“I need to listen to the earth for a little bit,” I said. I never understood what Tiel meant until I needed it, too. “That probably sounds really lame, but I need less noise. I need to understand some things, and I can’t do that here.”
He crawled into the bed of the truck, pawing through my gear. “Call me. Just fucking call me. I won’t tell Shannon or anyone, but dude, you can’t go allInto the Wildon me now.”
“I won’t,” I said, and Riley pulled me into a bear hug. “Take care of my properties. I’ll tear off your arm and beat you with it if you fuck up Turlan.”
He smiled, clapping me on the back in a tight man-hug. He watched as I pulled out of the firehouse, waving from the curb.
I didn’t know where I was going or how long I was staying there, but soon Boston was only a speck in my rearview mirror, and I was on my own.
This was different than eating lunch in the bathroom when my high school’s cafeteria was hostile territory. It wasn’t talking to my mother’s tombstone. It wasn’t watching a woman’s lips cover my dick but feeling nothing at all.
I was completely, thoroughly, enormously alone for the first time in my life, and forcing myself to feel all my broken pieces was absolutely terrifying.
“THIS IS HIGHLY unusual.”
I pulled my lip between my teeth while the Dean scanned my transcript. He had to say yes. It had to work out.
“It appears you have more than enough credits to finish ABD,” he said, his pen roving over the words on the page. “In fact, you’ve had enough credits for two and a half years. You’re only missing a dissertation defense.”
“Yes. Right. IknowI’m All But Dissertation. That’s why I’m here,” I said.
I was trying to keep my impatience in check, but this guy was not listening. He was the fourth person to completely misunderstand my request today, and now I was vibrating off my seat with edginess. I’d also had seven cappuccinos today, and that was on top of the ones I drank last night, and if I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I slept.
But it was fine. Really. Everything was fine. I was researching and writing, and playing until new blisters formed on my fingers on top of old blisters and then playing some more, and that was keeping me too busy to think about anything else.
Except coffee. But I was totally fine.
I was always worried about more coffee. I memorized all the twenty-four hour coffee shops in town. Somehow, I presumed there would be a greater degree of all-night coffee availability considering the volume of colleges in the area. Someone should do a study on that: the ratio of college students to twenty-four hour coffee in a given area.
“I just need to know if I can schedule my defense. I’m almost finished, and I can present as soon as next month. That’s all I need to know.”
“Well,” he said, drawing the word out while my heel bounced against the chair leg. “That seems rather quick—”
“But I’ve been working on it all this time,” I said. “All this extra coursework,” I leaned over his desk and pointed to the transcript. “It’s helped my research. I’m ready. I swear.”
“I don’t usually agree to last minute dissertation defenses.” He reached for a leather-bound book and thumbed through the pages, stopping on each one to underline the dates with his finger as if he was unfamiliar with the sequential nature of time. I could have jogged to Baltimore and back in the time it took him to find the right page. “The committee meets again during the first week of May,” he said, and then went back to the elaborate page-turning routine. “And then again the second week of July.”
He glanced up in question.
“May,” I said. That gave me two and a half months to pull together an entire dissertation. I was going to need more coffee—pronto. Maybe I could move in at Voltage Coffee & Art in Kendall Square. “May would be perfect.”
Once the details were ironed out, I hurried down the stairwell—I didn’t do elevators anymore—and onto the street. I was headed for the T station when I realized my phone was buzzing in my hand.
Not recognizing the number, I ignored the call. Within a few seconds, a text came through from the same number:
14:21 Unknown:You don’t know me but I know Sam, and you need to hear about what’s happened to him. I want to talk. Please meet me at Pavement on Newbury this afternoon. I’ll be there until 5.
The fear came first, quickly followed by longing. I hadn’t heard from him since his cryptic late night texts two weeks ago—fifteen days, but who was counting?—and something was wrong.
I only indulged in my feelings—the raw, thorny pain that lingered right below the surface—on selected occasions. I couldn’t let myself get trapped underneath that while I was scrambling to finish my degree, and I couldn’t let it take me down now, either.
Panicked, I turned in a circle, then started down Boylston toward the Prudential Center. I didn’t want to meet this person, and I wasn’t entirely certain why I was, but my legs were intent on carrying me to the quaint coffee shop.
When I stepped inside, flustered and breathless despite the quick walk, I didn’t know where to look. I glanced at the door to confirm I was at the right place, and then reread the text as if it would offer some new information.
“Are you Tiel?”
I jerked my head up and found myself face-to-face with a beautiful redheaded pixie, the kind who required tailoring for her clothes because even size zero was too big. “Yes,” I said slowly.
