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emphasizes how emotionally invested I am in this nonrelationship.
    I turn back to check on Lea and she looks okay. The girl who was sitting on the other side of her seems to be engaging her. But I wanted Gabe and Lea to fall in love while talking about his tenth birthday party, or her using the quilt her grandmother made her to build the world’s best blanket fort. Or that time that Lea got her head stuck in between the rungs of a chair and Gabe fell off a roof because his older sister told him that he’d be able to fly. These are the kinds of stories that bond people together. These are all examples of actual essays that students have written in the past.
    Now that’s never going to happen because of Hillary’s existence.
    I didn’t know I could hate the name Hillary quite this much. I am seething with almost as much rage as Victor experiences in this classroom on a daily basis.
    I look at Lea sympathetically and she smiles back, her usual smile. This is not over though between Hillary and me. She has poked the bear.
    Sam (Gabe’s brother)
    I’m about to leave the student center when I notice Gabe hiding in the corner in the back, almost out of sight behind the stairs. Our mom keeps bugging me to keep an eye on him, even though I keep telling her that he’s fine.
    I sit down opposite him. “I didn’t even realize there were seats back here.”
    He doesn’t seem to notice, so I knock on the table and he startles, pulling out his earbuds and looking over at me.
    “Hey,” he says. “I didn’t hear you.”
    “Shocker. I was just saying that I didn’t even know there were seats back here.”
    He looks around like he had no idea where he was sitting. “I think they must have added them recently. I like it though. Out of the way.”
    I nod. “How’s it going?”
    “All right.”
    “What are you up to?”
    “I’m supposed to meet up with my creative writing critique partner.”
    “Are you working with that chick Lea?”
    “Nah, with the most annoying girl in the world. I wish it was Lea.” And from the face he’s making I believe him. Unfortunately, the older brother in me rears its ugly head.
    “So you do like her!”
    He rolls his eyes.
    “Have you talked to her yet?”
    “No.”
    “I talked to her the other day.”
    That gets his attention. “What? What did you say to her, Sam?”
    “Nothing, I swear!” I hold up my hands in surrender.
    He glares at me. “You promise you weren’t an ass?”
    “Promise.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “Fine.”
    “Fine.”
    We’ve come to a stalemate, but I decide to proceed anyway.
    “You should talk to her. She’s nice.”
    He shrugs.
    “Come on, man, why not?”
    “You know why,” he says. And I do know why, but it seems to me that all of his issues are kind of dumb, and I’m allowed to think that because I’m his brother. “Let’s talk about something else, anything else.”
    “How’s the life of an academic residence mentor, or whatever word-salad title you have?”
    “It’s not easy. I had this girl come see me crying the other night about her calc class. I’ve never taken calc; precalc was more than enough for me. So I kind of had no advice to give her.”
    “That’s tough.”
    “It is. I feel bad for the kids because they kind of got me by default, you know? If I hadn’t lost my scholarship they would have someone more useful.”
    “I’m pretty sure the school wouldn’t have given you this title if they thought you were useless.”
    “And I’m pretty sure the school gave me the position because they felt bad for me.”
    “But still,” I say, trying to grasp for something, anything, to pull him out of this spiral of self-pity that I can sense brewing. “You have a single.”
    He chuckles at that. “Very true.”
    “Having a single sounds kind of amazing.”
    He looks at me with his eyebrows raised.
    “It’s been a long three years of Casey farting in his sleep.”
    Gabe laughs at that.
    “Want to give me a swipe to