Harper


    When I got home from ss, I found Avery and Leslie together. They were sitting on the couch, a respectful foot of space between them, watching a nature documentary on TV. Leslie smiled over at me in greeting, and Avery raised a hand toward me.


    I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t oblivious to the things going on around me. In my opinion, it was incredibly difficult for members of the opposite sex to just remain friends. Especially when they were all young, attractive, and single.


    Avery liked Leslie. So did Riley. This was extremely predictable since they had hit on her at the party before learning that she was our roommate, and it was one of my major concerns when we realized who she was. I had been skeptical that the other guys could remain strictly tonic with her.


    And as time went on, they were all spending more time together. They hadn’t crossed any lines that I could see, but I got the impression that was slowly changing.


    No, I wasn’t stupid. I could see it slowly ying out before me.


    But I was unsure of what to do about it. Or if I even should do something about it.


    “Youing out to the party with us tonight?” I asked while fixing myself a ss of water.


    “Already invited her,” Avery replied. “She’s staying in.” “On a Friday night?” I replied.


    Leslie twisted around on the couch and folded her arms underneath her chin on the back of the cushions. “I need to study.”


    “I know I’m repeating myself, but… on a Friday night?” I said.


    “She failed an exam,” Avery blurted out.


    Leslie back-handed him on the arm. “Dude!”


    “What? I didn’t know it was a secret. It’s not a big deal. Everyone bombs a test every now and then.”


    Leslie nced at me. It seemed like she didn’t want me to know she had failed. Why not?


    “It wasn’t even one of the sses for my major,” she exined. “It was a science gen-ed requirement.”


    “I have a good science background,” I said. “I could help you study, if you want.”


    “That’s okay,” she said with a thankful smile. “I should be good. But if that changes, I’ll definitely let you know.”


    Riley, Avery, and I left for the party together that evening. It was only two blocks away, at a big house a bunch of baseball yers were renting together. Most of the guys there were friends of Riley, but over the years they had be mine and Avery’s friends too. All things considered, they were a good group of guys. Better than most fraternities, in my experience.


    Avery and Riley yed beer pong while I watched from the side. There was an old Greek aphorism: gnothi seauton. It meant know thyself. I had many talents, but hand-eye coordination was not one I was gifted with. I preferred to watch.


    “It sucks Leslie wouldn’te out,” Riley said between shots. “She was bragging about how good she is at beer pong.”


    I nced at Avery. “Did you tell him why?” “She failed an exam,” Avery exined.


    Riley whistled. “No shit? She seems like the kind of person who rarely fails something. It was one of her psychology sses?”


    “Nah, a gen-ed that doesn’t matter,” Avery replied. “Astronomy.”


    I gave a start. “The ss was astronomy?”


    “Yeah. Why?”


    So that was why she didn’t want me to know. Because I was an astronomy major. She knew I would feel obligated to help her.


    “She’ll probably be all right,” Avery said, pausing to take a shot. His ball bounced off the rim of a cup. “She doesn’t need an A in that ss. She just needs to pass.”


    “But she must be taking it hard if she’s staying in on a Friday,” Riley said.


    Avery shrugged. “I guess so.”


    Riley sank the next shot with a cheer, ending the game with them victorious. As they prepared for a second game-the winners got to y again-I told them I was going to wander around the party and catch up with themter.


    The line for the keg was twenty people long. The liquor bar was less crowded, but I didn’t feel like a stronger drink. I gazed into my beer cup, downed the dregs at the bottom, and then went outside.


    I think I intended to just get some fresh air, but soon my feet were carrying me away from the house and up the street. I passed a row of fraternity and sorority houses, music ring from each one while partiers hung out of windows and open, inviting doorways. Going out and drinking on a Friday was what you did as a college student. It was the default. Since this was ourst year at school before we graduated, my roommates and I had the mindset that we should be soaking it all in.


    But tonight, I wasn’t in the mood.


    Leslie was sitting at the kitchen table, a thick textbook and herptop open in front of her. She blinked at me in surprise as I closed the door behind me.


    “Have I been studying that long?” she asked, ncing at her watch.


    “I wasn’t feeling the vibe of the party,” I said, going to the fridge and getting myself a beer.


    “Oh, okay,” she replied.


    I suspected that Leslie didn’t want to be a burden. That if I helped her study, she would feel guilty about it. So I had to be tactical with my next move.


    “I’m going to make some brownies,” I said, getting a box of brownie mix out of the pantry. “That won’t distract you, will it?”Property belongs to N?vel(D)r/ama.Org.


    “The smell might,” she said with a weary smile. “Give me a brownie and we’ll call it even.”


    “Make it two, and you’ve got a deal.”


    For a few minutes, we upied the space together without talking. She buried her head in her textbook while I mixed the ingredients in a bowl, then poured them into a pan. After popping the pan into the oven, I set a timer.


    “What are you studying?” I asked casually.


    She quickly waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing important. Don’t worry about it.”


    “I don’t have anything to do until the brownies are done. Is that astronomy?”


    Leslie hesitated, then said, “Yes. Introductory level.”


    “Well,” I said while pulling up a chair, “I happen to be majoring in Astronomy. This stuff is easy for me.”


    “I don’t want to trouble you,” she said. “It’s a Friday night. I’m sure you don’t want to be helping me study.”


    “You’re right,” I lied. “But I can help you for a little bit. Just until the brownies are ready.” I leaned closer so I could read the page. “Ah, theary bodies and their moons. This is my bread and butter. Which part are you on now?”


    “I finished the inners and am starting the section on the gas giants,” she replied.


    “Can you list the inners in order?” I asked.


    “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,” she said with a satisfied smile. “I learned a mnemonic to remember them.”


    “Yeah?”


    Suddenly her cheeks turned red. “It’s stupid.”


    “Oh,e on. Tell me! It can’t be that bad.”


    Looking down at her textbook, Leslie quietly muttered, “My vagina eats marzipan.”


    I snickered in surprise. “That’s actually a really good trick. The dirtier the memory device, the more likely you are to remember it.”


    She brightened at that. “Really?”


    “Absolutely. I struggled with an art history ss two years ago. Our old roommate helped me study, and she taught me that little trick. I won’t repeat the filthy phrases I memorized in order to remember the names of all the Dutch masters.”


    “Was that Jess?” she asked.


    The name was like a grenade going off in my head. I gave a start, then quickly tried to act like everything was fine.


    “Yeah, Jess.”


    “Avery told me a little bit about her,” she exined.


    “How much did he say?” I asked. I tried to sound casual about it, but I knew I came across as insistent.


    “Not much,” she replied. “He said you had a thing for her, and it ended poorly.”


    That was the truth, but it was a very watered-down version of what had happened between me, Jess, Avery, and Riley. But I didn’t want to talk about it. So I only nodded.


    “That’s the gist of it.”


    Leslie smiled at me, but it was one of pity. That stung as much as the memory of our former roommate and girlfriend. It was like she was suddenly there in the room, grabbing my arms and dragging me down through the floor, a cumbersome weight…


    “Is the asteroid belt on your next exam?” I asked.


    “No. That’s covered after thes, in the section on dwarfs.”


    “Good. Then let’s talk about Jupiter’s moons,” I went on. “Jupiter’s fourrgest satellites are called the Galilean moons, because they were discovered by…?” I trailed off so she could answer.


    “Oh, that’s easy,” she answered. “They were discovered by Miley Cyrus.” I gawked at her. She suddenly burst into a huge grin.


    “Sorry. It was worth it to see that expression on your face! Galileo discovered the moons.”


    Iughed at how ridiculous the joke was. “That’s right. Although Galileo made such a ssh in the world of astronomy that you might say he came in like a wrecking ball.”


    Leslie almost spit out her ss of water. “That was bad.”


    “I know.”


    “But it was so bad, it came back around and became funny again,” she said.


    I like making herugh, I realized. It made something blossom inside me, warm and bright.


    “There are four Galilean moons. In order of their orbit, they are Io, Europa, Ganymede…”


    “And Callisto!” she answered.


    “Very good,” I said, nodding. “Now, can you list them in order of size? Smallest torgest?”


    Her face twisted adorably as she concentrated. “Um. Europa, then Io…” While the brownies baked in the oven, we hunkered down and studied.