Begin Again(24)

“Well. You’ve made more progress than I have with my stats homework,” I confess.

Val’s lip curves. “Well, that I can do something about.” My expression must relay my unease, because she adds, “Trust me, I’ve been with the tutoring program for almost a year now. Wherever you’re starting from, we can turn it around.”

As it turns out, the nerves were for nothing. I’m usually self-conscious about how long it takes for me to pick up concepts and how much longer it takes for me to actually apply them to problems, but Valeria just patiently guides me though all of it, occasionally falling quiet when she knows I can work something out on my own. I don’t get in my head about it, the way I sometimes used to back in high school when I got put on the spot.

Halfway through our tutoring session Val gets up to grab another coffee, and I’m relieved to see several texts from Connor pop up on my phone: one with a meme of our old high school mascot, another with a selfie of him in front of my old psych building at the community college. His sandy hair is perfectly tousled under the beanie I got him for his birthday. Call tonight? he asks. I press the phone to my chest in relief.

“What’s that smile about?”

“Oh, just a text from my boyfriend.” It feels like a relief to say it out loud, like affirming it with the universe. Everything’s normal. Everything’s fine.

That is, until something in Val’s expression flickers. “Oh,” she says brightly, to make up for it.

“Oh?” I prompt her, half teasing.

She twists her lip to the side. “Ugh, it’s silly. I’ve already talked my roommate’s ear off about it today. But my ex broke up with me over winter break and I’m really trying to get over it, but he’s still texting me every now and then in this way that’s like—not clear exactly what he wants?”

I nod understandingly. “Like he’s just trying to make sure he’s still got you on the hook or something?”

“Yeah. Like that. Because the minute I respond, he basically just ghosts again. It’s driving me nuts.”

But it’s not her phone she glances at when she says this. It’s the notebook, so well-used that it’s tattering at the edges.

“Hence the writer’s block?” I ask.

Val puts her face in her hands, groaning. “It makes no sense. I mean, I started this story before we even met. But every time I actually sit down to write my brain just fixates on whatever his deal is instead.”

“Aren’t there literary clubs on campus?” I ask, looking around for a flyer I’m almost certain I saw on the way in. “Maybe if you talked to other writers or shared some of your work, they’d be able to help.”

Valeria shudders. “Oh, no, no, no,” she says, the words coming out so fast they almost tumble over one another. “If anyone actually read it I’d be like, mortified.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s . . . mine.” Her cheeks tinge a deep and adorable red. “And if anyone read a book about a bisexual, half-Spanish, half-Italian heroine who uses math in a magical realm to save the day, there isn’t a single person in their right mind who wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, this is a self-insert fanfiction.’”

I lean into the table. “Yeah, but aren’t all books kind of self-insert fanfiction?”

Valeria taps the stats textbook, drawing our attention back to the task at hand. “This one sure isn’t.”

I let out a laugh, resigning myself to the math ahead. “Touché.”





Chapter Ten


“If he dies, I had nothing to do with this,” says Shay.

“It’s for his own good,” I say decisively, opening the door to our room and heading into the hall. In my hands is several days’ worth of trial and error: a bag full of a ground half-caf blend that tastes so close to Eternal Darkness that maybe even Milo, despite confusing coffee for oxygen, won’t notice the difference.

Naturally, I needed Shay’s taste buds to help perfect the batch, because I’m pretty sure if I had more than a sip of it myself I’d go supernova. And while Milo did say he was fine with me helping get ahold of his coffee consumption, he did not consent to peeling me off the ceiling.

Milo’s door is open when we reach his room. Shay walks in the way she normally does and I follow, but the room is decidedly Milo-less.

Shay cranes her neck down the hall. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence—sometimes he’ll do a quick round of the dorm just to make sure nobody’s crying to the lo-fi focus beats playlist on Spotify, which has happened enough times in the study room that I’m more than a bit apprehensive about my GPA. But Shay and I don’t have time to wait around tonight.

“We can just find him later,” she says.

I sigh. “He’ll be on his ninth cup by then.”

I consider just leaving the bag in his room, but am unwilling to risk it being buried under the pile of mugs that say things like POSSIBLY TODAY, SATAN AND SCIENCE: IT’S LIKE MAGIC, BUT REAL!, and another that is an inexplicable collage of pictures of chickens.

Shay calls Milo’s name down the hall to see if he’ll appear, and I take a step back to take in the rest of his room. It’s all done up in cool navies and deep reds, with the kind of cozy look of things that were well-used and well-loved before they got to him. Things with a history to them, like a little hand-me-down home. I accidentally brush the down comforter with my knee as we make our way out, and the soft wear of it makes me wistful—a part of me has always wanted siblings, wanted to pass stories and advice back and forth with people who knew me inside and out.