Think think think.
At first nothing comes to me, but then in a flash it does.
That night on the fields. Playing hide and seek.
“A little on the nose, Syd,” I say.
But is it Syd?
“So you’re playing hide and seek again now? Okay. I’ll play this your way. I’ll keep following the clues.”
My voice is confident, assured. As if I know for sure it’s Syd. As if I don’t have a doubt in the world about who is here with me and where I’m going next.
But I have so many questions.
Whoareyou?
What happens next?
Where
does this end?
53.
once
“I wish my roommate was out of town every weekend,” Sam said. We were sitting in his tiny dorm room, our knees practically bumping, my back against his roommate’s bed, Sam’s back against his. The desk chairs were too uncomfortable to sit in.
“Luxurious,” I agreed.
Sam laughed. “There’s a reason I like hanging out away from the dorms.”
Secretly, though, I loved it. This was the part of Howell that we townies never got to see. We ran through its campus, sure, and went to concerts on its quad. But the inner sanctums, places like the old stone dorms, with their diamond-paned glass—I’d never been in one before. Even with the blond-wood furniture and the industrial-strength carpet, I felt like history was soaking into me. Like it could be a hundred years ago somewhere outside that window. Water running through the gorges like it had for centuries. Before anyone even thought of the school, the town.
“Switch?” I asked, and Sam handed me his orange chicken in its container, and I handed him my broccoli beef. We were eating Chinese takeout we’d picked up from a restaurant in Collegetown, the neighborhood nearest the campus. Walking back through Howell together, past the clock tower, I felt like Iwas coming into my own. Like I was crossing over into worlds that had always been here but could finally be mine.
“You’re the only girl I’ve ever met who can outeat me,” Sam said.
“I know you think it’s hot,” I told him, stabbing my fork through another piece of orange chicken. We’d run eight miles that morning, and I’d been hungry all day.
“I do, actually,” he said. He grinned at me. “Everything about you is hot.”
“Good,” I said. “And ditto.” I bumped his knee with mine.
I was about to crumple up the bag when I remembered something.
“Ooh,” I said. “I almost forgot about the fortune cookies.” I reached inside and took out the two plastic-wrapped cookies, tossing one to Sam.
He caught it single-handed, setting his takeout container on the floor with the other hand. “Same time,” he said, and we both unwrapped our cookies, snapping them in half to reveal the slips of paper inside. Sam slid his out and held it up. “Mine says, ‘Great things are ahead for you.’ ”
“Mine’s blank.”
He laughed. “No way. You’re making that up.”
“I’m not.”
“Let me see.”
