Miracle Girl Part II

 

         I know from the outset that my plan is crazy.  It's not the kind of thing you catch yourself coming up with when you're thinking straight.  I recognize that even as I stare out over the mass of college students, wondering what's possessing me to try this.  My determination is so fiery, I'm scared it's suddenly going to shoot off sparks and burn somebody.

          Miracles happen when you make them happen.  There are more than 30,000 students that go to school here.  That makes the chances of running into any one person who isn't in any of your classes two days in a row close to nil.  Which means that if this final project is going down the way I want it to go down, I'm going to have to do something to straighten out the odds.  That's why I'm out on campus a couple hours before my first class, standing self-consciously in the middle of the most-passed-through part of the university, jumping at the slightest glimpse of blonde hair.  I figured out that if several hundred people pass me every thirty minutes or so, at the worst it should take just under 40 hours of this to find her.  Luckily the purple-eye-girl's hair is long, straight and very light blond, so that makes it easy to rule out a majority of passersby without having to chase all of them down.  I still feel like I've missed her half a dozen times, though, even when my mind tells me there's absolutely no chance that she was as short as that curly-haired should-have-been-a-fashion-model that's disappearing into the distance.

          I tough it out for about an hour until I'm so sick of just standing there that I can't take it anymore and head to class early.  The class is Anatomy, which up to this point has been the biggest threat to my dream of becoming a heart surgeon.  I need good grades to get into med school and honestly, some nights when I'm trying to pound the names of knee ligaments into my sorry skull, I wonder if it's all worth it.  But then I remind myself that it's the only thing I've ever wanted to do with my life and that usually gives me the drive to push through the next assignment. 

          So here I am, sliding into my usual seat three rows back, trying not to think about my score on the last pop quiz.  The kid next to me, Jarren, shoots me a questioning look, but I shake my head.  He's has been working on a way to swindle test questions from the TA's.  What scares me the most about it is that he's offered to let me help him several times.  I can't bring myself to say yes, but I haven't turned him in, either.  The possibility hangs between us in a tantalizing mist, becoming ever more tempting as the semester progresses.  If he asks me again, I'm not sure that I won't give in.  I turn back towards the teacher, Dr. Orozco, trying with all my might not to cast another glance sideways.

          Besides the grades, the other reason why Anatomy elicits more of my attention than my other classes is because Lydia, a high school friend and, more to the point, one of Mara's roommates, is in the class as well.  She sits down one row behind me and my willpower only lasts about thirty seconds before I find myself swiveling around in my seat to talk to her.

          "She still hasn't said anything about you," she says before I even get the words out.  "I think you just need to ask her out again and see what she says."

          I turn back around, feeling monotony swarm over me like a persistent disease.  Life is disgustingly uneventful as always.  I'm already itching to get away, and class hasn't even started yet.

          I'm the second or third person out the door when the bell rings, walking as quickly as I can to the other side of campus.  It's occurred to me that if Miracle Girl normally studies in the library, it might be easier to catch her there than anywhere else.  I wander around the fourth floor for a few minutes, trying to remember exactly where I was yesterday before recognizing a shelf of Swedish manuscripts that leads me over to the group of tables I'd been sitting at.  I scan the faces of everyone in the near vicinity with a quick sweep of the eye.  She's not here.  My heart plummets, even though I recognized this as the most likely outcome from the get-go.  I sit down and pull out my homework but find that I'm too distracted to pay any attention to it.  I while the time away staring between the lines of a Shakespearean tragedy  until it's time for my next class.

          Have I just now become this apathetic about the day-to-day sequence of living?  Or has my life always been this dull?  The rest of the day drags by at a snail's pace, even during breaks between classes when I spend most of the time hurriedly scanning the faces of those around me, looking for Miracle Girl.  To punish myself for slacking off earlier I hit the books extra hard as soon as I'm done with classes.  I check all of my answers twice.  After all, a single test question could make the difference between a B- and a C+ in the class, and how would I get into medical school then?

          That night I log onto the student directory.  I don't know the girl's name, but each entry has a picture next to it so I click through them one by one, starting alphabetically.  I can go through an entry every few seconds, but there are so many of them that it's easy to get overwhelmed.  As much as I hate to admit it, my enthusiasm for the project is beginning to wane.  How can I ever expect to find her again?  Is it really even that important?

          After half an hour of it I'm starting to feel like a stalker, so I click out of the website and roll back onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling.  What I'm doing is ridiculous.  I should just give it up and become one of those students that Dr. Blinns was talking about that skates by on the final project just to get it over with.  I could talk about how I changed my roommates lives by keeping the apartment clean or something.

          A buzz next to my head interrupts my train of thought.  I glance over at my nightstand and see that Matt has just texted me.  Call of Duty?

          I text back a quick yes and reach for my jacket.

 

 

          "What's new?"  Matt asks as he demolishes me for the seventh time in a row.

          Oh, you know, I'm trying to find a girl that I don't even know so I can change her life.  Not that she even needs it, as far as I know.

          Thinking of it like that makes it seem even stupider that I had ever seriously considered doing it in the first place. 

          "I don't know what my sociology professor is thinking.  The final project for the class is to change somebody's life.  What kind of final project is that?"
          Matt lowers the game controller and looks at me quizzically.

          ”Change their life?  Like how?  Like being a positive role model?"

          "I don't even know.  I don't know how he  expects us to come up with anything."

          I'm expecting Matt to jump to my side and start bagging on him too, but instead he thinks thoughtfully for a moment and then says, "You know, for me, the people who have changed my life the most helped me see the good things that were already a part of me.  Maybe you could try something like that."

          I stare back at him.  "How would I do that?"

          Matt shrugs.  "I don't think there's one cut and dried way of doing it.  I think it comes down to watching someone carefully until you can see what makes them special, and then trying to bring it out of them more.  So maybe you could pick someone that doesn't know how amazing they are and help them see it better."

          My thoughts jump immediately to Mara but I know instantly that she isn't the one.  She knows exactly  how amazing she is.  Maybe I could find someone like that, though, since it seems like Miracle Girl is out of the question.

          "Maybe..." I say, turning back toward the screen.  I'm going to have to think about this one.

 

          I'm a big fan of college sporting events.  They're my main outlet for stress.  There's just something liberating about getting lost in someone else's world that makes you forget  the sting of your own.  This time it's Paul, one of my other roommates, who I've dragged along with me.  Dragged is an overstatement of course, but clearly I'm the more sports-driven out of the two of us.  Especially when it comes to men's volleyball.

          "I don't know, it just seems like a girl's sport," he says, looking on doubtfully as number 16 steps up to the line to serve.

          "You have no idea," I tell him.  "In a few minutes they'll be pounding that ball hard enough to break bones."

          One of the reasons why I have such a vested interest in volleyball in particular is that I happen to know that Mara goes to every game, and I also know from an inside source (a.k.a. Lydia) that she usually comes a little late and sits in the left-had section.  In fact, I'm on a mission tonight.  To show myself that I can do what I put my mind to, I'm going to ask her out face to face.  I'm determined this time.  Nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention.

          Scree!  The whistle shrieks, and number 16 sends the ball spiraling over the net.  I catch a glimpse of Mara slipping through a door on the far side of the gymnasium and my heart leaps.  It's game time.

          I get up and slide past Paul to the end of the row.  Paul pulls in his legs so I can get by without commenting.  He already knows what this is about.  I square my shoulders and head down the cement stairs toward Mara, measuring my steps carefully so that we'll arrive at the bottom of the bleachers at the same time.  A girl with blond hair steps out onto the stairway in front of me, forcing me to slow down.  What was it with these girls with blond hair, lately?  From behind, she almost even looks a bit like the girl I saw in the library, if you turned your head the right way.  I try to move past her, but there isn't enough room so I have to keep going slowly.  Down on the floor, Mara is getting close to where the leftmost row of stairs starts.  If I don't get there quick, this is going to get very awkward extremely fast because I'll have to squeeze past a whole row of people to talk to her.  If only this girl in front of me would speed up.

          My honesty gene kicks in again and I realize that somewhere in my brain I think it might actually be the girl from the library, even though I know that's impossible, right?  Actually, that ring on her right hand looks a little familiar...

          "Taryn!" someone calls out from the row beside us.  The girl turns her head and I see instantly that it isn't her.  Brown eyes.  I curse my own gullibility.  Stupid miracles.

          I finally reach the bottom of the stairs, but by now Mara is sitting down, surrounded by a group of friends, and my heart fails me.  My only chance is to grab a seat somewhere in the vicinity and hope she gets up to use the bathroom or something during the second or third set.  It's a long shot, but it's all I got.  I spy an empty spot two or three rows down from her next to a nerdy-looking kid with glasses.  I climb the stairs quickly and claim it, training my eyes back on what is sure to be the longest volleyball game I have ever watched.

          It turns out that my bladder reaches its limits before Mara's does, partway through the second set.  I make my way out of the gymnasium as quickly as I can manage, wanting to be gone for as short a time as possible. 

          There's a loud thumping noise as I turn the corner onto the main hallway outside the gymnasium.  It takes me a minute to realize that it's coming from the women's restroom.  There's a maintenance cart directly in front of the door, probably left there by a careless janitor.

          "Do you need help?"  I call out.

          "Yes!" comes the muffled reply. 

          I lean my shoulder up against the cool metal of the cart and push with all my might, but the cart's heavy and it barely budges.

          "How long have you been stuck in there?"

          "Not long.  What's wrong with the door?"
          "There's just something in front of it."  I give the cart another push, but to no avail.

          "I got it."  I turn to see some guy that looks remotely like Arnold Schwarzenegger walking swiftly toward us.  He takes my place and, with what looks like about fourth of the effort I exerted, easily pushes the cart out of the way.  Feeling like a weakling, I swallow my pride and pull open the door.

          The first thing I see is blond hair.

          SERIOUSLY?  I scream in my mind at the Powers That Be.  Can you PLEASE quit toying wi-

          And that's when I see her eyes.
 

Part III to come on Monday, June 30