“Hey, wasn’t sure you were gonna make it.” Rome looks up from the book he’s reading as I walk into the room. He’s lounging in one of two cushioned armchairs positioned in front of a low table. Similar study pods dot the lounge, which is empty but for a trio of students at the far end, huddled over open laptops and debating in hushed tones. Floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the room usher in the golden light of late afternoon.

“Am I late?” I reach into my bag for my phone to check the time.

“Nah, I just didn’t think you’d—well, never mind. Ready to start?”

I plop down into the chair beside him and pull out my books. “So…Nazi Germany? Hitler’s rise to power? That’s what’s happening today, right?”

I’m trying to focus, but my thoughts are still with Garrett. I would have done almost anything to stay in bed with him, which was all the more reason to stick to my original plans. Each stroke of my bow this morning was a conscious rebellion against my own mind (manatees, countertops, Give me your cock, please), proof that I could handle the distraction—the rather impressive distraction—that is Garrett Vines. Did he really not run screaming after I told him the insanity of my childhood? Maybe he still will.

Rome flips through a few pages in his book. “I’ve been reading this chapter about the interim years, the years between the two wars. It’s actually pretty interesting how the end of one war ultimately led to the beginning of the other. The disenchantment created by the forced acceptance of the Treaty of Versailles was what enabled the new party’s rise to power.”

I’m fumbling with my own book, trying to find where he is—he’s already making me feel a bit stupid. Also, since when does he talk like this? I’d give him a weird look but I’m too busy trying to get my shit together to address his sudden intellectualism. “Okay, wait, you are definitely way ahead of me here. No wonder you got an A and I didn’t.”

He lays his book face down over one knee. “Tell me what you know about the end of World War I. Just talk it out.”

“Well…um, I read about the Treaty of Versailles, and I know it formed a new republic in Germany and that the reparations Germany was expected to pay was some outrageous amount, but…”

“Did you get to the hyperinflation yet?”

“Ugh. No. How am I so behind? I’m reading every night.” Except last night.

“You’re not behind, I’m ahead. I love this shit.”

“You’re fucking weird.”

“And you’re just jealous I got an A on my quiz.” His eyes are gleaming playfully.

I smile and roll my eyes. “You got me there.”

I find the chapter on hyperinflation, and he picks up where he left off.

After an hour and a half of alternating reading, talking, and taking notes, I think I’m starting to wrap my brain around the material. Rome asks if I’ll look at his essay for his Music Appreciation class, and I do, but aside from suggesting he elaborates in a few spots, I don’t have much to offer him. The essay is obviously thoroughly researched, and he writes very well—efficiently, and with proper grammar.

“You’ll need citations,” I tell him. “Just find a few corroborating points in an online music journal or a book in the library or whatever.”

“I can do that. Thanks, Malory.”

“No, thank you.” It’s good to feel like I’m finally getting a grip on this history stuff. “I’ve always done well in history classes…I think maybe my classes in high school were just bullshit, way too easy. Everything was multiple choice.”

It’s not that you’re smart; it’s just that you have no competition here. I shake my father’s voice from my head.

“The history they teach in schools is bullshit in more ways than one,” Rome says. “In middle school I got into an argument with the teacher about Christopher Columbus and how they say he founded America and had a happy jolly party and ignore that he helped decimate entire civilizations.”

I’m blushing because I’m white and he’s black and I feel like I’ve done something wrong. “Yeah, I’ve…heard that.”

He laughs and adjusts the brim of his hat. “My bad, I get carried away.”

“No worries.” I begin stuffing my books back into my backpack. “I’m just a little ashamed of my ancestors.”

“Why? You’re not your ancestors.” He zips his own backpack and hikes it over his shoulder. “Wanna head to the food court? I’m starving.”

“Um, well…” I don’t want him to think we’re on a date.

“As friends,” he says, raising his hands up as if in surrender.

I suppress a smile. “Sure, but let me run my books up to my room first.”

“Meet you back here in a minute.”

Outside, the sun is low—we’ve studied for just over two hours—and I feel accomplished, confident that I can handle my obligations despite the occasional distraction of Garrett’s soft mouth on my body. I can stand to be away from him. I can get all my practicing and homework done. I won’t lose myself in him, no matter how many times he makes me beg.

Rome and I walk toward the student commons. The evening is humid and warm, peaceful but for the whine of cicadas. Rome keeps glancing over at me like he wants to say something but can’t decide whether to come out with it or not.

After his fourth indecisive peek I finally say, “What? Something on my face?”

His head dips so that I lose sight of his eyes under the brim of his hat, but I can see his nose crinkling. “I’m not so bad, am I?” he asks. Now he lifts his eyes to me.

Ouch. My stomach flips with guilt. “Okay, I misjudged. Sorry. You have to admit, though, you were pretty forward. What was I supposed to think?”

He narrows his eyes at me. “What exactly did you think?”

We side-step a group of students heading away from the food court. They’re laughing and talking and don’t make room for us to pass.

“Geez, rude, much?” I roll my eyes. “So, this is going to sound so bad, but you reminded me of these guys that lived down the, uh…row. From where I lived. Like…in a trailer park. They were troublemakers.”

He’s quiet for a minute, then says, “What, like thugs? You thought I was a thug?”

My face and ears are burning now—I’m glad it’s dark. “Okay, fine, so I’m judgmental. But you have to know you project a certain…image. Why not dress different? Or pull up your fucking pants?”

He laughs like he’s not insulted, and maybe he really isn’t with the way he’s grinning. “It’s a social experiment, I guess. Or, wait…that’s not right.” He waves his hands in the air like he’s erasing what he just said. “It’s a test. If you wanna judge me and make assumptions based on my clothes, then maybe I don’t really wanna know you anyway. My mom called it ‘shaking the tree.’”

“Shaking the tree?” I cut my eyes at him. I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.

“Life is all about connection, right? We’re branching out all the time, like a tree does, and everybody we connect with is a leaf on the tree—healthy leaves, deeply rooted trees, all that. But sometimes you gotta shake shit up, make the dead leaves fall away. Shaking the tree is getting real, showing people who you are and letting them decide whether they want to hang around, you know?”

“Come on, Rome. You are your baggy pants?”

“Nah, but do I really need to change my fucking clothes to be likable? I mean, I’m not faking. I’m not trying to get a rise out of anybody. But fuck you if you don’t like my saggy ass. Ya feel me?”

“Okay, okay, yeah, I feel you, but you know, you press people.” I think of how pushy he was that first day of class, how he blocked the way to get my attention. “It’s not like you just accept every time a leaf falls out of your tree. Case in point: me. Why didn’t you just let me blow away on the wind?”

We’ve arrived at the food court. Rome pulls open the glass door and lets me go first into the brightly lit hall. The cacophony of raised voices and forks clattering against plastic meal trays is so jarring after the comparative peace of cicada song that it makes me want to turn around and go back outside. “You got me there. Some leaves…” He glances at me and falters. “Ah, never mind. Pizza?”

“Sounds great.” I’m glad he didn’t finish whatever he was going to say about leaves. We head toward the Domino’s on the far end of the food court. “So,” I say, “a judgy white girl like me makes assumptions about you based on how you dress and speak. So don’t actual thugs make assumptions about you too? Don’t you attract a certain kind of crowd?”

“Personal pan, just pepperoni, and a medium drink.” He turns back from the pizza guy and looks at me pointedly. “‘Certain kind of crowd’?”

“Same for me,” I tell the pizza guy. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean, Rome. You never got yourself into trouble? The guys who lived down the row from me didn’t give a shit about education or whether they were going anywhere in life. All they cared about was selling dope and claiming their territory. They’d have considered you a sellout.” And kicked your ass.

Rome accepts my assessment with a nod and rubs his index finger back and forth over his upper lip, thinking. “First of all, how do you know they didn’t give a shit about that stuff? Did you ever think maybe those guys just didn’t believe those opportunities were available to them? Second of all: I do fit in with them.”

“But you’re so fucking smart. Like really smart.” Smarter than a valedictorian.

“My boys back home call me a smart-ass all the time.” He laughs. “They rag me, but nobody means any harm. And I’m not really that smart. I just know a lot because I’m curious about everything.”

He sounds exactly like me. I remember the first time I made straight A’s, in sixth grade, and what a triumphant letdown that was, to have nothing else to strive for. And then my dad said, “I bet you like that, feeling like the smartest one in the bunch, huh? I bet you think you’re hot shit, don’t you? Little smart-ass!” and ruffled my hair affectionately. I never made less than an A after that. How could I have? Not such a smart-ass, after all is what he would’ve said.

Our pizzas are up. We take our boxes and fill our cups at the soda fountain, then find an empty table.

My pizza is still steaming, too hot to eat. I watch Rome, how he opens his pizza box with messy, unfiltered movements, how he slouches over his food with a fidgety kind of impatience, his intelligent eyes sweeping over the room, then down at his pizza, and back up to me. He’s always moving. He’s the opposite of Garrett, who is uncommonly still. Give me your cock, please. Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m going to claw my skin off if I start thinking about Garrett.

“So where’d you learn to dance like you did at that party?” I ask Rome.

He shrugs, lifting a slice, nipping the trailing strings of mozzarella with his finger. “Picked it up in the streets.”

“Well,” I say, not even trying to hide how impressed I am, “you’re talented as fuck.”

He takes a bite of pizza and reverse blows when it’s too hot on his tongue. “Thanks,” he says with his mouth full, then chews and swallows. “And you’re talented as fuck at cello.” He pauses for a second. “But I guess you probably didn’t learn that in the streets.”

“Ah, who’s the one making assumptions now?” I raise an eyebrow at him and pick up my own slice. “I had a teacher who trained me, but it was in the streets that I really learned to perform.”

“So the streets aren’t all bad then?” He winks and takes another bite.

I smile. “Guess not.”

---

Rome and I are almost to the dorm’s front walk when we see Daphne coming toward us from the other direction in the dark. She’s wearing gym clothes and her cheeks are glowing like she’s fresh off a workout. “Hey, you two! Where’re you guys coming from?”

“We grabbed dinner at the commons,” I say. “We had a study date.”

“Cool.” Her voice sounds peppy enough, but she gives me a wary look as the three of us make our way up the walk. “So, Miss Staying-Out-All-Night…were you where I think you were?”

What the hell is she doing telling my business?

I can feel Rome smirking at me. “Hey girl, get yours,” he says with a lopsided grin. “Don’t be shy.”

“I’m not shy.” I swipe my key card and open the lobby door, throwing a glare at Daphne.

Rome takes the elevator since he’s on the fourth floor, and Daphne and I head for the stairwell. “So,” she says as we clomp up the concrete steps, “what’s with Romeo?”

“How’d you know his real name is Romeo?”

“I didn’t. Trying to be funny.”

Our footsteps echo against the painted cinder block walls. “We have a class together,” I say. “He’s helping me study since I bombed the first quiz.”

“He’s helping you study? Seems like it should be the other way around.” She pushes open the door to our floor. “You being valedictorian and all.”

“He’s really smart.”

“He’s just a little…I dunno…ghetto.”

Hearing it come from Daphne makes me realize how bafflingly small-minded I’ve been, and now I’m truly ashamed. I can’t believe Rome keeps talking to me after I basically called him a thug. “Well,” I say, “he taught me some shit about history, but he also taught me a few things about not judging a person based on how they dress.”

She levels her gaze at me. “Point taken. But you know, I see him around with girls all the time. He’s got a reputation for being a man-whore.”

Geez, glad I never told her I fucked some random partygoer our first week here. “Rome’s not a man-whore, Daphne. He just has a lot of friends.”

“And he’s a drug dealer.”

Is she fucking serious? I shoot her a look of disgust as I push open the door to our room. I can feel my blood pressure rising, and each criticism she throws at Rome makes me hate myself a little more for judging him in the first place.

“Fine, whatever. Let him do whatever he’s gotta do to get by. What is your problem with him, anyway?” I sit on my bed.

She sits at her desk and opens her laptop, fixes her eyes on the screen. “No problem, he just…he’s not good enough for you.”

I can feel my brows knitting together, my face heating.

“You can do better,” she says quickly.

“You need to lay off,” I say. “He’s my friend, Daphne.”

What would she say if she were to see Aunt Bonnie’s dilapidated trailer, or if she knew I fucked a greasy mechanic for my car? Would she think it made perfect sense for me to be friends with a guy like Rome? Or even to date him? I grab my economics book and a highlighter from my desk and throw myself against my pillows, cracking open the book with more force than necessary.

“Fine, fine, he’s your friend. I’ll lay off. However…I do want all the details on Garrett,” she says, dropping her voice lasciviously. Her fingers are already pecking away at the keys on her laptop.

Unbelievable. I flip to the assigned chapter, keeping my eyes locked on the text. My face is burning. “He’s an awesome cook, he has the metabolism of a reptile, and his house is completely dust-free. And we fucked.”

Her laughter peals like a bell. “You slut. That’s fucking fabulous.”

I roll my eyes and don’t say another word.

---

Monday morning I’m in my practice room at the music school, unpacking my cello, when I receive a message from Garrett: I know you don’t want anything to interfere with your studies—trying not to bother you during the week. Just wanted to say I enjoyed Saturday night.

I almost cry with relief, because though I haven’t messaged him, I’ve been going crazy wondering if he’s thinking about me. I cannot believe I spilled the entire story about my shitty family life. I thought maybe I’d scared him away.

I respond: Me too.

I was thinking about the running thing. That I could train you.

A little fire lights in my belly, warming me from the inside out. I chew my lip and text, I won’t hold you back? Of course I’ll hold him back. I just hope he won’t mind.

We’ll meet twice per week. I’ll do my harder workouts alone, on other days.

Sounds good. I hesitate for a moment, then send a follow up message: I’m scared, though.

I’ll teach you to pace yourself.

If anyone knows a thing or two about pacing, it’s probably Garrett. Pacing is all about self-control, and Garrett has that in spades.

I see I’ve got a message from Liza—she’s auditioned for the school musical and won a spot in the chorus. I quickly respond: Whoa, seriously? Liza has always been shy and asocial. She has an awesome voice though, always singing in the shower, especially once Dad wasn’t around anymore to tell her to shut up.

Then from Garrett: Start Thursday?

Sure.

Liza: Isn’t it SO amazing? We’re doing 42nd Street!

Garrett: Will text you with when and where to meet. Tell me if you play downtown.

OK. I want to leave an “xo” or something, but I can’t tell if it would look too cutesy. I hate texting.

There’s a knock on the door. “Yeah?”

Bethany peeks into my practice room, her orange curls loose around her face. “Oh, good, you’re here. It was so quiet I wasn’t sure.”

I look at the time on my phone. “Shit. Yeah, gonna start now.”

“Cool.” She grins. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Me? Yeah, why?”

“You just look kind of…hot. Thought maybe you were sick or something.”

Sick. I feel my cheeks heat even more. I know it’s from sitting here texting Garrett and marveling at his superhuman self-control, the way he smirked and shook his head at me while I spread my legs and begged him to fuck me. “No,” I tell her. “I’m fine.”

That afternoon at my lesson, Professor Yarvik also comments on my red face and I don’t even hear her at first because I’m imagining Garrett bending me over his kitchen counter. She tells me I’m playing well and to prepare a new Popper etude for class this Thursday.

Tuesday, Rome and I sit together in Twentieth-Century Europe. He slouches down in his chair, keeping his gaze on Professor Hart and nodding occasionally as if the two of them are having a private conversation. During the mid-class break he makes fun of me for how many notes I’m taking, and I splash him with water from the fountain.

That same afternoon I go to hip-hop class with Daphne, even though I’m still a little annoyed by her snotty attitude toward Rome. She’s there at the front doing lunges before the class has even started. “Calm down,” I tell her. “The class burns enough calories already.”

“I ate nachos last night at the commons,” she breathes.

I think she looks a little thinner than last week, but I hold back from telling her because she might take it as a compliment, and I don’t mean it as one. Instead I join her at the front of class and push myself just as hard. Maybe harder. I don’t want to wimp out with Garrett when we run on Thursday morning.

Wednesday afternoon after Music Theory, I lug my cello to my car so I can play downtown for a few hours. My car insurance is due and my bank account is running low. I text Garrett my plans because I told him I would, even though it feels silly to do it, like I think he can’t stand to miss a single note.

I play for an hour before he shows. The sun is sitting low, pouring its liquid gold over the trees, and just when I’ve convinced myself he’s not coming, there he is, leaning on a tree barely within my peripheral vision. The second I catch sight of him I straighten and almost lose my grip on my bow. How long’s he been standing there with that smug little smile? I take a break after a while, hoping to chat or at least say hello, but when I look back to the tree, he’s already gone.