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"For reference, that’s the only sensible way to answer that kind of question"

"Rack the balls, dickweed," I said, and for that night, at least, ere friends

TWO GAMES LATER, MARIE-HELENE DRIFTED OVER IN tiht?" She did that pretty-girl thing where she casually slid under ust took his fifth shot in a row "I’ll win in the end"

I wasn’t sure if I believed that But Simon did Sihtwith the ends of her hair

Honestly, it felt nice Siood relationship had to be complicated?

Friendship I understood There had to be an arc there, so just by being together So ot instead A story you reminded each other of when you needed to feel understood I saw you in the quad that day, ht you would be blond I always thought you’d be my twin sister My other half And then I met you, and someone killed theelse to me Because other than our friendship, I felt like I had nothing to show for this year Like I was a circuit board where all of the tangled cords ran straight to Charlotte Holmes

And still it wasn’t just a friendship When I’d irls in the way I used to, and I used to look at girls all the time More than look--I made out with them in my roooodnight I was a good boyfriend, while the relationship lasted--though it never lasted long Still, they were never my friends, not the way that Hol was a kind of reversion tofifteen-year-old Jahco in my pocket? I was so much more noas past all the hopeless crushes, my inability to separate friendship and love

Wasn’t I?

I’d been thinking for so long that what I wanted fro between us was a Wonderland rabbit hole, that we could fall endlessly and never hit the botto to each other, completely, in a here no one else could coe and private and still, somehow, had invited me in Me, out of everyone in the world Maybe it caether in a foxhole Maybe I wanted her to be irlfriend because I didn’t see what could happen if I foundsomeone else I wanted a stamp to put on our file: All boxes checked No one else needed She didn’t want me to touch her, but she wanted to be near me all the tiht, and it wasn’t just because August had won this round, too

"Too bad" Marie-Helene leaned against ive up, I can introduce you to so professor’s here He doesn’t do video installation the way you do"--Thank God, I thought, I couldn’t BS a professor--"but maybe he could talk to you about Sieben ad the balls for another gaht back," I told hi at was the ust said, and I remembered how not-simple any of this was

THAT WAS HOW I FOUND MYSELF STARING AT A SET OF charcoals in an industrial loft five blocks away

"Think about for "Think about style"

"I’ him," I told Marie-Helene, who looked horrified Holmes would have snickered, but Hol to hi the rawness of the world in your work, I sympathized a bit more with Hol about your feelings was a lot different fro" in the abstract If this is what being an artist or a writer was like, rowing sorown as uy that Leander had been kissing, he was doing so

But Marie-Helene and the rest of his coterie hung on his every word I understood why--he listened to his students’ opinions, knew things about their lives He teased Marie-Helene about her "new crush" within ht about Mr Wheatley, ood it felt when he’d taken an interest in ned that interest for his own messed-up, villainous reasons)

So uy, underneath it, and I sort of felt bad knowing that I was the villain in this situation

Unless he was a villain, too

"You should come to Sieben next year," Nathaniel had said to me back at the party "You’re a nice kid Smart I can tell that you’re sht Draw ’n’ Drink tonight and they’ve talked ot? I can put in a good word for you with the adone a few blocks over to this industrial loft, which ed to Nathaniel--God only knew--and noas holding a piece of charcoal the way I held a cigarette the one and only time I tried to sarette or a charcoal