This is coming from a place of complete friendship and has nothing to do with any potentially non-platonic hopes I may have, but I feel like you’re not the type to pick a college for a guy.
I read the text once, then twice, each time with a twist in my gut. Fitz has known me for two days, and he recognizes this fundamental truth of who I am. My boyfriend of over a year . . . doesn’t. I don’t want to contemplate the questions that realization brings.
I glance up from the phone, finding Matt chatting easily with a guy in a UConn soccer sweatshirt who’s holding a pile of new notebooks. Matt says something, and the student laughs. I’m not surprised. Matt’s the life of the party. Not only the “party”—the life of the campus bookstore, the lunch table. It’s why I fell in love with him.
It’s why I still love him.
I watch him, adoration warring with whatever hint of reluctance I felt when he brought up going to UConn together. I don’t blame him for wanting college to feel the way high school does. I’ve loved high school. I’ve loved high school with him. Finding notes he’s written me stashed in my locker, sitting in the bleachers at his games, having him help me poster for pep rallies.
It’s not that I don’t cherish those memories. They might even be the best I’ve ever had. But I don’t know yet. I need to explore, try new things—with him and on my own—and uncover memories I can’t begin to imagine now. Matt might not understand I crave those opportunities, the wide-open world college could represent. Every day, I wonder if he’ll only ever want the Juniper he knows. The Juniper of the past.
And that frightens me. I feel the fear in little perforations when we’re kissing or he’s waving to me on those bleachers or we’re walking out of house parties hand in hand. They’re would-be perfect moments, punctured until I force myself to forget the dread it’s not exactly me he loves. Only this me. Now me.
I unlock my phone and begin replying to Fitz.
But I don’t finish the message. I won’t write this relationship off. Not that texting Fitz would be doing that—I just can’t deny that somehow this new friendship feels like a tentative move in that direction. I won’t close my eyes while the current knocks me off my feet and pulls me toward the unknown.
Matt’s a good guy. He deserves my trust, and my efforts to try to make it work. No matter where he and I end up, I can give him that.
I put my phone away, leaving Fitz’s text unanswered.
Fitz
LEWIS DIDN’T QUESTION what changed my mind. We devoured the doughnuts and got on the road to Wesleyan by eleven, following Mom’s itinerary. With the radio on and the heater cranked, we left Rhode Island in the rearview.
It took every iota of my self-control not to text Juniper immediately. I could acutely feel my phone in my pocket the entire drive, its weight pressing into my thigh. It was an onerous test of willpower to resist texting her when I took my phone out upon entering Connecticut to tell my mom we’d nearly reached our next destination.
I respect Juniper has a boyfriend. Besides, I would be deluding myself to imagine one night under the stars, trading my dictionary back and forth, is the foundation for an epic romance involving two people who don’t live in the same state or plan to go to the same college and who couldn’t be more fundamentally different.
But her number is a promise. Of what, I don’t know. Something I don’t know how to define yet.
We’re in a diner outside Middletown when I finally decide I’ve waited a respectable amount of time before texting her. Though it’s a little past noon, the Monday lunch crowd is thin. In the booth opposite me, Lewis is scrolling on his phone, looking bored. I pull mine out and open a message to the number I’ve had programmed in since early this morning. Keeping the message brief, I ask Juniper where she’s visiting.
The waitress brings plates of burgers and fries for Lewis and me, but I hardly taste the food because I’m distracted by Juniper’s incoming texts. The conversation continues, and like last night, it’s easy. She says she’s visiting UConn, and that she wouldn’t mind if we ran into each other again. I fight the thrill those words spark in me.
“You texting a girl?” Lewis asks. I don’t reply. “Yeah, you are,” he crows, apparently finding whatever confirmation he needed in my silence. What’s infuriating isn’t his confidence. It’s him being right.
“A friend,” I clarify coolly. I reply to Juniper, wanting to know why she’s excited to visit UConn.
“The best girlfriends are often friends first,” Lewis points out.
He’s obviously trying to project older-brother wisdom and experience with girls, which ordinarily I would permit without interrupting or bothering to reply.
Not today. Not with Juniper’s reply staring up from my phone screen. Instead of chasing dreams and following futures the way she described yesterday, she’s visiting UConn because she wants to follow her boyfriend. Meanwhile, I’m here with my brother, who I had to watch grind up on the random girl he found at Brown last night.
The twin frustrations put fire into me. “Is that what Prisha was?” I ask, terser than I intended.
Lewis glances up from his phone, his eyes narrowed but not exactly surprised. I get the sense he does remember our conversation from last night. It was the first time I’ve come close to losing my temper with him. Now I’m near losing it again. When he was home, we’d fight over stupid stuff, but I’ve hardly ever stood up to my brother on real things. I don’t know what’s different, but something is.
“Yeah,” he says evenly, following a moment’s pause. “She was. She lived down the hall from me freshman year. I think we collectively hooked up with the entire rest of the hallway before figuring out how we felt about each other.” He dips a fry into his ketchup. “But we did,” he continues, “and I had to put an end to random hookups. For a little longer, anyway.” He winks, and once again, I’m irritated.
I put down my burger. “Why do you do that?” I ask calmly. The anger hones my questions into needle points.
Lewis studies me. “Do what?”
“You ask me about girls, or tease me or whatever, or tell me about your gorgeous conquests.” I give him a look that I hope comes off pitying or dismissive. “Is getting laid the only thing you care about?”
“When you get laid, you won’t ask me that question,” he replies.
I’ve had enough. I’m tired of Lewis treating me like I’m nobody because my life doesn’t resemble his. I’m really tired of him playing everything off like it’s easy or a joke or insignificant. The only people who never get frustrated are people who don’t care.