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the nearest tree and said, “I was getting
     to it, Reid.” Then she turned back to me and said, “Computer room. Laptops.” Fake
     smile.
    She gestured over her shoulder to the building behind her.
    But I was looking at the boy under the tree. Reid. I knew him — I used to know him. I hadn’t seen him since freshman year, when I was an awkward fourteen
     and he was a cute fifteen, as long as you didn’t look too closely at his uncontrollable
     hair.
    Reid wore sneakers and khaki shorts and that ridiculous red polo, and I started to
     worry I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone apart. When I passed close by him, he raised
     himself up on his elbows and smiled, and not only did he have that ridiculous shirt,
     he also now had this ridiculous brown hair that curled at the bottom. Not even close
     to the uncontrollable mess I remembered.
    “You got taller,” he said.
    “You got all . . .” I waved my hands around my head. “Nice hair.”
    Reid laughed and stood up. “So you do remember me.”
    Hard to forget the guy whose father — who also happened to be Dad’s oldest friend — died in a freak accident, or the funeral your parents dragged you across three states
     for, or the fact that you sat with him in his room while everyone else mourned for
     his father downstairs. Hard to forget the first guy who rejected you.
    When my lack of speaking turned awkward, Reid shuffled his feet and asked, “Need help
     orientating?”
    “No thanks,” I said. I would’ve thought that after two years, I wouldn’t feel the
     pit in my stomach when I looked at him. Wouldn’t feel the urge to spin on my heel
     and self-righteously walk away. And definitely wouldn’t feel the urge to close the space
     between us.
    Walk away, Mallory.
    I spent the rest of the morning orienting myself at the computer lab and the student
     banking center and the registrar’s office. Then I spent the afternoon orienting myself
     at the cafeteria and the bookstore. The new kids stood out — we hadn’t assimilated yet. Hadn’t learned how to wear our hair or carry our books.
     Hadn’t put on the red shirt and adopted the sameness yet. So when they smiled at me,
     I smiled back, like we were in this together.
    I had my laptop bag swung over my shoulder and a stack of books propped between my
     arms and my chin as I moved slowly back toward my dorm, rocks getting stuck in my
     flip-flops every few steps. Reid was still under that same oak tree, like there was
     nothing worth moving for, but now he was eating a giant sandwich.
    He was watching me, but I didn’t know whether he was staring because he’d heard about
     what I’d done or whether he was remembering me, reconciling the Mallory in his head
     with the Mallory in front of him. Whether he was remembering the same moment I was:
     his hand in my hair and his face an inch from mine the moment before he walked away.
    Or maybe he was staring because I had to stop every few steps and shake my feet while
     simultaneously balancing a stack of textbooks. He put down the food as I passed by
     again. “Hey,” he said.
    I kicked off my shoes and started walking faster.

    There was a girl in my room. Actually, she was only half in my room. The upper half
     of her body was leaning out the window, blowing smoke toward the trees.
    She turned around when the door slammed shut behind me but held her cigarette out
     the window. She had blond hair cut blunt at her shoulders, a heart-shaped face and
     jeans that fit her perfectly, and a T-shirt that fit too tight, but guys probably
     wouldn’t agree.
    She watched me, expressionless, until I dumped my gear on the bed and said, “Hey.”
    She smiled, which I guess meant I had passed some test. She held up a neon-pink lighter
     from her other hand and said, “You want?”
    “I’m good,” I said, and she ground the cigarette onto the bricks outside the window
     and flicked it somewhere toward the forest. Apparently not worried about being caught.
     Or