Page 68 of Rules for Rule Breaking
He had the bottle he’d stolen from Eugene in his lap and a devilish look in his eye. “We already missed the tours I’d scheduled for us, and our parents only allowed us one extra day.”
Winter eyed him suspiciously. “So?”
“SoI’m tired from driving, I’ve recently been broken up with, I dropped a bomb on my family by visiting Eugene, and I honestly want to see Kai’s cousin Omari more than I want to see more buildings and statues of old white men,” Bobby said. “Let’s turn these tours into a drinking game.”
Winter put her hand on his forehead to check for a fever. “Are you feeling okay?”
Bobby slapped her hand down. “I feel great. I want to have fun and enjoy our last day in this road-trip bubble.”
She took two water bottles from her bag. “Let’s do it, then. We have about an hour before most of the buildings close to visitors.”
Bobby poured the jet fuel–smelling alcohol into the water bottles. He took one and held it up to Winter for a toast. “To bad decisions we’ll one hundred percent regret later.”
“Amen,” she said, knocking her bottle to his.
Winter took a sip, and heat seemed to rise in her belly and expel from her mouth as she let out a throatyahh. The warmth settled back down and rested behind her navel. Her entire body then became hot, and she was alert, firing on all cylinders.
They speed-walked down the street toward Harvard. They agreed to pick one thing that they wanted to see at each school, and that’s where they’d go. The catch was, they had to find it without a map. Whoever found it first got to count (as slowly or as quickly as they desired) to three while the other drank.
Winter got distracted by the colonial-style row houses with their big bay windows and thick crown molding. Many of them were run-down and crumbling. While she was busy staring, Bobby took the lead.
His choice was a setup anyway. He picked Harvard Yard, which was probably the biggest, most recognizable place there. They had to find an empty Luxembourg chair and take a seat to win.
She walked as fast as she could without running to catch up to Bobby.
“On your left!” she yelled as she sped past.
He held out his arm and scooped her back behind him. She was shocked by how strong he was. It took her off guard, and as soon as she tripped over her own foot, she decided to let Bobby win. Herthighs were burning, and she’d have shin splints later. She stopped near the mouth of Harvard Yard and marveled at the life happening around her. The students looked much more diverse than at her and Bobby’s high school. For the first time, she felt like she was looking at a mirror instead of through a window.
She ambled over to Bobby, who was seated in the center of the lush green courtyard in a yellow Luxembourg chair. He was grinning as he soaked up the energy Cambridge was giving off. She pulled up a red chair and did the same.
“What do you think about Harvard? Have you been shot by Cupid’s arrow?” Winter asked.
He was slumped over, picking grass and splitting the blades apart. “I hyped it up so much in my mind, and now that we’re here, it’s just another set of bricks. I don’t know what I expected.”
He was right in a way, but Harvard did have a certain life about it that she hadn’t anticipated. She expected to be rubbing shoulders with trust-fund babies and that she’d see the child of a politician or celebrity walk by and have to pretend to be cool. It wasn’talllike that from what she could tell. There were clusters of students gathered, deep in conversation. Winter couldn’t hear them, but she presumed they were talking about whatever smart people talked about: world politics, philosophy, or religion. Or they could have been talking about the most recent episode ofThe Bachelorfor all she knew. It seemed like there was more room tobethan at their high school. She could see herself fitting in. She could see Bobby fitting in too.
Winter scooted her red chair closer to him. “I think I’m coming to realize that schools are a culture, and you and I both know you can never fully learn a culture even if it’s your own.”
Bobby shook his head. “You’re so smart, it’s infuriating.”
Winter smirked. “I’m also a loser. I have to drink.”
“Your funeral. Drink up. I’m counting to three.”
Winter tipped the bottle to her lips, and Bobby started counting like he’d forgotten how. By the time he got to three, her throat was on fire. She gagged but held it together long enough for it to go down. It burned through all the garbage she’d eaten and sloshed around in her stomach, reminding her of how hungry she was.
“That wasn’t nice,” she said, then burped loudly and unceremoniously. It was probably a psychosomatic reaction, but she felt the alcohol almost immediately.
Bobby was in stitches as he watched her. After he took a solidarity swig, though, he had to bite back his prepared quip. With his face contorted, he said, “I kind of hate this too.”
“You know what would make it taste better?” Winter asked. Bobby raised his eyebrows in anticipation. “If we threw it in the trash and got bubble tea instead.”
“Agreed. But no tapioca balls. They’re just like the grapes.”
A few minutes later, with a lychee green tea with aloe vera jelly and a fifty-percent-sweet boba-less taro milk tea with soy in hand, Bobby and Winter were off to find the next thing on their list. The attraction Winter chose was the passenger pigeon exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
Bobby had longer legs and a faster gait, so Winter pretended to fall. When Bobby went to help her up, she pulled him onto the grass and took off. She ran into a main plaza with rust-colored buildings and a columned church with a white steeple touching the sky. Winter asked a few passersby where the museum was and raced in that direction. She looked back, and Bobby was gaining on her. He ran by her, so she jumped on his back and hitched a ride.
