Saturday: I’ve done this before, but it’s harder this year. I don’t know why. Something feels different. It took me hours to finish packing. It kept feeling as if I was forgetting something. I called him to make sure he was taking me to the train station tomorrow, but he didn’t answer. I called and messaged him over and over. Where is he?
Sunday: Train at noon. He finally called me back in the middle of the night. He acted as if nothing was strange. As if it had only been a few minutes since we talked. It feels as if he told me a thousand times how much he’s going to miss me while I’m at home. He never said he wished he could go with me. That we could all be together. “Next year,” he said.
“Have you told her yet?”
He turned toward the sound of a voice so familiar it played like a record through his thoughts. He had heard it so many times before he had probably heard it form every word in her vocabulary. He could use them to create any sentence he wanted. Nothing was new.
“Not yet. But I will,” he said.
“When? When are you going to tell her, Timothy?”
“When I tell her. This isn’t exactly something I can just spring on her. She’s had a difficult time recently.”
Eleanor looked disgusted. She shook her head, her dark blond hair swaying against the base of her neck from the heavily embellished clip that held it in place.
He hated that clip. When he’d bought it for her, he’d thought it was perfect. Now he couldn’t stand it when she wore it.
“I can’t believe you’re trying to defend her. Whose side are you on?” she demanded.
“I’m not on her side and I’m not defending her,” he said. “I’m just trying to get you to understand that it’s not as simple as it looks. She’s a kid, Eleanor. A confused, messed-up kid.”
“That’s the thing, she isn’t a kid. She’s an adult. She’s come up with all these excuses so she can get away with things. She wants the pity of her professors, so she doesn’t have to apply herself and won’t get in trouble when she parties rather than doing her work. I should know. I’m one of the ones who’s been fed that line of bullshit. And now she’s gotten you wrapped up in it, too.”
“Look,” he said, stepping up to her and taking her hands in his, “I know how much this is bothering you. And I’m sorry. But I want you to understand, it’s not what you think. I’ve talked to people who knew her before she came here. That girl has been through a lot, and it has really gotten into her head. Did you know she went to another school before here?”
Eleanor shook her head. “No.”
Timothy nodded. “The first two semesters she was in college, she went to a school closer to where her parents live. It was where she had always intended to go, but she left very suddenly before the second semester was even finished.”
“Why?” Eleanor asked.
“Nobody’s completely sure. But there were rumors. She had a really traumatic experience at a party when she was in high school. The guys were never charged. Then in college she seemed to latch onto a teaching assistant who looked suspiciously like one of them. All of this is coming from some guys I know who know people at that school, but it makes sense. According to them, she got completely wrapped up in what she thought was a major relationship with him. She followed him around. She tried to sign up for all the classes he was in or assisting. She would show up where he was eating and join him or just come talk to the other people at the table like they were together. But he barely knew her. He was about to file a complaint when she left.”
Eleanor’s face softened slightly. Her hands closed around his and she looked down at the floor for a second before glancing back up at him through her eyelashes.
“Really?” she asked.
“I’m telling you, everything is in her head. She makes things up. Or maybe she actually thinks they’re happening because of whatever’s happening in her mind. But it’s nothing for you to worry about. I just don’t want to mess her up even more than she already is. Does that make sense?”
“Of course,” she said. “You’re really sweet to be so caring. I don’t know of a lot of people who would be as understanding as you are.”
Timothy laughed. “Well, at least she hasn’t gotten to the point where she’s popping up in the dining hall and sitting down for lunch with me.”
Eleanor gave him an odd look. “Do you often eat lunch in the dining hall? I thought that was the domain of the freshmen.”
“Every now and then I get a craving for Tony’s stir fry. I think that made up the majority of my diet my first year here, and sometimes I get a little nostalgic,” he said. He ducked his head to look more directly into her face. “I’m going to talk to her. When I figure out how to do it as carefully and diplomatically as possible, I’ll tell her everything. But are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Once I talk to her, people are going to know about us. You’re the one who’s tried to hide it from everybody. I want to make sure you’re ready for people to know,” he said.
Eleanor drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “You know
