PART III - HELEN

Sofia stared at me.

I felt like myself again, and I didn't mind. Stare right away, girl.

"Let's start on the assignment?"

In the living room, I quickly folded the blanket I had forgotten yesterday and put the sofa cushions in their place.

"Have you already read through the agenda?" I asked.

Sofia sat down cross-legged next to the coffee table. "Yes."

I couldn't help but smile. She actually did put in the work. Yesterday, in the evening, I had read through my diary. The four points I had put down were still in my head.

One: She is a good student.

Two: We are supposed to get to know each other.

Three: She gets things done.

Four: It is not her intention to ruin my school year.

I thought of another one:

Five: This is her project too, of course, she wants to deliver good work.

By reading through my diary, I remembered when Sofia said "Have Mercy" at our first encounter and I watched the first few episodes of Full House. The characters already had all my heart.

"I started watching Full House," I blurred out and regretted it instantly. What if she didn't remember that she referred to Full House? What if she hadn't made a reference and I remembered it wrong? What if she got the wrong impression and thought I cared about every word she said to me?

But she didn't let on a thing, only said: "I love that show! What do you think?"

"It's super funny. I love the 90s aesthetics of it."

She had a smirk on her face I couldn't place.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Nothing. It's just – I never thought you'd be into comedies."

I scoffed. "Why not? I mean, yeah, I read Shakespeare – which is peak comedy by the way, and I will fight everyone who's saying otherwise – and Hemmingway – who was a real downer – and all this other pretentious literature. But it's nice to just shut off. Laugh a bit."

She grinned and said: "I feel the same way."

I looked down at out assignment and gestured her to do the same. The rest of the afternoon before the rehearsal, we worked dedicatedly on our project.

On our way back to school, she asked me: "Why don't you have a car?"

I opened my mouth but didn't actually know what to say. "It's complicated. Maybe it's because I failed my driving test two times? Three times. My dad thinks I'm a safety hazard for my environment."

"You can't get better if you don't practice."

"I think he's just afraid that something's gonna happen to me." I don't think he would get over it if I died. When I looked at the way he changed since Mom is gone...

"You could die when someone else is driving."

I sighed irritated. "Also, owning a car is terrible for the environment."

"But flying to Europe in the summer is not?"

I didn't respond. Instead, I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

"Oh, come on," she said, "I just said that for the argument's sake."

"I don't have an argument."

"I can give you a moment to formulate one if you wanna continue," she said in a peculiar tone that reminded me of something.

I had watched this scene a hundred times – and hoped I was right about where this was going. I asked, "Master and Commander."

"The movie?"

"No, that's what I want you to call me from now on."

She laughed. "So you're that kind of person who learns scenes by heart?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I am the kind of person who was obsessed with Gilmore Girls at the age of thirteen."

"Oh yeah, me too."

I still didn't look at her, but her laugh was so contagious that I couldn't help but smile.

"Logan was the superior boyfriend," I said.

"Na-ah," she protested. "I'm team Jess all the way."

"Why? He was a terrible boyfriend. He just left – twice."

"Logan made her steal a boat. She dropped out of Yale because of him. And he cheated on her."

"First of all, she wanted to steal that yacht. Secondly, it was his father who was responsible for her dropping out. And, they were on a break!"

"Now you sound like Ross," and then she said in a mimicking voice, "We – were – on – a – break!"

_________________________

If you don't know where the scene is from, watch this from 1:35 or simply watch Gilmore Girls as a whole cause it's amazing.

And here comes the famous "We were on a break".