and pulls me up as I pretend to pout.
I wish I was brave. I wish I was the girl who could say anything.
“Thank you for not making us read our poems,” I say as we reach Huntington, and Zeke lets go of my hand.
He chuckles and buzzes us into the dorm. “I was just teasing you. It was a closed event.”
I stop, half-inside and half–still out in the cool air. “Did you know that when you suggested it?”
There’s an almost imperceptible rise in one shoulder and were it not for the fact that he was injured, I would smack him. “I hate you. I spent hours writing that dumb poem.”
“You won’t hate me next week when our homework is to write a poem. Just consider it my gift to you.”
“Well, next time it’s my turn to plan our French experience, so remember that payback can be a bitch.”
“You don’t frighten me.” Zeke laughs as he pulls open the door to the staircase. “I think I can handle whatever you dish out. Give it your best shot.”
SEVENTEEN
EVEN THOUGH IT’S A FRIDAY night and I should have something better to do, I spend it thinking about our next French experience. Zeke left for Boston right after class and Alice went to visit her aunt in Ithaca, so I have the entire dorm room to play around with possibilities.
My plan is to turn it into an old-fashioned Parisian cabaret, complete with a black-and-white checked tablecloth (on our makeshift table on the floor), photos of burlesque dancers on the walls, and sultry accordion music.
It will be funny. It will be romantic. And maybe . . .
I stay up late taping together multiple sheets of paper to cover the windows: one that will make it look like the view from my bedroom is Paris at night with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, the other of the infamous Moulin Rouge. I have discussion topics ranging from French feminism (Zeke will die) to socialist politics (Zeke will love), with vocabulary lists to accompany them.
It’s almost three in the morning by the time I have all the photos ready. I just need to brush my teeth and then sleep will be mine.
Too tired to put on my robe, I peek out into the hallway. Deserted. As it should be at three in the morning. So I creep softly down the hallway, trying to remember if I’ve ever seen this place so quiet, so empty. No music blaring out of anyone’s room. No doors banging open. It’s what it probably looked like before we got here a month ago. Before the posters and the whiteboards on the doors, the notices on the walls.
Until the sudden noise of a group coming onto our floor startles me. The door to the stairwell must have amazing soundproofing abilities, I manage to think before I even have a chance to be mortified to be discovered in my tank top and short shorts. No bra.
Shit. No bra.
Crossing my hands over my chest, a last-second preferable choice to plastering my front against the wall, I hope that nobody I know is in the crowd. James and Ethan saunter out—two people I’ve never even exchanged a word with—and then Victoria. I breathe out the air I didn’t realize I was holding in my lungs.
“Come on, let’s move the party to our room,” Victoria calls to the rest of them, and I can only hope that their inability to keep quiet will alert Priya to their presence. Because however tired I am, I won’t be able to sleep with the noise of the three of them; especially when you add Michael, who’s emerging, and Melanie to total five. Except the door opens one last time, and I brace myself to see how many more people they’re planning to sneak into their tiny dorm room.
It’s Chloe, Victoria’s roommate. And Zeke.
Zeke, who is supposed to be in Boston.
Zeke, who said he was leaving right after class. Zeke, who is now staring at me with the same gaping expression I’m apparently wearing.
“Come on, Zeke,” Chloe says, pulling his arm. She takes a quick glance over at me, and then at her door.
“I told you I couldn’t,” he says slowly. “I’m leaving in a few hours to go to Boston and I want to catch some sleep before I go.”
It’s his voice that wakes me up. I need to get out of here. Now. Go back to the safety of my room. I can make it through the night without