Chapter 8 Neil

"I'M STARTING TOthink you're my official activities director," I tell Skyler the following Saturday as we get off the F train at Second Avenue, in a neighborhood that's either Nolita or the Bowery. In fact, we spent five minutes arguing about it when he pulled it up on his phone, rotating and zooming in on the map until all it looked like was a series of colored lines and dots.

"It's Grandmaster of Merriment, thank you." Skyler swipes his MetroCard and breezes through the turnstile. "And it's a job I take very seriously."

"The last time I said yes to something with you, I wound up with this." I point to my eye.

"This is different. Just stay away from the beer pong table and you'll be injury free."

When Skyler asked if I'd been to any parties yet, I glanced up from a chapter on cognition in my psych textbook and simply blinked at him. "We have to change that," he said, clapping a determined hand on the back of my chair. "Tonight."

Admittedly, part of me worries he'll think I'm trying to cling to him when he knows other, more interesting people with better hand-eye coordination who have absolutely attended parties so far this year. He hasn't brought any of his casual hookups back to our dorm—at least, not that I'm aware of—but given his preference for them, it's clear he already has plenty of friends, both with and without benefits. I don't want him to think he has to be mine just by nature of proximity.

Then I remember that I vowed to get out and explore more, and the only reason it hasn't happened so far this week is because I've been studying for a test in linguistics.

It's okay to let yourself have fun.

And I'm going to try.

"You never told me how things went with your girlfriend," Skyler says as we climb the steps out onto the street. There's already a bite to the air, our mild September swept away by a chilly October.

"It was good." I jam my hands in my pockets, hoping this sounds casual. "Hard to see her leave, of course, but it was good having her here. Really good. Hopefully you can meet her next time."

This earns me a raised eyebrow. "You sure? Because you just said the word ‘good' three times in a row, linguistics major."

Of course it was more than good—Rowan was there.

I've thought about it all week, and I can't shake what happened that first night, mostly because I'm not entirely sure what happened. It's clear my… ah, performance was lackluster, and I wanted so badly for her to enjoy it as much as I was—because oh, I was. I wasn't lying when I told her I'd been imagining it all summer, and the reality of her was so far beyond anything my primitive mind could have conjured. An out-of-body experience as she filled every single one of my senses.

Even though she insisted she had a great time, it's my fault it wasn't better.

Fortunately, I'm able to steer the conversation in a new direction by asking Skyler how the process of designing his own major is going, which he happily gabs about until we stop on Avenue B in front of a skinny brick building with an Ethiopian restaurant on the first floor. At least we can agree that the apartment is solidly in the East Village, and I don't doubt the monthly rent would terrify me.

He rings the doorbell, whistling a tune I don't recognize, and then we're buzzed up to the third floor.

The place is tiny, people crammed shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip, dancing and talking and drinking and laughing. If this is what New York real estate is like, then I'll gladly stay in my dorm until graduation. Bottles and snacks are spread on the kitchen counter, pop music on full blast, the room thick with the earthy scent of weed. It's all so heady that for a moment I get a contact high, my brain going pleasantly fuzzy and limbs loosening up. The closest thing I had to a party in high school was when I'd meet up with Adrian, Sean, and Cyrus at one of their houses and we'd game or watch movies, and they'd needle me about Rowan while I refused to admit my feelings for her. If we wanted to get really wild, we might even go bowling.

My dad was a heavy drinker, and as a result, I've never had much interest in alcohol. He seemed to self-medicate with it, and while sometimes it dulled his anger, other times it made him spit more vitriol. But when Skyler opens two beers with a bottle opener on his key chain, I graciously accept one. One will be okay, I tell myself, because I am not my father and I'll respect my limits. I don't hate the taste, cool and refreshing with an acidic tang. Plus, it gives me something to do with my hands.

Fortunately, Skyler's so tall that he's impossible to lose in the crowd. It isn't that I'm uncomfortable in large groups of people. I was copresident of student council senior year and have plenty of experience with public speaking. But Rowan was almost always next to me, baiting me, and long before we were together, that made it easier.

Skyler drapes his arm around a girl with medium-brown skin and dark curly hair parted down the middle. She's in denim cutoffs and a V-neck tank top, a vape pen dangling from one hand. "This is my friend Adhira. We went to high school together."

"A year apart," Adhira clarifies. She exhales a plume of blueberry smoke. A sophomore. That makes sense—most of the people at this party look a bit older. "Thanks for coming to our little shindig."

"This is your place?"

She nods, then turns sheepish. "Our parents help out with the rent," she stage-whispers. "And we are endlessly indebted to them." Adhira is objectively stunning, and I don't miss the way Skyler can't take his eyes off her. I watch his face, wondering if there's something going on between the two of them. "My roommate and I—she's over there. Zoe!" she yells, and a petite blond girl hurries over. "Zoe, Skyler, and Skyler's roommate, Neil. Skyler and Neil, Zoe, best friend, queen of my life, killer of plants." To emphasize this, Adhira gestures toward a drooping fern in the corner of the kitchen.

"It's not my fault we barely get any natural light," Zoe says. Her gaze lingers on me for a moment. "How'd you get that bruise?" she asks. "Looks painful."

"By being absolute shit at Ultimate Frisbee," I say, just as Skyler says, "A tourist asked him how to get to Times Square."

Then Zoe turns to Adhira, nods toward Skyler. "This is the poor boy whose innocence you stole?"

Adhira grins and takes another pull from her vape. "There was nothing innocent about it."

"Didn't realize we were taking a stroll down memory lane," Skyler says, leaning closer to Adhira. Fluttering his lashes.

"A stroll, or a twisty path on a cliff's edge that gives you motion sickness?"

"They say you never forget your first." He takes her hand, brings it to his mouth, dropping a gentle kiss to her knuckles. "I haven't forgotten, my love."

If anyone else said this, it would sound painfully cheesy, but somehow it makes Adhira blush.

The puzzle pieces connect. "You two dated in high school?" I ask.

Adhira nods. "For three blissful weeks, until my family went out of town during spring break and our relationship couldn't survive the distance." She nudges Skyler. "Nice to see you finally made it out of Staten."

"Say what you will, but no one does bagels quite like Staten Island. Or pizza. Or pasta. It's a real culinary paradise."

"And no one stans Staten like you do."

"Honestly, I'm starting to think I picked the wrong school," I say. "Is it too late to transfer to somewhere on Staten?"

Skyler throws up his hands in mock frustration. "Look, one day you'll see Staten Island for yourself and you'll just get it."

Behind Skyler's back, Adhira mouths to me, No, you won't, and I have to muffle a laugh. "What's your major?" she asks. "I'm psychology."

"Linguistics. I'm actually in Psych 101 right now though," I say. "It probably seems basic to you, but it's kind of blowing my mind so far."

"No, I loved it! Professor Bayer?" she asks, and I nod. "Have you done the unknown psychologist project yet?"

"We just started," I say. The professor gave us several dozen names of lesser-known psychologists and challenged us to pick one we hadn't heard of for a semester-long project. After some preliminary googling, I selected Lawrence Kohlberg, an American psychologist with Jewish German roots whose research focused on moral development. Many of the people on the list were Jewish—something I've been eager to share with Rowan. "I have Lawrence Kohlberg. He did a lot with morality that I'm still trying to understand. Do you know him?"

"Nope. I did Karen Horney—"

"A-plus name," Skyler interjects, which earns him a few eye rolls.

"—who was one of the first female psychiatrists. Her work was pretty groundbreaking for the time, and I'm kind of obsessed with her—like, the idea that women's psychology shouldn't be defined in terms of men. She had this huge beef with Freud, because his theories were so male-dominated and frankly disgusting." At this, she full-body shudders. "The deeper you get, the stronger your opinions on Freud. I for one would be elated if I never had to hear his name again."

"Oh—I'm not sure how far I'll go," I say, because as interesting as that sounds, my heart has always been with linguistics. "It's just for a science credit, really."

"Right." A shrug. "Well, if you need someone to vent with about Freud, you know where to find me."

This is followed by a lull in the conversation, during which Skyler gestures down the hall with his beer bottle. "So, are we gonna get a grand tour?"

"Obviously."

Adhira and Zoe show us around the apartment—modern, recently renovated, walls covered with vintage art deco posters—before Skyler spots their old yearbook in Adhira's room and begs to look through it. Zoe gives me a look before someone calls out to her and she disappears into the crowd.

I take a sip of my beer, heading back toward the living room. I don't hate the way it makes me less conscious of my body. Lighter. I wouldn't want much more than this, but the slight buzz I have going is enough to keep me from getting too in my head, letting me have a casual chat with a guy in my linguistics class and a conversation with a complete stranger about an upcoming Star Wars spin-off that we're cautiously excited about, which is generally the case with new Star Wars content.

About twenty minutes have passed before Skyler approaches me again, a different beer bottle in his hand this time. "Adhira just informed me that Zoe wanted to know if you're single."

I nearly start choking. "Zoe… what?"

A grin curls his lips. He clearly finds this amusing. "Don't worry, I told her you were taken and head over heels in love. But the news hasn't been broken to that girl over there, who's looking at you like she might cry if you don't ask her to dance."

I turn around, spotting the girl, who immediately breaks eye contact. "You're seeing things."

He holds his beer to his heart. "Swear to God. You could clean up here if you were single."

It takes a while for this to sink in, a swirl of surprise that mixes with the alcohol, jumbling my brain a bit. There is no question that I'm committed to Rowan, 100 percent. But my experience before her was minimal at best.

My previous girlfriend, Bailey—the relationship began because I overheard her talking with her friends about not wanting to go to prom alone, and because I had to admit I wanted to go to prom too, I asked her, which led to a few pre-prom dates where we never completely clicked. We turned out to be so awkward that we barely acknowledged each other at school, and I wasn't surprised when she broke up with me a few days after prom.

Rowan's reciprocated feelings took me entirely by surprise.

This conversation with Skyler sparks an immediate rush of guilt, even though Rowan and I talked about this. We knew it would be impossible to go through college without finding another human being attractive. I've just never been this flattered before, by complete strangers, and I'm half convinced it's all a joke.

"I don't get it," I say to Skyler. "Don't they realize I was a massive nerd in high school?"

"That's the thing. No one here knows what you were like in high school, and no one cares. You're nice, and good-looking, and—don't take this as an insult—you seem pretty nonthreatening. That's, like, catnip out in the real world."

Real world.And yet NYU feels like its own microcosm, not unlike Westview. Even if the city is our campus.

"Plus," he says, "that black eye is doing wonders for your street cred."

"I'm starting to think you're incapable of anything but ruthless positivity."

Adhira bounds up to us then, fortunately without Zoe. "Dance with me," she informs Skyler, not phrasing it as a question.

He gives his hair a flirtatious bat. "Because you've missed me? Because you've been counting down the days until I moved to the city? Because you—"

"Because I don't know anyone else who likes the Mighty Mighty BossToneS unironically, and I put this on the playlist just for you," she says with a roll of her eyes. "Ska never should have been a thing. You inherited the worst taste in music from your brothers."

"They really are talented instrumentalists," I say. "At least, that's the impression that I get."

A beat, and then Skyler bursts out laughing, throwing an arm around my shoulder. "You just became my new favorite person."

Then he places his bottle on the counter and follows Adhira into the crush of bodies. "You're enabling him!" she calls to me. Skyler throws me a wink before he turns his full attention back to her.

I watch them for a few moments, this effortless way they sway together, his index finger hooked into the belt loop on the back of her shorts. Every so often, he says something that makes her laugh, and she grabs a fistful of his shirt and moves closer.

My phone buzzes in my hand.

Rowan: I miss you. is it thanksgiving yet?

That's our next visit: me in Boston for that holiday weekend. I wish we could do it sooner, but I bought this ticket early because prices would surely only skyrocket, and we'll be seeing each other back home in mid-December, too. Especially now that we have our hearts set on Europe, we want to save money.

The more I think about it, the more I love the vision of it so much, I almost don't want to think of the price tag. I've done some research—there are ways to do it cheaply. She'd lit up so completely while talking about it, and I'm not sure I could bear to disappoint her.

Neil: Rudely, no. But countdown app says 44 and a half more days.

We video chat and talk on the phone every few days, but the technology almost feels like it's mocking us. Here is the girl you love in full color, smiling and laughing at your terrible jokes, only you can't touch her. That's all I want right now: Rowan in my arms, pressed together on this crowded dance floor.

Rowan: please know that I fully intend to lock you in my room and never let you out

but not in a creepy way

Now I'm picturing something else. The two of us alone in her dorm room, her long hair tangled in my hands and my mouth on hers. A chance to prove that what happened in New York was a fluke.

Neil: You got it. The rest of Boston can wait.

As much as Skyler would probably love for me to join an intramural pickleball team with him and a dozen of his closest friends, I've found something even better: Linguistics League.

The club meets Wednesday nights in the Linguistics Building, and it's not a large gathering—about fifteen people with a few boxes of pizza, two-liter bottles of soda, and scattered cups and napkins. Surely this is what I need to fall back in love with linguistics, to gain some confidence to speak up in class. The free pizza is only a bonus.

I grab a slice, and I'm about to ask the person next to me if we simply sit around and discuss etymology when a long-haired guy at the front of the room calls out, "Hello, hello!" and the group quiets down.

"My dear friends and new faces, since this is our first meeting of the year, let's start with some introductions." He points to himself. "I'm Jay, the president of our small but mighty group, and next to me is your vice president, Chinara." The girl next to him waves, and I get a brief flashback to the student council meetings Rowan and I presided over.

"If you haven't been to one of our meetings before, you can expect some cheap food, excellent camaraderie, and a lot of good old-fashioned word nerdery," Jay continues, which gets a few laughs. "First things first—who the hell are we? Introduce yourself in any language of your choosing, your year, and where you're from. Let's see if we can get through the whole room without repeating any languages." A clearing of his throat, and then: "Soy Jay y nací en Miami, pero Nueva York es mi hogar."

Chinara goes next, introducing herself in what I believe is Danish. We go around the room, some students speaking in what might be their native tongues, others in learned languages. A guy named Tyler picks English and everyone laugh-groans, and then he says, "What, you didn't say English was off-limits!"

When it's my turn, I stumble for a moment. I took AP Spanish, French, and Latin in high school, much to my counselors' horror. The only language I know that hasn't been used yet is Italian, but I'm far from conversational in it. Still, if there were any time to give it a try, that would be now.

"Mi chiamo Neil, vengo da Seattle, e sono… un primo anno?" Imperfect, probably, but everyone seems to understand.

"Excelente!" Jay says. "Moving on. Last year, we got into a lot of arguments about language versus perception and which affects which—and no, Tyler, we're not bringing it up again yet. We don't want to scare the newbies away."

Tyler puts his hand back down.

Though I make a silent vow to participate as Jay leads a discussion about current events in the linguistics world, it's not as easy as I'd hoped. I'm the only new person, the interloper—it's clear they all know each other. I was foolish for assuming it would be an instant fit and hate that I'd rather be in my dorm with a book.

As everyone packs up, they chatter among themselves. I try to catch anyone's eye, offering up a smile, but it feels like intruding on a group of tight-knit friends.

"Do you have Mills for your senior capstone? He's supposed to be the worst."

"No, I have Kubiak, thank God."

These are the people I thought I would belong with, but when I leave, I feel just as anonymous as before. Only in multiple languages.

It makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me, that in this massive school in this massive city, there isn't a space I've found yet that fits. I had a good enough time with Skyler at that party, even forced myself to mingle a bit before we stumbled home at two in the morning, but I'm not sure I could do that every weekend. As friendly as Skyler is, there's this inescapable thought that we are simply two very different people. As far as roommates go, I know I got lucky. Last week Cyrus texted about the guinea pig his roommate had sneaked in from home. Do you know how much guinea pigs shit??? he'd asked. IT IS ENDLESS. IT IS EVERYWHERE.

Despite the heavy sense of exhaustion clinging to me, I'm not quite ready to head back to my room yet. Wandering New York City at night doesn't seem nearly as dangerous as I thought it might. Even on a Sunday evening, there are people everywhere, in pairs and in groups and some all alone, and I can't help wondering if any of them feel the same aimlessness I do. I have a linguistics paper due tomorrow that's only half-done, and though I'd regularly stay up late in high school, tonight I'm not sure I have it in me.

I debate calling Rowan before realizing she might already be asleep and try my mom instead, since she's three hours behind.

"Neil, baby?" she says, picking up on the first ring, and as much as the nickname usually embarrasses me, tonight I don't mind it at all. "It's good to hear your voice. How are you?"

"Fine, Mom." I dodge some garbage on the sidewalk and make my way over to a bench. "I'm just walking home and thought I'd see what you were up to."

"We just got back from dinner with Christopher." In the background, I can hear my sister's voice. "What about you? Late where you are."

"I was at a meeting for this linguistics club."

"Could that school be any more perfect for you?"

When I return her laugh, it's strangely hollow, and I desperately wish it weren't. I force a smile into my voice. "Yeah, it's really something."

Though the time surrounding my dad's arrest and trial is still a blur, something I viewed through childlike lenses later explained to me in great detail, what I know is this: his court-appointed lawyer tried to reduce the charges to second-degree assault, but given the fact that he had attacked a minor, that the minor had been in a coma for a month with a long way to go until full recovery, the first-degree charge had stuck.

The complicated feelings I have toward my dad are not because he is in prison. It's everything that happened beforehand—the terrifying display of violence toward that kid, and all the small, sharp ways he made it clear that I was not the son he wanted.

My mom was suddenly raising the two of us herself, a sixth grader and a kindergartener. Her parents and sister helped us out while she worked through a certificate program to become a paralegal. The divorce didn't happen right away. Two years into my dad's sentence, she filed for it, feeling it was what our family needed to move on, though we were still making semi-regular visits at that point. Several times a year—several times too many, it seemed to me.

I could have been angry at her that it had taken so long. But all I felt was a swell of sorrow mixed with hope for the future. My mom and I grew even closer, to the point where I must have told her too much about school because she recognized Rowan right away when she came to my house during Howl.

Christopher joins my mom on the phone. "Hey, hey, hey," he says in that easygoing way of his. It's his go-to greeting, one that made me cringe when I first met him because it sounded almost phony in its enthusiasm. But then I learned that's just Christopher: genuinely upbeat all the time. "I need your brain. Blank slate, ten letters, third one is a B."

He's a long-suffering crossword fan, and we've bonded over words. "Tabula rasa," I say after a moment. "You realize asking me is just as much cheating as looking up the answer online, right?"

"Yeeeeeah," he says, drawing out the syllable with a laugh. "But it doesn't feel that way."

Christopher's a few years younger than my mom, never married. Natalie and I were reluctant to let him in at first, but he's as opposite our dad as someone can possibly be. An accountant my mom met on a dating app her friends urged her to sign up for. Bright and sunny, just as happy to talk books with me as he is skateboarding with Natalie. They've been together for two years, and although it took a while for my mom to be comfortable with it, now he stays the night at our place most of the time. It's everything my mom deserves, and I couldn't be happier for her.

We talk more about school, about the weather in Seattle.

"A lot of overcast skies, if you can believe it," he says. "You're really missing out."

"Hold on," my mom says. "Nat wants to say hi." There's a shuffle, and then my sister takes the phone.

"I moved into your room," she declares. "I painted all the walls a toxic shade of green except for one, where there's a unicorn mural. And instead of a bed, there's just a giant beanbag, and you can only get to it with a skate ramp."

"Excellent. Unicorns are my favorite mythical creature."

A groan. "I miss you, you dork. Lucy does too."

"Back at both of you. You're not giving Mom too hard a time, are you?"

"I'm an angel. Being an only child is actually pretty nice. And I killed it as Squirrel Number Three in our class play. Everyone agreed that I was the best squirrel."

"I'm sorry I missed it. Send me the videos?"

"Okay, but Mom did something weird with her phone so it's all fuzzy."

For some reason, this fact of my mother not being great with technology hits me squarely in the heart. "Sounds like her."

A pause. A shuffling sound. "Christopher's getting out the Dominion expansion sets, and I might be able to stay up past my bedtime if I play my cards right. Literally. Gotta go."

A new kind of ache settles in my chest. My friends and I taught her how to play that game, and then Natalie and I taught our mom, and we all got a little too obsessed. I always vowed not to take my father's place as any kind of surrogate, but I've wanted to be there for my sister in all the ways a sibling could be.

Now I wonder if I've broken that silent promise by moving away.

"We miss you!" my mom says, and then to Natalie: "Don't think I didn't hear that."

"Bye, Neil! Don't study too hard!" Christopher calls in the background, and then the line goes quiet.