We walk in and find seats in the back of the lecture hall. While we wait, the gentle clatter of laptops being placed on desks and jackets dropping onto empty chairs gradually dies down. I feel like an interloper, but in a good way. Like I’m meant to be here. I’m only early.
The professor launches into a review of what I’m guessing is the entire semester’s coursework. I listen, swept up, following the thread she’s tracing of how words work and evolve, how language relates to psychology and philosophy and literature. It’s captivating.
Sitting beside Juniper, our shoulders pressed together, I feel a thought steal slowly over me. The interest I have in words could be more than a marked-up dictionary, more than a vocabulary my brother finds odd. It could be an entire future.
Juniper
FITZ IS FLIPPING through a linguistics book while we wait in the student center. He loved the class, which I knew he would. He even went up to the professor at the end of the lecture. I watched from the door, unable to hear the conversation and entirely adoring the obvious interest illuminating Fitz’s expression, the animated way he nodded and hung on to the professor’s every word.
She recommended a few books for him to read, and we went directly from her class to the campus bookstore. The bookstore clerk, a junior named Daniela, helped us find the books, and we ended up talking while Fitz decided which one he wanted. She told me about nearly missing a final because she’d driven to New York City to see her favorite band the night before, and her easy, confident rebelliousness reminded me of my cousin Luisa. I found myself wondering how Luisa’s liking UC Santa Cruz and if she ever gets lonely so far from home. I don’t know if talking to someone with the subtlest accent like my aunts and uncles was unexpectedly nice, or if I just miss my cousin, but I decided I would call Luisa when I get home.
Now Fitz and I are waiting for Lewis, who’s meeting us for dinner after doing who-knows-what today in Pittsburgh. The guy is a master of giving us space. I steal a glance at Fitz, wondering if he’s going to call his mom. He normally does whenever we have extra time. He hasn’t today, though, and I can’t help thinking he’s uncharacteristically comfortable taking time for himself, getting distance from home.
While Fitz reads, I look up directions to Washington, D.C., for our drive tomorrow. Pittsburgh was considerably out of our way, but thinking of the lecture and Fallingwater and what happened at the waterfall—the detour was completely worth it.
I hadn’t planned on kissing Fitz. At least, not consciously. I realized it was inevitable when he was right there in front of me, finding the perfect words for the waterfall and for us, being exactly the person I needed. Truthfully, I’ve been replaying the kiss in my head the entire day. The way his surprise melted into wanting, the way he kissed me slowly, like we were skirting the edge of something desperately wonderful. I was right—he was a deliberate kisser. But before long he shed the deliberateness, and neither one of us was in control. We collapsed into the rush of being together. It felt like we weren’t below a waterfall but on top of one, and we’d just embraced each other and thrown ourselves off.
Bickering from the adjacent table yanks me from the reverie. I glance over, irritated. It’s a couple fighting, I think. The girl is a gorgeous blonde with a perfect tan and effortlessly cool clothes. The boy has unruly brown curls, and he’s wearing a T-shirt that reads NAUGHTY DOG.
The girl throws her fork down and shoves her plate away. “The food here is terrible,” she declares. “I don’t know how you stand it.”
“It’s not terrible,” the boy replies. “It’s just not LA.”
LA. It explains the girl’s Urban Outfitters style and the magazine-cover bronze of her skin.
“Exactly,” she shoots back.
The boy sighs. “Then go home, Cameron. I don’t know why you’re even here.”
“Fine. You want to do this now?” She leans back, and from where I’m sitting, it looks like the girl—Cameron—very much wants to do this now.
“I don’t know what this means,” the boy says, exasperated. “We already broke up. A month ago. It’s over.”
I glance at Fitz, not wanting to hear this, yet I can’t help but listen. I don’t want to think about breakups. Not now. Not yet. Fitz looks focused on his book, and I consider getting up and joining him on his side of the table, immersing myself in philology instead of dwelling on fights and distance and endings.
“You broke up with me in the middle of a fight,” Cameron says, crossing her arms. “I had more to say.”
The boy lets out a harsh laugh. “You flew across the country to get the last word in an argument?”
“Yes,” Cameron says simply, like it’s reasonable.
The response nearly cracks the boy’s anger, but he finds it again quickly. “What did you want to say, then, Cameron? We tried long-distance. It didn’t work. You said yourself you weren’t happy.” There’s heartbreak in the way the boy admits it. I can tell he’s still hurting over it, over losing her.
Cameron furiously wipes tears from her eye. “Stupid,” she says under her breath, like she’s frustrated by the show of emotion. “I’m not even sad,” she tells the boy. “I’m mad. I should’ve been the one to end this.” She looks upward, no longer meeting his eyes. “I still can’t believe Brendan Rosenfeld dumped me.”
“I can’t believe I dumped you either,” Brendan Rosenfeld replies. “Everyone from Beaumont must be reeling.” They share a look, and this time it’s not bitter or despondent. It’s halfway to humorous.
Then Cameron’s face falls. “Paige told me you weren’t coming home for winter break. She said you’re doing some winter program and staying with your roommate’s family for the holidays.” She self-consciously runs her hand through her sun-bleached hair. “That’s why I flew across the country.”
“You didn’t wonder if you were the reason I didn’t come home?” Brendan asks. “I knew seeing you would be hard, and I was right.”
I glance up, hoping Lewis will walk in and deliver me from having to overhear the rest of this disastrous conversation. He doesn’t. The student center remains nearly empty, and there’s nothing I can do to block out Cameron and Brendan.
Cameron frowns. “Yeah? Well, too bad,” she replies harshly. “Because sometimes being with the person you love is hard. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes you’re unhappy. Sometimes you need time to adjust to your formerly reclusive boyfriend now having fifty million friends who are stupidly smart and, in certain cases, frustratingly attractive.”
“You think it was easy for me when you started college?” Brendan’s voice is low, his eyes fixed on hers. “You think I enjoyed hearing about the fraternity parties you would go to with your sorority? No.”