I draw the curtains.
Folding open my half of the covers, I crawl underneath, the hotel linens stiff and unfamiliar. They’re comfortable, but not comforting. Within minutes, I hear Matt drift into sleep.
I want to close my eyes and have tonight become tomorrow. But I don’t want to ignore my family. Reluctantly, I grab my phone from the bedside table.
Marisa’s message is first. I grudgingly agree to be her chauffeur on New Year’s Eve. Then Callie, who I tell to look for her phone charger in Mom’s car. I throw in a text to let Mom know we got into Boston fine, and I even offer Walker use of my computer when there’s a parent in the room.
Finally, there’s only Tía’s text. Don’t forget your family needs you and you need your family. This is the difference between Tía and my parents. My parents, my practical and even-tempered mother in particular, understand there’s tension between how connected they want me to the family, emotionally and logistically, and knowing I need space to grow up. It’s why they deflect Tía’s guilt trips, when they remember to. But Tía has an uncompromising zeal for the hope I’ll never really leave home.
I reply without giving her an inch.
Glad you’re figuring out texting. It’ll be great for communicating when I’m in college, xoxo.
Before I even hit the pillow, my phone illuminates with new messages.
I turn the phone over with a long breath through my nose, wishing on every light in the skyline for just one week to myself. One week without obligations, without expectations, with my family’s permission to live a future outside the four walls of home.
I know what life would look like if I did what they wanted and went to college closer to home. First, living in the dorms would be a debate. They’d want me home. Then, every weekend would be a battle. Whether I had to be home for dinner, whether I was obligated to come to this family event or that. Whether I made enough time for Marisa, Callie, Anabel, or Xan and Walker, no matter whether I’m in finals or rushing a sorority or running for student body president. I’d be fighting to write my own answers to things they didn’t think were questions.
My family would have me believe there’s nothing worthwhile outside the role they’ve handed me. But when I look toward the window, imagining everything beyond the curtains, I see a different view. Every idea, every world, every possibility is out there waiting for me.
Fitz
I WOKE UP in a terrible mood. The blanket Lewis tossed to me yesterday, monogramed with the name of a consulting firm, barely covered me through the night on my brother’s creaky black futon. The fabric bore disconcerting stains, and I tried hard not to speculate on their origin.
By eight in the morning, when my phone chimed on the coffee table, I’d woken up twice before in the night. Once when Lewis inexplicably left the room close to midnight, then once more when he returned hours later with two roommates and they protractedly discussed FIFA 19 for PlayStation. I don’t know how Lewis got used to this indeterminable cycle of emails, random hookups, and nighttime video-game talk. But if forced nocturnality is a fundamental of dorm living, it’s one more tick in the not interested column.
Things did not improve when I went into the bathroom to shower. They’d left the roll of toilet paper on the floor, and I’m pretty certain it’s because none of the guys know how to replace it. The cramped cubicle of the shower wasn’t completely covered by the flimsy curtain. One glance and I knew nobody had cleaned this room in a while. Needless to say, I took a quick and to-the-point shower.
Following a breakfast of dry cereal—the milk in the fridge was profoundly expired—I grab my backpack and head for the elevator. I don’t cross paths with my brother, which is fine by me. The folder my mom prepared says I have the BU information session at ten this morning. No way Lewis will wake up before noon. I know Mom will call later wondering how the session went. But I have thirty minutes before I’m due at the admissions building, and I plan to spend it not thinking about college and Lewis and next year.
I rub my eyes in the elevator, my disbelief having not entirely faded over how nice this place is. The doors open, and I wander into the foyer filling with students holding textbooks and thermoses. I’m going to read in a coffee shop. I helped myself to the copy of Henry James’s The Bostonians on Lewis’s bookshelf, the crisp pages evincing it was clearly unread. The choice felt fitting. I walk through the glass double doors into the breath-catching cold of the gray morning.
Halfway to the curb, I hear someone shriek.
I whip my head in the direction of the sound. The source isn’t difficult to find. In the middle of the courtyard, I see a girl examining the fresh coffee stain seeping into one corner of her cream-colored cardigan. Her parka is unzipped, and the coffee trickles from her exposed sweater onto her jeans. The person with whom she presumably collided watches sympathetically, holding his Starbucks cup with lid half off.
Coffee. My mom and dad’s story flits through my head. I wonder if this is the beginning of something life-changing for this girl and Starbucks guy. If I’ve just witnessed a real-life meet-cute. If—
The thought evaporates, because the guy continues on his way, walking hurriedly like he’s late. The next instant, a hulking blond guy walks up behind the girl. He’s like a fourth Hemsworth brother. While he inspects the stain with a dire expression, he places one hand on the small of her back. Boyfriend, I immediately read in the gentle gesture. Definitely not a meet-cute, then. The way the guy is watching her holds an intimacy, a familiarity drawn from considerable time together.
I’m close enough to hear their conversation.
“Asshole,” the Hemsworth-boyfriend mutters, eyes fixed on the Starbucks guy’s retreating form.
“It was my fault,” the girl replies immediately. Despite myself, I notice she’s strikingly pretty. Her heart-shaped face frames dark eyes, with freckles dusting her light brown skin. Errant flyaways of her wavy chestnut hair escape from her ponytail. “I was distracted. Too busy looking at the dorms.” Even as she’s speaking, her eyes return to the campus surrounding us. Her fascination radiates the kind of intensity I thought only existed in fiction. She studies everything with enraptured eagerness—everything except the sidewalk. I now understand how the coffee incident happened.
“Well,” Hemsworth says, “we should go back to the hotel so you can change.”
“No!” Her eyes dart to him. “We’ll be late.”
“But your sweater—”
“It’s fine,” she interrupts. “I’ll just take it off when we’re inside.”
“You sure?” he asks doubtfully. “It’ll stain if you leave it too long.”