“Really?” Bella sighs. “You’re going to spend the night with your dragons?”
“And Brecht. I’m writing a paper on my least favorite playwright. It’s due next week.”
“Okay…” she says slowly. “Work hard.”
“Will do,” I say without looking away from my screen.
Bella leaves, and I’m not even sorry to be alone. Maybe Harkness really wasn’t a good choice for me. I should go somewhere people really do think I fart glitter.
25
Selfies with Bono
DJ
I stare into the depths of the juke box, wondering what to play. I’m sick of the eighties and nineties tunes. If Lianne were here, we’d have fun joking about the lack of selection. We’d marvel at the one-hit-wonders. We’d argue about the classics.
Without her, it’s just a bunch of so-so tracks, and a long night to fill with them.
I know I pushed Lianne away last weekend. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. Who wants a guy on the verge of becoming a college dropout?
Except that I miss her terribly.
“Hey,” a female voice says, and I look up fast. It’s Bella. I don’t even try to disguise my disappointment or the way my eyes go right over her shoulder, hoping to find Lianne. “She didn’t come,” Bella says, reading my not-very-opaque mind. “I tried. But she’s kind of down in the dumps.”
“That’s my fault,” I grunt.
“No,” she says, patting my shoulder. “It’s not. But there’s something I want to explain to you.” Bella flips a chair around backwards and straddles it. Then she sips her beer. “Okay, I know Lianne seems like the most sophisticated girl in the world. And, yeah, she could hack into NASA and launch a spacecraft from those computers in her room. And she has a selfie of herself with Bono on her phone.”
“Bono? Really?”
Bella nods. “She puts up a big front. But the people in her life? They’re shit, DJ.” She holds up a hand. “Present company excepted.” She gives me a smile and I try to return it. “Her mother is a world-class narcissist. I mean—the woman was too busy with her new twenty-five-year-old French pool boy to come to New York over Christmas to watch her only child perform Shakespeare at a famous theater. And I’ve met that creep she calls her manager.” Bella gives an exaggerated shudder. “Lianne doesn’t trust people, because she’s been burned. A lot. So I know you’ve done right by her, except for the one argument. But you just need to try a little harder. It’s like, she needs proof that you’ll stick by her.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. I’m pretty sure I just learned something important. If only I knew what to do with it.
Bella grins. “I know you won’t let her down.” She stands up, pats me on the head, and heads straight to the rowdiest table, where two of my brother’s teammates move aside for her to sit down and join their game.
I’m not in the mood to play quarters. Or for smack talk. So I grab my coat and duck out the back way. I walk home slowly, wondering what I could do for Lianne. It’s a nice thought—a project that has nothing to do with my lawyer and the case. They’ve been keeping me busy all week. Phone calls. Emails. Words they want me to use when I explain what happened that night. Phrases they want me to avoid.
Nobody’s asking me to lie, of course. But they want the truth to come out in a certain way. And that’s hard, because the truth is a messy, untidy thing.
So it’s a relief to brainstorm ways to make Lianne smile. Even if she and I are going to be separated, I can still make the effort. There are six days left until my meeting. Lianne had accused me of behaving like someone who had three weeks to live. And now I could finally admit she was right. A week from now, I’ll still be a guy who likes a girl named Lianne, no matter what. And she’d still be lonely.
I turn the corner onto York, and the T-shirt vendor is there, bundled up against the cold. The offensive shirt with Lianne’s name is still there, too. I’m half a block past when something occurs to me. Backtracking, I hurry back until I’m in front of the guy. “Can you make a custom shirt?” I ask without preamble.
“Sure. Would take me a day, maybe two. Costs twenty bucks, forty if you want two-sided.”
I pull out my wallet. “One side will do.”
26
Lyle Lovett and Lisa Loeb
Lianne
Bella sticks her head into my room for the third time this evening. “Are you preparing for a role as a vampire?”
“What? Why?” I don’t bother taking my eyes off my screen.
“Because you never leave your room. It’s like you think the outside air will burn your skin off.”
“Uh huh,” I say. I’m battling a new kind of droid-troll that’s been cropping up in DragonFire this week. They’re hard to kill, even with an X-level weapon. But I think I’m making progress. Words of encouragement from my online buddies scroll past. Hit ’im again, Vindikator! I think it’s working!
“What’s that shirt you’re wearing? Oh my God. Did you have that made?”
I knew Bella would notice, but I wore it anyway. Because it’s too good not to wear. It reads, Yes, I go to Harkness. Just deal with it.
Bella does something drastic then. She puts her body between me and the screen.
“Shit!” I scream, freezing the game because she’s going to get me killed.
“Now you’re listening,” she says. “Great shirt. That’s showing them.”
“Thanks.” DJ sent it to me. I found it in a gift bag hanging from my doorknob. He couldn’t have been the one to put it there, though, because he’s not allowed in the building. I suspect one of the hockey players. There was a note, too. It read, “Thought you needed this. Love, D.”
Love. It’s not a word people use when they write to me. I’m ashamed to admit I tucked his note into my nightstand drawer.
The previous night there’d been a delivery from Gino’s pizza. It was a MOR pie, and I also received two Diet Cokes. Then I got a text which read, “I was thinking of you when I ordered mine. And you showing up at my door with a pie was one of the nicest things anyone ever did for me. Hope you’re hungry. —D.”
Bella and I feasted. I texted him a polite thank you instead of calling. I would have rather heard his voice, but I was afraid of what I might say. Pizza is fine, but I just want you. And that would only make him feel bad the week before his big appointment with the dean. So what was the use?
Tonight I hadn’t heard from him. Yet.
“Hockey game starts in thirty minutes,” Bella says. “It’s weird that they’re having a Monday game, but it’s because of the midterm break.”
I’d forgotten she was there. “I’m not going tonight.”
She heaves a sigh. “Please? There’s pretzels and hot dogs. And your paparazzo hasn’t been back.”
“I still have that paper to write.” It’s a dodge, and she knows it. But Bella disappears without a word.
DJ texts me later. Hockey game tonight. The booth makes me think of you now. Wish you were here with me.
I feel the floor bobble beneath me as the diving board adjusts to the weight of my heart. I picture myself slipping into the press box just like I did that first time and choosing songs with DJ as the players slice across the ice below. This could be his last hockey game. He didn’t say that in the text, but we both know that in less than forty-eight hours, he might be finished here.
So when the final buzzer rings tonight, what would we find to say to each other? Hey, it’s been nice knowing you.
I don’t want to have that conversation unless it’s really necessary. So I stay in my room like I’d planned.
Later, I get another text. In your honor, I’m playing only artists that start with L tonight. I’ve cued up Los Lobos, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Linkin Park. It’s the weirdest playlist ever. The guys are going to think I’ve lost it. Unless you come up here and make it better.
This makes me smile so hard. I know he’s teasing, but it’s kind of adorable. I reply: Don’t forget Lyle
Lovett. Lisa Loeb. Led Zeppelin.
Two hours later, Bella bursts into my room. This time, I’m actually working on my Brecht paper when I look up to see her face, red from running up the stairs. “Lianne, seriously? For the good of hockey fans everywhere, will you call that boy? His music has gone to shit.”
“Wait,” I say, sitting up. “What happened?”
“He played Linda Ronstadt. At a fucking hockey game,” she fumes. “And that’s on you!”
Yikes. “I thought he was teasing!” Which makes my text—adding three artists to the list—kind of a fuck you.
Bella shakes her head. “When I went into the booth to complain, he just said to give you this.” She pulled a scarf out of her pocket. My scarf—the itchy one I’d abandoned on the park bench the night he stood me up. “Here.” She thrust an envelope at me, too.
“Thanks,” I say, taking it.
She gives me a disappointed look and then leaves. I open the envelope and unfold a piece of notebook paper.
Dear Lianne,
I was doing a little cleaning in my room this week, just in case I won’t need it after spring break. And I found this. That night when I stood you up at Gino’s, I watched you walk into the square. I only bailed on our date because my accuser was inside the restaurant when I got there. I panicked and cancelled on you.
That was the theme of this winter, and I’m sorry.
You’re the best thing that happened to me all year, smalls. I’m sorry if my panic made it seem like I was always blowing hot and cold. You’re the most amazing girl I’ve ever met, and I’m crazy about you. I hope I get many more chances to tell you in person. But if I don’t, I wanted to say it tonight.
I understand why you didn’t come to the game, though. We can keep those memories happy if you want. It’s okay.
Miss you,
D.
Well, damn.
Now my eyes are hot, and the sounds of foreplay are bleeding through the bathroom door. Great.
I wake up my computer and flip over to Spotify, where I begin to blast the first song I see from the playlist I made for the women’s game. It’s “Real Gone” by Sheryl Crow.
Pushing my copy of Brecht aside, I curl up on top of my bed alone. The upbeat tempo of the song does not match my mood. I lie there and wonder what it would be like to have a boyfriend sharing my bed. Why did I have to fall for the guy who can’t?
27
A Lap Around Campus
DJ
I thought I’d be a wreck the night before the big meeting. To my surprise, I’m really not. What I am is ready for this to be over. Whatever happens, I can take it. I just want to know.
It’s after eight, and I’m sitting on the couch in the living room of Orsen’s house. Leo showed up a couple of hours ago with Chinese food. Now the two of us are sitting in front of a basketball game that neither of us is very invested in.
His phone rings, and he answers it. “Hey babe. I’m hanging with DJ.” There’s a pause while he listens. “That’s not a great idea. I’ll catch you tomorrow, okay? Night.”
Thank God he didn’t invite Amy over. If this is my last night at Harkness, so be it. But I don’t need her to be part of it. Leo hasn’t said much tonight. He’s just here for me. He’s appointed himself my keeper for the night. For once I’m comforted instead of annoyed.
We stare at the game a little longer, but when it goes to the ten-millionth commercial break, Leo mutes it and tosses the remote onto the coffee table. “I’d get you drunk tonight,” he says, “but I don’t think the hungover look is what your lawyer wants for tomorrow.”
Chuckling, I try to picture that. “Good point.”
“You need anything, though?”
I shake my head. “I just want it over. This has been a really long year.”
“No kidding.” We’re quiet for a second, and then he says, “I think it’s going to be okay.”
“Why?”
“I just do,” my brother says.
“Hope you’re right. But even if you’re not, I just want an answer. I’m so sick of wondering what’s coming. I followed all their weird little rules. I haven’t been inside the gates of a House or in any of the Houses’ dining halls. I was so careful, because I’d do anything to prove I was a good guy. And the shitty thing? There’s no way they’ve noticed.”
“Right?” my brother agrees.
“Made me feel like a criminal every day, too. Hey—remember that guy who worked at the drug store across from the middle school? He’d follow us around when we went in to buy candy after school.”
“The creepy dude with the mustache?”
“Yeah, him. I never stole a thing from that shop, but he made me feel like a delinquent anyway. That’s how this year has been. Times a million.”
“Sorry, man.”
“I know.” The game comes back on, but I don’t feel like watching it. “I think I need to get out of here. Maybe go for a run.”
“Okay.” Leo stands up. “I’ll do a lap around campus with you. Then I’m going to go pack for my trip.” Leo is going away with Amy for three days before he has to come back for hockey.
I put on my shoes and a fleece vest, and we head outside. We take off down the street at an easy pace, running in and out of the streetlights’ pooling glow. Leo tells me his itinerary—three days on a beach. “Don’t forget your sunscreen,” I say. “You don’t want to burn your white ass before playoffs.” Leo and the rest of the family are paler than I am. Whoever my father was, he tanned easily.
“Thanks for the tip.”
We run on, past fraternity row, which is lively tonight. People are celebrating the coming break. We loop around Science Hill and then head back toward campus. The Houses come into view one by one, yellow lights shining from their decorative old windows. Beaumont House is the prettiest of them all. One of those lights is Lianne’s, probably. When our route takes us past the Beaumont gate, my feet stop, unbidden.
Leo circles around to where I’m standing in front of the gate, peering inside. “D?” he asks.
I just point inside. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
He doesn’t try to talk me out of it. He just nods and runs off down the street, toward his own House.
From inside, a student walks toward the gate, backpack over his shoulder. On his way out, he lets me in without a second glance. That’s how it always works. A student’s ID only opens his own House gate, but we let each other in all day long. It’s just the easy trust that one student gives to another without thinking too hard about it. I used to take that for granted.
I don’t even know if my ID opens Trindle gate this year. I never checked.
Lianne’s room number is 317. I had to look it up when I sent the T-shirt over with Corey Callihan. So it’s easy to find her entryway. And luck is with me, because someone’s coming down the stairs and opening the door.
28
Not a John Green Novel
Lianne
The knock on my door surprises me, because it can’t be either Bella or Rafe. The low murmur of their post-coital conversation is audible from the other room. I’ve just finished blasting a dance playlist to muffle their shenanigans, and now it’s back to reading Brecht.
When the knock comes again, I get up and open the door, and DJ is standing right there. You could knock me over with a feather, I’m so surprised.
“Hi,” he says, his big dark eyes taking me in. “I just had to see you, smalls.” He leaves off the words one more time, but we both hear them anyway. “Can I come in for a minute? I won’t stay long if you don’t want me to.”
I don’t answer this question. Instead I just fling myself at him. “I’m sorry,” I gasp as I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze. He smells like winter air and clean sweat. And I just want to climb inside his jacket and stay there forever.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, catching me in strong arms.
But it isn’t. It’s not at all okay. I thought it would hurt less if I kept my distance
these last couple weeks. But I was wrong. I ache. And now I’m scaling him like a tree, wrapping my legs around his waist and clinging to him like drowning passengers to flotsam in the Titanic movie.
DJ actually chuckles, but I don’t see what’s funny. He carries me into my room and kicks the door shut. “Oh, smalls. I missed you so much.” He sits carefully on my bed and buries his face in my hair.
I take another deep breath of him, and then a giant convulsive sob comes heaving out of me. I try to gulp it back, but that only makes it worse. My eyes erupt like fountains.
“Oh, noooo!” he croons. “Don’t cry. It’s like you said. This isn’t a John Green novel. Nobody’s dying.”
But my heart is unconvinced. And now I’m ugly-crying. I’m like Claire Danes on Homeland, but without the dignity. And I can’t even wipe my face because I still have an octopus hold on DJ, so that he can’t leave before I can get over myself.
The bathroom door flies open and Bella sticks her head in. “What’s the matter… Oh. Sorry.” The door closes again before either of us bothers to answer. Somehow DJ manages to extract a hand from my embrace and reach for my tissue box. And then he’s dabbing at my tears and shushing me gently. When the mess has been mopped up, he sits back and looks at me for a moment, his brown eyes almost twinkling.
Beneath me he kicks off his shoes. And he unzips his fleece jacket and I relax the death grip I have on him so he can toss it on the floor. “Come here,” he whispers, pulling me down until he’s lying on his side on my bed, and I’m tucked against him, my face buried in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. “Shh,” he says again, rubbing my back with one big hand.