just so absolutely pleasant to look at, his hair curling around his ears, his smile easy and serene. He looked like he should be on a movie screen, twenty feet tall, playing someone beautiful from somewhere beautiful. He did not look like anyone who would naturally appear outside my dorm room in Kansas.
And yet, it didn’t matter.
I started explaining right there in the hall. No one was around anyway, and, given what I had to say, it seemed awkward to ask him inside. And it seemed pointless, even mean, to let him say anything at all first; because nothing he could say would make any difference. It wouldn’t matter if he turned out to be nice or smart or funny in addition to being the dorm’s Adonis. I wouldn’t care. I told him this, working to keep my eyes on his, to not be a coward and let myself look at the yellow cinder-block walls or the gray carpet. I clasped my hands in front of me and then behind me. I’d left the garbage bags in the first-floor trash room; my books were behind me in my backpack, and I wished I had something to hold. I told him that I had made a mistake the other night, and that I was embarrassed, but that my embarrassment had nothing to do with him. I told him that I had a boyfriend, and even though I had probably messed that up, I wasn’t sure I had messed it up completely, and I didn’t want to do anything to make my chances worse.
Marley’s door was open. I could see her shadow on the hallway carpet; she was right around the corner, taking everything in.
“Okay,” he said, his low voice steady. He was already turning away. “No problem. I understand.”
I watched him walk away, worried that he did not understand at all. It was almost an old joke to reject someone and say there was nothing wrong with him, that the problem was with you. But in this case, it was absolutely true. What I was feeling now had nothing to do with him. But what I had felt on Friday night had nothing to do with him, either—which didn’t say much for me. I used him, as if he weren’t really a person. Whether he was wounded or not didn’t matter. I was right to feel ashamed of myself.
“Hey, Veronica.” Marley was behind me. “How’re you doing?”
My first impulse was to ignore her. I didn’t want to be mean, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone just then. I wanted to turn around and move past her to my room and shut the door behind me. I wanted to stop saying and doing stupid things, and the only way to do that, it seemed, was to take a break from interactions in general. When I did turn around, however, she was standing closer than I’d expected, and she looked eager and desperate for conversation, even more so than usual. I glanced up and down the hallway. Every door but hers was closed. The dorm could be a lonely place on Sundays. In cold weather, especially, even the people who didn’t go home seemed to disappear.
I looked at my watch. “You want to go to dinner?” I wasn’t hungry—I’d eaten one of the chicken salads my mother had brought just a few hours ago.
She nodded. Of course she nodded. She’d probably been alone all day. I wasn’t sure what the course load was like for French horn majors, but it didn’t seem very demanding for Marley. She always had time on her hands.
“I have to put my bag down.” I unlocked my door and waved her in behind me. My blinds were still down from the previous night, and though it was still just late afternoon outside, I had to turn on the light to see.
“You need to decorate.” She wrinkled her nose at my blank walls.
“I’ve been busy,” I said. When I set my backpack on my desk, I heard the thud of my chemistry book. I still had to read, and try to understand, three more chapters before Tuesday.
“You need posters.” She sat on the spare bed, one pig slipper crossed over the other. She was wearing the sweatshirt that had been signed, in various colors of Magic Marker, by the other members of her high school graduating class. “Seniors Reach for the Stars! Go Bison!” was ironed on the back in bubbly, hollowed-out letters. “I’m lucky, because a