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Avery raises his voice. “Speaking of not embarrassing me, Jonah, thanks for joining us.”
Elliott grabs my arm and hisses, “There’s an Aston Martin in the parking lot.”
The front door of the main building opens and someone says, “I hate to break it to you, Avery, but I don’t think this place provided you with toilet paper.”
Oh Jesus fucking Christ.
That voice.
Because I can’t bring myself to look, I follow the direction of Elliott’s pointing arm. A gleaming, low-slung blue Aston Martin DB11, an absolute work of art, sits parked next to the old school bus we took to get here.
When I run out of excuses not to turn around, I rotate slowly on my heel and take in the sight of my professor putting his arm around the man who swallowed my load in a first-class lavatory six months ago. His pressed navy suit looks out of place in front of the crumbling log buildings and overgrown fields.
“Everyone welcome Gray Freeman.” Avery shakes the poor guy by the shoulder, grinning proudly. “Yes,thatMr. Freeman. You’re welcome.”
The whole class claps except for me. I still haven’t regained control of my body. Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember getting a D on a homework assignment about this guy. Maybe Avery would have upped my grade for a paragraph about Mr. Freeman’s blowjob skills.
“Let’s all introduce ourselves. Then you can go explore—those of you who haven’t already.” Avery gives me alook. He likes me, he really does. I’m the only person who enjoys his team-building activities. But I know he thinks I’m a lost cause, even if he tries to hide it.
“I can’t promise I’ll remember everyone’s names.” Mr. Freeman’s doing a terrible job of pretending he wants to be here, all tense and squinting irritably like a cat when you throw it out in the rain.
Avery points right at me. “Go ahead.”
Great. Awesome. With nowhere else left to look, I tilt my chin up and meet Mr. Freeman’s gaze. He doesn’t move, not the slightest change in his expression, but his green-gold eyes are heavy and careful on mine.
After all this time.
My heart isn’t beating faster, but harder somehow, like it’s gotten all heavy and swampy in my chest. I offer an I-won’t-make-this-weird-if-you-don’t smile. “I’m Jonah Scott. Sorry I look like I just crawled out of a hole. I did.” I wave the animal skull at him, like it explains everything.
No one says anything for a moment, birds chattering away in the trees all around us. “Hello,” he responds finally. Silence again. So much for not making it awkward.
“Hi. Sir.” We sound like a couple of idiots. Someone giggles. Then Elliott’s introducing himself and the world starts moving again. When we’re done, Avery waves us away.
“Gray and I are going to confer about how to make your lives hell, and we’ll see you all bright and early for the waterfall hike tomorrow.” He really should have been a vacation planner instead of a law professor. Waving us away, Professor A and Mr. Freeman head for the main building. I hear, “But seriously, Avery, there’s no toilet paper anywhere.”
“I’m sure it’s there. You just didn’t look hard enough.”
This is going to be a wild weekend.
I turn to Elliott. “I saw some soccer balls in the weeds behind the shed.” There’s an entire field over by the bunkhouse, with regulation-sized goals and everything.
Sophie weaves her arm through mine and squeezes threateningly. “Soccer later. We’re all going to study first.” She has been top of the class since the first day; I try not to let her see all my D’s and F’s, but she knows. Everyone knows.
“Sorry about the clothes,” I murmur, pecking the top of her head.
“I just hope you brought extras.”
Elliott’s eyes flick to mine, but he doesn’t rat me out that I’m going to have to borrow some of his. I don’t think Sophie wants to see the mystery skull, so I leave it in my pocket as we walk to the bunkhouse to get our notebooks. The sun has gone all orange and low, and the autumn foliage across the hillsides looks like a massive wildfire consuming everything in sight. If it burned me away, just wrapped me in flame and sprinkled my ashes all over the forest where the small animals make their homes, I think that would be a pretty alright way to go.
I convince Sophie to at least sit outside while we practice, so we grab our books and carry them to the soccer field to stretch out on the grass. I lend her one of my hoodies, and she looks cute with a bigTractor and Feedsweatshirt hanging down over her professional skirt. We keep fumbling and doing this awkward dance where she tries to hold my hand and then realizes I can’t open doors or carry my books. I’m used to it, but sometimes I wonder how it would feel to have someone take the time to remember, to memorize every part of me as well as they know themselves.
Elliott takes my books so Sophie can twine her fingers through mine. Her hands are so delicate, her smooth, pink manicure brushing my skin. It makes me feel responsible and protective, which is a perfectly good way to feel for the rest of your life, I guess. She's been friends with Elliott and me since the first week of law school; people always say you're supposed to marry your best friend, so maybe this is how it's supposed to work, even if we've never had a real spark. Maybe the feeling I've been looking for, the life-changing, beautiful ache that would tell me I found theone, doesn't actually exist.
I used to dream about him, afterithappened. We went further every night, the hard ridges of our bodies pressed together, his tongue deep in my mouth, harsh and tender. I’ve never seen gay sex in real life, but that didn’t stop my brain from trying—we fucked like animals in positions that probably aren’t even physically possible. There were other things, too. The way he straightened his glasses. How the distant look in his eyes melted into a reluctant, half-hidden smile when he looked at me.
I finally got over him when I started school and met Sophie. He hasn’t even crossed my mind for months. But when I flop on my back on the grass and study all the layers of the sky between me and space, with the pale day-moon caught in between, there’s just one thing running through my mind, over and over.
He knows my name now. And I know his.
