Page 7 of Leaving the Station
We were both breathing heavily as we climbed the spiral staircase to the top of the tower.
There wasn’t much to see at the lookout except for the chain-link fence enclosure, but the strong upstate wind blew in our faces, and the lights of campus shone below. When I turned to Alden, he was smiling, his birthmark hidden in his cheek.
“I used to be afraid of heights.”
It wasn’t what I thought he’d say.
I stuck my fingers into the empty spaces of the chain-link fence. “What changed?”
He joined me, our bodies pressed against the fence, and our gazes focused only on each other.
“I realized I didn’t want to miss out on anything.”
“That’s a good reason.”
And that’s when footsteps echoed from below. Alden froze.
“We have to go,” he whispered.
“You said we were allowed to be here!” I whisper-yelled back.
He didn’t respond, just took my hand and pulled me down the stairs. Somehow, no one caught the two of us sprinting out of the base of the tower, barely able to catch our breaths as we fell into the grass nearby.
For once, my life felt like a scene from a movie.Aldenmade me feel like that.
When I snuck back into my dorm, the sun was rising, and I felt invincible.
“Where were you last night?” Rex asked the morning after my unintentional all-nighter.
I was struggling not to fall asleep into my dining hall pancakes.
“What?” I shook my head, forcing myself to look into Rex’s eyes. “Nowhere.”
After almost getting busted in the clock tower, I was exhausted, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about Alden.
Autumn grinned. “Did you meet someone?”
“Oooooh,” Shelly said, leaning forward. “I bet she did.”
“So,” Autumn said. “Who is she?”
I had told them I was a lesbian when we all went to the diner. It had felt nice to come right out and say it. I hadn’t told anyone in high school, not because I couldn’t, but because there wasn’t anyone to tell. I had friends, but none I hung out with outside of extracurricular activities.
“It’s no one,” I told Autumn, but as I said it, heat rose in my cheeks.
And Alden really was “no one.” I hadn’t thought of him as someone I wanted to date. Just someone I wanted to know better.
If anyone at Cornell was my type, it was Autumn—they had long curly hair that they tied back with a bandanna and a seemingly endless supply of floral dresses that were designed for frolicking in meadows of wildflowers.
But Autumn wasn’t the person I’d spent the whole night talking to.
“Oh, shedefinitelymet someone,” Rex said. “Do tell. We all want to live vicariously through your dating escapades.”
“Speak for yourself,” Shelly said, gently shoving Rex.
I could’ve told them about Alden then and there. I could’ve said I spent all night talking to this guy and that we got along and I could see us being friends, and none of that would’ve been a lie.
It wasn’t anything yet, between me and Alden. It was an... interest, in an interesting person.
