Drop off anytime you like
We’re good. How are you?
Fine. How’s Newman?
Great for classes. Easy for meeting people. What are you taking at MCC?
English, psych, math
Any more weddings?
Every Saturday in September. The florist added more potted flowering plants to the gazebo
Good. Don’t let the Miltons guilt you into coming out there to add things
Yes, ma’am
Someone rapped at my door and called, “You coming?”
My roommates are ready to leave. Gotta go
It’s ok to blow me off next time, if I’m bothering you
It isn’t possible for you to bother me
Glad to hear it. Hey, chatting goes both ways
?
You can initiate too
K, bye
I closed my tablet before I completely lost my ability to say no. Should I program Scott into my calendar? He had to go to bed earlier than I did.
No. It seemed like he didn’t want things to be so serious. We were free. His rules.
35
Nice But No Magic
The first couple of weeks of school had whipped by. I’d learned my way around the campus. Met professors. Hung out with my suitemates. Exactly what I would’ve expected. My college life wasn’t much different than what they depicted in the movies—minus the crazy parts.
It was nice to be an unknown. I wasn’t the girl who lost her twin. I was just Sara, another freshman. And if I was quieter than I’d been in high school, more studious, less social, I had an excuse that I didn’t share.
Some of my professors must’ve been waiting on Labor Day to go wild with the assignments, because the Tuesday afterward, my project list exploded.
I was in the common area of the residence hall with my iPad open, trying to focus on an economics assignment, when someone dropped onto the sofa beside me.
“Sara?” It was Meggie. “There’s a bonfire. Want to come?”
“Not tonight.” I was having a day where I didn’t feel functional.
“Oh.” She didn’t get up. “Who’s the guy on your background?”
I froze, eyes widening, throat constricting. “Sean.”
If she heard the strangled sound of that syllable, it didn’t slow her down. “He’s the same guy in a picture on your dresser.”
