Page 127 of You Are Not Me

Leslie laughed and winked at me, but she dropped the subject as we stepped out of the hot sun and into the shade near the dorms. “When do your classes start, Peter?” she asked.

“Tuesday.”

“One last weekend to party!” She punched my arm lightly and led the way into an open courtyard. “Ours started already, and classes are so much more interesting than high school. I think we’re all going to like it here.”

The dorm was set up like a motel with the doors opening up to the outside area. Music and booming male voices echoed from the open windows all around. Guys milled up and down the stairs, yelling to their friends and greeting each other with chest bumps and high fives.

“Welcome to the boys’ dormitory,” Leslie said. “My building’s over there.” She motioned vaguely north. “It’s the same set-up but with more Sarah McLachlan and fewer testosterone taps.”

“Great,” I said uncertainly, wondering if my nightmare of being stuck in a dorm room with Adam and Leslie alone was about to materialize. I hoped she wasn’t going to spend the night with us.

Adam led us up the concrete and iron steps, shoved his key into the door of room418, and swung it open.

“Isn’t it great?” Leslie asked.

I made humming noises, looking around the big room.

There were two beds made up nicely with blue sheets and blankets. Astronomy posters covered most of the wall space. I hadn’t realized Adam was so interested in stars. Several windows ran across the back of the room, and his desk was already heaped with books. The wall above the desk was fully covered with the photographs I’d given him last year.

As I stepped in to get a closer look, I noticed several Polaroids of me taken at parties over senior year and a few fuzzy pictures of my face Adam had snapped with his dinky camera. The only framed picture, though, was of Leslie, and there were four more pictures of her tacked to the wall above his bed.

“Can you believe he never lets me sleep over?” Leslie said, and I realized she’d still been talking. “He’s heartless.”

I cleared my throat, my skin prickling.

She went on teasingly. “He kicks me out at eleven so he can go to bed. Eleven!”

“Eleven is kind of early,” I murmured.

For the past week, Adam had called me at eleven-ten on the nose. Now I knew why. Our stilted conversations had been so uncomfortable all week that I’d have been grateful for him to have a reason not to call—even if it was Leslie in his bed.

I closed my eyes and swallowed. The weird, uncertain hollowness that had echoed through me after he’d left on Saturday morning opened up again. This weekend wasn’t starting out any better than the last. Not at all.

“It’s not early if you have eight o’clock classes that you actuallyattend,” Adam said firmly.

I held my camera to my eye and snapped a shot of the leafy green tree outside his windows. “I guess you’re right.”

Leslie sighed and flopped onto the bed. “You guys always take each other’s side.” She threw her arms wide dramatically. “What’s a girl to do? It’s so unfair.”

Adam put my bag down on the other bed and then jumped on her. “Oh yeah? How’s this for fair?”

As he tickled her, she rolled and kicked at him, screaming for him to stop. Adam laughed and blew a raspberry on her stomach where her shirt had slipped up.

I watched as though from a distance, a gaping nothingness where the hurt should be. I wished I hadn’t come. I wished I could see Daniel. I wished I could go back to Nashville and dosomethingdifferent.

I wanted tobedifferent.

After making Leslie beg for mercy, Adam turned to me, grinning as he smoothed down his hair. “Okay, enough of that. What’s next? You’re here. Let’s do something awesome.”

Leslie, flushed and beautiful, rolled up onto her elbow. “Okay, here’s the plan. Sarah and I are meeting that girl Rachel from Biochem at the mall. I hope you don’t mind we made other plans for part of the time you’re here, Peter.” She looked worried that I’d be upset.

“It’s okay. I’ll be here all weekend.” The next two days stretched out ahead like a slow arc of more terrifying nothingness. I pinched my wrist to make sure I was still real. Maybe I’d come alive again when Adam and I were alone.

“Yeah! And next weekend too!” She beamed.

I jerked. “What?”

“Adam said you’d be here next weekend too. Our group isn’t complete without you, Peter.”

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