chapter two

The first time I drove over the border into Oregon I rolled down the windows and shouted, “I’m here, bitches!” This time when I cross the state line I just nod at the sign, solemn but dignified, like a grown up. Kellan 2.0.

The resolution of things with Andi has left me feeling a weird combination of lighter and heavier, and I don’t know what to make of it. I thought I’d be relieved to close the door on that chapter of my life, but I still feel like knocking, just to see if I’ll get an answer.

My phone beeps with another progress report from Crosbie. He and Nora returned to Burnham yesterday and Crosbie moved into McKinley residence on campus. After two years partying it up in a frat house, he says he’s never felt so old and wise. Already he’s provided a listening ear to nine teary freshmen and retrieved a lost and naked badminton player from the dining hall.

This year I’m flying solo, no roommates and no distractions. I lived off campus last year and my grades and running improved so much that my parents have agreed to cover my rent again as long as things keep up. Plus my dad’s book got a fifth Russian print run so they have a little extra money to spend.

By the time I get to Burnham I’m ready to be there. The Ivy League college is one of the country’s oldest schools, with the requisite rambling brick buildings, towering trees and sprawling green lawns. Tidy townhomes edge the perimeter and the sight of my unit’s familiar red brick façade and green door is a welcome one. Despite my aching back and cramped legs, I’m smiling when I step out of the car. All I really want to do is dump my bags in my apartment, swap my flip-flops for sneakers, and run in happy circles around campus.

When I first arrived two years ago, Burnham felt like a dream. Like all the pieces were perfectly arranged to give me the college experience you see in the movies and it was up to me to forget the past and look to the future. So I did. I lived it up, I partied, I made friends, I met girls, I did it all. Maybe too much. Being made aware of the consequences of your actions makes stupid choices seem a lot more stupid, so after two years of carefree stupidity, I’m ready to be a little bit smarter.

My landlord rented out the unit to a summer student who only needed one room, so for a fee he’d put a lock on my bedroom and let me store my stuff for a few months. Now I fish out the keys waiting in the mailbox, open the door and step inside. It’s warm and musty and mine.

Home, sweet home.

Until a meaty forearm slides around my neck and a voice mutters, “Give me all your money, asshole.”

I jab back with an elbow, knowing it’s useless. Crosbie’s built like a tank and the only thing I succeed in doing is hurting my arm.

A second later he’s hugging me and welcoming me back. “Dude!” he exclaims, letting go. “I’m so fucking glad to see you. If I have to listen to another kid throwing up spiked lemonade I’m going to jump out the window. I feel ancient. Like, thirty, at least.”

I shudder at the thought of being so old. “Kids,” I tsk, even though that was us almost every night until he met Nora.

I heave my duffel bag into the tiny foyer and set it down, then we return to the car to collect the last of my things and lug them upstairs where I survey my apartment. It’s clean and empty, sunlight spilling through the front window over hardwood floors and bare white walls. Living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. It’s not fancy, but it feels like home.

“Are you all right?” Crosbie asks. “Happy to be back?”

I’m standing in the middle of the room, clutching my bag like I can’t decide if I’m staying or going. “Of course,” I lie. I’ve still got the keys in my hand so I hold them up. “Just wondering which one’s for the bedroom.” The ring holds a mailbox key and extras for a second roommate, so it’s not the most far-fetched story.

“Only one way to find out.” He takes the keys from my hand and opens the door on the third try. We wince as the smell of an un-aired room wafts out.

“Yikes,” I mutter, waving a hand in front of my face. As far as I’m aware, there only stuff in there is furniture...and maybe one dead cat.

“You want to deal with this like adults?” Crosbie asks. “Or pretend nothing’s wrong and go get a beer?”

I sigh and think of my resolution to be a better version of myself. “We should probably deal with it.”

“Yeah.”

I put down my bag and neither one of us moves. “After a beer?”

“Works for me.” He pulls out his phone and types as we go outside.

I already know the answer, but still I ask, “Who’s that?”

“Nora. Just telling her we’ll be at Marvin’s if she wants to come over when her shift’s done.”

Marvin’s is a pub on Main Street in Burnham’s miniscule downtown, about a twenty-minute walk off campus. Nora works at a coffee shop nearby, and last year Crosbie made up countless excuses for us to “drop in” for no reason. The clues were all there, I’d just been so preoccupied with my own life that I’d failed to pick up on them.

“What time does she finish?”

“Six.”

I check my watch. It’s nearly four, so we’ll have two hours before I have to watch the lovebirds fawn over each other. I’m happy for them, but a summer spent in close quarters was more than enough.

We cut across one of the campus lawns and pass a group of pretty coeds lying on towels in the grass, taking advantage of the warm weather. I shunt aside an image of Andi in her red bathing suit and wave at the girls, who wave back.

“Hey, Kellan!” one calls.

“Hey!” I have no idea who she is but she’s wearing a bright green bikini and looks hot.

“Hey, Crosbie,” someone else calls.

I’m ready to stop to chat but Crosbie doesn’t hesitate, urging me along like a drill sergeant. “We can’t even talk to them?”

“You’ve been here thirty minutes,” he says. “You can make it another hour without hitting on someone.”

“But they’re so pretty.”

He laughs. “I guess I was worried about you for no reason.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In Washington, how you didn’t hook up with anyone.”

“I don’t have to hook up with everyone.”

He slants me a doubtful look and I amend my statement. “Anymore,” I clarify. “This is Kellan 2.0. All the fun, none of the gonnorhea.”

“You should work on that tagline, but if you’re looking for fun, there’s a party at McKinley tonight. Kellan 2.0 can come by and help me inspire young minds to drink responsibly.”

“Do you drink responsibly?”

He looks over his shoulder. “Why? Is Nora around? Of course I do.”

“You’re whipped, Cros.”

He obviously couldn’t care less. “There are worse things than being into a girl who’s into you.”

I laugh at him, but for some reason, I think of Andi.

* * *

The sun wakes me the following morning.

Despite the fact that I’m at Burnham and I went out the night before, I’m totally sober and very much alone. Kellan 2.0 might need some tweaking.

In the living room I find Crosbie sprawled on his back on the couch, one foot planted on the floor, both arms slung up over his head. After the bar we’d bailed on the McKinley party to come back here, set up my apartment and play video games. Not the Friday night I had planned, but there will be plenty more.

I round the counter into the kitchen to put two pieces of bread in the toaster. I’d left a box of non-perishables in my room over the summer and arrived with a few essentials, so now I open a jar of peanut butter and slice up a banana as I wait.

The toast pops up and Crosbie snorts, twisting on the couch but not fully waking. “Rise and shine!” I call, slathering each piece of toast with a healthy dollop of peanut butter and topping that with banana.

“Fuck off,” Crosbie mutters. I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or dreaming.

“Come on,” I say, tossing the banana peel in his direction. It lands on his stomach with a splat.

He feels around until he can identify the peel. “You suck,” he grumbles, wiping his eyes. I’m not offended. We were roommates first year and he was never a morning person. “What time is it? The sun isn’t even up.”

“It’s coming up. And you know what that means?” I waft a piece of toast in front of my face. “Time for breakfast!”

“I’d rather sleep.”

“I bet Nora doesn’t make you breakfast.”

“Nora knows the importance of sleeping in.” He complains but he comes over to collect his toast and pour a glass of water, my only beverage option.

I reach down to grab my foot and bend it up to stretch my quad. “Let’s go for a run. I need some exercise.”

“Let’s go for a run in like, two hours.”

“What is it Coach is always saying? ‘Just do it’?”

“That’s Nike. Coach says, ‘McVey, stop flirting and run.’”

“Well, close enough.”

Thirty minutes later we’ve eaten, brushed our teeth and stretched. I lend Crosbie a pair of shorts and we start off.

Monday is Labor Day, which means this weekend will be the busiest time for move-ins. Dorms officially opened five days ago, giving new students the time to settle in and drink their faces off, but campus is still pretty quiet. It’s also quiet because it’s six-thirty in the morning on a Saturday, but only Crosbie cares about that.

We run in silence, enjoying the cool morning air, the clear sky and bright sun promising another hot day to come. Burnham’s running paths wind through the surrounding old growth forest and we circle around the east side, passing several of the dorms, including McKinley, a towering concrete affair that looks more like a prison than a dorm.

“Which room’s yours?” I ask.

He jabs a finger at the side closest to us. “Right there. The one with the window open.”

They all have their windows open but I nod like I see it. “Cool.”

“The bottom ten floors are coed; the top six alternate guy-girl. Needless to say, I’m on sixteen.”

“Nora’s orders?”

“She was very clear about it.”

“Why didn’t you two just move in together?”

He jogs in a circle around me. “Too soon.”

“You seemed pretty comfortable sharing a place all summer.”

“Nora’s a very comfortable girl.”

“But?”

“There is no but. I know you think being in a relationship means your hopes and dreams come to an end, but that’s just something you made up.”

“It has nothing to do with hopes and dreams,” I lie, thinking about my dad. “What if you’re missing out? What if the best experience of your life is out there and you’re stuck with Nora?”

He takes no offense to the implication that Nora is a life sentence. “I had experiences. I sampled the wares, so to speak. Then I found what I was looking for. Better late than never.”

“Better late than too soon,” I correct him.

He smirks. “You’ll see. One day you’ll meet a girl who kicks your ass and makes you like it. And I’ll be there to say I told you so.”

“Ha.” I scoff. “Never.”

* * *

I have forty-nine unread email messages in my Burnham-provided inbox when I check later that afternoon. I use a personal account for most things and do my utmost to avoid my school account for one awful reason: Bertrand.

Bertrand is a bulked up former wrestler-turned-course-advisor and my worst nightmare. We’ve been at odds since I first got accepted to Burnham and he was assigned to assist me picking the classes that would help me decide on a major. I tell everybody that my major is sociology, but I’m actually undeclared and have been taking courses in the general curriculum. At our first meeting Bertrand told me remaining undeclared was a waste of time and needlessly expensive. I thanked him for his guidance and have been dodging him ever since.

Forty of the forty-nine messages are from Bertrand, dating back about three weeks. I delete thirty without bothering to read, then skim the ten that remain, starting with the oldest. The gist of the messages is the same: August 2: Hope you’re having a great summer, let’s talk about your course selection. August 8: I see you’ve selected your courses—please call me to discuss. August 11: You can’t enroll in German 201 if you haven’t passed German 101. August 12: Kellan—did you even take German 101? Call me. August 15: Kellan, I have taken the liberty of removing German 201 from your schedule. Contact me to find a suitable replacement. August 20: Kellan, if you don’t call me, I will select a course for you. August 23: Kellan, last warning. Then a message from the school. August 28: This message confirms you have been enrolled in the following course: Introduction to Hospitality and Hotel Management.

I squint at the screen. What the ever-loving fuck?

I log in to the Burnham website and navigate to my course schedule. Sure enough, it’s there. But not for long. I click on the box next to the course and select “Cancel.”

We’re sorry, reads the red writing in the pop-up box. Your action cannot be completed. Please call your course advisor for assistance.

I mutter a curse, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the contact button for the registrar’s office. I have two years’ worth of practice evading Bertrand—I know what I’m doing. I send off a quick message apologizing for the German 201 mistake and asking to be transferred into German 101. Problem solved.

By the time I get to Marvin’s later that night, I’ve already forgotten about Bertrand. The place is packed with freshman decked out in embarrassing outfits, face paint and ridiculous hairstyles. Each program has its own set of frosh leaders, responsible for rallying the troops for the first two weeks of the year, helping students learn the school, the town, and the fastest ways to get drunk. They’re too young to drink at the bar so they arrived loaded, and now there are approximately forty kids in clown wigs and tutus doing the Macarena in front of a semi-enthusiastic crowd.

“Again!” the room shouts when the song ends.

Disgruntled complaints are promptly drowned out by the opening notes of the song. Play fifteen, if I’ve counted correctly.

“Death by Macarena,” Nora says, watching with a bemused smile. “Turns out it is possible.” When I first met her last year she was wearing cardigans and flats, doing her best to play the part of a studious young sophomore. She’s pint-sized with lots of curly hair, and though she’s ditched the cardigans, she’s kept up with her grades and has the confidence to go with it.

“Why aren’t you guys helping out with the pledge torture?” Marcela asks.

“It’s not torture, it’s a test,” Crosbie corrects her.

“Oh yeah? What does it test?”

“Your...mettle,” he says finally.

We laugh. It might test your threshold for pain, humiliation, and alcohol, but that’s about it.

“Why didn’t you pledge a sorority?” I ask Marcela.

She and Nora lock eyes and crack up. “What part of this belongs in a sorority?” she asks, gesturing to herself from head to toe. Marcela Lopes is Nora’s roommate and my former fake girlfriend. She favors bleached hair and red lipstick, and tonight she’s paired it with a magenta halter dress and fuzzy black ankle boots. I know they’re fuzzy because they keep bumping against my leg and tickling me when she moves.

“Sorority girls are hot.”

“You think all girls are hot.”

Before I can tell her that Kellan 2.0 will be more discriminating than Kellan 1.0, the song ends and a drunken girl takes the microphone from the karaoke stage. I recognize her from some of the frat parties—she’s captain of the volleyball team, and her lean figure reminds me of Andi. I shake off the nostalgia. Kellan 2.0 lives in the present, not the past. Crosbie told me he’d be my wingman tonight, but so far I’ve rejected all the available women he’s pointed out and hung out in the booth with my best friend and two girls that are off-limits. I’ve seen lots of possibilities, but there haven’t been any that make me sit up—holy shit. I sit up straight.

“...chicken dance,” the volleyball captain is saying. “And to help, we’ve given them lots of feathers!”

The crowd erupts as approximately a dozen girls shuffle onto the tiny stage, each wearing what looks like a body suit that’s been covered in a million yellow feathers. They’ve accessorized with a variety of items ranging from feather boas, cowboy hats, sparkly stripper heels and Mardi Gras beads. Three seem ecstatic to be there, but the rest are mortified. I remember this from last year: the volleyball team gets their new recruits to perform the chicken dance on command around campus, and when the familiar jaunty notes ring out, they obediently—if miserably—flap their arms, shimmy, and try their best to be invisible.

No amount of trying can change the fact that right in the middle of the feather-covered bunch is a tall, toned figure with a familiar blond bun and dark brows. Her serious mouth is currently turned down in a focused frown as she tries to keep up with the increasing tempo while balancing on sparkly red heels.

I squint and lean forward in my seat, not believing I’m seeing what I’m seeing.

“Seriously, dude,” Crosbie whispers. “A chicken? When I said I’d be your wingman, I didn’t think you’d take it so literally.”

“Shut up,” I mutter. I’m out of my seat before I really know what I’m doing, nudging my way through the throng of spectators until I’m in the front row. The stage lights are so bright there’s no way not to recognize Andi—and if I had any doubts, they’re erased the second her eyes lock on mine and she freezes. The dancing chickens on either side bump into her and she stumbles, half-attempts to continue the dance, then gives up the charade and darts off the stage in a flurry of feathers.

“Andi!” I shout, trying to follow. The crowd is too thick, too drunk and too slow to move. She’s tall enough—and yellow enough—that I can spot the top of her head as she beelines it to the far side of the room and escapes out the front door. “Move!” I order, shoving my way through the mass of bodies, ignoring equal numbers of grumbles and greetings as I keep my gaze locked on the runaway chicken.

I know from experience that Andi’s a good runner, and the combination of the head start and the dense crowd might have been enough to let her get away, but the stripper shoes put us back on equal footing. I burst outside, breathing hard. I didn’t know I was sweating, but the air in the packed bar is about twenty degrees warmer than it is out here and I gasp in fresh air as I swivel around. I spot her at the end of the block, crouched down as she tries to unbuckle the heels.

“Andi!” I call again.

She hesitates, then straightens with one shoe in her hand and the other on her foot, limping out of sight around the corner.

“What the—?” I know she knows it’s me; what I don’t know is why she’s running. No, scratch that—I know why she’s running. I don’t know why she’s here.

I hurry around the corner, but with the exception of a street lined with parked cars, the block is empty. Downtown Burnham closes up pretty early, just a couple of bars and restaurants staying open to cater to the people who venture off campus. I know she can’t have gone far, so I jog down the block and peer between the vehicles, but there’s no Andi. Fortunately there’s a trail of stray feathers to guide me.

“Andi,” I call, stepping into the alley between a bank and a bakery. It’s weakly lit by streetlights on either end, ominous shadows criss-crossing between dumpsters and recycle bins. The air of gloom is alleviated by the embarrassed chicken ten feet in.

She’s leaning against the brick wall, balanced on her bare foot as she tries to unbuckle the second twinkling shoe. She’s not frantic anymore, she’s resigned, the way a person in a chicken suit and Mardi Gras beads might be. I see her chest rise and fall as she inhales, mustering up the courage to face me.

I stop a few feet away, peering at her in the shadows.

“And—” I begin.

“Stop saying my name,” she interrupts. There’s no real venom in the words, but they’re forceful all the same.

I look around, but we’re alone. “Why? Who’s—” I shake my head. That’s not the real question. The real question is “What are you doing here?”

She exhales and looks heavenward, as though answers will come. “I go here,” she admits.

I suppose it should seem obvious, given the circumstances, but still my mouth falls open. “What?”

“I go to Burnham,” she says.

“You—I—Here? Now?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re...” I take in the chicken suit. “On the volleyball team?”

“Yeah. I got a partial scholarship. I arrived this morning.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

She bites her lip and looks away, which answers all the ego-unbruising questions I’d have, like, “So you just learned about the scholarship last night? This was all a huge surprise to you, too? You didn’t tell me because you don’t have my cell number? Nobody told me because...” But there are no answers because there are no questions. I’ve been called willfully oblivious before, but I can’t pretend not to understand now. Andi didn’t tell me she was coming to Burnham because she didn’t want to.

“I didn’t know you were coming home.” She sighs guiltily and reaches for my arm like she might pet a stray dog, but I move away before she can touch me.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She drops her hand. “It means it’s a big school and we hadn’t spoken in two years and I didn’t think we’d bump into each other.”

My eyes nearly bulge out of my head. There are so many things wrong with that sentence that I can’t decide where to begin. “We didn’t speak for two years because you refused to speak to me!” I exclaim. I want so badly to demand answers about that, but the stubborn clench of her jaw makes me hold back. “And what about Christmas? Or next summer? Even if you avoided me all year here, you didn’t think maybe we’d bump into each other then, since we live three feet apart? Were you planning to lie about your whole fucking life?”

“You don’t ask me about my life!” she shouts back.

For a second I just stare at her. “What?”

“You don’t ask me about my life,” she repeats, a little less heatedly, like she regrets the words.

I bristle. I may have been accused of being self-centered in the past, but I don’t think this situation is entirely—or at all—my fault. “Well, I can’t ask you about your life when you’re not talking to me.”

She plucks a stray feather off her cheek and hurls it onto the ground as strongly as one can hurl a feather. “I applied to six schools,” she says, studying the wall behind me. “This is the only one that offered a scholarship. I didn’t want to come because you—” She looks at me. “I didn’t want it to seem like I was following you here. I’ve always lived in your shadow and... Remember on Grim when you said you wanted to come here and start living your life?”

My stomach twists as I remember those words and their implication. The thought of Andi “living life” the way I lived mine is strangely upsetting. “I just—”

“That’s what I want,” she interrupts quickly. “I want to be here and be somebody new, not just the tagalong.”

“You’re not—”

“Not if nobody knows we’re...” She trails off as though there’s no term in existence that could describe what we are. Were. And maybe more than the knowledge that she’d come here with the ridiculous notion of avoiding me all year, the idea that she can’t even call us friends makes everything inside of me ache. I thought we’d patched things up on Grim and I’d come back to Burnham feeling like a weight had been lifted. Now it feels like that was all a big joke, like the weight was just lifted in order to be dropped on my head at the worst possible moment.

“We were friends,” I finish for her.

She doesn’t miss the use of the past tense. “We’re complicated, Kellan.”

“Well, I think you’ve clarified everything now. Though if you want to go unnoticed, dressing up like a stripper chicken is probably not the best way to do it.”

“I’m just trying to fit in.”

I shrug like I don’t care and try to keep the anger out of my voice so she doesn’t know how much this burns. “If I see you again, I promise to ignore you.”

“Kell, we don’t—”

“Just walk back to the bar. I’ll follow at a distance to make sure you get there safe. And if anyone asks, I’ll tell them we’ve never met.”

Andi swipes a hand across her eyes but doesn’t argue. She’s not an idiot, despite the chicken costume, and no amount of pretending will convince her I’m not mad. We’ve been in enough fights to know the signs.

She carries the shoes and walks gingerly out of the alley. When we reach the corner we can hear the sounds of rowdy, drunken voices and the heavy thud of dance music emanating from the bar. She glances at me over her shoulder. “Bye, Kell.”

But I’m already walking away.