Holiday’s shoulders dropped. “We’re fine, Michael.” Shesounded so much more unsure than I ever thought of her as being. “I’m cold. I’m tired. I just want to go, okay?”
“Let me at least get you a ride back to your dorm.”
Holiday shook her head. “We’re like three blocks from my house,” she reminded me. “I’m just going to crash there tonight.”
“I—oh.” She was right, I realized suddenly. I had never thought of it like that; the illusion of an independent adult life on campus was so all-consuming that most of the time it felt like I was a whole world away from the places where I’d grown up, but of course she was right—we were, at most, a seven-minute walk from her parents’ massive Cambridge Victorian. Holiday could probably do it in five. I could picture the house so clearly: the dark paint crisp and fresh against the row of perfectly trimmed evergreen bushes lining the wraparound porch, the trio of Adirondack chairs festooned with seasonally appropriate outdoor pillows. The front door was always flanked by clusters of fat orange and white pumpkins at this time of year, dozens of them spilling down the wide front steps: my mom had probably arranged them, same as she did every autumn, picking them up at Pemberton Farms and lugging them out of her trunk one by one.
It didn’tfeellike we were three blocks from Holiday’s parents’ house, though. All of a sudden it felt like we were very far from home.
“Well,” I said at last, rocking back on my heels a little. “Okay. Text me when you get there, anyway.”
Holiday smiled at that, just faintly. “I will text you when I get there,” she promised.
I walked her as far as the sidewalk in silence, watching as her tall, broad figure receded into the darkness and reminding myself there was no reason to feel like I was never going to see her again.
Then: “Oh, shit,” I realized suddenly. “Holiday!” I called. “Wait!”
Even as she turned to look at me I dashed back into the house and darted through the crowd in the kitchen, finally finding her coat near the bottom of the pile in the old butler’s pantry. I grabbed mine too; I’d go with her, I decided with wild conviction, imagining the two of us sitting side by side on the couch in her parents’ book-lined den and watching some stupid movie on their extravagant cable package until things between us felt safe and normal again.
I careened back out into the chilly night, catching up with her half a block away, where she was standing underneath a streetlamp, the cold light bouncing off her glossy hair. “Here,” I said breathlessly, holding the coat out in her direction.
Her eyes widened in recognition. “Thank you,” she said, shrugging it on and immediately tucking her hands into the pockets.
“You’re welcome,” I said. Then, summoning courage from somewhere deep behind my ribcage: “Look,” I said, “what if I just—”
“Yo, Linden!”
I turned around: back at the lax house, Cam was leaning against the porch rail, his posture loose and drunk, his face friendly. “You coming back inside?” he asked, the clang and clatter of the party rending the quiet night. “We’re gonna play beer pong.”
I considered that for a moment, looking from him to Holiday and back again, down at my own jacket still clutched in my hand.I could feel the courage leaching out of me like runoff from one of those old Fall River glove factories. “Um,” I said finally, my voice as casual as I could manage. “Yeah. I’ll be there in a sec.”
Cam nodded. “Suit yourself,” he said, the door slamming behind him as he went back inside.
Holiday was already stepping away by the time I turned around again, ducking out of the glow from the streetlight and into the darkness so I couldn’t see her face. “Night, Michael,” she said softly.
“Night, Holiday.”
I stood there on the sidewalk for a long time once she was gone, knowing I’d missed something important. Knowing I’d let a chance slip away. I didn’t actually want to go back inside and play beer pong, and finally I got tired of lurking around under a streetlight like a total boner, so in the end I shrugged my jacket on and headed back in the direction of my dorm. I took the long way, passing graveyards from the 1700s and big old houses with warm yellow light glowing through their front windows, breathing in the smell of a fire in someone’s far-off fireplace and telling myself I felt nothing at all.
12
Sunday, 11/24/24
Holiday let herself into my dorm room that night while I was sleeping, easing the door open and padding across the industrial carpet in a soft pair of sweats. “Hi,” she muttered, reaching out and running the tip of her index finger along the curve of my ear, a touch so light it seemed wildly improbable that I could feel it all over my body.
“Hi,” I said, boosting myself up onto my elbows as she climbed into bed with me, slinging one leg over my hips and making herself comfortable. She smelled different than usual, flowery and faint. “What are you doing?”
Holiday grinned, her smile like a slice of moonlight in the dark. “What do you think?” She reached back and pulled her shirt off—
And I woke up with a gasp alone in my extra-long twin bed.
“Dude,” Dave said, glancing at me across the room from his perch in his desk chair, where he was scrolling a thread on Discord and eating a banana. Dave was from South Korea by way ofCalifornia; his parents sent elaborate care packages full of socks and ginger tea. “You good?”
“I’m awesome,” I muttered, then counted to a hundred and shuffled grumpily down the hall toward the bathroom. “Never better.”
The weather that day was perfect for a football game: crisp and clear and sunny, the kind of autumn morning that made me feel nostalgic about living in New England, even though I was still actively doing it. The streets were packed with tourists. The air smelled like leaves. A guy dressed in full Revolutionary War regalia handed out pamphlets advertising walking tours of Harvard Square.
Holiday had texted to say she’d meet me at the entrance to the stadium, and when I made my way over she was already waiting, looking more like her regular self today in a big cream-colored fisherman’s sweater. I felt myself relax at the sight of her in broad daylight, tall and lipsticked andnormal:it had been an aberration, that was all, whatever had happened between us last night. It didn’t have to change anything.
