THE RIGHT THING TO SAY

El sat on her bed by the window at the far end of her dorm room, struggling through the second to last chapter of Tracks by Louise Erdrich. While she was normally an avid reader, she hadn’t shown much enthusiasm for the book, and had put off the assigned reading until an hour before her Women’s Lit class began. Spring sunlight filtered through the oak leaves outside, casting a yellow evening glow into the room that would normally have been perfect for reading. But she just couldn’t force herself to be interested in the book, and found herself watching the girls outside coming in and out of the building.
She glanced up as Nicole entered the room, but then forced herself to continue reading, not wanting to make her roommate feel uncomfortable. Nicole was hurting, El knew, but she didn’t want to pry. She knew that Nicole had broken up with her boyfriend at the start of the year, thinking that she didn’t want to be in a relationship during her first year of college. She knew that Nicole eventually realized that she had made a mistake, but Wes had found someone new in the eight months since. She knew that Nicole was thinking about him as she came back to the dorm after classes, just as she’d been thinking about him every day for the past five weeks. And she knew that if she didn’t want to talk about it, she wouldn’t.
El stared at a spot on the page, not reading at all now, as Nicole slumped onto her own bed, her backpack tumbling off the mattress to the floor. She hadn’t assumed a fetal position facing the wall as she usually did, instead staring blankly at the potted plant on her desk. After a few minutes, though, she rolled over onto her side, letting out a heavy sigh as her head sank into the pillow. El still kept her eyes on the book.
“You know how I always seem to run into Wes on the way home?” Nicole began, her voice barely audible with her head nestled in the pillow. “I didn’t today.” She paused for a long time, her body not giving up a trace of movement. “I don’t know why, but that’s almost worse.”
El looked up, keeping the book open. She’d seen Nicole like this nearly every day for over a month. When they had first moved into the dorms, Nicole had been so outgoing, so cheerful. But now, every day after classes, she’d lay in bed staring at the wall, getting up only to eat or occasionally study.
A part of El wished that she could fill the gap Nicole had made when she left Wes, wished that she could make her forget him and be the person she needed. She loved Nicole, she knew; seeing her continue to suffer like this hurt El just as deeply. But she also knew that Nicole wasn’t gay, despite how accepting and comfortable her roommate had been with her sexual preference. She knew that even if she could somehow find the courage to express how she felt, Nicole simply wouldn’t love her the same way. And so instead El wished she knew something that she could say that would bring back the happiness Nicole had lost. She wanted some miracle cure, just a few select words that would make her smile again, and had been searching for the right thing to say for weeks now.
“Do you think he’s happy being with her?” El asked.
She watched Nicole’s side slowly rise and fall with a few silent breaths before she answered. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I can’t really tell.”
“Well, if he is happy, and you love him, then you have to at least be thankful that he found someone that could give him that. But if he isn’t, then you know that his relationship with her will eventually end on its own. You just have to be patient.”
“But why would he ever even take me back?” Nicole whispered, even quieter than before. “It tore him apart when I broke up with him. Why would he want to put himself at risk of that again?”
El thought about this for a moment before she replied. “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer to that. But you still have to try. If he says no, then at least you’ll know for sure. But if he says yes,...”
Nicole rolled back over, looking across the room to El. Her eyes were glistening in the evening sunlight that filtered through the oak leaves outside; tears were building up that hadn’t quite fallen yet, making El forget what she was trying to say. She wanted to get up, to go over to her bed and wipe her tears away. El wanted to kiss her and feel her respond, feel butterflies in her stomach as the fear of not knowing gave way to relief. El wanted to make her happy.
She tried her best to hide the tremor in her voice as she regained her train of thought. “Once you have him back, don’t ever let him go. Spend every moment after that showing him that he made the right choice. Because now you know what you’re missing.”
El shut her book, having only completed half of the assigned reading. She supposed she could bluff her way through the in-class discussion for at least one day. Women’s Lit was starting in ten minutes; she’d have to hurry if she wanted to get across campus in time. “But for right now,” she continued, “all you have is hope, so hold on to that.”
Getting up, she grabbed her notebook and a pen from her desk and headed to the door. In her peripheral vision she could see that Nicole’s eyes were following her the entire way, and though she couldn’t be sure, she thought she noticed a faint smile on her lips as she passed.