“How’s Dev?” she asked.
My smile was slow. “Very, very good.”
She shook her head with a smile, but there were shallow furrows tracing between her eyebrows. “Do you know what this is? I mean…” She hesitated. “Dev’s a great guy. But he’s not exactly the model boyfriend.” She stopped and shook her head. “I just don’t want you getting hurt.”
It hurt that she was worried about my feelings, protecting me like I was a child. But I laughed anyway. “Everyone’s so worried I’m gonna get hurt. Relax!”
She did. A little.
“We’re sort of not really going out, but I don’t think it’s just hooking up.” I shook my head, watching my hair fan out and hit the sides of my face. Nothing she said was going to kill my buzz, my happy. “I don’t know exactly, but whatever is fine.”
And it was. This was fun and stress-free and I needed this.
“If you’re sure.” Her worry had faded and she shrugged. “You seem so…”
“Innocent?” I grinned. “Not for long.”
She shook her head again before sitting and patting the bed next to her. “Spill.”
I sat down next to her, the same stupid grin spreading over my face. “We just made out.” And some shirts ended up on the floor. “It might have gone farther but someone walked by.” I laughed again. God, I must be obnoxious. “He had to meet Alec anyway, so we came back.”
Her earlier worry seemed to have faded into mild exasperation. “Interruptions are everywhere on this campus.”
I laughed. Now this was a shared travesty.
“And if you need condoms, I have some.”
My cheeks turned bright red. I couldn’t decide which was more embarrassing: her assumption or my imagination. “We’re not doing that. Not all of us are pervs like you, Cleo.”
Even if we might kind of want to be. But even if I wasn’t all about losing it to someone I loved truly, madly, deeply, I didn’t want to lose it right now, if for no other reason than I didn’t want to embarrass myself. Besides, I had a feeling it would be mortifying enough, since I also had to face my mom at Thanksgiving, my mom who was supposed to think I was pure and good and virginal-’til-marriage and all of that stuff. There would be time. I hoped. I hoped enough to ignore the part of me that wanted to throw it away tomorrow, tonight, while I had the chance, to go through that rite of passage about which books and movies and songs are written.
Time to change the subject. I eyed the Chinese takeout menu on her desk. “I’m starving.”
“Been burning calories, huh?” She was back to teasing me. “Good thing we’re meeting Amie, Nicky and Scott in half an hour.” She picked her computer up off the floor. “By the way, your roomie’s back. They won their race.”
I groaned, getting up off the bed. Life had been so wonderful there for a second.
6.
People say that dating someone makes the world a place of pastel colors and upbeat background pop music against a montage of kisses and laughs and intertwined fingers. Shocker: they’re lying. Dev definitely didn’t make life perfect, although that may have been because we weren’t technically dating. However, it had definitely improved acting class. I had already hated the stage, but now there was even more reason why backstage was my favorite place to be.
The same skinny Dracula droned a monologue on stage as we watched from backstage. Dev had to go on soon, so we had come out from behind the backdrops the tech kids left stacked in the corner farthest from the stage. While Acting might have improved for me it was the same for the poor freshie. The only thing he had that was at all vampire-like was the pale skin. From the sound of his wavering voice, it probably had more to do with circuit boards than sucking blood.
“I know that, did I move and speak in your land, none there are who would not know me for a stranger.” This time, he didn’t even get through the first three words without his voice breaking. It killed the dramatic effect he was trying for.
I felt pressure on my shoulder as Dev stifled his laughter in the synthetic dark green material of my sweater. I didn’t need to look to know that our teacher was probably shaking his head in despair and the freshman girls behind me were still flirting with the remaining guys. They had gotten over Dev’s absence pretty well.
Really, they were getting over it better than my friends. Dev had quite a history of serial monogamy, and just plain serial. The complete list was never provided, but then again, I didn’t think I really wanted to know. Cleo described it as a revolving door into Casa de Dev. Alec and Scott made bad jokes, Amie offered condoms and Nicky pretended she didn’t disapprove. They were overreacting.
We weren’t actually going out, even if the entire campus knew something was going on—the removal of our Facebook “single” statuses in the same day might have tipped off anyone who wasn’t living under a rock. Mine was now just blank. “It’s Complicated” somehow seemed oxymoronic. Besides, Dev and I were just friends with the ever infamous benefits.
Freshie cleared his throat and continued, back completely straight, legs crossed at a ninety-degree angle. I didn’t actually know that was physically possible. “In a strange land, he is known to no one; the men know him not—and to know not is to care not for.”
Dev’s lips were now doing things on my neck that I didn’t think had much to do with stifling laughter. His arms circled around my waist and pulled me in. I had always hated PDA, but I liked being seen with him. The buzz of gossip whenever his arm was around my waist walking me to class, having the label of being his, was a comforting validation. I was someone to pay attention to.
“I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me or pauses in his speaking if he hear my words.”
I stopped listening. The conclusion was foregone: more vocal cracks, more sighs from our teacher that would have almost been sad if they weren’t so damn funny. Besides, laughing was my first reaction to almost everything right now. Life felt pretty close to perfect. Classes were easy, my grades were good and, more importantly, the seven of us were always doing something. Midnight ice cream orders, dining hall triple dates plus one, and movies on the Green always managed to fill the warm September days very effectively.
It was good enough that I could almost ignore the part of me, egged on by emails from my mother, which actually cared about things like résumés and transcripts and the Common Application. It wasn’t just me; college was omnipresent in the collective student mind. There were, of course, exceptions like Cleo and Dev. Maybe they figured their fates were already decided by average grades, mediocre test scores and a smattering of extracurriculars. That or they genuinely had no interest. I pretended the same nonchalance as they.
Hopefully I pretended well. It was getting easier and easier.
I stayed “involved,” though, whatever that meant. The Community Service club had put signs up around campus with contact information on the bottom. Sending an email was easy enough, and with minimal effort and minor contact, I found myself heading the Concessions Committee for the local Walk for Cancer and organizing transportation to get all the volunteers to the March of Dimes. In the first issue of the newspaper was a meeting time, so I went to the first one, pleading an AP European History essay to Dev.
Somehow, I think I managed to keep anyone from finding out exactly how involved I was. The occasional Amnesty International meeting with Amie and Nicky I could get away with, but the rest there was no way I’d ever tell my friends about. Besides, I kept reminding myself, it’s not like I cared. People were wrong when they said how much I cared about academics. I’d much rather have my friends. This thing with Dev had gone from zero to sixty in nothing and I was still pressed back in my metaphorical seat. A week of sort-of-kind-of-dating at boarding school was very different from a week of dating at normal high school. For a start, we had already taken the first major step in our relationship: we practically lived together. The benefit of that was that, in fourteen minutes, we would be out of this theatre with
forty-five minutes for lunch and a whole campus that I was starting to know better than the blocks between my house and Starbucks.
“From what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be.”
Freshie was in the middle of a dramatic stare down with the stage lights. But even though he looked ridiculous, for once, I couldn’t help listening. I knew strange things all too well. I had always been one. But that was past tense, and the things that were, now, though surprising and unusual and different, could mean this strange thing that had swept me up no longer singled me out. Maybe this thing could be good.
* * *
aDORKable291: biz!!!!!!!!!!!
The familiar instant messenger alert garnered a moan as I pulled myself reluctantly out of an after-school powernap. Despite intense lethargy, I couldn’t help being a little excited. I missed my cousin Erin. We had practically lived at each other’s houses our whole lives and I hadn’t talked to her since I left.
elizabethj: omg i miss u!
aDORKable291: how ru?
elizabethj: amazing!! u??
aDORKable291: aaaaaaaaawesomeeeee
Of course it was. Erin was a year younger than I was and had somehow turned out just smart enough, pretty, thin and popular. She had been eighth grade class president and recruited by the top high school volleyball team in the city, but had turned them down for a prep school with a better college acceptance record and a nine-percent acceptance rate. Basically the story of her life.
aDORKable291: i looove high school lol n my new friends are soooo sweeet. ud luv them because i know i doooo haha
Of course she had new amazing friends, who probably all looked like baby Abercrombie models. But it didn’t help that I understood why. I loved my cousin like the sister I’d never had, and we’d been almost inseparable when we were little. She had always been the Ben (and occasional Tom) to my Jerry.
elizabethj: thats so great!
aDORKable291: when ru coming hooooome
elizabethj: no idea. thanksgiving?
aDORKable291: what bout october?
The last weekend in October was a four-day break. Cleo had already invited all of us to her house.
elizabethj: my friend invited all of us to her house. maybe xmas?
aDORKable291: us?
elizabethj: my friends and my boyfriend
Yes, I’m a liar. So sue me.
aDORKable291: omg!! how long?
elizabethj: 2 weeks. hes amazing
aDORKable291: thats soooo awesome. yay
aDORKable291: i gotta go but ill see u next week!!! i loooove u
Erin signed off before I had a chance to ask her why in the world she was planning to be here next week. An hour later, before I could catch her online again, Cleo reminded me of the festivities awaiting us.
cleom: who hates parents weekend?
Oh. That.
Crap.
7.
Dev was one of the few people I knew who was not moaning about his parents coming. He kept telling me I’d love his mom.
Momma’s boy.
I didn’t see him nearly as much as I would have liked in the days leading up to Parents’ Weekend, but I filled the time going for runs or hanging out in Cleo’s room, trying not to be the pathetic girl with no life outside a guy. Even if I kind of wanted to be that girl sometimes, attached to an equally pathetic guy. Wednesday, after dinner, I found myself caught between cold brick and a hard place, around the corner from my dorm. Not that I was complaining. Unfortunately, there was a conversation Dev and I needed to have, him being so close to his mom and all. I definitely did not have a full disclosure policy with my parents.
“Hey, Dev?”
“Mmm?” He didn’t look up from my neck. I hoped he wasn’t giving me a hickey. As much as part of me loved that it was impossible to hide completely the proof that there was someone to give me said hickeys, hiding more than one could be a problem. Somehow, I didn’t think my parents would buy the burned-myself-with-a-curling-iron excuse. Besides, Cleo was already convulsing with laughter every time my shirt came off to reveal a few of the little bruises less available to the general public.
“Can we talk?”
He propped his chin on my shoulder, letting his hand rest on the waistband of my sweatpants. “Do we have to?” His finger traced, teasing.
I pulled away. Sort of. “One sec.”
“Okay.” He moved his hands back to my hips. “Everything okay?” The space between his brows creased.
“Of course!” I played idly with his unbuttoned collar. “Just…we’re not telling my parents, k?”
He shrugged. “Okay. You sure? My mom’s totally chill with us.”
We were an us now?
And his mom knew?
I nodded. “Short of engagement rings, my parents know nothing. And this, I have a feeling, is thankfully not going that way.”
He laughed. “Thankfully? I’m hurt.”
My mouth brushed the weave of his shirt, rough against dry lips. “Don’t be.”
Silence for a minute. Then, “So we done talking?”
He was always predictable.
Thursday, I arrived in the dining hall a few minutes earlier than our usual six o’clock time. Our table was empty, except for Alec and his unopened precalculus book. The way he was staring into his barely eaten gyros seemed to indicate he felt the exact same way I did. Either that or the uncertain origins of institutional food were even getting to him.
“Everything okay?” My bag dropped to the floor as I slid into the seat across from him. We’d been spending more time together since I started dating his roommate.
He put down his fork, raking a hand through his hair with a slightly sheepish smile. “Yeah. I’m fine.” The odd preoccupation he still had with pushing around his uneaten, unappetizing gyro indicated otherwise.
“Parents?” I knew exactly how he felt.
“You too?” He looked a little surprised. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. “Daddy’s girl” wasn’t exactly the impression I was going for.
I settled for a sympathetic smile. “You have no idea.”
“I think I might get close. And Dev will not stop talking about having dinner with his mom this weekend.” We both laughed. Dev had been talking about seeing his mom for days. Only he could be a proud momma’s boy and get away with it.
“Tell me about it.” I stole a neglected French fry off his plate.
“When he hung up with you last night, he called her.”
I shook my head, caught between amusement and exasperation. “He would.”
“Amie’s with her dad now.” Alec poured more ketchup. “Who I do not want to see. Big ex-football player…” He shook his head.
“Yeah, Dev’s all hurt I won’t let him meet my parents.” Or my cousin.
Alec grinned. “Can I meet them?”
I shrugged. “Why not?” He was just a friend.
The grin widened. “Awesome. He’s gonna be so pissed.”
“And I thought this was ’cause you liked me.”
He chewed a fry thoughtfully. “Nope. Sorry.”
Despite his claims of dislike, Alec walked me back to my dorm after our nutritious dinner of fries and ice cream. It’s not malnutrition. It’s passive resistance after fifteen years of “eat your vegetables.” Plus the gyros were gross.
I had an email waiting from Erin when I got back to my room. I couldn’t not reply and tell her I couldn’t wait to see her either. I could, however, blow off all my homework to watch a movie with Cleo and Amie.
Like I said. Passive resistance.
8.
From the start, the Friday morning that kicked off Parents’ Weekend was not a good day. The shower was cold, my hair would not straighten, and the vending machine was out of Diet Mountain Dew. Figured.
The campus was unnaturally green and flowery, something I noticed even through the haze of caffeine deprivation. Alec had said that Fa
cilities snuck out in the middle of the night to plant extra flowers and spray-paint the grass the night before the parents came, but I hadn’t really believed it. Guess I underestimated the commercial appeal of emerald-green grass.
My parents were gushing about campus from the moment I met them at the front gate, ten minutes before my first class. Erin made them easy to pick out. The long blond hair and longer legs made her hard to miss. I felt disproportionate and badly dressed, even though I’d tried on three different uniform polos before being satisfied. She had probably thrown on her denim shorts and button-down in thirty seconds, and hadn’t bothered to conceal the sprinkling of zits over her forehead. Proof that the world is by no definition fair.
It really was good that turning green with envy was purely metaphoric, since I was somewhere between “puce” and “evergreen.” At least I might have blended in with the grass.
The genuine smile that spread across her face when she saw me instantly made me feel like a horrible person. Even if it was alleviated somewhat by the guys blatantly checking out her legs. The scars on her left knee from a break in second grade didn’t give any of them pause. Somehow, anything wrong with her always just faded away.
I gave her a hug before turning to my parents. I’d gotten my average features from my self-employed mother, my average height from my doctor father and my above-average brains from some unfortunate combination of the two. The only thing which certainly hadn’t come from either of them was any kind of social skill. It was only a matter of time before one of them said something embarrassing, and my dad was already wearing a batik-print shirt.
“Math’s across the quad.” I pointed. “We need to run.”
Erin grabbed my arm as we followed other parents toward the brick math building. “Bizza, it’s gorgeous. How do you focus?” Her enthusiasm was irresistible.
“I don’t.” I grinned. “Probably bad. But whatever. How are you?”
“I’m amazing!” And she was off. Before we made it to math, I’d heard about her awesome friends, her awesome school and her hot and awesome boyfriend. It would have been harder to listen to except that, for the first time, I had all of that too, even if the assuredly hotter Dev still wasn’t technically my boyfriend.
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