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Everybody packs up. Greeley zips his bag and says something to Kylie about walking back, and she says she’s going to stay and finish. He leans down close to her and tries to convince her to let him walk her. She is adamant about staying and declines him.

He says, “Suit yourself,” and taps the table twice on his way past me. “Thursday.”

“Thursday.”

He goes. I sign out on the clipboard, my name and the time in a column under five other names, and the grad student doesn’t look up. Kylie is still at the table with her laptop open, and I have to walk past her to get to the stairs. She doesn’t look at me until I’m level with her chair.

“Your face looks better,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

I go down the stairs.

Outside, it’s cold, the quad is empty, and I’ve got twenty-four problems left and a week off the ice.

11

An Intervention Seems Reasonable

Kylie

The worst part of Wednesday is how many times I pick up my phone expecting it to be Evan, and how every time I have to remind myself that I told him not to contact me. By Wednesday night, it has buzzed multiple times, and not once from him. Four are the group chat. Four are my mom, because I finally told her about Evan and now she wants to keep asking if I’m okay. Three are Declan Greeley.

Declan: How’d the paper turn out?

Declan: You can come study tomorrow night if you’d like.

Declan: Also, what kind of name is Vandercook?

I sit on my bed with my knees up and text him back, because he’s funny, and because he asked, and because at eleven at night my room is very quiet. Tessa is reading, and there’s nobody else who wants to know how my day went.

Kenzie: Thursday night 412.

Kenzie: Mandatory.

Paige: What are we doing?

Kenzie: I have face masks, and you’re not allowed to leave.

Paige: I LIVE here.

I read it four times Thursday morning and feel like I can breathe. I don’t have Evan anymore, but I have new friends, and according to my mom, that’s what college is about.

“There’s a girls’ night tonight,” I tell Tessa while I’m brushing my hair. “Fourth floor, Kenzie and Paige’s room.”

Tessa is at her desk with a highlighter. “No, thank you, Kylie.”

“It’s face masks and talking,” I say anyway. “Nobody’s going anywhere. You wouldn’t even have to leave the building.”

She shakes her head.

I put the brush down and turn around. She’s got her hair up in a claw clip and a stack of printed readings in front of her. It’s ten in the morning, and she’s been in that chair since before I woke up. “Do you sit in here all day?”

She nods.

“That’s sad, Tessa. You should come hang out.”