each semester and boozed their way through their three months in London. “Not you, Corbs,” she said. “You’re one step up from those arseholes, but a very small step.” She held two fingers minutely apart, a wide grin on her face.
They rarely saw each other outside of the Three Lambs and the one class they shared, but with the first exam coming up, they wound up studying together at Claire’s place in Queen’s Park. It was a tiny studio flat, big enough for a bed, a desk, and a chair. They studied on the bed together. “Just sleep here,” she’d said, when they’d finally decided to quit. It was past one in the morning, and the Underground was no longer running.
“I can get a taxi,” Corbin said.
“Don’t be an idiot”—she pronounced it like eejit—“just stay here.”
“I kind of made a pledge to myself that I wasn’t going to get involved with anyone while I was here in London.”
She laughed. “Jesus, it’s not like that.”
They fell asleep without touching each other, but just past dawn, they wordlessly began to kiss, and before Corbin had a chance to tell her that he really meant what he said about becoming involved, they were having sex. It happened so fast that Corbin didn’t have time to think about it, didn’t have time to panic. Afterward, they kissed more, and Claire fell back asleep. Corbin didn’t tell her that it was his first time.
Walking home through the cold, dewy morning, he’d felt not just elated, but somehow vindicated. It hadn’t been him. It had been the string of pathetic, inexperienced girlfriends he’d had that had been the real problem. He’d just needed to find a real woman, and he’d finally found one.
He aced the exam—no surprise there—and continued seeing Claire, their relationship completely different from anything Corbin had experienced before. For one, they rarely talked about what was happening between them, not because Corbin didn’t want to, but because she didn’t. Anytime he’d bring up their situation, she’d make a joke or call him an idiot. Corbin became fixated on what she was thinking, obsessing over the smallest of clues that might indicate her frame of mind. It made him angry with himself, but at the same time, he knew he was in love. He told her once, drunkenly, after returning from a school-sponsored booze cruise on the Thames. It had begun to pour on their walk home, and they’d ducked under the awning of a closed bakery and stood kissing.
“You reek of beer,” she said.
“I love you,” he responded.
She laughed, not entirely unkindly, then had ferociously kissed him. “You’re my favorite American,” she said, laughing some more.
“Thanks,” Corbin said, telling himself to never again let her know how he felt.
He didn’t, and the relationship—at least that was what Corbin was calling it in his own head—continued up until the final week of that term. Corbin fretted over the state of their affair, wondering if he should ask her if she wanted to visit him in America during the summer break. But before he’d steeled himself to initiate that conversation, everything changed. It was a Thursday, and Corbin was nursing a pint at a large anonymous pub near where he lived and rereading one of his texts, when Henry Wood, another American student in his program, came up to his table.
“You studying?” Henry asked.
“Yeah.” Corbin held up the cover of the book.
“The classes here are ballbusters, eh?”
“Yeah, they are,” Corbin said.
Corbin hadn’t gotten to know too many fellow students during his time in London, but he’d gotten to know Henry, because everyone knew Henry. He was one of those effortless socializers, someone who remembered everyone’s name, someone who always kept the conversation going. Shortly after orientation week he’d thrown a party at his rental, a sprawling ground-floor flat in Hampstead. It was a cold, raw night, but Henry had strung lights in the shared garden and even somehow purchased a keg. It wasn’t just Americans at the party but English neighbors as well, sudden lifelong friends that Henry had made during his short time in London.
It had begun to snow that night, small white crystals that melted as soon as they touched a surface, but everyone stayed, huddled in the fenced-in garden till long past midnight. The first two hours of the party were awkward for Corbin, but the beer kicked in, and before he knew it, it was two in the morning and he was talking college football with a girl from the University