Page 9

"The walleye's good," she says.

"Then I'll have the walleye, and if you've got any of those little bread baskets, I'd die for one."

She brings me two.

Over at the long table, the noise is warm and loud. Somebody's telling a story about a bus that broke down in North Dakota. Somebody's arguing about football. Gunnar is doing an impression of a professor that has the whole end of the table crying. Every few minutes a laugh comes over in my direction, and I lift my water glass at it, like a toast.

"Lindqvist." That's Jace. "How's the view?"

"Honestly? Better than yours. I can see the fish."

A couple of the freshmen laugh. They stop as soon as they notice they're laughing.

The walleye is good. I eat all of it. I eat both bread baskets. I'm not stupid; I learned a long time ago you don't turn down food somebody else is paying for.

Halfway through, I look up and Dane is watching me.

He's at the head of the long table, the end closest to my corner, sitting straight with his fork in his hand. His plate's still mostly full. When I catch him, he doesn't look away. That's not his move. He just keeps looking, with those flat light eyes, like he's still trying to read which way the puck's going.

I wink at him.

He goes back to his food.

At eight-fifteen I check my phone and stand up and drop a ten on the card table for Marcy.

"Where are you going?" That's Gunnar, loud. "Dinner's not over. You didn't ask permission."

"I've got a thing."

"A thing."

"A thing, Gunnar. People have things. You'd know if you had a thing."

I look at Dane. Dane looks at me.

"Go," he says, finally, like he's deciding something.

I go. I don't run. I put my coat on and say thank you to Marcy on the way out and I walk out of the Lantern into the cold, and I don't stop walking until I'm around the corner from the window, where nobody at the long table can see me.

Then I lean on the brick for a minute and breathe.

My room is the basement of a house on Pine that belongs to two grad students who study soil. They're nice. They leave me alone. The radiator in my room only works if you hit it with a shoe, and the window is up at ground level, so when it snows I'm looking at the snow from underneath.

It's almost one when I get back. I smell like the fryer at the Kwik Stop. I strip in the dark and throw everything in the corner and lie down on the mattress with my phone held up over my face.

N: ok you have ignored me for 4 days

N: I am a medically fragile man

N: this is abuse

I type. Delete. Type.

Me: sorry. been busy

Me: being hated is a full time job

The dots come up immediately.