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within these walls. You must contribute to the success of the Westing experiment, so that someday, all youths in recovery will have the quality of life you now enjoy. ◼

 
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    HOW TO IDENTIFY A HIGH-CALIBER HUMAN BEING
    I spent the rest of September alternating between raging drunkenness and hangovers so severe the mere thought of movement prompted waves of nausea. To be sober was to miss Alex, to act was to miss Alex. It was so easy to lose people. We were all so weightless and insubstantial. To keep myself rooted to the ground, I kept the shots coming, night after night, made intimate friends with toilet seats, rising past noon to wash away the stench of vodka as hot water pooled in the drain at my feet, until one day, I realized halfway into my shower that I’d forgotten my room key. All newsies got stuck in doubles or triples for their first year at Westing, but my roommate Marty had already left for class.
    â€œLocked out this early in the semester?” a voice said, just as I’d been contemplating whether or not to try to bust my door open.
    I turned, and felt like the disparate pieces of me had suddenly congealed into a person again, a person whose stomach promptly lurched into his throat. The voice belonged to a boy of sixteen or so, lean and tan and strangely happy. The words escaped my mouth before I had a chance to think twice about them: “No,” I said. “I just like standing outside my door for hours on end. It’s a pastime.”
    He laughed. “You do have that practiced aura about you,” he said with a nod. His eyes were blue, like he had a splash of water in them. “An aura of togetherness.”
    My turn to laugh. Aside from my current key-less predicament, my only form of attire at the moment was a blue-and-yellow polka dot towel, my eyes were so bloodshot it looked like I’d smoked three pounds of weed in the shower, and to top it all off, I wasn’t exactly sure what day it was.
    The very picture of togetherness.
    â€œToday is a Tuesday, right?” I asked.
    He tried not to grin and failed. He extended a hand. “I’m Zach, by the way. Zachary, if you like. I’m the student council vice president and self-appointed-newsie-helper-person-dude, God help you all. I like your towel.”
    â€œIs it Wednesday?” I tried, and felt guilty for flirting. I’d been away from Richmond, from Alex, for three weeks. . . . Was that all it took? Three weeks? And then there was Alice. I’d been avoiding her, but couldn’t she see that we’d never make each other happy?
    â€œBetter I don’t answer that,” he said with a wink. “You’ll need to find security. They can bust down your door for you! I can show you where they are.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” I said, because I wanted to leave Zach, to prove to Alex I remembered him.
    He placed a hand on my bare shoulder and said, “Nonsense, kid. It is my solemn duty to help you. You are, after all, my constituent, and besides, I’ll need your vote in the next election.”
    So we rode the elevator down to Clover’s ground floor, together in that cramped space. I couldn’t help fantasizing about the elevator getting stuck, the lights going dark.
    No such luck.
    We arrived on the ground floor without incident, at which point he led me outside, all the way to the campus security office in Galloway.
    â€œYou’ll do well here; I can tell by your towel,” he said by way of parting, and pressed a hand to my bare shoulder again.
    â€œYou can tell a lot about a person from his towel,” I managed.
    â€œ Exactly, ” he said, and beamed at me. “You are a human of high caliber, kid.” He tapped a finger to his temple to indicate his knowledge of such things. The temple-tap turned into a good-bye wave.
    Before I could figure out how to make him stay, he was gone, and I felt light and airy again, like I was a boy