“Captain buzz. Your father’s happy. Donors are probably writing sonnets about your loyalty. So why blow it up?”
I remember looking right at him and saying, “Because it doesn’t feel like mine.”
Jade had gone still at that.
Leo took a sip of bourbon.
Then, quieter:
“That’s not the same as saying it’s wrong.”
“I know.”
“Then what is it?”
The answer sat in my throat for a second before I let it out.
“It’s gray.”
Jade frowned.
“Gray?”
“The campus. The weather. The people. The parties. The whole damn rhythm of it. Everything there feels muted. Like the place is holding its breath so it doesn’t disturb history.”
Leo had laughed at that, but not because he thought I was joking.
“You sound insane.”
“Maybe.”
“No, seriously, Vale. That sounds insane.”
“I walk into the gym and feel nothing,” I said. “I go to those parties and all I can think about is how easy it would be to stay forever and become exactly the kind ofman everybody expects me to be. And the idea of that makes me want to put my head through a wall.”
That had shut him up.
For maybe three seconds.
Then:
“So this isn’t boredom.”
I remember looking up.
“No.”
And Leo, because sometimes he’s annoyingly good at this, said the one thing that still keeps replaying now, somewhere over the dark middle of the country while California gets farther behind me and somehow already feels closer than Boston ever did.
“You’re finally sick of becoming the version of yourself that makes the most sense to everybody else.”
I open my eyes again.
The cabin is quiet.
A flight attendant moves down the aisle with practiced silence.
The seatbelt sign still glows.
