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“Definitely the Russian. “

“Jason.”

“I’m not saying anything,” said Jason, holding up his hands. “I’m just saying that I’m going to take a very long shower. And when I come out, I’ll have forgotten this whole conversation. That’s how much I love you.”

He grabbed a towel and left. The bathroom door closed. Water started to run.

I sat down on the edge of the cot and put my head in my hands.

You idiot, I thought. You absolute, colossal, one-hundred-percent idiot.

I hadn’t meant it. I want that on the record. I’d meant every word of the fuck buddies the first time, in a panic, with my knuckles white on the bedspread. But in that lobby, watching a woman put her hand on his chest, I’d felt something I had no name for. A hot, sour, terrible, possessive ache. A feeling like a stranger reaching into my pocket. And I’d been so scared of it that I’d put it in the only box I had.

It doesn’t mean anything. We’re not together. He’s free.

I wanted to throw up.

I didn’t go to 214 that night. I lay on my cot in the dark with the phone on my chest and I stared at the ceiling, listening to Jason snore, and I did not text him back. It was the bravest, stupidest, most cowardly thing I did all week.

At 2:47 a.m., my phone buzzed again.

I grabbed it, expecting Maksim. It wasn’t.

JENNY: bro are you awake

I sat up.

LEX: always. whats wrong

JENNY: its tyler

LEX: ukulele tyler?

JENNY: how do you know about the ukulele

LEX: dad

JENNY: OMG he’s been INVESTIGATING him???

LEX: he found a parking ticket in nova scotia

JENNY: lex I’m literally crying

LEX: what happened

There was a long pause. Then came a wall of text, punctuated by tears and typos. She’d been at the campus café, and she’d looked through the window, and Tyler had been at a table with a girl leaning close to him, laughing, and then, and here Jenny’s punctuation gave out, the girl had kissed him. It had definitely been on the cheek, or possibly the mouth, she wasn’t sure, because she’d run off before she could see.

I read it four times. Something in my chest was very still.

I know what it is to stand at a window and misread a moment. I know what it is to run.

LEX: hey. jen. listen.

JENNY: i’m listening

LEX: have you talked to him

JENNY: no