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Sheehan_Miles_Charles_Just_Remember_to_Breathe


Just Remember to Breathe
Charles Sheehan-Miles
Cincinnatus Press Atlanta, Georgia

CHAPTER ONE
Broken Hearts and Coffee Mugs (Alex)
From the moment I put my mom’s car in drive, with my coffee mug still on the roof, I could tell it was going to be a rough day. The mug, which had been a really cute gift from Dylan, went flying off the car and smashed into a million pieces. I gasped as I saw it spinning in the rearview mirror, falling in what seemed like slow motion until it hit the street, splattering my coffee and tiny pieces of porcelain across the road. My eyes pricked into painful tears. Even though it had been more than six months since we’d spoken, even though he’d broken my heart, even though he’d refused all contact and ignored my letters, it still hurt. I pulled to the side and took a deep breath. Dylan bought the mug from a vendor in Jerusalem, who had printed it right on the spot from a digital photo: the two of us together, holding each other as we stood waist deep in the Mediterranean Sea. In the photo, I had an astonishingly vacant expression on my face as we gazed into each others eyes. In retrospect, I looked, and felt, as if I was on drugs. Of course, Kelly had been telling me for six months it was time to get rid of the mug. Time to move on. Time to forget about Dylan. I took a deep breath. Kelly was right. Yes, we’d had some problems. Yes, I’d gotten drunk, and said some things I regretted. But not anything unforgiveable. Not anything which warranted him literally disappearing off the face of the planet. I looked in the mirror and quickly repaired the damage from my involuntary tears, then put the car into drive. In two days, I was flying back to New York and my second year in college, and I’d damned well get a new coffee mug. I would just add that to the length, overly detailed to-do list my mother had oh-so-helpfully provided, which was now sitting on the passenger seat of the car. New coffee mug. One that didn’t have my past stamped all over it. Kelly would be proud. I started to put the car into drive, but my phone chose that instant to ring, and I’m not exactly very good at ignoring it, so I left mom’s car in park and answered the phone. “Hello?” “Is this Alexandra Thompson?” “Yes, this is Alex,” I said. “Hello … this is Sandra Barnhardt from the financial aid office.” “Oh,” I said, suddenly tense. Some people you don’t want to get calls from the day before school starts, and the financial aid office was way up at the head of that list. “Um… what can I do for you?” “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Professor Allan is going on leave of absence, so your work study assignment has been cancelled.” Indefinite leave of absence? My guess was, Professor Allan was going into rehab. I was pretty sure she was a cokehead my first day working for her. Whatever.

“So, um… what exactly does that mean?” “Well… the good news is, we’ve got you a new assignment.” I couldn’t wait to hear this. No doubt I’d be scrubbing pots in one of the dining halls. I waited, and then waited some more. “Um… maybe you could tell me what the assignment is?” Sandra Barnhardt from the financial office coughed, possibly a little embarrassed. “This is all last minute, you understand. But our author-in-residence this year has requested two research assistants. You’ll be working for him.” “Oh… I see. Well, at least that sounds interesting.” “I hope so,” she said. “Are you already back on campus?” “No, I’m in San Francisco, I fly back day after tomorrow.” “Oh, well then. Stop by when you get back, and I’ll get you the information about the assignment.” “Great,” I said. “See you in a couple days.” Okay. I’ll admit. It really did sound interesting. Author-in-residence. What exactly did that mean, anyway? Whatever it was, it had to be more interesting than doing Professor Allan’s filing. Whatever. I’d better get moving, I thought, or the cops would be along to move me along. I’d been sitting in front of someone’s driveway for nearly ten minutes. I pulled the car out to go finish my errands. Time to get supplied for the new year. Starting with a new coffee mug.
*** “Alex!” Kelly’s cry was somewhere around 125 decibels and somewhere in the upper reaches of pitch possible to the human voice. That was compounded by the fact that she was bouncing up and down, as if she had tiny pogo sticks, or possibly jackhammers, attached to her feet. She bounced over to me and grabbed me in a huge hug. “Oh. My. God!” she shouted. “The summer was so boring with you gone. We are going out for drink. Right. Now.” I blinked my eyes, then said, “Um… can I get my bags inside first?” I’d gotten up at 5 am to catch the first flight out of San Francisco. Going east meant I basically lost an entire day: the flight landed at 4 pm at JFK. Then, the long wait to get my bags, and wait for a taxi, and fight the ridiculous traffic. I’d let myself into the dorm at 7 pm. “Well, of course!” she said. “But we can’t lose any time!” “Kelly...” “I so have to tell you what happened with Josh. Yesterday he showed up here with no shirt on, and …” “Kelly.” “…He’s got a new tattoo. Which would be fine, except…” “Kelly!” I finally shouted. She stopped, as if I’d stuffed a plug in her mouth. “Please,” I said. “I’ve been up and traveling since 5 this morning.” “You don’t have to yell at me,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just… can we go out tomorrow? Or at least let me get a nap first? I’m seriously exhausted, and I need a shower.” She grinned. “Gotcha, of course. Nap. Sure. But then we are so going out. You need to meet Bryan.”

What? “Who is Bryan?” “Good God, Alex, weren’t you listening to anything I said?” She continued on as I dragged my bags inside. I loved Kelly. And she would have fit in great with my tribe of sisters back home. But God, couldn’t she just shut up for one second? I finally dumped my bags on the floor, then navigated around her. My bed, stripped since I’d flown home at the beginning of summer, looked very inviting. I collapsed, feeling the weight of my body just sink in. Kelly kept talking, but I was having trouble making sense of her words. I tried to nod at the appropriate times, but slowly the world faded to black. The last thought I remember before losing consciousness was regret that I’d lost that damned mug.
*** Kelly woke me up an hour later and hustled me into the shower. “I refuse to take no for an answer,” she shouted. “It’s time we cured you of your asshole ex- boyfriend!” God, it was like she had the volume stuck on MAX. I don’t want to give the wrong impression of Kelly. Yes, she talks way too much. She’s a girly- girl, in ways I’ve never been. Her side of the room is disgustingly pink, decorated with Twilight and Hunger Games posters, and she acts as if she’s had more experience with guys than one of the girls posting on the back pages of the Village Voice. My side of the room is mostly stacked in books. The truth is, I’m sort of a geek, and proud of it. Kelly, though: she’s shy as hell, and overcompensates by being super gregarious. She charges into the center of parties, dances like a wild woman, and does everything she can to drag me out of my shell. Problem is, sometimes I don’t really want to come out. Once I got out of the shower and changed into a pair of black skinny jeans and a long sleeved tee, she led me out. There was a party somewhere, she said, and we were going to go find it.
A Bad Idea (Dylan)
Coming here was a bad idea. If I could go back up the chain of “if-only’s” back to the source, I suppose the reason I was starting as a student at Columbia University is because one day when I was twelve Billy Naughton gave me a beer. Billy was a year older than me, and might have been a bad influence, if my parents hadn’t been somewhat worse. As it was, the effects of alcohol held little mystery for me, at least as viewed from the outside. Viewed from the inside, though… that was another thing. One thing led to another, and one drink led to another, and on my sixteenth birthday I dropped out of high school. Of course, by that time, Dad had left, and Mom had cleaned up her act. She laid down the law. If I wasn’t going to school, I could just get out. She wasn’t going to have her child turn out like her husband. I went couch surfing. I slept in the park a couple times. I got a job, lost it, got another one, lost that one too. And the damnedest thing was, Mom was right. I went back and registered for school.

Then I showed up on her doorstep, showed her my registration and schedule, and she wept and let me back in the apartment. A lot of other things happened since, of course, including me getting blown up by some hajis in Afghanistan. But I don’t talk about that stuff so much. If you want to know, just read the papers. Screw that. The papers never covered it right anyway. If you really want to know what it was like, walk into your kitchen right now. Grab a handful of sand. Close your eyes, stick your hand in the garbage disposal, and turn it on. That should give you a pretty good idea of what Afghanistan is like. Anyway, long story short, Columbia apparently has a soft spot for reformed dropouts and combat veterans. So here I was, and it was the first day of classes, and I was pent up, tense as all hell, because the one person in the world I didn’t want to see, the one person I wanted to see the most, all at the same time, well, she was here. Thankfully, University Housing got me in with a couple of graduate engineering students. I don’t think I could have stood living in the dorms with a bunch of eighteen year old freshmen right out of high school. I was only two years older, but two years was a world of difference. Especially when you’d seen your best friends killed right before your eyes. When I got in town, I met my new roommates: Aiden, a bookish 24 year old mechanical engineering PhD candidate, and Ron, who introduced himself as “Ron White. Chemical engineering,” then disappeared back into his room. Perfect. So here I was, limping across the street like an old man, my cane helping me stay upright. Some asshole yuppie bumped into me, in a hurry to get to his business meeting or his mistress or whatever the fuck it was he was after. Whatever it was, it precluded any common courtesy. “Watch where the fuck you’re going, asshole!” I shouted after him. I was barely halfway across the street when the light changed. Jesus. Talk about humiliating. Most of the cars waited patiently, but a cabbie driven by what looked like the cousin of the guy who blew away Roberts kept honking his horn at me. I gave him the finger and kept going. Finally. Somewhere on the third floor of this building was my destination. I was early, but that was for the best. For one thing, I’d gotten lost several times already today, and was late to my first two classes. This, however, I could not be late for. Not if I wanted to be able to pay for college. Of course, the VA was footing most of the bill, but even with the GI Bill a college like Columbia cost a hell of a lot. It still didn’t even seem real that I was here. Like I really even belonged in college, much less in an Ivy. But every time I heard my Dad’s cheerful voice in my head saying I was a little shit who would never amount to anything, I pushed forward. The elevator, made sometime in the nineteenth century, finally made its way to the ground floor and I boarded. Most of the other students in the building were using the stairs, but I had to take this route if I wanted to get there before sunset. I patiently waited. First floor. Second floor. It seemed like the elevator took five minutes for each short trip. It finally stopped on the third floor, and I pushed my way between the other people crowded in the elevator. Out in the hall, it was crowded. Jesus. It was going to take a lot of getting used to being here. I looked around, trying to spot room numbers. 324. 326. Okay. I was oriented. I turned in the opposite direction, looking for room 301. I finally found it, tucked into a dark corner at the opposite side of the building. The hall down here was dark, one of the fluorescents burnt out. I reached for the door. Locked. I checked my phone. I was fifteen minutes early. Okay, I could live with that. Better than fifteen minutes late. Slowly, I slid my book bag to the floor, and tried to figure out how to get myself

down there without ending up sideways or upside down or something. I inched my way down, leaving my gimp leg slack and in front of me. Halfway down, I felt a sharp pain and muttered a curse. I put my hands to my side, palms flat, and let myself drop. Seated. Now the only trick would be getting back up. Carefully, I kneaded the muscles above my right knee. The doctors at Walter Reed said it might be years before I regained full function. If ever. In the meantime, I went to physical therapy three times a week, took lots of pain killers, and kept going. I sighed. It had been a long, stressful day. I kept wondering if I should have stayed home, waited another year before trying to venture out. Doctor Kyne had urged me to go. You’ll never recover if you stay locked in at home. He wasn’t talking about the leg. Doctor Kyne was my psychiatrist at the VA in Atlanta. I suppose he knew what he was talking about. In the meantime, just take it a day at a time, an hour at a time, one minute at a time. This moment. Just get through now. Then the next now. I took out a book, a beat up, nearly shredded paperback Roberts loaned me before he got blown away. The Stand by Stephen King. It’s the best fucking book ever, Roberts had said. I’m not so sure it was all that, but I had to agree it was pretty good. I was buried in the midst of reading about the outbreak of the super-flu when I heard footsteps coming up the hall. They were clicking… a girl, wearing heels or wedges or something. I forced myself not to look up. I didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway. I wasn’t feeling very friendly. And besides, my instinct was to watch everyone, to keep my eyes on pockets and loose clothes and mounds of trash beside the road and anything else that might represent danger. The challenge was to not look. The challenge was to live my life just like everyone else. And everyone else didn’t look at approaching girls as a source of danger. What can I say? I was wrong. “Oh, my God,” I heard a murmur. Something inside me recognized the tone and timbre of that voice, and I looked up, my face suddenly flushing as my I felt my pulse in my forehead. Forgetting about the gimp leg, I tried to jump to my feet. Instead, I ended getting halfway up, then the leg gave out. As if it was cut off, not there. I fell down, hard on my right side, and let out a shout when the sharp, tearing pain shot up my right leg, straight up my spine. “Son of a bitch!” I muttered. I pushed myself more or less upright, then put a hand to the wall and the other hand on my cane and tried to lift myself. The girl of my nightmares darted forward and tried to help me get up. “Don’t touch me,” I said. She jerked back as if I’d slapped her. Finally, I was in a standing position. The pain didn’t go down, and I was sweating, hard. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. “Dylan,” she said, her voice quavering. I grunted something. Not sure what, but it wasn’t terribly civilized. “What are you doing here?” she asked. I finally looked up. Oh shit, that was a mistake. Her green eyes, which had always caught me like a fucking whirlpool, were huge, like pools. The faintest scent of strawberry drifted from her, making me lightheaded, and her body still arrested attention: petite, curved hips and breasts; as always, she was like a fantasy. “I’m waiting for an appointment,” I said.

“Here?” she asked. I nodded. “Work study assignment,” I said. She started to laugh, a bitter, sad laugh. I’d heard that laugh before. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
Nothing significant at all (Alex) I was late when I got to the Arts and Sciences building, and ran up the six flights of step to the third floor, knowing the elevator would take forever. I checked my phone … it was three o’clock. I needed to get there right now. I counted down the room numbers, finally reaching a dark hall. The light was out at the end of the hall, casting the area in not quite darkness. There it was, room 301. Next to the door, a student sat, his head resting on his fist, face turned away from me. He was reading a book. I took a breath. His hair reminded me of Dylan’s, but shorter, of course. That, and his arms were… well, very muscular, and he was tanned. This guy looked like someone out of a catalog. Not that I went fainting over guys with big biceps, but seriously, a girl can look, right? As I approached though, I felt my heart begin to thump in my chest. Because the closer I got, the more he looked like Dylan. But what would he be doing here? Dylan, who had broken my heart, then disappeared as if he’d never existed, his email deleted, Facebook page closed, Skype account gone. Dylan, who had erased himself from my life, all because of a stupid conversation that shouldn’t have happened. I slowed down. It couldn’t be. It just… couldn’t be. He took a breath and shifted position slightly, and I gasped. Because sitting in front of me was the boy who broke my heart. Quietly, I said, “Oh, my God.” He jumped to his feet. Or rather tried to. He got about halfway up, and a look of excruciating pain swept across his face and he fell down, hard. I almost cried out, as he tried to force his way back up. I started forward to help, and he said his first words to me in six months: “Don’t touch me.” Typical. I had to stuff down the hurt that threatened to burst to the surface. He looked… different. Indefinably different. We hadn’t seen each other face to face in almost two years, not since the summer before my senior year in high school. He’d filled out, of course. In all the right places. His arms, which I vividly remembered being held in, had doubled in size. The sleeves of his tee shirt looked like they were going to burst. I guess the Army does that for you. His eyes were still the same piercing blue. For a second I met them, then looked away. I didn’t want to get trapped in those eyes. And damn it, he still smelled the same. A hint of smoke and fresh ground coffee. Sometimes when I walked into a coffee shop in New York, I’d get an overwhelming sensation of him being there, just from the smell. Sometimes memory sucks. “Dylan,” I said. “What are you doing here?” “I’m waiting for an appointment.” “Here?” I asked. That was crazy. He shrugged. “Work study assignment.” No. No way. “Wait a minute… are you saying you’re in school here?” He nodded.

“What happened to the Army?” I asked. He shrugged, looked away, then gestured toward the cane. “So of all the schools you could have chosen, you came here? To the same place as me?” Anger swept over his face. “I didn’t come here for you, Alex. I came here because it was the best school I could get in to. I came here for me.” “What, did you think you could just show up and sweep me back into your arms after ignoring me for the last six months? After erasing me from your life?” He narrowed his eyes, looked at me directly. In a cold voice, he said, “Actually, I was hoping I just wouldn’t run into you.” I stifled a sob. I was not going to let him get to me. I spat back, “Well, looks like we both had some bad luck. Because I’m here for my work-study assignment, too.” His eyes widened. “You’re going to be working for Forrester?” “Is he the so-called author in residence?” He nodded. “Oh, God,” I said. “I’m going to be sick.” “Thanks. It’s great to see you too, Alex.” I almost shouted at him, but a jovial voice down the hall called to us. “Hello! You two must be my new research assistants!” A ridiculous looking man, trying way too hard to look like an author with a capital A, walked toward us. He wore a tweed jacket, with leather patches on the elbows, and corduroy pants. He couldn’t have been much older than thirty-five, but he wore reading glasses perched halfway up his nose. “Well, hello,” he said. “I’m Max Forrester.” “Alex Thompson,” I said. I glanced at Dylan. He was glaring at me. “Dylan Paris,” he said. “Come in, Alex and Dylan. My apologies for being late. Sometimes I get lost in the throes of creation and forget the time.” Forrester’s back was already to me as he unlocked his door. I rolled my eyes. Lost in the throes of creation, indeed. You could smell the whiskey on his breath from fifteen feet away. Smelled like he’d gotten lost in the nearest watering hole. Dylan waved me ahead of him. He was leaning heavily on the cane. What happened to him? I walked in behind Forrester, and Dylan followed me, limping. “Sit down, you two, sit down. Can I get you some tea? Water? Or something with a little more, um… life?” “No thanks,” Dylan said, grimacing as he eased himself into his seat. Once seated, he leaned his cane against the wall. His expression was unreadable. “I’ll take some water,” I said, just to contradict him. Forrester filled up a small glass with water at a tiny sink in the back of the office and brought it to me. My eyes narrowed a little when I got a look at the glass. It was filthy. Eww. And there was something oily floating on top of the water. I pretended to take a sip, then set it on the edge of the desk. “Well, let’s get down to business,” Forrester said. “Do you two know each other?” “No,” I said, forcefully, just as Dylan said, “Yes.” Forrester liked that. A smile lit up on his face, then said, “I bet there’s a story there.” “You’d be wrong,” I replied. I glanced at Dylan, and said, “Nothing significant at all.”

Dylan blinked, and he darted his eyes away from me. Good. Part of me wanted to hurt him just as badly as he had hurt me. Unfortunately, Forrester picked up on it. He said, very slowly, “I trust there won’t be a problem.” “No, no problem,” I said. “No, sir,” Dylan responded, his voice cool. “Well then,” Forrester said. “That’s good. So, let me tell you what you’ll be doing. I’m here for a year, and I’m working on a novel. Historical fiction, centered around the draft riots here in New York during the civil war. Are you familiar with them?” I shook my head, but Dylan said, “Yes. Sad story… some of it turned to lynch mobs.” Forrester nodded, enthusiastically. “That’s right. Miss Thomas… the story is this. In July 1863, there was a series of riots here in the city. It was mostly poor and working class Irish, protesting because the rich could buy exemption from the draft. The protests turned ugly, then violent. A lot of people were killed.” “They burned down the orphanage,” Dylan said. What a brown-noser. “That’s right, Dylan! The colored orphanage burned to the ground. A dozen or more black men were lynched during the riots.” “So…” I said. “What exactly will we be doing to help?” “Well, you see, Columbia has a mass of historical material about the riots. Much of it primary sources. As I work on my outline and the actual manuscript, your job will be to help me with the details. The historical context, the source material, all of the information I’ll need to get the story just right.” “That’s… incredible,” Dylan said. “No offense, Doctor Forrester, but this is way better than I expected as a work study assignment.” Oh, God. This was going to be one long year.

CHAPTER TWO
I felt like an impostor (Dylan)
The last time I saw Alex… or at least her image on Skype… I took my laptop and smashed it. When that didn’t do sufficient damage, I took it outside the tent, out to the edge of the camp, and fired a thirty-round magazine through it. Needless to say, that attracted some unwanted attention. Sergeant Colton convinced the old man not to court-martial me. I did, however, get confined to the barracks for thirty days, a moot point since we were in the middle of the boonies in Afghanistan, and extra duty, which was most definitely not moot, since that mostly meant filling sandbags. In any event, it didn’t matter much, because the next day I was in the passenger seat of our hummer when we rode over a bomb, and I didn’t need a computer much for a while after that. I got smashed up pretty bad, and got my best friend killed. Point is, Alex always evoked, um, strong emotions, from the very first time I laid eyes on her. We met almost three years ago: my senior year in high school and her junior year. And to be blunt: it changed my life, in ways I can’t really measure. But to understand that, you have to understand how we got there in the first place. For me, it’s kind of a backup problem. As in, for each part of the story, you have to back up to an earlier part. I was at Columbia because I got blown up, and I got blown up because I volunteered for Infantry when I enlisted in the Army, and that happened because of the first time she broke up with me, which was… you get the point. So to have this make any sense at all to you, I have to work my way back to high school. I was a lousy student, but I’m not stupid. I can add, and when my mom kicked me out of the house, I had to add minimum wage to minimum wage, and it didn’t come up to nearly enough to pay rent on an apartment, much less rent an apartment and actually do anything crazy like eat. Plus, the guys I was hanging out with… let’s just say, they weren’t shining lights of humanity. So I cleaned up my act. I quit drinking. Quit smoking dope. I still smoke cigarettes, but everybody’s gotta have one vice. And I went back to high school. Problem was, I was behind, way behind. When I registered for school again, I went to see the principal of my high school and explained my situation. The first question he asked me was, “Where are your parents?” I sighed. “I’m sort of homeless at the moment,” I replied. “But that’s not permanent. Look… I don’t want to involve them in me going back to school. I guess I need to prove to my mom that I can do this on my own. Maybe I need to prove it to myself, too.” He understood. And backed me, all the way. And much to my surprise (and my mother’s) I got nearly straight As. At the end of the year, he called me into his office. “Listen,” he said. “I want to tell you about a program we’ve got. Every year, the city sends half a dozen students as part of a national program to visit several other countries. Sort of an ambassador, exchange program. You’ve been nominated.” I was in shock. Me?

“Isn’t that for the smart kids who didn’t get in trouble?” I asked. “You are one of the smart kids, Dylan.” I noted he didn’t address the trouble part. “Look, Dylan, all I’m saying is… it’s a hell of an educational opportunity. I think you should apply.” “Okay,” I said, not really believing it. “What do I do?” “Write an essay. Here’s the application packet. Explain in your essay why you should have the opportunity.” I took the packet home, and read over it. To be honest, I was terrified. Seriously. I came from a blue collar family, with a drunk for a dad, and a recovering drunk for a mom, and well… I was a screw up. I’d be competing with kids with 4.0 grade point averages, kids who were planning to go to Harvard and Yale and other places I couldn’t dream of. But, I wrote the essay. I wrote about growing up with drunks, and becoming one myself. I wrote about putting myself back into school, and catching up with my class. I wrote about how important getting an education was, from the point of view of someone who’d worked the stupid no-skilled minimum-wage jobs just to keep myself in food while I was in between homes. And you know what? Somehow, I got accepted into the program. Next thing I knew, I’d been selected as one of half a dozen kids from Atlanta who would be traveling to Israel for two months. And that is how I met Alex. The first time I saw her was right before we left for Israel. I guess there were about forty of us, sitting in a big room at Hunter College on Staten Island. She was clear across the room from me, and that first sight of her is etched in my memory forever. Long brown hair, parted in the middle and flowing down her back. Green eyes that caught me from across the room. Slightly olive skin, full lips. I’m not exaggerating to say that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was so far out of my league that I didn’t even bother to approach her. The fact was, all of these kids were out of my league. Some of them downright brilliant, all of them studious, hard working kids who had busted their ass for the chance to take part in this program. Frankly, I felt like an impostor. Not that that was going to stop me from going. When we got on the plane for Tel Aviv the next morning, by lucky chance that would change my life, I ended up seated next to the beautiful green eyed girl I’d watched the night before. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Dylan.” “Alex,” she responded. Alex. I rolled the name around in my head. I liked it. “Where are you from, Alex?” “San Francisco,” she said. “Really? Wow. I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. Never been out west.” She smiled, and I did my best to remain nonchalant. Which was difficult. Really difficult, because her eyes were just… entrancing. It was like getting drunk, but the good kind, with no hangover. “This was my first trip east, actually,” she said. “Tell me about yourself, Alex.” She sat back. “That’s a pretty open ended question.” “I guess. Let me start over. I’m Dylan, and I have lousy social skills. I’d like to get to know you by asking stupid questions. How’s that?” She giggled, and I almost died. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll ask a question. Then you ask one. Then I’ll ask one. Got it? They

have to be specific. And you can’t lie.” I tried my best to look wounded. “Do I look like someone who would lie?” “Silly, your questions are supposed to be about me.” This time I laughed. “All right. Hmm… you’re from San Francisco… do you ever ride on those silly street cars?” “Never,” she said. “Those are for tourists.” “Ahh,” I said. “Figures. Your turn.” “Okay… hmm… what’s your favorite subject in school?” I had to think about that one for a second. “Well … it used to be drama, but I’m not taking any electives any more. I’d have to answer English. I love writing.” “Really? What do you write?” “That’s two questions. It’s my turn.” “Oh,” she said. She grinned. “Fair enough. Your turn.” I tried to think of a good question, but it was hard. For one thing, she kept looking at me, and those eyes! Plus, I kept smelling a hint of strawberry. Why the hell did she smell like strawberries? Was it her hair? Whatever it was, it was tantalizing. This girl scared the hell out of me. “What’s your favorite memory?” She sat back and thought, then a beautiful, huge smile came across her face. “Easy,” she said. “When I was ten, we were living in Moscow. And my father let me go for the first time to an official function. It was … glamorous. All the men and women were in ball gowns and tuxedos, and my mom took me out and got me fitted for my own gown. When the dancing started, my father took me out and danced with me.” “Moscow? Holy shit! What were you doing there?” “My dad was foreign service. And no fair, that’s an extra question.” Her dad was in the foreign service, she said casually. Holy shit. Way out of my league. “Oh, rats, sorry. Okay… you get two questions.” “All right… what scares you more than anything else in the world?” You do, I almost said. I took a deep breath, then I said, honestly, “Ending up like my dad. He was a drunk.” Her face took on a look of… sadness? Pity? I didn’t want pity. She changed the subject. “What’s the best thing you’ve ever done?” she asked. “The best thing? Hmm…” I had to think for a bit. I slowly mulled it over, then said, “I was homeless for a while. Dropped out of school. Anyway, sometimes I didn’t know where I was going to sleep, or get something to each. One night I was riding on MARTA… that’s our subway… just back and forth, trying to get some sleep on the train before they shut down for the night. They shut down the train at 2 am, and I was stuck downtown, and I ran into a family. All of them were homeless, like me. Parents, two kids. The dad had lost his job. And I was working, and had a little bit of money. So I treated them to dinner at Waffle House. It wasn’t much … maybe twenty dollars. But you could tell the kids hadn’t been eating much at all. They were so… grateful.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Those kids were … overwhelming. Overwhelming in their need, and in their love for their parents, and … just overwhelming. Alex looked at me like I was from Mars. “You were homeless?” she asked, very quietly. “No, that was already two questions. My turn.” I thought, then blurted out, “Why do you smell like strawberries?” She blushed, a deep red. Oh. My. God. Why did I ask that? Idiot!

Finally, she spoke, a shy smile on her face. “It’s um, my shampoo. I like strawberries. I wear strawberry lip gloss too.” My turn to freak. Because the thought of her, and strawberry lip gloss, was too much to contemplate. Her lips were perfectly curved, the lower one slightly pouty. And, to be honest, every time I looked at her body it made me want to touch her. Anywhere. Everywhere. “My turn,” she said, turning toward me. She had a mischievous look on her face. “Do you have a girlfriend?” Alarm bells were screeching in my head. I said, “Um… not exactly. I’ve been seeing a girl, but not sure where it’s headed. If anywhere.” She smiled. I smiled. “What about you?” I asked. “Is there a boyfriend?” “Sort of,” she said. “I’m dating a guy, his name’s Mike. I don’t know if it’s serious or not, either.” I swallowed. She had a Mike back home. I had a Hailey back home. And this trip was only two months anyway. My brain was telling me, Stay the hell away, Dylan! But let’s be honest. I’ve never been that smart anyway.
Crying: Not. Going. To. Happen. (Alex) Okay, look, I’m not exactly an emotional basket case or anything. Not a drama queen. But Dylan had been a big part of my life for a long time. And sitting there next to him in Doctor Forrester’s office was literally torture. When the appointment was over we got up, awkwardly. Forrester shook our hands. I turned and left, without a word, while Dylan was still trying to figure out how to get out of his chair and collect himself. I went straight to the Financial Aid office. The office was packed, of course. Beginning of the school year, and people were trying to sort out their financial aid. Every single person who had a problem just had to choose that moment right then to go to Financial Aid to get it sorted out. So when I asked to see Sandra Barnhart, I was told to take a seat. And I waited. And waited. And waited. She finally let me in to her office. First impression: she was exhausted. Hair frazzled, her desk was stacked high with papers. When I entered the room she was fishing the last pills out of a bottle of Tylenol. Not a good sign. “Hi there, what can I do for you.” “Hi… I’m Alex Thompson. We spoke on the phone the other day… my work study assignment was being switched?” “Alex, Alex… oh yes, I remember.” I shifted in my seat. “Um… I was wondering if its too late to switch to something else. Anything else.” She frowned. “That might be difficult. Generally, the work study assignments are made at the beginning of summer. To be honest, you were lucky to get this one. Doctor Forrester’s contract wasn’t

confirmed until last week, which was why we had a last minute opening. What’s the problem?” Oh, God. I didn’t really have a good reason. At least, not one I could explain. I’ve been assigned next to my ex-boyfriend. Yeah, that would go over well. I tried to think of something, and stupidly I just said, “I’m not sure its a good fit.” She sighed. “I can tell you for sure, right now, that there aren’t any other openings. You’re actually the fifth student to come in and ask to be reassigned. It might be possible for you to switch with someone, you could always post something on the bulletin board outside. But I can’t promise you anything. Although you can always check back in a couple weeks. We often drop a few students in the first two weeks. Something might come up.” I nodded. Disappointed. This was going to make for a very difficult year. I did not want to be stuck working with Dylan for the entire year. It would turn what had been a pretty wonderful college experience into misery. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” she said. Okay, I can take a hint. I was being dismissed. I thanked her, and got out of the office. I could survive a few weeks, and then I’d come back and get a job washing dishes or something equally entertaining. Back on the street, I walked toward the dorm. I was not going to cry. I refused. Crying: Not. Going. To. Happen. I remember being charmed and intrigued by Dylan. I’d never met anyone like him. My life was centered around academics. I worked, and worked damned hard. But I also had all kinds of support, from my parents, who hired tutors and piano teachers; to my sisters, who helped each other in subjects we had trouble with. We’d lived a block from Golden Gate Park in a wonderful old row-house ever since my Dad retired from the Foreign Service. Dylan was … so different. He’d been homeless, for God’s sake. He didn’t talk much about the difficult parts of his life… at least not when we first met. But it was clear we were from different worlds. But he was strong. He had to be, to come back from a drinking and drug problem, go back to school on his own, get the kind of grades he got. I fell fast. We spent the twelve hours of our flight to Tel Aviv talking while most of the rest of the students were asleep. I remember playing a stupid game of questions, until some of them got uncomfortable (for instance Do you have a girlfriend) and we changed the subject. To favorite books. Harry Potter. Hunger Games. Both of us hated Twilight, but loved Katniss Everdeen. “I love a strong heroine,” he told me with a grin. Oh, my God. How could someone so cute be so perfect? But he was also a contradiction. He was passionate for Hemingway, and could get lost talking about his favorite book, The Sun Also Rises. He looked mystified by my attraction to Milan Kundera. The exchange students spent the first two nights in Tel Aviv at the Youth Hostel. We attended a bunch of information sessions, then went to a big formal dinner. Dylan looked uncomfortable at the dinner. I don’t think he was used to formal functions like that. Afterward, a bunch of us walked down to the Old City of Jaffa, which we’d seen during an official tour earlier in the day. We sat on the pier, looking out at the Mediterranean Sea. He smoked, and we talked. I told him about my sisters (all five of them) and he talked about his friends. “We just kind of fell in with each other,” he said. “Bunch of drama geeks, mostly. All the kids who were mostly outcasts in middle school. But… you know how it goes. The wrong person sleeps

with the other wrong person, and DRAMA.” I laughed. I’d never slept with anyone, but I knew all about high school drama. I kept stealing glances at him, and I knew he was doing the same. His blue eyes were incredible, and he had adorably long hair, growing into loose curls. At one point I found myself resisting the urge to run my fingers through them, which would not have been a very cool and collected thing to do. I carefully kept an inch of space between us, because if we’d touched I might have thrown myself on him. Oh, God, it was intense. I wonder if that’s why it was so painful when we split up? Because we’d fallen so hard, so fast. I lost myself in him. One thing I knew for sure. I would not allow that to happen again. When I got back to the room, Kelly was there. She was laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Absolutely still, eyes wide open. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Kelly stationary, except possibly while passed out. “Kelly!” I asked. “Are you okay?” She burst into tears. “What’s wrong?” I dropped my bad and rushed to her side. “Josh,” she said, then erupted in a new burst of weeping. “Oh, honey,” I said, sliding onto the bed next to her. “He needs space. He wants to ‘play the field,’ whatever the hell that means.” “Son of a bitch,” I said. “What an asshole.” She burst into a new round of tears. Was this what it was like living with me last spring? No wonder she got so impatient. I hugged her, not saying a word. After a few minutes, she stopped sobbing, then said, “So, um, how was your day?” She giggled, but not a good giggle… more like she was going to go into hysterics. “Well,” I said carefully. “It turns out that Dylan Paris is out of the Army and going to Columbia. And we’re assigned to the same work study job.” She sat up suddenly. “Oh, my God, what? You have got to be shitting me.” It’s possible the neighbors three blocks down heard her screech. I nodded my head, miserably. “It was super awkward. And … hostile.” “What did he say?” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stop myself from crying. “He said he’d hoped we wouldn’t run into each other.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Oh my God. I didn’t think it was possible to hate him even more, but I do. Let’s go. Right now. And get drunk.” I nodded, because right that minute, it seemed like the best possible idea.
Ground Rules (Dylan)
“I think we need to set some ground rules,” she said. It was the third day of classes, and our first day actually working for Doctor Forrester. Forrester

had a gigantic pile of information, books, files and source documents. It was a disorganized mess. Our first assignment was to begin organizing it and cross referencing it. We divided up the work fairly easily: I set up a database, and she sorted the material and began feeding it to me. Unfortunately, it was difficult to work together when we spent most of the time either glaring at each other or ignoring each other. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Look… like it or not, we have to work together.” I nodded. I’d tried to get reassigned to a different work study assignment, but there weren’t any openings. “So, let’s go get a cup of coffee. And talk. And figure out how we can do this without being at each other’s throats.” I felt a lump in my throat. It was one thing to sit here in Forrester’s office with her. It was another thing entirely to go somewhere else with her, and sit, like normal people, and talk about anything. But she was right. If we were going to be doing this every other day, we had to set some ground rules, or we were both going to be miserable. “Fine,” I said. “When?” “I’m finished with classes for the day. What about right now?” I nodded. “All right.” I slowly stood. I was in a lot of pain. The day before I’d had my first physical therapy session at the Brooklyn VA hospital. Loads of fun. My physical therapist was a 45 year old former marine, and he was of the school of thought that pain was good for you. Problem was, it’s hard to argue your point with someone missing a leg. Seriously, what sympathy was he going to give? I never liked Marines anyway. So, I followed her to the coffee shop around the corner from Forrester’s office. It was nice, a small place, with a few outdoor seats. I was incredibly self conscious as we walked. She’d picked up a New Yorker’s pace during her year in college here. I, on the other hand, moved at something like the pace of a turtle, thanks to the gimp leg and the cane. She slowed herself down to keep pace with me. About halfway there, she finally said something to me. “So… what happened to your leg?” I shrugged, gave a terse answer. “Hajis thought I would look better without it I guess. Roadside bomb.” She sighed. “I’m sorry.” “It’s not so bad. I got to go to the hospital, and live. That makes me lucky.” What I didn’t say: unlike Reynolds and Thompson, neither of whom left that roadside in a bag. At the coffee shop, she said, “You grab a seat. I’ll get us coffee. You still take yours loaded?” I nodded, and muttered, “Thank you,” then eased myself into a seat next to the sidewalk. While I waited for her, I took out my phone and scanned through my email. Junk. More junk. Email from Mom. I’d answer that one later. She was naturally worried about me. Some things would never change. For the longest time I’d been angry with my mom over kicking me out when I quit school. Nowadays, I was grateful for it. It gave me a chance to get some hard knocks early. It gave me a chance to get my head on straight and figure out my priorities when I was young enough the damage wouldn’t be permanent. Tough love, they call it in the program. She was a believer. I’d have never guessed she’d have five years clean and sober, so something was working there. When Alex returned to the table, bearing two gigantic cups off coffee, I put the phone away.

“Thank you,” I said. I sipped the coffee. Oh, that was good. She smiled, met my eyes, then looked away very quickly. The brief eye contact, which remarkably wasn’t a glare, twisted at my stomach and made me look at the ground. “Okay,” I said. “Ground rules.” “Yes,” she said. We were silent. What, did she expect me to come up with them? I shook my head, then said, “Okay, you start. It was your idea.” “Fair enough.” She looked at me thoughtfully, then said, “All right. The first rule. We never, ever talk about Israel.” I closed my eyes, and nodded. Talking about it would hurt way too much. “Agreed,” I muttered. She looked relieved, which somehow broke my heart all over again. I spoke. “We don’t talk about what happened after either. Not when I visited you in San Francisco. Or the year between. Or the year after.” “Especially not the year after,” she said. Her eyes were glistening as she looked at the table. We were silent again. This was just a barrel of laughs. I felt like I was attending a funeral. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I said. “Why not?” she replied. “Because … because, well, sometimes it hurts, Alex. A little. A lot. Jesus Christ.” She looked away, and damn if her eyes weren’t beautiful. Her lashes were like a mile long. “If we’re going to get through this year, I think we have to move past that,” she said. “Yeah.” “It’ll be like we’re strangers.” I shrugged. “Okay.” Like that could happen. “We start over. We just met. You’re some guy who just got out of the Army, and I’m a girl from San Francisco going to college here. We’ve got nothing in common. No connection. Not friends. Certainly not… what we were.” Not friends. Of course not. How in hell could we be friends, after what we’d been through? I nodded, feeling miserable. Shit, it’s not like I had any friends anyway, not anymore. I’d lost touch with the ones from Atlanta, who couldn’t deal with what I’d become. And the ones in Afghanistan… except for Sherman and Roberts, I’d never gotten close to any of them. Roberts was dead, and Sherman was still out in the boonies. “I don’t know what we were anyway. None of it ever made any sense.” She shrugged, and then hugged her arms across her chest, and I felt like crap for what I’d said. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Why?” she asked, looking away from me, out at the street. Her lower lip was trembling, and I wanted to hit myself in the head with a sharp pointy object. “It’s true, isn’t it? We never did make any sense?” “Oh, God. Let’s not do this. Please.” “Okay.” Her face was twitching, and it was obvious she was holding back a tear. “Look,” I said. “This sucks. But we’ll be okay, all right? It’s only a few hours a week, anyway. What we had … it was another world. We were in a foreign country, being exposed to all kinds of amazing stuff. We weren’t ourselves, our real selves. It was … It was fantasy. A beautiful fantasy, but fiction all the same, okay?” She nodded, quickly, then wiped her eye with a fist, smearing her mascara. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“We’re already breaking the rules,” she said. “No. We’re not. No more talk about the past. From this point forward, we only talk about now. You’re absolutely right. Any more rules?” “I don’t know.” I frowned, then said, “Fine. What do you think of Doctor Forrester, anyway?” She shook her head. “He’s a giant fake.” I raised my eyebrows. “Really?” “Well, yeah. Just look at him. Tweed jacket! He wrote one novel fifteen years ago, won a National Book Award, and he’s been coasting on that ever since.” I grinned. “That is one hell of a case of … um….” Oh shit, not now. I couldn’t think. Sometimes this happens to me now. I forget words, phrases. I closed my eyes, trying to center, let my mind come at it from a different direction. I pictured a typewriter, an old manual one, and it popped in. “Writer’s block.” She giggled. Still upset, but the change of subject helped. It was nice to see a little color on her cheeks. “Do you still write?” she asked. I nodded. “Of course.” “What about?” I shrugged. “The war, right now. It’s all … stream of consciousness, I guess. Not organized in any way. Just trying to get my thoughts down. My therapist down in Atlanta said it might help.” She turned and looked at me, really looked at me, for the first time, I think, since we’d run into each other three days before. “Your therapist?” I shrugged. “Along with the gimp leg, I’m technically diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And traumatic brain injury. Got my brainpan rattled when the bomb went off, you know? It’s all labels, anyway.” “What do you mean?” I frowned. “I’m just… I’m not exactly the guy you knew, Alex. Sometimes things here… they don’t seem as … as real. As it was over there. Maybe I’ve become an adrenaline junkie. Reality just isn’t colorful enough for me.” She sighed. “I felt that way for the longest time after we got back from Israel.” “You’re breaking your rules again.” “Oh, right.” She paused, then spoke again. “But I really did. It was so intense, and interesting and colorful. Then all of the sudden things were mundane, and grey, and it was get up and go to school and do homework and none of it seemed to matter as much.” “Yeah,” I said. “Anyway, I think working with Doctor Forrester will be interesting, at least. I thought for sure my work-study would be slinging dishes or mopping floors or something.” “Yeah, this is a lot better,” she replied. “And just think, you get to see a real writer in action.” When she said the word ‘real’ she held her hands up and made little quotes. I laughed. “Okay, you’re probably right. Let’s see if he produces anything this year. At least we can make sure the research is all lined up.” She grinned. “We should make a little wager on it.” I raised my eyebrows. “Feeling a little competitive?” “I say he produces absolutely nothing. Twenty dollars.” “Fair enough. What’s the threshold. Fifty pages? A hundred? Two?”

“He has to finish at least a first draft.” “Deal.” I reached across to shake her hand. She took it, and though the action felt natural, it felt too natural. Taking her hand. I let go quickly, feeling as if I’d been burned. Touching her… it was just too intense. We were both silent again. Awkward. As. Hell. “I should get going,” I said, at the exact same time she said, “Well, I’ve got somewhere to …” We looked at each other and both of us burst out laughing. “Okay,” I said. “Yeah, this is awkward. Are we really going to be able to do this?” She shrugged, and gave a smile I knew was fake as a three dollar bill. “Of course, Dylan. It can’t be that hard.” I started to gather my bags, then took three dollars out of my wallet. “For the coffee,” I said. “Keep it. You buy next time.” I paused, then put the money back in my wallet. Next time? Was this going to be a regular occurrence. Probably not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.

CHAPTER THREE
Strawberries (Alex)
When he finally got himself standing, he leaned close and said, “I think we need one more rule.” “Yeah?” He took a deep breath through his nose, and said, “Yeah. Um, yeah… you need to get different shampoo.” What. The. Hell? “What are you talking about?” I asked, suddenly very uncomfortable. “You still smell like strawberries, and its breaking my heart,” he said, his voice a low growl. With that, he turned, slung his bag over his impossibly broad shoulder, and began to walk away. He was twenty feet away before I could even think again. Without thought, without regard for consequences, I shouted as loud as I could, “You can’t do that! That’s breaking the first rule! Do you hear me, Dylan?” I was attracting stares. He waved over his shoulder and kept walking. Bastard. I gathered my bag and turned to go in the other direction, back to the dorm. Oh God, I was a mess. I was a mess because of his impossibly blue eyes, because of how in the Army his arms and chest had become … so developed. He smelled the same as always, and being around him was impossible. Sometimes when he was close to me I couldn’t even breathe. How in hell was I supposed to stay detached and professional when he set off every single nerve in my body? Why did he have to say that? I still remembered. I remembered him saying to me on the plane a million years ago, during our questions and answers game, he asked me Why do you smell like strawberries? Damn it. It’s not like we even really knew each other. I was a different person in Israel. Free. At home, and here in college, I was … well, I was kind of a bitch. I focused, one hundred percent, on my studying, on success. I was driven. I didn’t have room for the crazy sensations and emotions I’d experienced during our trip. As I walked, I remembered. His smell. His touch. Three days after we arrived in Israel, we’d gone to our first set of host families, in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv. Somehow, because of a stupid mixup, I ended up being the only female student assigned to a male host. Ariel was nothing but a giant ball of hormones and glands, a hyper-masculine dickhead who was absolutely certain he was going to sleep with me sometime during my ten day stay in his home. By the end of the second day I was exhausted from fending off his advances, and went to our advisor. She got me placed with a different family, thank God. That night, our host families held a party for all of us. I remember watching Dylan at the party. All of the kids were drinking. Some, like me, kept it to a minimum, but some, like Rami, the host of the party, were really packing it away. Everyone except Dylan. He spent the night nursing a coke, and relaxing in a corner. At one point he took out his guitar

and played some songs, and had several of the drunken students singing along with him. I watched, and smiled, thinking to myself how beautiful his eyes were. When he played the guitar, his face went through exaggerated facial expressions, sometimes his lips pursing, sometimes his eyes closing. He kept looking at me. Later that night, he approached me and asked, “Can we talk for a minute?” I shifted a little. Oh. God. What was this? Was he going to ask me out? I wanted him to. So badly. We walked to Rami’s room in the back of the apartment and sat next to each other on the bed. “Listen,” he said. “I know we’re only here for a few weeks. And that’s it. Nothing could ever work between us. But … I’m really, really attracted to you. And I’d like to know if you feel the same.” I was breathing in low, shallow breaths. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Finally, I nodded, quickly. “Yes. I do,” I replied. “Maybe… maybe we can just see what happens then?” I smiled. “Okay,” I said. The last two years would have been a lot less painful if I’d just told him, then and there, to go to hell. But maybe I was a little book smart and not enough life smart, because I fell for him. I fell off a cliff. And I still haven’t recovered. When Kelly and I met, later, she gasped when I told him what he’d said. “He said what?” I sighed. “He told me he wanted to change my shampoo. Because the smell of strawberries was breaking his heart.” She looked at me, her eyes wide, and said, “That’s so romantic.” “Oh God, Kelly, that’s no help at all!” She nodded. “I know.” “I thought you hated him.” “Only because he hurt you. But it’s obvious you still have a huge thing for this guy. Maybe you should just jump his bones and get it out of your system.” “That is enough! The only thing I’m going to do with him is survive the year working for Forrester. He hurt me, Kelly. Worse than I could have imagined possible.” “I know,” she said, quietly. “But maybe there’s more to the story than you know. I mean… I’m just saying, it’s possible.” “No. It’s completely impossible. Me and Dylan? Never again.” She sighed, and leaned back in her bed. “What’s going on with Josh, anyway?” I said, trying to change the subject. She shrugged. “He’s still an asshole.” “There’s a shock,” I replied. “Was I too clingy? I don’t understand it.” “No,” I said. “There were times last year you couldn’t have separated you two with the Jaws of Life. Something else going on there.” “Oh, God. You don’t think he was cheating on me while we were dating, do you?” I shook my head. “I’d have given odds that couldn’t happen. Maybe he’s just … I don’t know. Scared?” Kelly frowned. “What does he have to be scared of?” I gave a sad, sort of bitter laugh. “Maybe he’s scared of getting his heart broken. It happens.” She looked me in the eyes. “Could be,” she said.

Our job was to go out and draw fire (Dylan)
Okay, so I shouldn’t have said what I said about the strawberry scent. Two days later, she showed up in Forrester’s office reeking of strawberries. She gave me a defiant look and sat down and started working. I didn’t know whether to fly into a rage or break down crying, so I did the next best thing. I laughed. Long and hard, until I nearly had tears running down my face. “Are you all right?” she asked. That just set me off again, and she gave me a wry look. But finally, I settled down, started working, and began to feel optimistic. Maybe this could work after all. At this point we were falling into a routine. Occasionally we would stop to discuss a particular item: journal articles, personal accounts, newspaper articles, whatever, and discuss precisely how to categorize and cross reference it. Occasionally, when she was busy poring over some obscure document, I’d oh-so-casually glance over and let my eyes rest on her. I knew it was stupid to do it. I knew it. But I couldn’t stop myself. Because she was just as beautiful as ever. She wore faded blue jeans and calf-high boots that emphasized the curve of her legs, a grey t-shirt with a band logo on it (I didn’t recognize the band, but a Google search later would fix that), a thin white sweater. The t-shirt hugged her upper body, emphasizing her breasts and waist in a way that grabbed my attention and held it. Her hair was down, falling lush on her shoulders and halfway down her back. I kept wanting to reach out and run my fingers through her hair. I found myself remembering: leaning in, kissing her neck, feeling her hair tent around me, and just breathing her scent. “What are you doing?” I shook my head, embarrassed. “Sorry,” I said. “You were looking at me.” Now I looked up at her eyes, then away. “Well, shoot me, then.” I turned back to the computer, keyed in the information on the latest piece, the priceless diary of a banker who had witnessed the beginning of the riots. I could hear her breathing as I typed in the information. The monitor of the computer just barely reflected her. She was staring at me now. Damn it. Back to business. “You know what I don’t hear?” she asked. “What’s that?” “I don’t hear any typing from his office.” I snickered. “Maybe he only writes at night?” “Or on alternate decades?” “Smart-ass.” She giggled. “He might surprise us both,” I said. “Anything’s possible,” she said. “But I think he’s a fraud.” A exhaled suddenly, then said. “Maybe. But I was thinking about it last night. Imagine hitting the peak of your career at twenty two years old. He was still a senior in college when he won the National

Book Award. Twenty-two, and you’ve got a major be

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 721


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