“Why do I have more confidence in you than you do?” Serena asked as we sat at a table in the back of the tutoring center.
Ha. Story of my life right here. I had little to no confidence in my ability to pass this final exam. Passing this exam meant I would pass the course. A sixty-five on this exam meant a sixty-five in French 102.
D meant done as far as I was concerned.
I didn’t feel confident in what I’d learned. I didn’t feel confident that I could get through the final with a sixty-five. I wasn’t confident in myself at all. I felt so totally knocked down and dragged out. I wasn’t confident in Hudson’s original strategy of focusing on the vocab and not on the listening. I wasn’t confident that I would finish on time. I wasn’t confident that I could keep my attention off Hudson and on the test.
“There is so much pressure to pass this. I literally feel like I’m dying,” I said as I opened my hand to her and received three penguin gummies in return. I popped them all into my mouth at once.
“Are you sure that feeling isn’t from everything going on with you and Hudson?” she asked.
I may have still been upset with him, but passing French was the priority. Passing French was the most important hurdle. I couldn’t even consider making things right with him until I knew my French fate. And I did plan on making things right with him. Something inside me said that time would help. That I could take the time I needed to figure out a balance. That maybe we could move forward as friends.
“Honestly, I can’t even with him right now. This is my priority. This is where my head needs to be,” I said, tapping my stack of flash cards. Except my head was not on French, it was exactly where Serena said it was: on Hudson.
I sighed as I followed her lead and started gathering all my study materials.
“So, I got this thing,” Serena said, biting at her bottom lip as she swiped at her phone. “And I think you should see it.”
I dropped a handful of highlighters into my bag as I watched her.
“It’s, um—” She handed me the phone. “Just read it.”
I held her eyes as I took her phone, swallowing hard before looking at the screen.
HUDSON: Your photo series was incredible. You deserved to win.
HUDSON: I should have told you when I was at the gallery, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you, sorry.
SERENA: Thank you
SERENA: It’s ok. I understand.
HUDSON: Is it possible for me to have copies of those pics?
SERENA: Of course
HUDSON: I guess I’m a glutton for punishment
SERENA: Just so you know, she is, too
HUDSON: I saw that you had the collection titled “Falling in Love,” but may I suggest a different title?
SERENA: Haha. Yeah, real creative. I know. Sure.
HUDSON: Avec la douleur exquise
SERENA: You’re gonna make me google that, aren’t you?
“What does it mean?” I asked.
Serena shrugged as she extended her hand to take her phone back. “Google Translate was no help. I thought maybe we could ask Makenna,” she said, throwing a look over her shoulder.
I pursed my lips as I watched Makenna working on the computer, her back to us.
“Can you translate something for us?” I asked Makenna, nodding to Serena to hand Makenna the phone.
“Yeah, of course.” Makenna looked at it and then up to me. A small smile started in the corner of her mouth and then spread to take over her whole face. “Who wrote this, Hudson?”
I nodded.
She shook her head, blushing as she looked at the phone again. My eyes went to Serena and then back to Makenna.
“I tried to google it, but it didn’t translate to anything that actually made sense. ‘With exquisite pain’?” Serena said.
“No, it wouldn’t,” she said, handing back the phone. “Avec la douleur exquise literally translates to exquisite pain, yes, but that doesn’t really do it justice. It comes from the medical word for a pain that opiates can’t even dull. In life and love, it’s used to describe the indescribable pain of knowing you cannot have the person you love.”
I looked from Makenna to Serena. I could see it in both of their faces. They were both swooning.
“Stop,” I warned Serena, knowing she was going to use this as yet another reason for me to get on with it and make up with Hudson … and potentially as a name for the collection. Considering the circumstances, it was a fitting name, I had to give him that.
“Can I be honest for, like, one second?” Makenna asked, interrupting the silent conversation I was having with Serena.
I shrugged. “Sure,” I said, knowing that there was pretty much nothing she could say that could make this situation any more awkward.
“I don’t know if Huds told you this or not, but I asked him out last semester,” she said. “We went on a couple dates, but it didn’t work out, obviously.”
I nodded slowly, wondering where she was going with this.
“This isn’t him.”
“What do you mean?” Serena asked, since I wasn’t quick enough.
“I mean, he must really be in deep with you, because the Hudson I know would never have written something like this. He never would have opened up like that,” she said, her eyes moving from me to some point over my left shoulder. “Trust me.”