For senior year, we rent the ground floor of an old white Victorian near campus. The windows chatter when the wind picks up. The porch sags in the middle, but Livia and I have already claimed it for autumn evenings with hot cider and brandy. Out back, there is just enough dirt for Bianca's vegetable patch. She wants to plant broccoli, cauliflower, and kohlrabi before the first hard frost.
Rhys should be in Seattle with Dane, starting over in a city where Dane can go to law school. Instead, Rhys failed math again and discovered he'd missed a required history course. So he moves in with us. Bianca and I take the biggest bedroom to keep rent down; Livia gets the room beside it, and Rhys gets the narrow one that had been meant for me.
The morning after we unload the last boxes, Dane sends a dozen donuts to the apartment. His note says, If none of you join me for grad school in Seattle next year, I'll have to sue.
The joke is appealing. The practical version is less certain. I'll apply to veterinary programs and go wherever I get in. Livia's law-school choices will depend on her own offers. Bianca is still deciding about an MFA. And I have no idea how I'll share a home with Rhys Callahan for a full year.
For the first week, we never end up alone together. Then one morning I find him in the close, overheated kitchen, making coffee before sunrise. He takes down a mug with a state flag on it and hands it to me.
“I heard what you told me in Maine,” he says quietly. His voice is rough from sleep. We are close enough that I notice every small movement he makes.
“I don't want this year to be uncomfortable for you,” he adds. “I'll keep things normal.”
I manage a reply that sounds like “Oh. Good,” though my throat makes it come out in two awkward pieces. He gives a brief nod and leaves through the back door to mow the lawn before the heat sets in. I stay by the counter, waiting to feel like myself again.
He keeps his promise. A few nights each week he goes out with someone, none of whom come back to the apartment. By winter, one woman—Alison, a dancer—becomes a regular date. She's lovely and easy to like. She never stays long before they head out together. I tell myself I should be glad for him. Friends are glad when friends meet someone.
You're not my friend, Mara, a voice from Maine returns to me sometimes.
Rhys has trouble with math, so I offer to study with him. On Tuesdays we stay late in Alderbrook's old library, where dust gathers on the shelves and he complains that numbers were never designed for his brain.
“What was your brain designed for?” I ask.
“Wide-open country. Something can roll through and nobody asks it to solve for x.” He makes himself the punch line often. It sounds like a joke, but I suspect he believes it. I hate hearing him talk about himself that way.
During finals, he brings coffee from the vending machine and a rotating supply of chocolate-chip mini muffins, Snickers, and Skittles. One night, despite the caffeine and the fact that he is sitting across from me, I fall asleep on my textbook. I wake when he taps my shoulder. He smiles as I lift my face and brushes a streak of printed ink from my cheek.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“That's what friends are for.”
You're not my friend, Mara.
The four of us make complicated dinners in our tiny kitchen, with Livia directing the prep. On the porch, Bianca sketches us in one pose after another. When snow covers town, Rhys and I walk to get hot chocolate or maple lattes, though he barely drinks anything sweet. If one of us goes to the grocery store, we check whether the others need anything. Even when I say no, Rhys sometimes comes home and leaves blueberry ice cream on my desk without explaining.
Then Livia and I both get the emails we've been waiting for: a law-school place for her and admission to veterinary school for me. Bianca surprises us by choosing a job at an urban farm in Seattle over an MFA. Suddenly, the idea of all four of us finding a place there with Dane feels possible. I don't argue against another year of sharing walls with Rhys.
He becomes my closest friend gradually. I can't point to when I started relying on him. By the time I understand what has happened, I love him, and that feeling is mine alone.
He seems easy with himself and certain of his place. I have never felt that way. I keep telling myself not to love him.
I try. I really do.