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I told Caroline to admit how she was feeling—how she was really feeling—but when she’d ask me, “What’s on your mind?” I wouldn’t say, I’m worried about my mom because she said her back went out and I think she must be missing shifts at the prison. If she gets fired, she’s going to get whiny, and Bo’s never been around her when she’s like that. He might dump her for being a useless drag—which she is, I swear, my mother whines like nobody else alive—and if that happens, I’ll have to go back home.
What would be the point?
I was two different people, and only one of them was real. The real West Leavitt lived in a trailer in Silt, Oregon. He talked to me all day long. Check on your mom. Make sure she gets groceries so Frankie’s got something decent to eat. Pick up another shift at the library, because you never know. You just never know.
Whereas the guy I was in Iowa—he was the clothes I put on to get where I needed to go. He was me, pretending to be the kind of person Caroline has been every minute of her life.
Whoever you are when you’re born, you can’t just shake that off. We like to pretend we can. That’s the American dream, right? No limits. But the truth is, you might get rich, but you can’t buy the way rich people are. You can’t just put the right clothes on and belong. You’re still going to think like a poor kid, dream like one, want like one. You’ll still flinch every time another student asks you, So what does your dad do? or Where are you going for break?
It’s hard work, teaching yourself not to flinch. Learning to be someone you’re not.
That’s what I was doing at Putnam. I was working. I wasn’t there for laughs, or to party, or to find the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I was there to make the rest of my life happen, and it was a full-time project.
People like Caroline don’t have to worry about the groceries or the rent. They can assume all that shit’s taken care of, and then they just have to figure out what they want and go for it.
Where I’m from, assuming you’re going to get into med school is like assuming you can walk on water. It’s a fairy tale, and people who believe in fairy tales are idiots.
I didn’t get to Putnam assuming anything. I got there on the charity of a rich alum whose wife I fucked.
I knew what I was doing. I would have done it again.
I hated it, but I would have done it.
I hated lying to Caroline, but I lied to her. If I’d told her the truth, it would’ve broken her heart.
I couldn’t have her. That was the truth.
I could only have this one thing, if I worked hard enough. Nothing else.
Caroline texts me on Saturday. What are you doing?
I’ve been sleeping.
I woke up at dawn and walked around campus in a fog—a literal fog, I mean, the air full of thick white mist—and felt like some lost ghost haunting the place. I stayed out there too long, not dressed right for the wet invasiveness of the weather.
When I came back to the apartment, I was shuddering, and it was so fucking quiet that I got this creepy feeling, like maybe I didn’t exist at all. I got out my phone and scrolled through yesterday’s texts from Caroline and Frankie and my mom.
It’s Thanksgiving break, I told myself. Not the apocalypse.
But I still felt strange. I sat on my bed, staring out at the fog, and polished off the last few inches in Krishna’s bottle of butterscotch schnapps.
I stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep.
When Caroline’s text wakes me up, the phone says it’s four o’clock, but it takes me a few seconds to figure out that means afternoon. I slept all day. My fingers are stiff, my mouth tastes like garbage, and my dick is half hard for no reason.
Nothing. You?
The phone rings. It’s her. “Hey. ”
“Hey. ”
“You sound sleepy. Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah. ”
“Sorry. I can go. You go back to sleep. I know this is, like, your one big chance to be lazy. ”
“It’s all right. How’s your break going?” We’ve only exchanged a few texts since she left on Wednesday. I haven’t known what to say to her. She’s pissed at me. I’m pissed at myself. I think we’d be better off not seeing each other at all, but if we’re going to stop, it’s going to have to be her who stops it.
