Page 56
“Yeah. Didn’t we have class with, ummm…Bartowski?” I’m making up a name. “Your name’s Roland or something, right?”
He shakes his head. People, I find, love to correct others. “Justin.”
“Oh. Sorry. Now that you’ve spoken I realize you can’t be Rolly. I’m Levi.”
He shakes my hand and glances once at Matt with a shadow of guilt on his face.
“So, umm, out of curiosity, and it’s totally none of my business, but how long have you been in love with Matt?”
Justin looks at me like I’ve just punched him. “Don’t say it so loud,” he whispers at me. “It’s not that obvious, right?”
“Maybe not if I were standing on the surface of Mars. Any closer and it’s pretty clear. Do you want an introduction?”
“I already know him.” He swallows and lowers his voice. “I went to high school with him.”
“Wait,” I say. “You’re the guy.”
“What guy?” His head comes up fast. “He mentioned a guy?”
“You’re the guy that followed him to this school.”
“He said that? Did he say anything else?”
“He kind of indicated that he wasn’t pleased with the memories.”
He looks up at the ceiling and groans. “I’d give anything to apologize. Anything. And I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because what am I supposed to say? Hi, remember when I made three years of your life a nightmare because I didn’t realize…you know.”
“Yeah, that’s not a really great opener.” I look back down the stacks. Matt has his head bent over a book and his pen going. “You want to know what to say?”
“Yeah.”
“You go over there, and you say his name, and you say I’m sorry for what I did to you in high school. And then you stop talking.” He starts to speak and I hold up a finger. “That’s the whole thing. You don’t explain why. You don’t make it funny. And you don’t stand there waiting for him to tell you it’s all right, because that’s you asking him to do you one more favor.”
“And if he tells me to go to hell?”
“Then he tells you to go to hell, and you’re a man who said it instead of a man who didn’t.”
Justin looks at the floor for a long moment. “You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not easy. It’s just short.”
He laughs at that, kind of wetly, and then his phone buzzes. He looks at it and swears. “I need to go. Nice to meet you.” He stands up and collects his things, takes three whole steps toward Matt, stops himself, does an about-face so smooth he could have picked it up in the Army, and ducks into the elevators.
I last an hour and a half of research before giving up and going back to my apartment, where I spread myself on my back and stare at the ceiling.
My phone buzzes with a text
Kev
so I asked around
600-20. the frat reg. there’s carve outs
marriage counts. and pre-existing stuff from before somebody was in the chain
