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asked, seeming genuinely interested.
    “It’s good,” I said, trying to answer briefly and move on quickly, but he wasn’t letting me off the hook that easily.
    “I looked for you at lunch,” he said with a small frown.
    “Oh, yeah, lunch. Um, I had some things to get caught up on,” I said, offering the lamest of excuses and taking another step toward to the track.
    “Ari, this is the girl I was just telling you about. Have you met Ava?”
    “Uh,” he stammered a bit, “yeah, I have. Nice to see you again, Ava.”
    I nodded and tried to walk on to the track, but Rory spoke up again.
    “Ari, you have got to see Ava run man; I’m telling you, I have never seen anything like it.”
    “Oh yeah?” Ari said with a megawatt smile and the tummy thing happened again. “I’ll have to take your word for it, Roar; gotta get going.” He looked down at his watch and left without saying another word.
    Rory must have noticed my disappointment even though I tried like hell to hide it. Having Ari watch me run would only have made me feel stupid anyway. My worry was about the way I felt around him, about how the sight of him filled my insides with butterflies and then made them do little flips...and how my palms got sticky and my heart picked up the pace. I didn’t even really know him and yet, more than anything, I wanted to go to him and find comfort in his arms. I had never felt that way about anyone and I had no clue how to handle my confusion. My first thought was call mom – then I could dish on all the details and get her advice. The impossibility of doing so stabbed me suddenly and I bit back tears as I said a quick goodbye to Rory and set off down the track. I played The Xx ’s as loud as my eardrums would allow.
    The rest of my first week at DPI passed by in a blur – I arrived only a few weeks in to the first semester so I was not too terribly behind the rest of the students. I got used to my classes in no time and quickly caught up on most of my classwork. I had decided not to show my face in the horrible lunchroom; instead, I packed my book bag with granola bars and kept a bottle of water handy. Dinner in the cafeteria is mandatory at DPI, as it is at most boarding schools. Because board is paid as part of tuition, the school monitors students who consistently don’t show up for meals so that parents can know their money is being used appropriately. But I made sure to arrange to go with Rory or Emily whenever I could. Both of them knew just about everybody and I felt more at ease having them near me.
    Evenings were hard. I hated sitting alone in my dorm. My mind invariably drifted to thoughts of my mother. So I used the commons area for reading and then began to spend as much time as possible in the library.
    Mia and I were still having a hard time reaching each other by phone. She tried calling me as soon as she got out of school but I was still in class at that hour. Then I tried calling her as soon as I was done with classes, but she was already at work by then. Next, she started calling me from the “L” on her way home at night – at that hour I am actually in the dorm. Finally, a time match!
    “So Ava, how’s it going, are you hanging in there?”
    “It’s fine, I guess. I miss you.”
    “I miss you, too; nothing is the same here without you.”
    Mia was careful not to bring up my mother. I think she felt uncomfortable to talk about a subject that made me so sad, and really I wasn’t eager to talk about Mom either. I could not stop the tears that flooded my eyes and my voice...
    “Have you met anybody yet? Tell me about some of the people there.”
    “They are all actually really nice, aside from a couple of snotty rich girls. You would love my suite mate Emily; you two are exactly alike. I hang out with her and her friends sometimes. I met this guy Rory. He’s great. He showed me around the campus and the town.”
    “And?” she said, drawing the word out a little longer than