AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She laughs. “I wish there were.”
Her words race through my veins like hope, warm and electric. I can barely sit still, one of my legs bouncing up and down while my heart thrashes against my rib cage. Even if this is all theoretical, it’s closer than we’ve ever gotten. It feels right, more than anything has so far.
Miles’s hand drops from my chair, and he just nods, staring out into the library. Since earlier this morning, when I banged down his door with my Olmsted theory, he’s seemed different. Off. Sure, he smiled and hugged me close, kissed the top of my head in this way I could easily become obsessed with, but I thought he’d be beside himself with joy, whatever that happens to look like for him. This feels more like the Miles from weeks ago, the one who lived life to the fullest at this exact table. The old Miles.
I nudge his shoulder. “You still with us?”
He blinks, seeming to come back to himself. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Just tired, I guess.”
“I hear Thursdays are especially good nights for sleep,” I say, and when he smiles, it doesn’t touch his eyes.
Dr. Devereux’s black cat leaps into the frame, batting Ada Lovelace’s tail and drawing her into a play fight.
“Schrödinger, how’d you get over here? I thought you were in the bedroom!” Dr. Devereux makes a clucking sound. “I have to go take care of them. Sometimes they don’t know their limits. But if you make it—you’ll let me know, all right? Even if you have to explain all of this again?”
“Of course,” I assure her. “Thank you. For everything.”
Her back turns, and we hear “Good luck—oh, Ada, not the curtains!” before the screen goes dark.
Miles and I are quiet for a few moments. I’m convinced I hear a clock ticking somewhere in the library, until it grows louder and louder and I realize it’s my own heart.
“If she’s right,” I say slowly, “we should go through today one last time. Make sure we’re setting ourselves up for tomorrow.”
“You want to do this tonight?”
“No time like the present,” I say, echoing what he said when we first started doing research right here at this table. If he remembers, with that giant brain of his, he doesn’t give any indication. A ribbon of worry settles low in my stomach, but I push it away. He’s tired, he said. That’s all it is.
“We can still make it to physics,” I say after checking the time on my laptop.
He gives me a lazy smirk. “Did you do the assigned reading?”
I groan, clapping a hand over my mouth. “You can fill me in on the way there. Or we could finally get those lottery tickets.”
At that, he allows a soft ha. “We should try to do things as ‘right’ as possible. Be the best versions of ourselves, and all that.”
And for the rest of the day, that’s exactly what we do. We go to physics and English (me) and math and film (him), and I raise my hand once in each class. I play nice with Lucie and Miles picks up his brother from the hospital, sending me a photo of the two of them at the diner, milkshakes in hand. I even return my pasta bowls to the dining hall, giving the woman working the dishwasher my guiltiest look and about a dozen sorrys before handing them over. At four o’clock, I stare down the journalism building before making a split-second decision.
I’ve never nailed this interview, and I don’t want to risk screwing anything up by floundering again. I’m not sure I know how to be the best version of myself in there. It wouldn’t be the worst thing, I decide, if I don’t get on the Washingtonian until sophomore year, and maybe I’ll be so overcome with the joy of making it to Thursday that it won’t feel like something is missing. So instead I camp out in the Dawg House with some mozzarella sticks and watch the clock, waiting waiting waiting.
“Ready?” I ask Miles at six thirty in the morning. We’ve been sitting on the couch in the ninth-floor common room, cozy underneath a fleece blanket from Miles’s room. At first we tried to watch a movie, but we were a little too jittery to pay attention.
“Should be,” he says around a yawn. “Sorry, I swear I’m awake.”
“Hey. I get it.” I bury my face in his shoulder, and his hand comes up to pull me close. Tightly. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I savor that moment of reassurance. Once we get home, everything will be back to normal. “I’m anxious too.”
Except for the sound of Miles’s steady breaths and the slight squeak when his shoes hit the floor, the walk downstairs is silent. Starting from the lobby, the first floor, felt more right. I link my fingers through his, squeezing his hand to remind him that he isn’t alone.
The lobby isn’t as empty as I expected it to be, students heading out to early classes. The first elevator comes and goes, with neither of us making a move to step inside.
“We’ll get the next one,” I say, the nerves climbing up my spine and turning my voice shaky.
But we don’t take that one either.
We stand there for ten minutes before we finally inch forward, and the doors shut us in with a resounding clank.
We’re really doing this.
Beneath the numbered buttons are three letters I’ve never paid much attention to. Come to think of it, I haven’t spent much time in general assessing the inner workings of an elevator, but here we are. Metal sides and a wraparound railing and fifteen floors of dorm rooms. And then three letters denoting lobby, parking, basement.
