for a convention later this year.”
Dani shakes her head. “If we go to Italy, my mother will demand I come back to Malta and visit. I’ve visited three times a year since I moved in with my aunt, and that’s plenty.”
“Keep complaining about the pound,” Ajay says, “but I dropped so much more money than I planned to on that convention because of the exchange rate in Denmark. The krone is obscene.”
I turn and see Sophie, clutching her beer, looking altogether uncomfortable. I wonder what it is about this group that intimidates her. Everything stresses me out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to be here for the length of a conversation.
And when I pan from Sophie to Shane, I see the similarity in their expressions, and I wonder what I’m missing. Then Shane swaps seats with Ajay to sit next to me, and whispers in my ear.
“Sorry, should’ve warned you. They talk about travel a lot. They’ve already taken a couple weekend trips. But with my bookstore shifts, I can never go on these things.”
I look back to him and nod, thinking about the low funds in my bank account. I’m not traveling either. I don’t mind them talking about it, but I guess this is my big travel. Shane’s lived here forever and he doesn’t even get to leave.
“Marty, what do you think?” Pierce asks. “Where would you go?”
“When I was younger, I used to be obsessed with the idea of international travel.” I clear my throat. “That probably sounds dumb here, where international travel is a thirty-minute flight away, but it’s a little different in Kentucky. My mom lived in Ireland as a kid, but we only traveled internationally once and my parents couldn’t even handle that.”
Where am I going with this? I take another sip of my drink.
“Anyway, I used to go to garage sales, yard sales, whatever you call them—I don’t even know if you have them here. And I’d get any travel books I could find. I’d practice drawing flags of countries I’d never even heard of, like Lesotho or Luxembourg.”
Looking around, I see a