I went to see your mom before I left. My mom took me to the house. She looks good. Your dad wasn’t around, so I didn’t get to say goodbye to him, but I’m sure I’ll see him during my fall break. That was part of the deal with my parents. We pre-booked every single one of my flights home for the semester. I get to come home four times. The first one isn’t for about a month, so that’s going to be hard. Of course, I also have to get on an airplane. Alone. I know I don’t have to explain any of this to you. I guess that’s why I write.
Wish you would write back.
Love, Rowe
He won’t write back. He never does. But that won’t stop me from writing him. I move my curser to log out when the sound of a new message startles me. My mom is really the only other person I connect with on Facebook anymore, but that’s not whose picture I’m looking at right now.
It’s a picture of Nate, on a beach somewhere, without a shirt. I don’t think that man ever wears one. I click it open, my hand shaking with nerves, and my brain starting to slow from the effects of my dose of sleeping medicine.
So the first message I sent went to a girl named Row. She was twelve, and that was awkward. And I’m pretty sure her parents have now put me on a block list since her mom was the one to intercept. Anyhow, found you. Rowe, with an e…at least, I think this is you? Wanted to see if you wanted to check out the area with me tomorrow? Take a walk, around 11? Let me know.
-357 ;-)
I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do any of this. And I’m not in a good place for this. Flirting is one thing. It’s harmless. I could make that a hobby. Not that I’m good at that either, but making plans? Plans lead places. And I can’t go places—places feel like relationships. And I definitely don’t know how to do relationships, having had an entire one in my life. Besides, I would just be someone’s poison.
I shut my laptop and push it away from me, like a child does to a plate of vegetables. The crickets are still chirping outside, and in the distance I can hear the music pumping from someone’s apartment balcony. If I listen closely, I can almost make out the sounds of girls giggling and guys celebrating. Maybe it’s all in my head—the soundtrack I’ve imagined for college, based on all of the movies I’ve seen. Or maybe it’s real. I’ll never know because I’ve kept myself on the periphery, too afraid to be in the middle. I hate myself for being so afraid.
My hair is still damp, so I reach under my bed for a dry towel to cover my pillow. When I catch my reflection in the window, it gives me pause. Nothing about me is extraordinary. My hair is long and straight—the color of a pecan, just like my eyes. I used to be good at sports; I was on the tennis team before I left the school system, and I continued to play with my dad, so my body is lean. I’m nothing like Paige—things on me don’t curve, and there is nothing voluptuous happening. Taking my personal inventory has me laughing at myself now, and laughing hard.
Nate probably won’t remember me in the morning, and here I’ve gone and imagined some crazy scenario where we’re a couple, leaps and bounds away from reality. I’m one of a handful of girls to arrive to the dorm so far; a pleasant waste of time until something better comes along. And if anything, he’s a potential friend, and maybe my only hope of upping my number in my inner circle from one—if Cass even counts yet—to two.
I know that in about two more minutes I’m going to become so sleepy that I might accidentally agree to donate all of my organs to Nate, so I open the screen on my computer and type fast, using this strange mix of rationality and courage that has suddenly taken over my body.
Sounds great. I’ll meet you at the elevator.
-333
Chapter 3
Nate
I know the second he finds out Ty is going to give me shit. She’s totally my type. I know I have a type. People have types for a good reason, to help weed out all of the jerks on earth. And my type looks exactly like her.
I have pretty good instincts. It’s why I’m a catcher—I can anticipate the bad pitches, the short swings, and what the batter is going to do. But my instincts run deep. I can read people off the field, too. And Thirty-three? She’s not the kind of girl that spends an hour getting ready to go out for the night. She’s blue jeans and T-shirts. Burgers and fries.
Her fingers were bare—no annoyingly long fake nail shit or sparkly colors. She was wearing an old T-shirt to bed, not some special outfit that probably costs more than everything in my closet. And, while I know this would probably mortify her that I noticed, her underwear was simple—plain-white, cotton. Not granny panties. They were tiny and delicate and far from granny panties. In the slight seconds they were in my hand, I imagined them on her, and believe me, that fantasy is going to haunt me for the rest of the night.