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they’re slightly chapped but otherwise perfect boy lips. But because of the chocolate. The chocolate.
    â€œLe chocolat,” I murmur.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSorry. Just thinking.” I don’t look up, don’t check if he’s laughing at me. Because he should be. “I autotranslate in my head sometimes. Mostly when I’m bored.”
    His smile, that smile that I only just reearned, drops.
    Seriously? I slap my hand over my mouth and this time I do look up. Because there’s something about this boy that completely removes any of my common sense.
    â€œI didn’t mean—”
    â€œDis-moi en français,” he says. Tell me in French. His eyes are laughing. Can you even say that in French? Tes yeux rient.
    â€œExcuse-moi,” I say, now my turn to roll my eyes. Searching for the right words in French, I say: “Apparently I have foot in mouth disease in front of you.”
    â€œ Pied en bouche? Can you even use that expression in French? I’m not sure it translates like that.”
    And then I’m laughing, iced coffee threatening to come back up my nose. Maybe this won’t be so bad, Zeke and I working together. Maybe we can spend all our time translating English expressions into French. And then French expressions into English. And then, we’ll be done.
    â€œSo, we’re responsible for watching six movies, logging in eighty hours of conversation in at least ten different settings, and decoding a dozen songs. And then the final project,” Zeke reads from the papers in front of him.
    â€œEighty hours is a lot.”
    â€œTen hours a week for eight weeks. Shouldn’t be too bad.”
    Ten hours. In addition to the three hours a day, five days a week in class. That’s a lot of Zeke time. I mean, French time.
    His phone dings and his eyes drop down to it. His thumbs tap out a message, and then he shakes his head, tossing the phone back in his bag. Where it continues to ding, and Zeke continues to ignore it.
    â€œShould we start tomorrow? Or we can do later today. I just have to be somewhere for a few hours this afternoon.” Zeke’s mouth moves into a smile but it isn’t real. It’s tight around the edges, like he’s working hard to make it seem easy.
    â€œSomeplace fun?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m digging.
    â€œNon.” His voice says butt out . It says none of your business .
    â€œAprès le dîner?” he asks, grabbing his bag with the dinging phone.
    I notice he shakes out his leg under the table and it’s on the tip of my tongue to ask about it again, but then I decide against it. He’d tell me if he wanted to.
    â€œMy roommate and I were going to try the cafeteria around seven. So I’ll meet you outside at a quarter to eight?” Huit heures moins le quart . Eight o’clock minus a quarter. I love French.
    â€œBien.” And then he leaves, his limp more pronounced.
    When I get back to my room, I find Alice back on her bed, scribbling furiously in her notebook. I don’t even bother trying to decode her garbled response to my entry. My body still feels achy from sitting in class for so long, my muscles buzzing from the sugar and caffeine. I exchange my cute first-day-of-class skirt and top for leggings and a tank, and then stretch to warm up. I’ll take a short run— je vais courir —and that will ease the agitation in my body. L’agitation ? I quickly flip through my dictionary. Yup.
    â€œSorry,” Alice murmurs, closing her black Moleskine. Her voice is craggy, like it’s still an effort to dislodge the words.
    â€œNo worries, I know how it is.” Ne t’inquiète pas.
    Urgh. My autotranslate is going psycho. Mon auto —Shut it. Tais-toi .
    I’m losing my mind.
    â€œYou okay?” she asks, slipping the notebook back into her brown leather messenger bag.
    â€œYup.” I smile. “Just need to get my mind off