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"Don’t talk about yourself like that" My guilt was excruciating I sat on his bed, trying to get him to look at me "I shouldn’t have said what I did I was just upset"

"That’s okay Forget it" Aat the calculator "Did I ever tell you I was adopted? I’m not even related to her Not technically, anyway"

The comment came from so far out of left field it tookabout Arianna

"Everybody always thinks it’s the other way around," he continued "I ot e They didn’t think they could have kids Elevencomes Miss Perfect"

I had never heard a confession of such absoluteme this now?

"She really hates s she calls ed hopelessly "They all do it They think I don’t know, but I do Okay, I’ured that out But Arianna You’ve seen her--you knohat I’ about Jesus, it just kills me"

"Your sister is a total bitch She probably treats everybody like that Just forget about her"

"Yeah, well That’s not really the issue" He lifted his gaze from the calculator and looked me dead in the eye "You’ve been really nice to me, Tim, and I appreciate it I mean that Promise me we’ll stay friends, okay?"

I realized what Lucessi was doing What I’d thought was jealousy or self-pity was actually a kind of backhanded generosity Just ashis ties to ht I’d be better off The worst part was, I kneas right

"Sure," I said "Of course ill"

He held out his hand "Shake on it? So I know you’re not too

"So that’s it?" I said

"I guess so, yeah"

--

He was in love with her, of course Though he’d toldti he also hated, and it was destroying hi Lucessi had toldit, was that he was in the process of flunking all his courses His living arrange

In thea place to live I felt betrayed, and angry withso badly ned to my fate, which seea had stopped, I was left standing, and there was si to be done about it I called around to see if anybody I kneas looking for a third or a fourth to round out a suite, but no one was, and rather than dig deeper into my list of acquaintances and eles in any of the River Houses, but it was still possible to enter the lottery as a "floater"; I’d be placed on a waiting list for each of the three houses I chose, and if a student dropped out over the suive me his slot I put in for Lowell, Winthrop, and Quincy, no longer caring which one I got, and waited to hear

The year came to an end Carmen and I went our separate ways One ofin his lab The pay was negligible, but it was an honor to be asked, and it would keep e for the suhties who favored Harvard students; except for her collection of cats, which was voluminous--I was never quite sure howstink of the litter boxes, the situation was close to ideal I left early and returned late, usually taking es of Cae, and the two of us rarely saw each other All one for the summer, and I expected to be lonely, but it didn’t turn out that way The year had left me enervated and overstuffed, as if by a too-rich lad for the quiet My job, which involved collating reay of plasma cells in mice, could be conducted virtually without interaction with another hu Sometimes I barely spoke for days

It shaot all about nored theot that they existed at all I had told theiven them the phone number, because I didn’t know it at the ti I did not call them and they could not call ht becahts Doubtless, in so, and I would need to contact them before the fall to file the proper paperwork for my scholarship; but at the level of conscious awareness, they simply ceased to matter