of the plastic carton and saw little black lines to mark the level of the milk. She placed the carton back in the refrigerator carefully, and closed the door softly, as if someone was going to jump out and catch her.
It became clear that it had been a mistake to move in with these girls so soon. Everyone else in their class had waited an extra year to make their permanent living choices, giving them time to weed out the crazies, to form real friendships, and now they all had their own living pods that were full and had no room for Cleo.
IN JUNE, RIGHT AFTER SOPHOMORE YEAR ENDED, Cleo went to a party with a girl she knew from her Foundations of Accounting class. It was at that party, standing by the keg in a dirty kitchen with a sticky floor, that she met Max. They were both holding red plastic cups, and waiting in line to get them filled. This was a story that pleased Cleo. It seemed like such a perfect way to meet a boy in college, the way he’d started talking to her in line, then pumped the keg and taken her cup to fill it first, tilting it perfectly to make sure there was no foam on top.
She liked him immediately, mostly because he was taller than she was. Cleo was five nine, and it was surprising how many boys she towered over, especially when she wore heels. But Max was well over six feet tall, and her head just cleared his shoulder. The two of them hung out the whole night at the party, and once when she went to the bathroom and they were separated for more than ten minutes, he came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders. “There you are,” he said. “I was afraid I lost you.”
At the end of the night, Max said, “I really liked talking to you.” He said this like it was something that boys in college said all the time, when Cleo knew from experience that it certainly was not.
Max was so easy—and not in a bad way. He was so sure of himself, so honest, so happy. After that first night, he was always around and Cleo was thrilled to have someone to hang out with, someone to distract her from her haunted house of eating disorders and milk Post-its. He always wanted to actually do things. Unlike most of the boys at Bucknell, who sat around in sweatpants and played video games, Max suggested real activities, like playing tennis or going to see a movie.
By August, they were a serious couple, by the college definition. When Max’s parents came up to visit one weekend, he asked Cleo to come to dinner with them, and so she put on a sundress and waited for them outside of her house, feeling more nervous than she ever had before.
They ate dinner at a steakhouse, and Max’s mom encouraged Max to get the biggest steak, made sure that all the leftovers were wrapped up for him, and asked about ten times what he was making himself for dinner these days.
Max’s mom fascinated Cleo. Weezy was doting. Cleo had never used that word much before, but it was the only word to explain Weezy’s relationship with Max. When she walked into his apartment, she almost immediately began to clean it, stocking the kitchen with groceries she’d bought, dusting shelves and changing sheets.
During her first visit to the Coffey house, she and Max were sitting on the couch when Max mentioned in an offhand way that he was hungry. “Do you want a snack?” Weezy asked. She got up and went to the kitchen, began returning with options, holding up bags of chips and cold cuts, like she was one of those ladies on a game show, presenting the contestants with their prizes.
It was no wonder Max was such a happy person. Sitting there, watching Weezy fall all over him, she got it. His whole life, people had been doing things for him, telling him how cute and funny he was—and he was all of those things, but still. Cleo couldn’t remember the last time her mom had made her a snack. She might have been around five years old, and the only reason her mom got involved was because the granola bars were on a shelf that was too high for her to reach. After that, the granola bars were put on a lower