I should be irritated. I should be annoyed with Alice for asking a stranger to join our lunch. But I can’t be. Because our waiter is back with a glass of water for Colin, and Colin’s fingers are playing with the sleeve of my T-shirt, and Alice is grinning like mad, and the waiter is blushing, and maybe Saturday isn’t such a bad day after all.
“So, what’s Colin’s story?” I ask Alice when we finally make it back to our room. We spent the better part of the afternoon reading the paper in the quad at the center of campus. While I know that eventually I’ll have to face Zeke, it was kind of nice to hear from Alice that he’d said he would be off campus today and I didn’t need to worry about running into him.
Alice plops back onto her bed, grabbing her Moleskine. Which means I have about ninety seconds before I lose her to the poem brewing in her brain. “He’s great. You know the type. Volunteers at a soup kitchen, helps old ladies cross the street, the usual. Totally comfortable with his sexuality, at least from the outside. He was actually the first person to ever come out to me.”
I hate that the sensation in my chest isn’t disappointment; it’s relief. Because whether or not I would be willing to admit it, I was trying to force myself to be interested in cute, flirty Colin. But given that he’s not straight, I don’t have to use any time we spend together convincing myself I’m romantically interested in him. Especially since he’s exactly the type of intense artist I came to Huntington to meet. Well, except for not being straight. And the fact that clearly the only part of me that was excited by the possibility of Colin was my brain.
Because stupid Zeke has crawled into my stupid heart and won’t leave.
“I liked him a lot,” I say lamely.
“He’s great,” Alice admits, flipping over onto her stomach and uncapping her fountain pen. “But what about Zeke?”
Not helping there, Alice.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I’m grasping at straws here, hoping that the poem brewing in Alice will eventually pull her away from this conversation.
“Even if Colin wasn’t gay, he’s not the guy you’re interested in.”
“I don’t think Zeke’s all that interested in me, and let’s be honest, smart painter? Far more my type than a sports fanatic.”
“Don’t run towards someone else because you’re scared you’re falling for Zeke. It wouldn’t be fair to him or Zeke. And also? It’s not fair to you.”
Her words hover between us, each of them true and shaped like a knife.
That night, Alice and I forgo the trip to see fireworks and rent a bunch of movies instead. I know I should probably encourage Alice to go outside, hang out with other people, make more friends. But today I’m selfish, because I’m just as happy to hide in our room.
“Why don’t you invite Colin to watch with us if he’s not going with everyone else to the lake?” I suggest as we arrange our fabulous pile of candy and popcorn, all selected because they fit our red, white, and blue theme. I mean, just because I don’t want to go outside and potentially see Zeke with another girl doesn’t mean I don’t want to celebrate America becoming a country.
“Tell him we’ll let him choose the movie,” I yell as she suggests he come over.
“No way,” she says. “I want to watch a romantic comedy and daydream about the cute waiter and whether he’s actually going to call me.”
“Of course he’s going to call you,” I say, tossing my pillow at her head. “Do you think he just asked for your number for a bigger tip?”
“Maybe?”
“You’re a dolt.”
Alice lifts her finger for a moment and then flips off her phone. “He’s coming.”
The smile that expands across my face is genuine. If I can’t hang out with Zeke, watching movies with Alice and Colin is an awesome second choice. And maybe a good distraction.
Colin, Alice, and I are well into our second movie when the knock interrupts us. Surprisingly, Colin left all movie choices up to us, but we aren’t mean enough to make them all chick flicks. So we almost don’t hear the knocking over the sound of the gunfire on TV. Well, also because my head is buried under my comforter because I’m not as good at action movies as I pretend to be.
But when Alice yells, “Come in!” I hear a voice that causes my stomach to flip. It’s quiet, but even over the sound of gunfire, it does bad things to my heart rate. Maybe I can stay with my head buried under the blanket and Zeke won’t even know I’m here.
“Hey, Alice. Colin.” There’s a pause and the movie goes quiet. Stupid Alice, leave the damn movie on. “Abby.”
With the movie no longer on, it’s hard for me to remain under the covers. Unless maybe I pretend to be asleep. “Abby is apparently scared of bad Harrison Ford movies,” Colin says, his hand sliding down my back to tickle my side. After three hours on my bed, we’ve become quite comfortable together. Which was fine until Zeke walked into the room.
But Zeke clearly knows Colin, so maybe he knows that he’s gay. Or maybe he thinks I found someone new. Either way, I wish I could go back in time by ten minutes or so and fall asleep, because no matter how many hours have passed, I still can’t bear to look at Zeke.
He apologized for the kiss. The kiss—the magical moment in the middle of Chutes, the moment that should be the subject of movies and books—he said it was a mistake. He went into the bathroom and came out a different person. He came out Outside Zeke, the Zeke who walks out of girls’ rooms. Harsh Zeke.
I miss French Zeke.
He apologized for kissing me. A mistake. Une erreur.
Slowly, I slip my head out from under the covers where I’m lying next to Colin’s leg.
I wish I could look Zeke in the eye, make it clear that I’m fine, but even I’m not that good an actress. “Hey, Zeke,” I say to the doorknob, just to the left of where he’s now standing. Except his hand is still holding the doorknob, tightly. Very tightly.
“I just came by to say hi,” he says uncertainly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your movie.”
“Join us,” Colin says, pointing to the space near my knees. “Tell Abby to stop hogging the whole bed and there’ll be lots of room for all of us.”
Zeke’s knuckles are white, and I finally drop my gaze, unable to keep watching. “I’m actually heading out with some of the folks on the floor. I just wanted to make sure Alice was okay.” His voice is thin, cracked, and splintered, and I glance up in time to see the door swing shut behind him.
“Am I missing something?” Colin asks, and Alice glances over at me.
“You should go after him.” She’s no longer smiling and my stomach flips again because I know she’s right. But maybe this is best.
“Can you turn the movie back on?” I whisper, and Colin rubs my back, and I have no idea what happens at the end of the movie. Only that I’m sure it’s not Harrison Ford’s fault that I want to cry.
THIRTEEN
I’VE NEVER BEEN QUITE SO interested in the differences between the nutritional value of orange juice and grapefruit juice as I am this morning. Orange juice: 110 calories. Grapefruit? Only ninety. Twenty-two grams of sugar in orange juice as opposed to seventeen in grapefruit. Orange juice, in French, jus d’orange. Basic, uninspired. Grapefruit juice, on the other hand, is the always entertaining jus de pamplemousse. What kind of a word is pamplemousse?
And why Zeke won’t move out of the front entrance of the corner grocery store so I can grab my effing juice, whether it be orange or pamplemousse, is beyond me. Why won’t he stop laughing and high-fiving with some big guy with an almost-shaved head, the two of them in T-shirts and shorts, clearly on the way in from a run? And why does he have his arm slung around my next-door neighbor Chloe’s shoulders?
That’s the real question. That’s the question that has me hiding in the dairy aisle, thinking about just guzzling down both juices, begging a stock boy (do they even have stock boys anymore, never mind on the Fourth of July long weekend?) to help me find a back exit. Chloe’s pale blond hair is in a ver
y high ponytail and while she’s clearly light on her feet, right now she seems to be finding every excuse to lean against Zeke’s side.
Which is none of my business.
I don’t know how to say none of my business in French.
I don’t know, and I don’t have my dictionary, and I wish even Colin-who-is-not-interested-in-women were here so I could almost maintain my dignity. Because right now Chloe is making silly faces at Zeke and if I ever make it out of this grocery store, I’ll need a lot of sugary coffee. A lot. Especially since Zeke has caught my eye and is waving me over.
The only good thing is that that makes Chloe look even less happy than I am.
Alice’s eyes widen when I walk into our room with two big bags of groceries.
“I thought you were just craving orange juice?”
I don’t quite know how to say that the only way I could explain that I didn’t want to walk back to the dorms with Zeke, Chloe, and Bald Guy was that I was shopping for a bunch of things. But then Zeke waited. So Chloe waited. And Bald Guy—aka Chris—waited.
And now I have two big bags of groceries, including crackers, fruits, bagels, and chocolate. And breads. And cheese. For some reason, lots of cheese.
The good news? I had people to help me carry my bags.
The bad news? I forgot about the juice.
“I have a big test Tuesday morning in French so I thought I’d gather some snacks for a study party,” I say, unloading my assortment of foods.
“How many people are you studying with?” Alice opens the box of water crackers and squeals when she sees the cheese. “I love Laughing Cow!”
La vache qui rit. My first French phrase and that was only because it was on the cheese box.
Smirking, I throw a roll over to her. “I also have bread with raspberry jam and brie. And olives. And grapes.”
“Picnic?” Alice asks, shoving her notebook in her backpack.
“So long as I can actually study, sure.”
By noon, we’re in the middle of the quad, a couple of blankets covering the grass, and Colin, Alan (Alice’s cute waiter friend), and two girls from our hall are camped out with us. Everyone has brought food, and thank god, Colin brought orange juice.
On the other end of the quad I see a few guys tossing a football back and forth, and girls pretending to be cheerleaders.
It’s the swishing blond ponytail that has me peering closely to figure out that it’s Chloe out there. Chloe in a tight tank and white bobby socks. Which means the redhead is Stephie. And the guy that both girls are tackling? Blond curls and a baseball cap, a worn pale blue shirt, and long shorts. Zeke. He lifts them one at a time with his left arm, and I wonder how much his right side is hurting.
But it’s not my business. It’s not my business because it’s clearly not bothering him enough to stop, and he’s got lots of girls to fawn all over him if that’s what he needs.
And plus, it’s summer in New Hampshire and the air is clear, the sky blue. It takes a lot of focus to not just lie out in my shady little corner and drift off. Especially since I’m lying beside a seated Colin, who is sketching. Falling asleep to the scratching of his pencil across the thick pages of his notebook would be easy. And delicious. Far better than staring at a game of football across the quad. But instead, I turn my back to Colin and begin creating sentences and conversations in my head for tomorrow’s test.
The restaurant. Le restaurant. Easy.
“Bonjour. Je voudrais un café au lait avec—” I murmur.
Merde. How do I say toast? I flip open my Larousse, searching the yellowed pages. Of course. Toast is pain grillé.
I practice my basic vocabulary, scanning the picnic blanket for ideas. Bread, pain. Raspberries, framboises. Cheese, fromage. Juice, jus. Baguette, baguette.
I’m not in the mood for this.
“What are you working on?”
I shut my dictionary and roll to face Colin. “We have a test Tuesday where we have to have a restaurant conversation. So I need to make sure I’m on top of all my foods.”
“How does that work?”
He’s dropped his notebook between his open legs and splays his hands out behind him. His fingers have smudges of charcoal on them, and there’s paint on the thumb closest to me.
I wonder what he looks like when he’s painting, if the gaze that is so intently on me is focused on the canvas.
“We get a situation on a card and we have to act it out in partners. Our teacher plays the waiter and circulates through the mock cafe.”
“Interesting.” He smiles, and I try to fall into it but I fail. “I wish I spoke French. I’d be happy to help you study.”
“Mind if I join you?” Zeke is standing on Colin’s other side, and he looks uncomfortable, out of place. There’s no lazy smile now, none of what I saw at the grocery store this morning. None of the lightness from across the park.
Except the pale blue shirt I could only see from a distance has a picture of Darth Vader with World’s Best Dad written underneath. He didn’t buy it on our shopping expedition, so I wonder if he bought it after our trip or had it before.
Stupid Zeke with his stupid cute T-shirts.
“Where are Chloe and Stephie?” I ask, and I hate that those words came out, hate the way it hollows my stomach, hate the look that passes across his face.
He shrugs, his shoulders so tight they barely move at all. “I think they had to go study for their microeconomics midterm.”
There’s something about the fact that I’d believed they were taking Introduction to Basket Weaving that has me feeling like a terrible person. A terrible, judgy person who believes that women who have unblemished skin and short skirts are somehow less capable.
Or a person who is terribly jealous.
“Join us,” Colin says. Colin, who apparently is the only one who hasn’t lost all common sense. He scoots down the blanket we’re sharing, leaving a spot for Zeke near my head. Zeke stares at me uncertainly, and I nod.
“Of course,” I say.
Zeke bites the corner of his lip, hard. He glances around the blanket, like he suddenly realizes this is a terrible idea and he’d like to be anywhere but here. Which is pretty much exactly how I feel.
“Can we eat now?” Alice calls out. “I’m hungry, and I’m tired of waiting.”
I scramble up so quickly I give myself a head rush. Zeke grabs my arm as I sway slightly. “You okay?”
I nod quickly. The grip of his fingers on my arm reminds me of Friday night. But then it was both hands holding me. The butterflies explode in my stomach, and I hate that it’s his body I want, his grip.
I know why Chloe kept leaning into Zeke.
Chloe. Right.
Stupid Zeke.
“I should help Alice with the food,” I mumble, pulling my arm from his grasp. He’s wearing his Chucks, not the running shoes he had on this morning. I love his Chucks.
“Let me help.” His words are soft and gentle, like they’re meant just for me.
But what about Chloe? What about—
“We can use it as an opportunity to practice our French for the test.” His words are rapid now, tripping over one another, squeezing out the available spaces where I could interrupt. “Est-ce que tu veux manger du pain avec du fromage?” he asks, his voice halting.
I glance up to meet his eyes, and there’s a pleading there I don’t recognize.
Like this is important beyond the dumb dialogue and our test tomorrow.
“Oui, merci.” I nod. We can do this. We can make today about practicing for class; we can get back on track. Because this feeling when we’re together? It makes my body feel alive and even if it’s nothing, even if that kiss is the only kiss we’ll have, I want to be near him, I want this awkwardness replaced with the easiness we used to have.
FOURTEEN
MY EXCUSE FOR KEEPING MY phone off at the library the next day is that it’s the rule. Turn off your phone, the sign says. Only apparently, I’m the only one who can read
that sign.
So instead of hours spent actually reading The Little Prince in the original French or the dozen pages of French poetry I should be preparing for this week’s discussions, I’m listening to someone talk in detail about his hookup last night.
If I’m being honest, though, I’ll admit that his tone of voice might be exacerbated by my general irritation with all things Huntington.
And all things hookup.
And specifically the difference between spending an hour laughing in French with Zeke and studying French by myself, in the library. Sure, it’s all in French, but then again, a drizzle and a category-three hurricane are both weather events. Like A and Z are both letters, though the distance between them is the whole alphabet.
Maybe I should start avoiding Zeke outside of class time. Starting tonight.
Or rather tomorrow, since apparently Zeke, Colin, and Alice are all hanging out in our room.
“Hey, Colin.” I smile. “Alice.” I pause, because I shouldn’t be looking at the floor when I say his name, but the world’s not perfect and we do what we can. “Zeke.”
I could be graceful. I could pretend nothing happened. But apparently I lack all social grace and common sense. Instead I glare at Alice.
“Your phone was off.” Alice shrugs, her fountain pen still scratching away at her notebook. “Apparently you told Colin you guys were going to meet up tonight? And apparently Zeke thought you had plans to study—”
“We didn’t have plans.” I pivot to face Zeke, who’s biting his bottom lip.
“I might have misremembered,” he mumbles.
She’s still scribbling in her notebook, and I want to stop her and tell her how impressive I’m finding it that she’s able to be in this tiny room with two boys and still write poetry. Because two weeks ago I can’t imagine that she would have. Never mind talk and write at the same time.
But there are more immediate problems. Namely the two boys on my bed.
Sur mon lit. Zut.
Thankfully, both seem uninterested in talking. They are mostly staring.
“I’m sorry, both of you. I need to get some sleep.” I turn to Colin. “Can we make plans for another night?”
The Distance from A to Z Page 11