And this reason made more sense than any of the others.
CHAPTER 12
LILY
There was one full weekend before my flight to London for my year abroad and I told Eric that I had a terrible late-summer cold and maybe he shouldn’t come. He agreed, on the condition that I let him drive me to the airport on the Tuesday that I flew from JFK. I thought it would be harder, those couple of hours with him in his car, but they were easy. I just told myself to act like nothing had happened.
Over the summer, Eric and I had discussed my year in London several times. I’d given him the chance to express any reservations, but he had insisted that we should stay together, continue to be mutually exclusive. His first visit was scheduled for October, six weeks after my arrival. Eric had already bought the ticket. So when we said good-bye at the loading zone at JFK, Eric said, “Six weeks feels like a long time, but it isn’t really. We’ll see each other soon.”
“Hey,” I said. “This is going to sound strange, but I want you to know that if you think this separation is too long I would understand. If you want to take a break, be with someone else, I won’t like it but I won’t hold it against you. Right now is the time to tell me. Not later.”
He looked concerned, his eyes locking into mine. “Is that what you want?”
“No, not at all. But I want you to tell me the truth. I wouldn’t respond well if you cheated on me.”
“You never have to worry about that. Ever.” I searched his face for any signs of deceit. It was something I had done for many years living with my parents, and I had come to regard myself as someone who could tell when I was being lied to. But I saw nothing in Eric’s face except love and sincerity.
“I can’t wait to see you in October,” I said, and held him tight for a moment while a trapped Range Rover behind us sounded its horn. In a way I wasn’t lying. I was now looking forward to Eric’s trip to visit me. That face he had made, that innocent, loving face, had sealed his fate. I didn’t know how I was going to do it yet, but I did know that I would find a way to punish Eric when he came to visit me in London.
The Faunce Institute of Art accepted just a few foreign students per year, so for my orientation week, I was at a hotel in Russell Square mixed in with about forty American students all attending something called the Overseas Academy for Foreign Study, a college that catered exclusively to American college students on their year abroad. In that week—along with a meet and greet, and some orientation sessions—we were expected to form groups and look for housing. We were given a list of real estate agents that specialized in temporary flats, and told that our best chance of finding something was to form groups of either four or six. As it turned out, many of the American students had already come over from their respective colleges in groups. I was wondering if it would be possible to find a studio flat just for myself when I was approached by a pretty student gripping her list of agents. “Have you found a group?” she asked.
“Not yet. You?”
“No, but my older sister did this program and she told me that they tell you that it’s easiest to be in a big group but that’s a lie—they just want you to be in big groups for some reason—and that it’s much easier to find a flat for just two, and so I looked around and I saw you.” She said this all in one rush, and with a sharp Texas twang.
“I’d be willing to share if you want to,” I said, glad to have met someone who seemed to know a little bit about the process of renting a flat.
She bounced a little, her long brown hair jumping on her shoulders. “Oh, goody. All these groups are boys and girls, and don’t get me wrong, I like boys, but I’d just as soon not share a flat with one of them. My name’s Addison Logan. My family all call me Addie but I thought I might try out my full name, Addison, while I was here in London, but you can call