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Still, it was some of the most fun I’d had. We all fell over each other like puppies trying to pile onto the trays. There were a few families when we first arrived, but they left soon after dark and we got rowdier, pushing each other down the hill, holding on to each other’s hands and trying to slide down in tandem, and generally horsing around like idiots.
One of the guys whose name I never learned made some joke about sledding and Ethan Frome, which I didn’t get and I made a mental note to ask Daniel about it.
Finally, freezing cold and shaky from exertion, we left the dining hall trays at the top of the hill for anyone else to use, and trooped back toward the subway, stopping for hot chocolates twice at bodegas along the way. My mouth sticky with cheap chocolate and my fingers still numb, I fell asleep that night smiling, imagining someone walking past our trays poised in the snow and jumping on one with a grin, sliding downhill in the quiet darkness of the park.
Now, that night was like a distant memory. I was completely on edge, cursing every moment of leisure I’d ever enjoyed for being one more moment of work I had to do now. Charles was in some kind of intense caffeine and paranoia-fueled frenzy where he didn’t sleep, just paced around the room alternately muttering to himself and typing loudly on his computer, which drove me bonkers. He had crudely converted his school-issue side table into a standing desk by stacking it precariously on top of his actual desk and propping up the back edge on books.
Even Milton, who was usually cool as a damn cucumber, wasn’t unaffected. His outfits were distinctly uninspired, and he’d canceled the last two movie nights despite Felicity—which we had given up trying to pretend we were not full-on watching from start to finish with true gusto and strong contradictory opinions—being his total happy place.
Only Gretchen seemed mostly calm. She had a system that included detailed study and work schedules combined with long periods of rigorous physical exertion and timed psychic relaxation. In fact, I was pretty convinced that the fact that I’d been going to yoga with her regularly was the only thing that kept me from melting into an actual Leo puddle on the horrible carpet of my dorm room. I’d never worked so hard in my life, and things with my physics TA had reached a point where I practically started to freak out anytime his name showed up in my e-mail inbox.
I CAME to Will’s in hopes that being around him would calm me down.
He was clearly about to make some snarky comment about my disheveled state, but swallowed it when I rushed in and dropped my backpack on my way to burrow into his couch and have a minor nervous breakdown.
“Ooookay,” Will said. “I take it finals are not going well?”
“I’m gonna fail out of college,” I groaned into the couch.
“Tell me what you need to do and how long you have to do it, and we’ll figure it out.”
I held my planner out to him, now a crumpled hank of paper worried into a smeary exclamation-point-riddled mess. He held it between his thumb and forefinger then put it on the coffee table like an undetonated bomb.
“Why don’t you take me through it.” He patted my back. “One sec.”
He came back with a pad of graph paper and a pencil from his drafting table and sat beside me on the couch.
“Okay. Go class by class and tell me what you have left to do and when the deadline is.”
I shook my head. “My physics TA is trying to ruin my life. I should just go back to Holiday and rot.”
Will snorted. “You gonna work at Mr. Zoo’s for the rest of your life?”
“Yes. Someday maybe I’ll take it over and rename it Mr. Leo’s.”
“Great plan, kiddo. Come on, sit up. Tell me what you have to do.”
“I can’t.” I knew I sounded childish and petulant and I just couldn’t care. I was too tired, too overwhelmed. “Will,” I groaned. “Can’t I just drop out and come live here?”
“Christ on toast, Leo, you’re fucking depressing me. Sit up.” He dragged me up by my sweatshirt hood. “Now tell me what the deal is.”
I laid it all out for him. How Clark, my physics TA, hated me. How I’d done everything he asked us to do in terms of the proposal for the final project, but he kept forcing me to redo it because he said it wasn’t in compliance with one thing or another. And how, even though I’d asked Professor Ekwensi after class, and she’d mentioned that my project sounded great, Clark still made me revise it again, and when I’d mentioned Ekwensi’s approval, Clark had glared at me and gotten all pissy, accusing me of going over his head by talking to her.
