“Why did you do this?” I ask. “We were only supposed to spend ten dollars.”
Ms. Thompson moves from pair to pair, commenting on all the gifts. When she reaches us, she sees Jenny’s red cheeks, the vacuum-sealed bag of cheap coffee fallen out onto the floor, the guilt all over my face.
“Mmm, what a nice gift!” Ms. Thompson says, so enthusiastic I think she’s talking about the gift certificate, but she means the coffee. “As far as I’m concerned, you can never have too much caffeine. Vanessa, what did you get?”
I hold up the gift certificate and Ms. Thompson gives a thin smile. “That’s nice, too.”
“I have homework to do,” Jenny says. She picks up the coffee with two fingers, like it’s something gross she doesn’t want to touch, and leaves the common room. I want to say more, to shout after her that the only reason she wants anything to do with me is because Tom broke up with her, and that it’s too late because I’ve moved on. I’m doing things now Jenny wouldn’t even be able to imagine.
Ms. Thompson turns to me. “I think it was a thoughtful gift, Vanessa. It’s not just about how much money you spend.”
I realize then why she’s being nice—she thinks I’m so poor that a three-dollar bag of coffee is all I can afford. The assumption is both funny and insulting, but I don’t correct her.
“Ms. Thompson, what are you doing for Christmas?” Deanna asks.
“Going home to New Jersey for a while,” she says. “Might take a trip to Vermont with friends.”
“What about your boyfriend?” Lucy asks.
“Can’t say I have one of those.” Ms. Thompson steps away to check out some other Secret Santa gifts, and I watch how she clasps her hands behind her back and pretends not to hear Deanna whisper to Lucy, “I thought Mr. Strane was her boyfriend?”
One afternoon Strane tells me my name originated with Jonathan Swift, the Irish writer, and that Swift once knew a woman named Esther Vanhomrigh, nickname Essa. “He broke her name apart and put it back together as something new,” Strane said. “Van-essa became Vanessa. Became you.”
I don’t say it, but sometimes I feel like that’s exactly what he’s doing to me—breaking me apart, putting me back together as someone new.
He says the first Vanessa was in love with Swift and that she was twenty-two years younger. He was her tutor. Strane goes to the bookshelves behind his desk and finds a copy of the poem Swift wrote called “Cadenus and Vanessa.” It’s long, sixty pages, the whole thing about a young girl in love with her teacher. My heart gallops as I skim the poem, but I feel his eyes on me so I try not to let it show, shrugging my shoulders and saying in my laziest voice, “That’s kind of funny, I guess.”
Strane frowns. “I thought it eerie, not funny.” He slides the book back onto the shelf and mumbles, “It got under my skin. Made me start thinking about fate.”
I watch him sit at his desk and flip open his grade book. The tips of his ears are red, like he’s embarrassed. Am I capable of embarrassing him? I forget sometimes he can be vulnerable, too.
“I know what you mean,” I say.
He looks up from his book, light glinting off his glasses.
“I kind of feel like this whole thing is destiny.”
“This whole thing,” he repeats. “You mean what we do together?”
I nod. “Like maybe this is what I was born to do.”
As my words register, his lips start to tremble like he’s trying hard not to smile. “Go shut the door,” he says. “Turn out the lights.”
I use the pay phone in the Gould common room to call home the Sunday before Christmas break, and Mom says she has to pick me up on Tuesday rather than Wednesday, meaning an extra day of break, an extra day of no Strane. It’s hard enough getting through a weekend without him; I don’t know how I’ll manage to survive three weeks, so when she tells me this, it feels like the floor opens up beneath me.
“You didn’t even ask me! You can’t just decide that you’re going to pick me up a whole day early without asking me if it’s ok.” My panic gains momentum and I struggle not to cry. “I have responsibilities,” I say. “There are things I have to do.”
“What things?” Mom asks. “Good lord, why are you so upset? Where is this coming from?”
Pressing my forehead against the wall, I take a breath and manage to get out, “There’s a creative writing club meeting I can’t miss.”
“Oh.” Mom exhales like she expected something more serious. “Well, I won’t get there until six. That should give you enough time to go to your meeting.”
She takes a bite of something and it crunches between her teeth. I hate how she eats while she talks to me, or cleans, or has conversations with Dad at the same time. Sometimes she’ll take the phone with her into the bathroom and I don’t realize until I hear a flush in the background.
“I didn’t know you liked that club so much,” she says.
I wipe my nose with my sweatshirt’s dirty cuff. “It’s not about me liking it. It’s about taking my responsibilities seriously.”
“Hmm.” She takes another bite, and whatever it is rattles around in her teeth.
On Monday, when Strane and I sit in the dark classroom, I won’t let him kiss me. I turn away and twist my legs out of his reach.
“What wrong?” he asks.
I shake my head, don’t know how to explain. He seems completely unbothered by the upcoming break. He hasn’t even brought it up.
“It’s fine if you don’t want me to touch you,” he says. “Just tell me to stop.”
He leans in close, peering at me, trying to make out my expression in the dark. I can see the darting shine of his eyes because he’s not wearing his glasses—ever since I told him they hurt my face, he takes them off before we kiss.
“As much as I wish I could, I can’t read your mind,” he says.
His fingertips touch my knees and wait to see if I’ll jerk away. When I don’t, his hands creep farther up my thighs, over my hips, and around my waist, the casters of the chair squeaking as he pulls me close. I sigh, lean into him, his body like a mountain.
“It’s just we’re not going to be able to do this again for so long,” I say. “Three whole weeks.”
I feel him relax. “That’s what you’re sulking over?”
It’s how he laughs that makes me start to cry, like I’m being ridiculous, but he thinks it’s the idea of missing him that’s making me so upset.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, kissing my forehead. He calls me sensitive. “Like a . . .” He stops and softly laughs. “I was about to say like a little girl. I forget sometimes that’s exactly what you are.”
I turn my face deeper into him and whisper that I feel out of control. I want him to say he feels the same, but he just continues stroking my hair. Maybe he doesn’t need to say it. I think of his head in my lap the afternoon we first kissed, how he moaned, I’m going to ruin you. Of course he’s out of control; you have to be careening to do what we’re doing.