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“Did he at least say why he was ending it?”

“Circumstances. That’s all he’d say.”

“That’s rough.” Kevin’s quiet for a moment. “You’re cyberstalking him now, aren’t you?”

“Yes!” I admit. “And it’s frustrating. I can’t. Don’t know his real name. He said Bastien, but the last name was something like Sajak? He said it once, but I don’t know if I heard it right. But that doesn’t sound French.”

“Could be Quebec French. They got all sorts of names up there.”

“Maybe.” I rub my face. “I can’t find any high school psychology teachers with that name anywhere.”

“High school?”

“That’s what he said he did. He said he was a teacher.”

“Huh.”

He gets the look he gets when he’s about to give me a hard truth. “Look, you want my honest opinion?”

“No.”

“I think this guy had his reasons, and they’re probably real ones. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Doesn’t mean he didn’t care, but Levi, not everybody is going to love you just because you love them. Sometimes people just can’t.”

“I just want to understand.”

“Do you? Or do you want to find a problem you can solve so he’ll come back?”

I don’t answer.

“This is what you do,” Kevin continues. “Someone leaves, and you convince yourself if you just try hard enough, do enough, fix yourself enough, they’ll choose you. But that’s not how it works.”

“So what do I do?”

“You let him go. You start school. You meet new people.”

“I don’t want new people.”

“I know.” His voice is gentle. “But you might not get a choice.”

After we hang up, I sit in the empty waiting room, still searching for variations of a name that might not even be real. I just want a real explanation of why he dumped me so I can change that about myself and make him love and want me again. And even though Kevin’s probably right and I should let it go, my heart just can’t let him go.

Chapter thirteen

Bastien

“And the last thing on our agenda before we separate.” Arthur Hughes, Dean of Social Sciences, looks up from his notepad. The combined departments of Sociology, Psychology, and Anthropology, who are siloed miserably in their own tables, lean forward, sensing, like I do, that this meeting is finally drawing to a close. “I would like to introduce our newest member, in the psychology department. Professor Saint-Jacques, you have the floor.”

I hurriedly choke down the burnt Folgers that I have just taken a sip of and put down the bagel that has been disappointing me. My colleagues, seated around the conference table in Grier 412, have already turned their expectant eyes upon me. My heart judders from the unexpected attention. I had hoped to pass the first staff meeting with simply a verbal acknowledgment that I was the new man on the staff, rather than suddenly recount my academic bona fides.

I stand. “Hi, my name is Sébastien Saint-Jacques, I’m from Québec, and I’m joining the Psychology department. And normally when I address a group I have notes and a lectern separating us.” The group gives soft, indulgent chuckles. “I really look forward to working with and getting to know you. I hope we will know each other for many happy years.” There. That should do it, and at least I can be remembered as the guy who made it short and sweet. I start to sit down.

“And can you share with us your research interests? Remind us where you did your graduate work,” the dean says. I freeze mid-descent and straighten. He’s a self-contented man with a swollen, reddish face, beard, glasses, and a suit that says money in an understated way. And he clearly thought my introduction was not up to scratch. The reproof in his voice is self-evident.

I swallow. “I did my undergraduate at Laval, my graduate degree at McGill, and my dissertation was at Purdue. I was working at McCradden-Kisner College in Portland before they closed their doors in May,” I add before he can ask me that too. “I research social cognition, and my dissertation was on the effects of ayahuasca rituals on self-perception among soldiers with PTSD.” I glance at Dean Hughes, and when he doesn’t prompt me with something else, go to sit down.

“I didn’t realize there were so many of them to interview,” a man across the table says to me. He has a thin, hawk-like face. “Mostly, wouldn’t they be concerned about running afoul of military regulations? Or even federal law?” I can hear the skepticism in his voice. He’s already categorized me as a possibly dangerous hippy.

I smile. “They were all separated from the military and were willing to make the journey to Mexico to do it,” I tell him evenly, because Dr. Lincoln Preston is not the first person of his ilk I’ve ever run across.