“Ew. I don’t know how you can eat that stuff.”
I just smiled and stirred, thankful that I didn’t have to cook for the both of us. Otherwise I
would have been eating twigs and blades of grass for supper.
Skylar wandered back to the television in the living room while I finished up in the kitchen. I
sat next to him on the couch, taking more joy than I should have in watching his face turn a
nice shade of green while I poured ketchup over my orange pasta.
Unfortunately his aversion didn’t last—as soon as I’d rested my empty bowl on the coffee
table, his arm was around my shoulders.
Dating a guy for two months in college was like a lifetime to the rest of the world, or so my
roommates had educated me. There were things that you were supposed to, just had to, experience
in college. Everything moved so fast here … and Skylar moved even faster. Before long, his free
hand had crossed over and made its way to my thigh. And he kept turning his face to mine, trying
to catch my eye.
“Do you think you did okay on your exams?” I asked him, finding ultimate interest in the
Seinfeld rerun we were watching.
“Why wouldn’t I?” asked the A student.
“Then why do you think your visa won’t be renewed? I thought the school’s only condition was
that you maintain your grades?”
He seemed to think about this. “Nothing’s ever guaranteed, I guess. There’s always a chance
that they could deny my visa.”
Slim chance but good ploy, I thought.
“I’ll definitely be away all summer,” he added.
This was something I couldn’t argue with. So I got up to get a glass of water and stood at the
kitchen sink.
I made a list in my head of everything that was right about Skylar. For all intents and
purposes, he was perfect for that college-required experience. He was a nice enough guy. He was
pretty smart. He showered somewhat regularly. These things must have meant something, right? And
then my mind wandered, and making its way to the top of the list was the fact that Skylar’s
forehead was too big—something that I had just happened to notice a minute before. His nose was
too straight too—he must have had a nose job, I decided. I couldn’t be with someone who’d had
a nose job.
I rushed back to the couch before I could talk myself out of anyone else.
Like he could sense my fickleness, Skylar didn’t miss a beat. “It’ll be hard to be away from
you for four months, I’ll miss you like crazy.”
His blue eyes—dull blue I’d noticed just now—were unblinking.
He took my faint smile as a green light, and his lips were on mine before I could think of
anything else to say to distract him with. He tasted like strawberry Starbursts. I wondered what
I tasted like to him—probably like fluorescent-orange powdered cheese.
Then there were awkwardly flailing hands and arms—mostly from my end.
Skylar seemed to know what he was doing. His hands had made their way to my back and with a
quick, barely discernible flutter of his fingers over my shirt, my bra became unclasped. He then
unceremoniously lunged himself on top of me.
And that was when it happened, as it always did when it came down to moments like this … I
panicked. Adrenaline rushed to my bony arms, the arms pushed out, and Skylar tumbled to the
carpet, hitting his blond head against the coffee table on his way down.
Skylar stayed long enough for the shock to wear off his face, long enough to tell me—a bunch of
times—that he wasn’t mad, that he could wait while he rubbed the bruise on his head, which was
as big as his ego.
The thing that bothered me most was that I was going to remain a virgin … even after a whole
year away at college. I was now past being a minority and entering the realm of historical
figure. I imagined a grade school class in the future oohing and ahhing while the teacher up
front told the tale of the eternally virginal Emily.
One more year and I would become a Greek myth.
I wasn’t dumb enough to think that you had to be in love to be with someone in that way … So
why couldn’t I bring myself to that, like every other normal hormonal college freshman?
The problem was that normal wasn’t in my DNA. I was destined to be forever freakish.
At the end of the night, I sat on the stairs and watched Skylar leave, like the inconsequential
ones before him.
Chapter Two:
The Secret to My Excess