The Distance from A to Z (15 page)

“You don't frighten me.” Zeke laughs as he pulls open the door to the staircase. “I think I can handle whatever you dish out. Give it your best shot.”

EVEN THOUGH IT'S A FRIDAY
night and I should have something better to do, I spend it thinking about our next French experience. Zeke left for Boston right after class and Alice went to visit her aunt in Ithaca, so I have the entire dorm room to play around with possibilities.

My plan is to turn it into an old-fashioned Parisian cabaret, complete with a black-and-white checked tablecloth (on our makeshift table on the floor), photos of burlesque dancers on the walls, and sultry accordion music.

It will be funny. It will be romantic. And maybe . . .

I stay up late taping together multiple sheets of paper to cover the windows: one that will make it look like the view from my bedroom is Paris at night with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, the other of the infamous Moulin Rouge. I have discussion topics ranging from French feminism (Zeke will die) to socialist politics (Zeke will love), with vocabulary
lists to accompany them.

It's almost three in the morning by the time I have all the photos ready. I just need to brush my teeth and then sleep will be mine.

Too tired to put on my robe, I peek out into the hallway. Deserted. As it should be at three in the morning. So I creep softly down the hallway, trying to remember if I've ever seen this place so quiet, so empty. No music blaring out of anyone's room. No doors banging open. It's what it probably looked like before we got here a month ago. Before the posters and the whiteboards on the doors, the notices on the walls.

Until the sudden noise of a group coming onto our floor startles me. The door to the stairwell must have amazing soundproofing abilities, I manage to think before I even have a chance to be mortified to be discovered in my tank top and short shorts. No bra.

Shit. No bra.

Crossing my hands over my chest, a last-second preferable choice to plastering my front against the wall, I hope that nobody I know is in the crowd. James and Ethan saunter out—two people I've never even exchanged a word with—and then Victoria. I breathe out the air I didn't realize I was holding in my lungs.

“Come on, let's move the party to our room,” Victoria calls
to the rest of them, and I can only hope that their inability to keep quiet will alert Priya to their presence. Because however tired I am, I won't be able to sleep with the noise of the three of them; especially when you add Michael, who's emerging, and Melanie to total five. Except the door opens one last time, and I brace myself to see how many more people they're planning to sneak into their tiny dorm room.

It's Chloe, Victoria's roommate. And Zeke.

Zeke, who is supposed to be in Boston.

Zeke, who said he was leaving right after class. Zeke, who is now staring at me with the same gaping expression I'm apparently wearing.

“Come on, Zeke,” Chloe says, pulling his arm. She takes a quick glance over at me, and then at her door.

“I told you I couldn't,” he says slowly. “I'm leaving in a few hours to go to Boston and I want to catch some sleep before I go.”

It's his voice that wakes me up. I need to get out of here. Now. Go back to the safety of my room. I can make it through the night without the bathroom.

One hand still on the wall, one hip pressing against it, I swivel away from Zeke, who hasn't moved, and Chloe, who is heading inside her room, away from my room because I can't take even a small step toward him. I'll head to the stairs or the common room. . . . No, not the common room. The
bathroom. He won't follow me into the bathroom.

Except what if he doesn't try? That might be even worse.

I never realized how well-placed all the organs were inside my body until suddenly they're jumbled up. How important my bones are in keeping it all inside, my muscles in keeping me upright.

Zeke was out tonight with a bunch of people. He told me he was busy until Sunday.

Which means I'm an idiot. It means my romantic cabaret experience is a big effing joke. Because it's all fun to do French stuff together, but when he really wants to have a good time, he goes out with other people. Even if it means lying to me. It apparently means nothing that he holds my hand, or that our French conversations flow with a comfort I rarely, if ever, feel with anyone.

Zeke's an athlete. Why should I be surprised that he's flirting with me and hanging out with another girl at three in the morning? Plus, it's not like he promised me anything, like we're anything to each other beyond study partners.

I'm the idiot.

I'm the idiot.

A door closes and I hope it means Zeke is gone too.

“Abby!”

He's not.

I'm not moving fast but I don't turn around. His voice is
cut up in pieces. He only said my name but I can tell.

“Sorry,” I mumble as I dart farther away. Sorry? Sorry for reminding you that something has been brewing between us over the last few weeks? Sorry that I thought that the fact that our hands rest in each other's so effortlessly, that your thumb likes to graze the inside of my palm, that when you do that I get shivers all over my freaking body like I just discovered it was possible to feel this way, sorry that I thought that meant something?

Sorry.

“Abby, wait. Hear me out.”

“Je ne parle pas anglais. Désolée!”

“Abby!” He hisses it as loud as he dares without waking up Priya and all the girls in the hall.

My cheeks are so hot; I can't imagine what they look like. I stop. I press my face into the cool painted bricks. I stop because I'm so close to the bathroom, and I don't want to go inside. My fingers graze the molding around the door; another inch and a half and I'd be touching the doorknob. But then what? What if I went inside? Would he go back to his room? Will tomorrow be eighty-five different versions of awful?

And then he's behind me.

“It's not what you think. My parents' flight was delayed so they told me to drive over in the morning.”

I nod. Makes sense. I'm the one who's dumb. It's not like we're joined at the hip. He doesn't need to call me when he has a free minute.

This is Zeke-in-English. I'm a casual acquaintance of his.

“Ça va,”
I whisper.

“It's not okay, Abby, you're upset.”

“Zeke, you can do whatever you want. You don't owe—”

“You told me it was a mistake, Abby. You told me that kissing me was a mistake.
Une erreur
. You said it was a mistake.”

No. No. No. No. No.
“Je suis vraiment désolée.”
I'm so, so sorry. So sorry. God, Zeke, I'm sorry.

His breath is warm against my bare back and suddenly I'm embarrassed to be in this tank top and shorts, with no bra on, no nothing.

There's so much I want to say. So much that's lost in my head.
Je t'aime, Zeke. Je t'aime tellement que ça me fait mal au coeur.
My heart hurts from liking you this much.

“I need to leave for Boston first thing in the morning to see my parents, but I'll be back Sunday evening, okay? I'll be back, and we'll talk?”

I nod and it's only moments after he leaves that I realize that those last sentences were all in French.
Je dois partir
, I need to leave.
Matin
, morning.
Mes parents
, my parents.
Mais je reviendrai
, but I'll be back.

It's like the French burrowed its way deep inside me, until
all those words melted together into one conversation that I didn't want to have.

Saturday starts off with a dull whimper. The emptiness of the weekend, especially without Alice, feels like too much. Too much silence. Too much sadness.

So on Saturday night, when James and Ethan—the guys from last night—gather folks in the common room to go out, I surprise everyone and myself by agreeing to go with them.

“Really? Abby Berman is coming out?”

Chloe's not-so-subtle tone makes me feel like I'm twelve and asking to play with the grown-ups. But instead of retreating, I smile more widely, my dry lips dragging across my teeth until I feel like a Halloween pumpkin with my grin. “Yup, I'm in!”

“Fabulous,” Ethan says, throwing his arm around my shoulders.

And suddenly I'm quite clear that this is an epically terrible idea, but I'm still going. Because anything is better than the way I'm feeling right now.

Only that proves not to be true. At all. My head is spinning and the bar we're at is so noisy that it makes me want to sink my hands inside my skull to block my ears. The sharp laughter hurts my jaw, and I'm a little worried that I'm going
to throw up.

“Come dance with me,” a voice says from around the table, and I'm positive that it's not talking to me because I don't think anyone has talked to me in days. But I could be wrong because suddenly I find that I can't remember anything. Like my head is filled with cotton balls or made out of steel wool with tiny, tinkly bells inside. I wonder what that would sound like, the bells tinkling, if I'd be able to hear them even if they're inside my head. Maybe they would sound hollow or have an echo or—

“Abby, come dance!” Fingers with charcoal smudges, red paint on one of the nails, are tapping my shoulder. At least I think they're tapping my shoulder. But if they were tapping someone else's, I wouldn't be able to feel it, right? And they did say Abby. Though not the fingers, the voice.

I drag my gaze to the front of the table and there's Colin.

“Colin!” I squeal, only that might have been in my head again.

“Come dance,” he says, nodding his head up and down in a way that makes me even dizzier. “Ethan, move!”

Ethan isn't listening because he's talking across the table to Stephie, their lips so close to one another that I don't think anyone could hear them even if the room were quiet. Which it most definitely is not. I wouldn't mind the intense PDA that's going on between them if he didn't also have his
hand on my thigh. I've tried to move him away but his hand keeps reappearing like a bad cold. So I've taken to leaving my hands in my lap, essentially blocking his wandering fingers from drifting higher.

I wish I hadn't worn a skirt. I wish I hadn't come here at all. I wish I hadn't taken the flask they offered. Taken a large gulp and then a second and a third and I don't know who was refilling the flask but there was always enough for everyone. And then as we were walking, the cigarette they offered.

“I don't smoke,” I told them, and they laughed and said it didn't count because it wasn't a real cigarette. And I knew what they meant, I knew it was a joint, that I didn't really want it, but everyone was so happy and my limbs felt loose, so warm and light. And I wanted more of that.

Only now I feel like I can't really move that well at all.

“Ethan, up,” Colin says again, this time grabbing Ethan's outside arm. “I want to dance with Abby.”

“She's kind of out of it.” He smirks, slowly slipping out of the booth, his hand sliding so far up my skirt that he gets close to hitting bases I've never gone near.

“You're an asshole,” Colin mutters to Ethan. He puts his arms around me and slowly shifts me until I'm right at the edge of the booth and he can pull me out off the bench. It's not that I can't move my limbs. It's just that it seems to take a really, really long time to get the message to them that I want
to move. Like the message is being rerouted through China. Or Haiti. Or France.

“Do you know that in French, Haiti is pronounces
Ah-ee-tee
?” I giggle to Colin, who has succeeded in extricating me from the sticky plastic cushions. Plastic cushions and bare legs are not a good combination.

“I did not know how to say Haiti in French,” he murmurs, pulling me toward the dance floor. “But I definitely agree on plastic cushions and bare legs.”

Merde
. I said that out loud. I should switch to French in my head just in case I say anything else embarrassing. Only now I can't think of any French words. Except for Haiti.
Ah-ee-tee. Ah-ee-tee.
I giggle and the world turns in an awkward direction, and with it my stomach.

“Je ne me sens pas bien,”
I mumble as I feel all the liquid rolling around inside.

Colin's still pulling me toward the dance floor, and all of a sudden I wonder if I didn't actually say
I don't smell good
instead of
I don't feel good
. How do you say
smell
? Isn't it
sentir
?

“You okay?”

“Estomac.”
My stomach is up and down and all around.

“Abby, you're speaking in French, and I don't understand you.”

“Zeke comprendrait.”
Zeke would understand. What language should I be speaking? Why is the French coming out
and the English trapped in my head? Is that the way it always is?

“C'mere.” Colin pulls me toward a hallway off the main room and I see bathroom signs. Bathroom. In French, you don't say
salle de bain
even in polite company because that's what the French mean by a room with a bath in it. You say
toilette
.
Où sont les toilettes?
Where are the toilets?

“Okay, the only thing I understood from all that was
where are the toilets,
and given that you're saying that and pointing to them, I can only imagine that that's not what you wanted to know. So I'm just going to call Zeke because maybe he'll understand all this French that you're spouting.”

“He's with Chloe!” I say in French.

“Okay, something about Chloe? But Chloe is here.”

But then the call evidently connects because Colin turns away from me and is talking on the phone. I wonder what would happen if this situation becomes permanent, if I can no longer speak English and instead, I can only think in English but the words come out in French. Then I could be like an autotranslation service. Like Google Translate, only in a person.