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Teeks later, a nightmare wakes me

It happens a lot

I roll out of bed and slide my feet over the cool floor until I’ve found my flip-flops in the dark Grab ainst le

When I pull a sweatshirt over et’s comforter heaves on the top bunk Her head pokes out fro?"

"Just out I’ll be back in a few hours"

I feel guilty for waking her up, but I can’t really help it It’s hard to be an insomniac when you have a roommate

"Be careful"

"I will"

She rolls over, and even though she’s awake, I ease the door shut slowly until it latches and locks with a quiet snick

I’ripped inlot, listening for anything, anyone I had parked under the security light From ten feet away I unlock my doors with the re sound of relief when I shut the door behind me is too loud in the clean, safe interior of my Taurus

I turn on the stereo and crank up the voluo in a circle around the college, which is four blocks long and three blocks wide Then I do widening circles around the surrounding college-owned buildings, the don, the fast-food strip and box stores, the Little League diamond and Frost-E-Freeze shack I pass fields of cornstalks starting to break ranks and turn brown My high beaht the blank landscape ofrun, but I had to stop Afteralone outdoors lost its char left, and et over that

I don’t kno to talk to ure out ords I would have said before, when I never had to think about it I knew just how to h and love , only I don’t know my lines, and I suck at improv

I can’t reraduated froraduation cap and goalking onstage to give the valedictorian speech with her two sisters and her father in the front row of the bleachers, bea with pride

I haven’t told him about the pictures I can’t

I’s to spread

I spin the wheel, turning ht

I haven’t seen West for thirteen days, but I think about hi to follow all the twists and turns of our conversation Why did he pushwhen he told that guy to leave? What was he trying to acco I do is about acco

I pick overto answer all the unanswerable questions

Was he always bad and I just didn’t notice? Did he turn bad?

How could I have trusted hi"

I re betweena paper at hter in the hallway, periodic s on et went out to see as going on and didn’t co and West’s raised voice

"What are they doing out there?"

I tried to sound like I didn’t care Like I was slightly annoyed and I didn’t feel this tug in my chest This pressure to find out, join in, becoed "Go see"

I can still remember exactly how I felt when I stood up and headed out there Balanced on a knife’s edge between good and bad, unsure which way I s and tense shoulders, that soht, I found Bridget and Krishna, bowling with rubber chickens

Yeah It took et it sorted out, too

I don’t knohere Krishna came by the chickens--probably he stole them from somewhere--but whoever had owned them before couldn’t possibly have enjoyed them as much Krishna and the chickens were fa toilets, hanging fro phallicfro at one end of the hall, twenty feet froh several tight aro, an underhand throw that whipped the chicken through the air with surprising speed It hit the pins, and they exploded, scattering all over the hall Bridget shrieked, then bent over, laughing

It was totally juvenile--the gairlish reaction, Krishna’s red eyes and his stoned grin I had a paper due in thestill to do I had Latin hoo to the library because of these guys, I’d--

Suddenly the door right across from mine opened West came out with a chicken in each hand and a two-liter bottle of soda under one ar about chicken rockets," he said, before he caught sight of me and stopped

We looked at each other Probably not for ten entireti at his face, when I allance A day of watching his reen eyes lit up with led up in those eyes of his, le myself

West arched an eyebrow "Want to play?"

He didn’tby it I’m almost sure

Or, I et a chicken of e in this silliness, blow off irl

He didn’t mean did I want him Did I want to learn how to cut loose Did I wish I could be different

But, even so, my heart beat like a bass drum in a halftime show, and I couldn’t quite catch my breath to answer, No, thanks

This isn’t for me

You’re not for me

The denial was too thick in my throat If I tried to say it out loud, I would choke on no, because I wanted to say yes

In the end, I didn’t say anything Nate ca his chin on my shoulder "What’s with all the noise?"

A door shut behind West’s eyes His face closed off, and the tipping point where I was standing flattened out beneath my feet into the familiar, unexceptional terrain ofoff some steam," West said

"Could you keep it down,to study"