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He lapsed into silence, like he’d forgotten I was there. When he remembered me, he stabbed a thick finger at my notebook. “Yeah, I’d try and formulate a hypothesis that measured the effects of love on something.” Then he nodded once, signaling that he’d said all he had to say on the matter, and bent back over his own work.
My mind went immediately to the way Will had writhed beneath me days before as I worshiped his cock with my mouth. It had been love for me—love that made me want to shake him apart with pleasure, to transmit my adoration. I blinked until I cleared the images of Will from my mind, but when I thanked Max for his help, he just raised an eyebrow as he wished me good luck. And I had the sense that he didn’t just mean with my physics project.
So, yeah, I’d tried to explain wanting to do my project on something meaningful to Will the night before. Will, practical as ever, had cut rather to the chase.
“You don’t need to make your major contribution to the discipline in the last three weeks of your first year at NYU, Leo,” he’d said. “Just pick something—it doesn’t matter what—and do a good job with it. If you have grand ambitions to create the…” He searched for an incisive example and came up adorably short. His physics knowledge was basically nil. “…to create whatever, then write your ideas down in that damn raggedy-ass notebook you’re always hauling around and get back to them when you write your dissertation or whatever. You’re wasting time you could just be doing it. And honestly, you’re driving me fucking nuts trying to turn my can openers and shit into your physics project.”
I knew he was right. That this was just one project for one class, and as far as that went, it didn’t technically matter what I did.
“Ooh, okay, I know,” Will said when it was clear I was still sulking about it. “You could measure how fast Superman would have had to fly around the world backward to actually reverse time. Cartoon physics, get it?” He winked at me.
I smiled at him. “I think there’s a book about that, actually. That explains all the physics of comic books and superheroes and stuff. Pretty cool.”
“Soooo geeky.” But I could tell he thought it was cool too. Then he was off, listing what seemed to be an experiment I could do from every sci-fi show or movie we’d watched together.
“Oh! You could do like an Orphan Black thing, and—”
“Cloning is biology, not physics,” I said, and I kissed him to shut him up.
He narrowed his eyes at me like I was spoiling all his fun, then brightened and shoved down his pants.
“I’ve got it,” he said with a wicked grin. “You can measure my dick with your mouth.” He waggled his eyebrows and tilted his hips toward me as I cracked up.
NOW, STANDING with my hallmates in the middle of the night, the stars splashed high above us through the clouds, I imagined Will asleep five miles away, the same moonlight sneaking through the window to alight on his hair, pillow-mussed, or the soft curve of his shoulder, or the groove of his spine. And I liked that, at the level of starlight and moonlight, something connected us even when we weren’t together. Will would give me immense shit if I said something like that out loud, but it was maybe why my project did matter to me. Because the laws that governed Will’s can opener were the laws that governed the moon, that governed both of us, even miles apart.
Gretchen came to stand beside me. “I know what we have to do.” Her voice was low and calm as always, but she grabbed my arm with uncharacteristic excitement.
“Uh… go back to bed?” I asked hopefully.
“Sunrise. Yoga.”
Sunrise yoga was more myth than reality. I knew it existed since Tonya always announced it. I knew there were true devotees who showed up every morning, ready to welcome the sunrise with yoga. But though I had sometimes randomly woken up early in Holiday because I couldn’t sleep, I was not a morning person. And now that I routinely didn’t get enough sleep, I was certainly never up before I had to be.
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh, come on, Leo, when will we have another chance?”
“Like… every morning that isn’t today.”
“Yes, but we won’t. We’re already up! And the class starts at five. That means we have an hour to change, get breakfast, and get to the gym. Besides, the year’s almost over and we’ve been saying we were going to go since September.”
This wasn’t strictly true. Gretchen had been saying she wanted to go since September and I had routinely smiled and nodded, assuming she was aware that this meant I had no interest whatsoever.
