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“I do,” she says, sitting up in bed now, sifting a hand through pin-straight hair. “My parents don’t love it, but I do. I… can’t believe you remember that.”
With a shrug, I attempt to play this off. “You were good,” I say simply, because it’s the truth.
I wish I could give her more than that. And I will, because we have more time, not to rekindle the relationship we used to have, but to become something different. Even if it takes some time.
Because somehow, I feel like Lucie Lamont and I could be really good friends.
Before I head to the bathroom, I text Miles. Meet me at the library in twenty minutes? Then I relish the simple joy of saving his number in my phone.
I take a long, indulgent shower, reveling in the grout and grime and mysterious puddles. This is my home, for better or for worse. And I might be starting to love it.
Until I see Miles’s response.
Who is this?
I stare down at my phone, unsure how to reply. Is he making some kind of joke? Because it’s extremely not funny.
My steps back to the dorm are quicker, more anxious.
“Everything okay?” Lucie asks as she looks for a shirt on her side of the closet.
“Fine.” I stuff my feet into sneakers and race for the seventh floor, the birthday balloons forgotten. “Hi, sorry,” I say when Ankit opens the familiar Woody-and-Buzz door. “I’m looking for Miles?”
“You just missed him,” he says, and I thank him and head for the quad.
Outside, the campus feels at once different and exactly the same. The temperature’s dropped at least five degrees, so there are more sweatshirts and jackets and even scarves. Kendall is still out there, saving the gophers, and the screen they played Groundhog Day on last night hasn’t been taken down yet. I might even spot Christina the hacker, striding confidently through the quad with her blue hair tucked into a beanie. I want to take my time to breathe in all these details, but everything is underscored with a layer of panic.
Then I spot him across the quad, a flash of red flannel I recognize from my first day.
“Miles!” I hurry after him, not caring who sees me sprinting across the quad in a dress that’s working very hard to contain my breasts. It takes a few seconds for me to catch him, probably because the quad is packed and he doesn’t hear me. That has to be the reason. “Happy birthday! I was going to get some balloons, but then I saw your text, and it kind of freaked me out, so…” I trail off with an awkward laugh.
Except that when he turns around—his hair still damp from a shower, that Irish Spring scent hitting me like a sensory scrapbook of all my favorite memories—his brows are furrowed in confusion. He’s still attractive, because he always is, with his dark eyes and ears that stick out and the confident jut of his chin. He’s just… different. Distant, somehow, even while he’s standing right in front of me.
He takes me in while I wait for a glint of recognition to cross his face.
It never does.
“Do we know each other?” He hitches his backpack higher on his shoulders. “How do you know it’s my birthday?”
“Miles.” This has to be a joke, and once we’re past it, I can forgive him for messing with me. For sending my heart into overdrive. “It’s me. Barrett Bloom.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Is this some kind of freshman mentor program?”
I shake my head. No. No no no no no. This can’t be happening. “Miles,” I say again, like saying his name enough times will remind him of all the different ways I’ve said it over the past month: out of frustration, out of fear, out of love. “Miles Kasher-Okamoto. We’ve known each other for weeks—well, months for you, weeks for me. We—we’re friends.” The word isn’t right, but then again, none of this is.
“Oh! Are you in the drama department?” His eyebrows draw together even more, as though he’s giving it everything he has to try and place me.
“No,” I say, my voice rough. “I’m not.”
It was too cold to leave the dorm in just a dress, but I can’t bring myself to care that I’m shivering. We’re supposed to banter and laugh and make plans for dinner and a movie. We’re supposed to argue about whether it was science or magic that brought us here, and he’s supposed to tell me what he remembers from yesterday after we pushed the button.
He’s supposed to remember the girl he’s in love with.
“I should get to class,” he says, and with an awkward half wave, he’s gone.
I don’t want it to seem like I went running home to my mom when Miles broke my heart.
But here I am. Standing in front of Ink & Paper. Because I really, really need to talk to someone.
