Where We Left Off (Middle of Somewhere 3)

Thomas was irritated by Charles, I knew. He took things Charles said personally and got offended when Charles corrected him. But since Charles was also the only one who No-H seemed flummoxed by talking to, and since Thomas had hated No-H with a passion ever since she’d yammered at him about some study she’d read about how codependent most twin relationships were, Thomas usually suffered him without complaint.

I saw Will a lot, too, and though our hangouts had begun grudgingly, he clearly wasn’t just humoring me anymore. We got along in this way that shouldn’t have worked but did, like the first time someone tells you that Brie and pear go well together and it seems impossible until the tastes are lingering on your tongue.

Sometimes we just watched Netflix and Will got takeout, never accepting the money I tried to press on him, which was lucky for me since I didn’t really have any to spare. With anyone else I would’ve tried to argue over the bill, but Will rolled his eyes when I tried and made it clear my protests irritated him, so I stopped. Other times we’d talk for hours—meandering conversations that spiked in heated disagreements and equally heated laughter.

Will was the only person who had ever made arguing with him feel safe. He wasn’t angry or threatened if I disagreed with him, so I found myself licensed to be more forceful with my opinions than I ever had been. One night, disagreeing over I don’t even remember what, I rose onto my knees on the couch and yelled, “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said!” It had sounded ridiculous the moment it was out of my mouth, but Will, after a beat, had grinned and ruffled my hair, pulling me down on top of him as he laughed, clearly pleased with me.

ON HALLOWEEN, Milton, Gretchen, Charles, Thomas, and I went to the Village Parade with a whole group of people from our dorms. In the dining hall before we went, we each came up with lists of things we thought we’d see and then made bingo boards of them, agreeing that the first person to get bingo got to pick the next thing we watched at movie night. Of course, Milton turned out to have a huge advantage because, being from New York, he’d been to the parade before.

The rest of us had no reason to imagine that we should put down things like “a person dropping a puppet head,” “someone’s hair catching on fire,” “a child being terrified of an overly zealous adult in costume and screaming,” or “drunk dude running out of the bar and dropping trou to moon the parade.” (Although, I did randomly get lucky because I wrote down “a dragon,” mostly as a joke, but then there was a sister and brother dressed as Puff the Magic Dragon and Puff’s little brother.)

I called Will when I got home, exhilarated and a little tipsy.

“You know we met two years ago, today,” I told him.

“I remember,” Will said. I could hear the smile in his voice. “You looked hilarious falling off that skateboard.”

I got flustered all over again at the memory.

He’d been coordinated and sophisticated, and I—well, I’d fallen off my skateboard, half in actual clumsiness and half to disguise the fact that I got hard under Will’s stare, as if his hands were touching me everywhere his gaze landed while he looked me up and down for the first time.

He had been abrupt and aggressive and a little bit rude. He’d pissed off Daniel, made me feel like a loser for having no one to hang out with on Halloween, and had even managed to make Rex roll his eyes. Despite all of it, he had been the most dynamic person I’d ever met. He was honest and uncompromising and didn’t seem to second-guess himself. He wasn’t awkward or nervous or uncertain about anything, and for some reason that made him seem invincible, superhuman.

He’d driven me home after we’d played Pictionary, and he’d complained about Daniel and what he called his “helpless act.” “Of course Rex would go for that,” he’d said, shaking his head and muttering something about a hero complex.

“Why do think it’s an act?” I asked, since to me Daniel mostly seemed like he tried to cover up the fact that he was sometimes bad at doing things that even I knew were common sense.

Will turned to look at me for the first time since he started driving, as if he’d forgotten I was there, actually listening to his vitriolic monologue. He pursed his lips and let out a long breath. “Ugh, it’s probably not even an act,” he said finally. And then he sulked.

“I don’t get it. What’s your problem with Daniel? Are you still in love with Rex or something?”