Page 83 of And They Were Roommates

Jasper’s face goes slack.

An undeniable regret swirls inside me. The words I had to sayto make him shut up hang heavy in the air, but they’re not how I feel.

Because now, logically, there’s a chance I did throw Jasper off with a kiss, and he didn’t realize we were anything more. That, logically, he thendidgrow feelings after that summer. And that, logically, he hasn’t been with anyone else since.

I don’t know what to do about that.

So, with nothing left to say, I head back through the campus, leaving Jasper behind. Xavier and Robby run into me on the path. They toss me high fives.

“Where’s Jasper?” Xavier asks. “He didn’t get caught after our whistle signal, did he?”

“No, he’s”—I readjust my glasses—“on his way. He’s fine. We’re both fine.”

“Nice. And with six minutes to spare until lights-out.”

Robby smiles. “Then tonight’s a winning success.”

Chapter 29THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2

I have no clue why Luis and four others from his physics class have dragged me into one of Valentine’s campus gazebos—the Aguilar Piano Gazebo—during STRIP Time, but at least they’re keeping my mind off Jasper.

After last night’s delivery, I went straight to bed. Now that it’s the weekend, I won’t have to worry about seeing him in class for two more days. At first, distance sounds good. I need a chance to think. But my memory of telling Jasper I’ll never forgive him keeps replaying, forcing me to see him in my mind’s eye regardless.

An icy wind blows from Au Sable Forks Lake. I lift my scarf up my face, shoving aside the guilt hanging over me. “Wait, did you just say eggs?”

Squatting on the grass, Luis opens his backpack full of raw eggs wrapped in a plaid blazer. Everyone else came dressed for the outdoors, but Luis took things to the next level: a puffy parka falling to his boots, fuzzy pink earmuffs, and matching fuzzy gloves. I’ve locked in my final answer that Luis is popular, but for a special reason—he says and wears whatever he wants, and that translates into a confidence that pulls people in. I wish I knew how to do that. “Thirteen eggs, bro.”

“From Dix?”

“Yup. Asked a chef. We tossed eggs in physics yesterday, and all of us sucked.”

“Droppedthem,” Michael corrects him, nudging Luis with his shoe.

A single touch from Michael’s foot turns Luis’s face red. Definitely his crush.

“The force equals mass times acceleration thing,” Emilio says. “We have to keep a raw egg from cracking when dropped from ‘ever-increasing elevations.’ Ms. Andrew offered us plastic bags and stuff, but I couldn’t even figure out round one. Which was, like, two feet.”

“I think I know this,” I say, sparking back alive. “David Donoghue threw an egg out of a helicopter and onto a golf course in the UK from seven hundred feet. That was considered an egg drop toss.”

“How’d you know that?” Luis asks.

“It just came to me.”

“Jesus, you’re smart.”

My chest warms, but not fully from the compliment. More knowing that I’ll be able to help them. I grab an egg from Luis’s backpack. “Think about—”

Luis points toward the gazebo roof. “Not here. Up there. If I can make a raw egg survive that, I can handle anything.”

“My feet stay on the ground,” Jackson says, shaking his head.

“Agreed,” Michael says.

I clasp Luis’s arm. “I’ll go with Luis. The rest of you, split into pairs and see what you come up with. Hint: Think about your plastic bags.”

While the others wander deeper into the trees, Luis and I climb the gazebo, which isn’t as hard as expected when the vine trellises work as ladders. Soon enough, I’m sitting on the roof, looking out at everything that makes me never want to leave Valentinedespite its flaws—the marble cupid fountain and tight-knit academic buildings to my right, the lake to my left, and the woods that stretch for miles.

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