When we’re finished, he spots my half-naked prince dolls.

“Ohmygod, this is so kinky,” he says, grabbing Naveen and running his fingers over the abs and getting lost in the doll’s eyes. “This reminds me, should we, like, develop a system for when we’re hooking up?”

“Hooking up? Us?” My mouth goes dry.

“Oh, sweetie, no. Not you-and-I us.” He giggles. “Like, me with a guy, you with a guy. Like a sock on the knob or something.”

I nod to the door. “I got a whiteboard?”

“Perf.” He carries Naveen back to his bed and falls back against the mattress. It creaks so loudly, he screams in concert with it. “I feel so bad for whoever shares this wall.”

“Are you, like, planning an orgy?”

The Grindr sound buzzes on his phone. “No. I’m looking for my husband, Chase.”

“Right.” Something tells me Benny’s version of love and mine are wildly different.

“Ohmygod, are you a virg?”

My cheeks get hot.

“You are!” He jumps up. “That’s adorable! Okay, I’ll be your wingman. I love this journey for us!” His phone buzzes again, but it’s a regular text ping. “Come on, we’re going out to meet the masses.”

“What?”

He doesn’t respond, instead beelining right out of the suite.

I think about what Taylor whispered to me before she left with Mom. Maybe this isn’t some grand adventure, but everyone has to start somewhere, and I don’t feel like being left behind on the first day. “Wait up!”

3

“Where are we going?” I follow Benny out of the dorm room and into the blistering August sun. The campus is buzzing as thousands of students—new and returning—settle in. Some parents still dot the hordes of young bodies, but for the most part, it feels like a wholly encapsulated world, one defined by prestige and competition, populated by The Chosen—those who worked their asses off to get here, those whose parents paid their way here, and everyone in between. We exist outside larger society, and together, we’re taking part in the construction of an ecosystem that’s entirely ours. It’s weird, and my chest flutters as I think about how this ecosystem doesn’t consist of anything I once knew: Mom, Taylor, Rae, even Leila. The Leila I thought was my friend, anyway. My high school self is gone, and I feel like I have to come up with an entirely new persona.

Benny’s neck nearly snaps as we pass by a group of shirtless guys playing Frisbee, sweat glistening off their bodies. “What’d you say?”

“Where. Are. We. Going?”

“We’re meeting a few friends.”

“How do you have friends already?” I ask incredulously. “You just got here.”

“Ugh, it’s such a complicated thing.” Benny gestures wildly with his hands and continues, “This guy I used to hook up with also goes here, but we’re not hooking up anymore because he’s ‘straight’ now or whatever. But we’re friends.” He stops cold. “Actually, that wasn’t so complicated. He texted me and asked if I wanted to hang out because a bunch of people in his dorm are going to this river thing in the woods. That sounds vaguely American Horror Story, but I guess there are cliffs you can jump off.”