Better Than Running at Night (26 page)

"I'm sure you won't fail."

"Who knows?" he said. "Maybe if he flunked all of us, he'd think of it as art."

"Maybe," I said. "But he'd probably lose his job."

Sam adjusted his cap and looked at the ceiling.

"Remember that night we were in here and you told me people would never understand me if I kept my thoughts to myself?"

"You were in your chill space."

"Right." He smiled. "That's what did it."

"That's what did what?"

"That's what made me able to talk to Hannah. If I hadn't thought about that stuff you said to me, I wouldn't have opened up to her when she first started talking to me over break."

There was a long silence before I said, "I'm glad to hear that. It's no good to keep everything packed away in your head."

"Yeah," he said. "I think that's what I liked about Gregg's class at first. It gave me the chance to let all my thoughts out. It let me be the loud person I'll never be. But that excitement is wearing off."

"I know what you mean."

Another long silence.

"Hey," he said, unslouching, "do you want to have dinner with me and Hannah?"

"You don't think that would be weird?"

"No way," he said. "Do you?"

"Well, after what happened a few days ago..."

"That was nothing," he said. "And it would be my honor to introduce my two favorite NECAD people to each other."

She was waiting by the dining hall door in her dreadlocks and long tie-dyed dress.

"I brought a friend," Sam said as Hannah hugged him.

The back of Sam's neck muscles seemed to relax.

"Ellie?" she asked when she released him.

I nodded.

"Great to meet you." She smiled and stretched her arms out to hug me, too. She wasn't fat, but her body felt pillowy. With anyone else, I would've felt strange about hugging at our first meeting, but with her it seemed natural. Like this is what she probably did with everybody.

"That's some awesome weed you gave Sam," she said. "I can't believe you just gave it away. Join us anytime if you have second thoughts."

"Thanks," I said, "but I don't think that'll happen."

"I'll save us a booth," she said. "You two get in line. And Sam, let me take that bag for you. The thing looks like it's gonna explode."

He handed his backpack over.

"She's crunchy, like me," Sam whispered to me as we filled our trays.

"Birkenstocks and all," I said.

When we got to the table, Hannah went to get dinner.

"I can't wait to hear about the midterm critiques!" she said, with an emphasis on
critiques
that made me think she knew what Gregg's class was like.

Sam sat on her side of the table and I sat across from him.

"What's her major?" I asked.

"Illustration," he said. "She illustrates kids' books. She's graduating this year and she's already got a deal. Some kind of potty book."

"Like how to go to the potty?"

"Yeah, like that." He raised his cap and turned to watch her at the salad bar. "Hannah's vegan," he said. "Like Ralph. I never thought I'd date a vegan."

I laughed. "I never thought you would either."

He gave me a
What're you gonna do?
shrug. His arms finally looked relaxed when they moved.

When Hannah came back with her big leafy salad, she said, "So tell me about the crits."

Sam and I took turns telling her about our day.

"Right on, Ellie," she said. "Gregg's no teacher. He's a bully. That's what I've been trying to tell this guy all along." She took off Sam's cap and ruffled his flattened dreads.

I'd never seen the top of Sam's head before. It looked smaller without his hat.

"I know, I know," he said, yanking his cap back. "You don't need to convince me anymore."

I spotted the fruit bin. "Hannah, did you know Sam thinks Gregg would've been more impressed with his performance if he'd been jumping around with a banana?"

Hannah let out a hearty laugh. It came out so easily, like she really meant it. "A banana? Sam, tell me she made that up!"

"No," he said sheepishly. "It's true. I think I would've seemed more into it."

"Dude, I'll buy you a banana," Hannah said. "You can try it for us right now. Maybe you'll actually convince us that you want to be a monkey."

Sam shoved her playfully. He rolled his eyes at me.

As I walked home that night, I was glad that nothing had ever happened between me and Sam. He and Hannah were so good together. Plus, I don't think I ever really wanted him.

It's just, it would've been so easy...

At times I'd pass Nate's place without the thought of him ever crossing my mind.

But other times I'd see a light on, and I'd be tempted to stop by,
just to see. To see what? I'm not sure. Maybe to see if anything had changed. At those times, it was like there was a magnet in my heart. And there was an oppositely charged magnet in his house, trying to drag me through the path from the road. I'd have to cross the street and walk on the other side, just to fight off the tug.

Sometime in spring, I thought I'd see if he was in.

My head was down as I went up the path to the side of his house, thinking of what I'd say to him. "fust wanted to say hi, see how you were doing..." Something that would sound friendly, but not too inviting.

I didn't see that someone else had beat me to the door.

Her porn star-type, probably boob-jobbed body was already entering the doorway.

It was too late to go back; he'd seen me.

I didn't move any closer. Neither did he.

And despite everything I was feeling, a smile forced its way across my face. I had been so wrong, trying to fish for opening lines. There was nothing left to say. I turned around, taking with me my obnoxious grin that wouldn't go away.

By the time I got to the street he had let the door slam and I heard his sock-covered feet running toward me down the path. But I kept going.

He stopped at the corner and hissed at my back, "I never slept with her while we were together!"

"And I never thought you did!" I shouted back.

Sarcasm could still come in handy.

At home I showered, water steaming hot. Tchaikovsky's violin concerto seeping through the open door. I was humming along when all of a sudden I wanted to turn the music off. It was working its way into my head. Rushing through my blood. The tears were hot like the spluttering shower. They kept coming and coming, no matter how much I told myself to stop. I bent over and held my face in my hands, body convulsing with every sob.

Somehow I felt I wasn't crying for him exactly. Those tears were for something else. Something else, only partly related to Nate.

When I stopped, it was over. My body felt like I'd been in a fight. It also felt clean. Not just my skin, but my insides too. As if I'd taken an intravenous breath mint.

I turned the knob to cold before getting out.

I've done a good job of blocking him out of my memory.

But sometimes late at night when I'm teetering on the brink of sleep or running home through lamp-lit streets, I think of him. And I want nothing more than to feel him beside me.

Not to see or to hear him.

Just to be faintly aware of his breathing while I dream.

It's the Fourth of July and I'm expected to bring ketchup to my friend's neighborhood barbecue. She wants to set me up with the guy who's bringing the mustard. But the leaves are applauding the first thunderstorm of the summer and I'd rather stay in bed. My windows are open and the cool rain is misting my skin through the screens. The apartment shakes with each kaboom and cars swish through puddles. Nothing could make me want to get up, no matter how late it is. There will be more barbecues, other guys to meet. And they can find ketchup somewhere else, anyway.

I'm wearing a project I'm working on with Ralph. Pajamas—since I told him I wouldn't wear something like this out of my apartment. He sewed stretchy fabric to fit perfectly over my body. I painted the right half to look like bones and I'll paint the left half to look like muscles. Ralph added gloves and booties that hang off the ends of the arm and leg holes. I'll paint those, too.

I reach over to the bookshelf where I keep all my old sketchbooks, and pull out the first one from NECAD. I flip through the pages, stopping on a drawing I did of a fire hydrant morphing into
Clarissa. Looking at her makes me laugh out loud. I haven't thought about her in a while.

I also come across a drawing of a guy in spandex jogging gear running through the rain. I remember seeing him one night while running home. As he approached me, I thought about how strange he looked, racing through raindrops after midnight. Couldn't this have waited until the morning? I wanted to ask him. And it suddenly occurred to me—I was doing the same thing. When the guy passed me, he smiled and called out, "What's better than running at night?" I didn't have an answer then. But now, after everything that happened with Nate, I think maybe I do.

I put my sketchbook on the floor and pull the gloves and booties over my hands and feet. The rain has stopped sounding like individual raindrops, making one continuous TV static gush.

I lie back and shut my eyes. And I hover between waking and dreaming while thunder pelts water at my windowpanes and lightning shatters the sky.