only jeans and pulling a T-shirt over his head. I flush when I realize what I obviously just interrupted, feeling very much like the younger brother.
The girl walks into the room Lewis just came out of and returns with a pair of leggings. I try not to watch her pull them up. “Then we un-broke up,” she says. “I know it’s only for a couple more months, but you could have told your brother we’re still together, Lewis.” She playfully swats him.
“Fine.” Lewis sighs. “Fitz, this is Prisha, my girlfriend until spring break. Prisha, this is my brother, Fitzgerald. Happy now?”
Prisha gives Lewis a quick kiss on the cheek on her way to the door. “Very. Have a good trip, you two. Fitz, college is great. What I learned when I visited BU was to hang out with the students. Stay away from anywhere you find guys like Lewis.” She winks at him, steps into a pair of boots, and walks—sashays, really—out the door.
Lewis nods in my direction. “Come on in. I have to send a couple of emails before dinner.” He waves me in. I’m shocked he waited this late to eat with me. I wonder if he got pressured by Mom, or maybe nine p.m. is a perfectly normal time to have dinner in college. Realistically, he was probably too distracted by Prisha to notice the hour.
I follow and can’t help pausing to admire the room. It’s like an apartment—a nice, well-furnished apartment, with colorful chairs and a wooden coffee table overlooking the nearly floor-to-ceiling window opposite the door. There’s even a kitchen table, and on the TV stand sits the widescreen Dad bought Lewis when he began his freshman year. Lewis and his three roommates, of course, have done their best to worsen their living conditions. Beer bottles line the windowsills. Open on the coffee table is a jar of peanut butter with a knife stuck inside. The room smells like socks and sweat.
But nothing can detract from the view. Right out the window, the frozen river winds through the city, with trees on both banks and a small bridge reaching between them. In the distance, the Boston skyline glitters brightly. The glow reflects dimly on the ice of the Charles.
It takes my breath away.
Lewis sits down at the kitchen table and opens his laptop. I notice stickers for Khatarnak and India Club on the case. Since going to college, he’s been learning about and embracing his cultural heritage. It’s a reminder of how, while we’re both adopted, I can never completely understand his experience of being adopted from Indian biological parents into a white American family.
“Good trip down?” he asks after a beat. We both know what happened on my way down—I’m certain Mom texted him the reason for the delay. He doesn’t glance up from his computer, and I don’t know if he’s consciously avoiding my eyes.
I know Lewis considers me not just a younger brother, but a baby brother. When he was going to parties in high school, I was reading and playing computer games. When he was bringing girls home, I was reading and playing computer games. It’s not that I don’t have a life. I just don’t think Lewis thinks I have a life. Admittedly, I’m no future prom king, and I volunteer at the library every Friday and have B horror movie marathons with my friends. But while Lewis is planning spring break with his frat brothers, I’m home with Mom, worrying. Worrying is my primary recreational activity.
I nod, saying nothing more. Uncomfortable, we both wait for the other to speak. Finally, I do. “Why’s Prisha only your girlfriend until spring break?”
Lewis shrugs with half a laugh. “She got a job in San Francisco, and I want to be in New York. Neither of us wants to do long-distance since nothing’s going to change geographically in probably three years or so. We picked a date to end it, and we’re just hanging until then.”
I watch Lewis as he works on his emails. He doesn’t appear bothered by this in the least. But that’s Lewis. He got his even temper—equanimity—from our dad’s parenting. The day Lewis dumped his high-school girlfriend, the day he brought home a C in chemistry, the parties he threw