Yoko Ono
Megan and Nicolai were in the same comparative literature class. He sat two rows behind her. He wore a shirt and tie to class every day, and his hair would appear wet-looking from whatever hair styling product he was overusing. Megan thought he looked like a Mormon missionary with his array of short sleeve shirts and skinny neckties.
The other students, in contrast, looked like they’d gotten dressed in the dark — mix-matched socks, shirts inside out, hoodies that hadn’t been washed in weeks. Some of the girls, like Megan, preferred to wear their hair in messy, top buns that resembled abandoned nests.
But Nicolai was different. He stood out from the crowd. He’d caught Megan’s eye early on in the semester after she’d overheard him speaking to their professor. Nicolai had an accent, but she couldn’t yet place it. She’d initially thought Russian, then Romanian.
Nicolai was a mystery to Megan. And she was always a sucker for a good mystery, and accent. Her previous boyfriend was from Boston, and played defense for their university’s hockey team. She adored his accent as well, and thought it cute how he had no filter:
“Look at that Chowdahead, not using his blinkah.”
“Hey Meg, where’s the clickah?”
“Your sistah is wicked-hot.”
That no filter-thing would end up proving a problem for Megan after all. She went from thinking it was “cute” to “crazy.” Unable to withstand another day, Megan quickly ended things with the Boston hockey player right before an important game, and the team subsequently lost, disqualifying them for the semi-finals. The entire hockey team, including the coach, would go on to blame her for their losing the game. As a result, Megan’s reputation around campus had gone from “cool chic” to “Yoko Ono” overnight. No guy would glance her way, let alone ask her out on a date. It was like she had a sudden case of bad juju.
One morning, Nicolai dropped a piece of crumpled up paper directly in front of Megan’s feet as he walked to his seat. She reached down, and picked up the small paper-snowball, then turned around in Nicolai’s direction, who’d just sat down.
“O-P-E-N,” he mouthed to Megan.
She nodded, then gave Nicolai a half-smile, not sure of the note’s contents.
Megan slowly read what Nicolai had written:
At least I had that, one guy understood me.
— Yoko Ono
