Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [5]
I looked them over and tried to select the flower that would be first plucked from among this rosy bouquet. Her, I thought. It will be her. The sloe-eyed, pale-skinned dirty-blonde of indeterminate race. (Do you remember her? Do you?) She was pretty, but not at all perfect, with two ever-widening rings of armpit sweat soaking through the tissue-thin cotton of her shirt.
Yes, I thought. Marcus would go for a girl like her. This outcome felt okay to me. It was strangely comforting to know that my actions wouldn’t devastate you, and that you’d be able to get over me and move on.
I was having trouble breathing, the air was so humid with pheromones.
The full weight of drunkenness was settling deep into my limbs.
The crowd cheered and the game was over.
You had served the winning point.
Hooray.
You loped over to me and pressed your mouth to mine with the fair amount of force necessary just to get through the Beard. Sometimes it was like kissing a scouring pad. My face from the mouth down was scrubbed raw and red, but I ignored the irritation.
“Hey,” I said. I reached out for the sand trapped in the strands of your chest hair, which was darker than that on your face or on your head. I freed the granules with my fingertips. You made note of my touch with a smile, but you didn’t bother brushing the rest of the sand off your body. You cocked your head in my direction and a single dread swung and hit my cheek. You reflexively soothed the spot with your thumb, eyebrows flattening in a silent, Are you okay?
I silently lied, Yes, I’m fine.
“Everyone, this is my girlfriend,” you said. Your hand pressed the small of my back as you presented me to the crowd. “This is Jessica.”
(Did you notice that you introduced me as your girlfriend first and Jessica next? Did anyone else?)
“Hey, um, everyone,” I muttered. I wanted to keep the conversation to a minimum, to disguise that I was totally shit-canned in the middle of this brilliant afternoon. And also because I could not have cared less about getting to know Everyone. Everyone consisted of about a dozen eighteen-year-olds whose names I heard and promptly forgot, with the obvious exception of the freshmeat you would use to get over me.
“I’m Marjorie,” she said, her heart-shaped face flushed with youthful ebullience.
(How is Marjorie these days?)
My clairvoyance made me feel superior, and I tried not to let on that I knew what would happen between you two.
I turned to you. “Can we go to your room?”
Giggly twitters agitated the air. The question “Can we go back to your room?” is tantamount to foreplay on college campuses. And even those first-years who had enjoyed certain freedoms because of boarding schools or absentee parents were suddenly reminded of one of the greatest promises of the next four years: We can fuck whenever we want to!
“Sure,” you replied, unconcerned. Then to the children: “Later.”
And they all enthusiastically agreed that yes, they would be seeing you later. You already had plans that did not involve me. As it should be. Would be. Will be.
You took my hand as we walked across the sand.
“They’re all so young.”
“They’re all adults.”
I snickered. “I’m twenty-two and I’m not an adult.”
“That’s you,” you said, pushing open the door to your room. “Not them.”
Your tone was light, and it reminded me how much I’ve missed hearing you talk.
I told myself then that I couldn’t possibly miss your voice any more from seventy-five miles away than I did when you were walking right beside me.
three
We entered the wood-paneled carrel that will be your home away from home for the next academic year. Your roommate, an eighteen-year-old named Nathaniel “Natty” Addison who had come to Princeton, New Jersey, all the way from Mobile, Alabama, was sitting cross-legged on his bed, tapping away at his laptop.
“Hey, y’all.”
I was born and raised in the Garden State, yet I have never, ever pronounced my homeland as “Joisey.” But good ol’ Natty proved that not all Southerners