my hair, et cetera, et cetera.
“We’re different,” I said, the blue ribbon of understatements.
And I knew then what I had subconsciously known all along. I couldn’t be a doctor.
I hugged my knees to my chest, my arms wrapped tightly around them. Xing’s eyes raked over me, shifting from the tears running frightened down my cheeks, to my arms, to the fact that I made sure not to touch my shoes to any part of my body because, obviously, germs.
And I saw when he got it. Well, as much as someone like him could. His face completely sagged, those premature lines becoming so pronounced I could have stuck a penny between the folds.
“What now?” he asked me.
“You were supposed to be the one to answer that.”
I didn’t bother with the Porter Room that night. I knew it was futile.
Incoming text from Darren
Do you have trouble ordering coffee? Because of your unique name?
Me
No, they just write May.
after a minute
Duh. I should have realized that. I was trying to be smooth and segue into asking you to coffee. I was going to dare you to tell them Lady Peanut when they asked for your name.
Is that a yes? Because I like you a latte (as friends, of course, as previously stipulated).
I like how much you espresso yourself.
I’ll chai not to be late.
after an hour
I like you too, for the record. As friends, of course.
CHAPTER 16
HOT CHOCOLATE
OUTSIDE DARREN’S CHEMISTRY LECTURE, I leaned against the wall, one ankle over the other, trying to look nonchalant. Like what I imagined a friend waiting for another friend would look like.
His texts had arrived during my regular dance therapy session, but I was barely moving—just a sad middle-school dance, stepping side to side with limp arms flanking my hunched, hopeless body. It was as much as I could bear to move.
I liked to personify the Porter Room because he had become such an integral part of my life, and when I danced, it was like I was conversing with Mr. Porter about my thoughts and emotions. When I stomped my anger into his tiles, he supported me, vibrated with me, and told me, I got you. When I dragged my feet, sweeping them across the floor to paint my sadness into the linoleum, he absorbed my pain and told me it would be okay. But even Mr. Porter hadn’t known what to do with my side to sides.
I spotted Darren first, naturally, since his hair was spiked above the plane of heads. Another reason my mother would disapprove. She hated “the spike,” as she called it. Why they have to do that? Looks so angry.
Darren greeted me with an uptick of his chin (perhaps a we’re-just-friends gesture?). “Hey, Princess Pecan.”
“Hey,” I answered softly. I wanted to joke back, but the words caught in my throat. I was so scared to cross the friend border that I kept myself as far from it as possible—in Awkward Territory, next to the Babbling Brook of Insecurity.
We fell into step, and even though he tried to hide it, I could tell he was walking a little slower so that I could keep up with his long strides.
In Killian Court, a middle-aged East Asian man with thick glasses broke from a pack of tourists to approach Darren and me. He pointed to each of us, then asked in a heavy accent, “Stu-dents?”
I nodded.
“Picture?” he asked, a hopeful smile on his face.
I reached for the high-tech camera cradled in his arms. “Sure. Do you want the dome in the background?”
He pulled away sharply as if I were trying to steal his firstborn son. He shook his head, then pointed the camera at us. It seemed he wanted a photo of Darren and me, but that made as much sense as Lu Pàng playing in the NBA.
The tourist waved a hand, motioning for Darren and me to move closer into the frame of the photo. Darren obliged, even playfully pointing to the MIT logo on my shirt. The camera clicked, capturing my face twisted with bewilderment, and the man was gone before I could puzzle out what had happened.
When Darren spotted my arched eyebrows and wide eyes, he mirrored my confusion. “That’s never happened to you before?”
“I don’t walk through Killian that often.”
“Well, get ready. Because the tourists always want pictures of MIT students, and if they want a picture of me, then they’ll definitely want a picture of the cute . . . I mean . . .” He looked away, embarrassed, as his