I wasn’t trying to stalk him—I was just trying to even the score. Jordan Hassan knew where I slept, how I spent my hours, what ratings I got on my daily mental status exams. I lived my life under a magnifying glass, and he could look through it any time he wanted.
Meanwhile I could list everything I knew about him in about fifteen seconds. He told bad jokes, had a bizarre affection for puzzles, and claimed to read the New Yorker on the subway (I didn’t believe him). His grandfather was born in Egypt, he grew up in New Jersey, and in another couple years he was going to med school. Where? “Wherever I get in,” he’d said.
These were tidbits—fragments—puzzle pieces. Not nearly enough. I wanted to know so much more about him. Not just to keep things fair, either.
It was because when I looked into his agate eyes, I felt seen in a way I had never felt before. He cared about me, I was sure of it. And he didn’t think I was broken or bad or defective.
Or maybe he did. But it didn’t make him run. It made him want to help.
Someone jostled me from behind, and I realized I was just standing in the middle of the walkway, staring into space, while students in puffer coats and backpacks streamed around me. So I started walking again, and in a few hundred yards it seemed like I’d come to the middle of the campus. To my right were steps leading down to fields gone brown and muddy in winter. To my left, a series of white stone steps led up to a huge, columned building. I would’ve liked to go inside to get warm, but I didn’t have a student ID.
I knew I didn’t belong here. I didn’t need some bored security guard telling me that to my face.
I sat down on that first set of steps and hugged my knees to my chest.
What’s it like, Jordan? Do you take classes in that building there? Have you played soccer on that field? Did you ever sprawl across these steps on a sunny spring day?
I knew that even if I could learn how to stay in the present, I’d never be able to be part of a place like this. I’d always be on the other side of an invisible and impossibly high wall.
I sat there watching students walking between classes as the chill from the steps seeped into my bones. If there was one thing I was good at, it was letting time wash over me. Why mark its passage, when one day was so exactly like any other? The Schedule took time out of our hands entirely. It wrapped us, suffocated us, in relentless, numbing monotony.
I hummed a little. Shivered. The minutes turned into an hour. Two hours. How much longer did I have to stay away from Belman?
I started picturing Jordan coming out of a classroom, in his big dumb puffer coat. And then I imagined myself coming out of a different classroom, right across the quad. A look of surprised happiness would appear on his face. I’d hitch up my backpack and start toward him at the same time he’d be hurrying to get to me. We’d meet in the middle of the walkway, and before I could say a word, he’d reach out and pull me close. I’d be pressed against his chest as his long fingers worked their way under all my layers of clothes. I’d feel them against the skin of my stomach, cold and hot at the same time.…
Enough stupid fantasies. I had to get out of there.
I stood up and hunched my shoulders against the wind. If I took the M4 to the Q32, I’d be back in my room in a couple of hours. Amy would congratulate me for going outside, for traveling on my own, for keeping myself together.
I went back out through the gate, passed a hot dog stand that made my mouth water, and missed the bus by a second. And that’s when I saw him.
Saw them.
Jordan Hassan was crossing Broadway. Beside him was a girl with long, dark hair twisted up into a bun. She was short and conspicuously pretty, with blood-red lipstick and a wide, bright smile.
I froze in horror.
They were coming right at me. There was nowhere to hide.
But they were looking only at each other, and as I watched, this girl tucked her arm into the crook of Jordan’s elbow. Then her hand burrowed into the pocket of his jacket. He leaned over and whispered something into her ear. She threw her head back and laughed.
I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. I turned so my back was to them. I couldn’t let them see me.
But it started getting hard for me to breathe. The sidewalk had become quicksand, and I was sinking into it. I stumbled backward.
“Are you okay?” someone asked.
I nodded, pushing away their offered hand. I just needed to get on the bus. It’d be here in another few minutes. My fingers twisted themselves into knots. My vision had narrowed to a skinny, darkening tunnel.
Just stay here, Hannah, I told myself. Please, oh please, just stay in the right now.