Last summer had been a terrible scramble for me. First, I’d tried to find an alternate school with an engineering program to attend other than the same one from which Dad had been terminated. Somewhere far away, in some corner of the country where no one had heard of him. But the cost of out-of-state tuition was too much. And then it turned out only a few of my classmates from my suburban high school would be going here, a university with a student population of thirty thousand. So, instead, I changed my name from Bianchini to Blankin. That way I could start anew, incognito, as a college freshman. No past to burden me. No scandalous father to ruin my chances for success.
Of course, my mom had been upset at the name change, but I’d told her that Blankin was the English form of our Italian last name. I was sure Ellis Island immigrants had done the same thing over a century ago.
We made it to a spot out of earshot of the gossip. I closed my eyes and waited for my heartbeat to slow. That was close. Too close.
Priya peered out the window, which was layered in January frost. “Wow, look at all the buses. Three of them, I think.”
“We had to reserve that many because one-third of the dorm is going,” Emma said. “About two hundred people signed up.”
Unbelievable. We were ridiculous, all of us. I mean, we were kind, of course, for raising money for the Special Olympics, but foolish for participating in a challenge that could give us hypothermia.
We were ushered outside, and I winced as freezing air burned my face and the hairs inside my nose turned into icicles. I tugged my fake-fur-lined hood over my head and snapped it under my chin. There must be a way to get out of this without hurting Emma’s feelings. I was not jumping into thirty-two-degree-Fahrenheit water. Only absurd people did that.
Our bus was nearly full, so we sat in the last open spots, next to a vent blowing hot air onto our legs. Emma and I were on a bench seat together with Priya in front of us. The buzz of conversation filled every inch of space around us.
Then silence spread like a shock wave all the way to the back. I looked up from under my hood. Everyone’s attention was on a guy in a fleece beanie moving down the aisle.
The tips of my fingers tingled. Not from the cold, because they’d warmed up. But because I was so glad I wasn’t him. If I’d walked onto the bus and everyone had stopped what they were doing and stared at me, I’d have died. Seriously died. I hated attention of any kind. The anonymity I’d established on campus this year needed to be kept that way.
He passed us.
“I didn’t knowhesigned up to take the plunge,” Emma whispered.
Priya leaned over the seat back. “Who ishe?”
“He’s the guy in our dorm rumored to have slept with thirty girls since the beginning of the school year,” Emma said.
I perked up. I wasn’t sure if the energy drink had finally kicked in or if Emma’s words had done it. My grogginess lifted as if it were smog, and I could finally breathe again.
“Did you say thirty?” I asked.
Emma nodded. “Gross, isn’t it?”
The large number made me think of the article I’d shown Priya and Emma the other day. For weeks now, I’d been trying to find a drug-free remedy for my inability to sleep. Eye masks, deep breathing exercises, chamomile tea, tryptophan supplements. Nothing had worked, and I was desperate.
The internet suggested one last thing. Sex.
If the rumor was true and this guy had slept with that many women, that would be more than two girls—twodifferentgirls—per week.
“It is gross,” I agreed. “But I’m still jealous. With all that sex, he must be the Yoda of falling asleep.”
“Oh right. Your sex-cures-insomnia theory.” Priya craned her neck to follow his progress down the narrow aisle. “Maybe he’d be a good candidate.”
“Priya.” Emma frowned. “Don’t give her any ideas.”
I kept my eyes straight ahead. The neurons in my brain pulled on my shoulders, begging me to watch him, but I gripped the seat back in front of me and resisted the urge. The last thing I wanted was to shower more attention on the dorm’s Playboy of the Year.
The noise in the bus picked up again.
Priya fell back in her seat. “Well, he is hot. I’ll give him that. What’s his name?”
“Dallas,” Emma said.
Priya lowered her chin. “As in Dallas, Texas?”
“That’s right.”
My stomach shook. I sputtered a laugh.
