What We Left Behind

Now it just seems stupid. How am I going to make it through a whole semester until I transfer? I can barely make it through a single day without Toni.

No. Thinking about that won’t help. I need to focus on fixing this. Making Toni forgive me.

I looked up the bus schedules from New York to Boston in the car, and I sent Toni a long email with a list of times I could go up there this weekend. Today’s Thursday, so I figure I could go up on Saturday morning. That way we’ll have had only two days apart, which seems like a good way to start. I figure for the first few weeks I can go up there instead of Toni coming down here. It’s the least I can do. The very least.

I haven’t heard back from my email yet, but Toni’s texted me twelve times since I got here anyway. Mostly funny stories about stuff the flight attendants said or jokes about how scary Boston cabdrivers are.

Maybe things will start to be all right. Maybe.

God, though. I’ve never seen Toni look the way T did last night. Like I’d just destroyed everything that was good in our world.

A random guy sticks his head inside the door of my dorm room. I jump up off the mattress, alarmed.

Then I remember my door is propped open. Everyone else’s doors were propped open and I figured it was the thing to do.

The guy grins at me. I try to smile back.

“Hey,” he says. “They told me there was a blond girl in this room.”

“They told you right,” I say.

“A bunch of us are going to a comedy club. Floor trip. We’re meeting downstairs in five.”

“Okay, cool.”

The guy leaves.

Perfect. A distraction!

Wait. Can I really just...leave? What about Toni? What about what I did?

I should really just sit here for the rest of the night. I don’t deserve distractions.

My phone buzzes. Another text from Toni.

My roommate and I are going to some burger place. What r u doing tonight?

Oh. Well, I guess if Toni’s going out, it’s OK for me to go out, too. I text back about the comedy show. Toni writes back right away.

Don’t forget ur pepper spray!

I smile and respond,

You too!

That’s a joke. Toni’s maid Consuela is awesome but also kind of scary. She makes Toni and Audrey carry pepper spray around with them whenever they go outside after dark. She stands in the door and yells after them, “Don’t forget your pepper spray!” It gives the muggers an unfair advantage, really. They can all probably hear her from miles around. They’ll know to be prepared.

I stare down at my phone screen and breathe in and out until I’m sure I’m not going to cry. Then I go to the mirror and brush the fattest tangles out of my hair. I look around the room one more time—at my side, with the bare twin bed and plain wood desk and half-empty boxes everywhere, and the other side, where my roommate’s neatly made-up bed sits under black lace tapestry hangings and the desk is decorated with pretty purple candles. I decide it isn’t worth trying to clean up my side. I don’t want to miss the group leaving, and it will take me hours just to make a dent in this mess. I head out into the hall, locking the door behind me, and take the elevator down fourteen floors to the lobby.

When I get outside the dorm, a dozen people are standing around the sidewalk, waiting to go. We’re all freshmen, so no one knows each other yet, and everyone’s checking out everyone else. You can tell what they’re all thinking:

This is it. This is the only chance I will ever have to establish my college social status. If I do not immediately bond with the coolest people here, I will be friendless and pathetic until graduation, and I will whimper alone in my dorm room every night.

I sit down on a bench to text Toni again.

A guy standing a few feet away lights a cigarette. Smoke gets in my face. I wave my hand around to blow it away. The guy doesn’t notice. He’s cute, but it’s the scruffy kind of cute, with messy hair, a bored expression and a pair of bowling shoes poking out from under his khaki pants.

A girl across from me is looking at the guy, too. She’s rocking on her heels, about to pounce.

It’s now or never, I imagine the girl thinking. I will be the first girl here to approach the mysterious cute boy. He will think I am bold and intriguing, and will immediately want to make out with me.

She walks toward him, smile in place. I try to catch her eye and signal her to stop—this guy is very obviously gay—but she’s too fast.

“Hi,” she says to the guy. “Excuse me. I was wondering. I couldn’t help but notice. Those shoes, with the stripe, that you’re wearing. Are those bowling shoes?”

She’s doing that thing where you’re nervous, so you use more words than you need to. I feel bad for her.

“Yes,” the guy says.

“Because I’ve been wanting to get bowling shoes,” the girl says. “Where’d you find them?”

The guy exhales a long puff of cigarette smoke. I cough.

“I slept with the little old man,” the guy says.

The girl blinks at him. “Uh. What?”

I feel even worse for the girl, but it’s hard to keep from laughing.

“Who?” she asks.

“The old man,” the guy says. “At the bowling alley. With the foot spray. His name was Gerald. Charming fellow.”

“Oh,” the girl says.

The guy looks at her.

“Um, okay,” she says. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.”

The girl walks away. Probably to give up on the whole comedy-club idea and slink back to her room for the next four years.

When she’s far enough away, I laugh out loud.

The bowling shoes guy turns around. His lips twitch.

“What’s funny?” he asks.

“That was so mean, what you did to that girl!” I say, still smiling.