Jack clears his throat. “I, um, if you all are interested, the freshman creative writing majors are doing an open mic.” He points to the far end of the Hole toward a small, dimly lit stage with a singular microphone stand and stool, flanked by speakers and surrounded by already full café tables.

“If we have time,” Xavier says. “We got a thing after we eat.”

Jack nods as he chews the inside of his cheek, and I’m drawn to his lips. I feel them, soft and faint, like an afterimage. “Okay, well.”

Neither one of us walks away.

My fingers twitch, wanting to reach out and grab his hand, feel his strong fingers.

But I don’t.

And then it’s too late because Jack turns his back and leaves us behind.

“Holy shit, I felt that,” Benny says sympathetically. “I’m sorry.” His tone tells me he didn’t get it until just now.

Maybe I didn’t either.

As we walk out of the Hole, food in hand, one of the creative writing professors steps to the mic to introduce the freshman class. He does the usual excited teacher bit about how brave they all are for organizing and signing up and how much talent is present. I’ve stopped walking and find the nearest open seat at an empty table. It’s far enough from the stage that maybe Jack won’t see me.

Benny and Xavier join me, and we listen as student after student gets up to read. Some read short stories, others read poems. One dude with a ginger beard and a knitted beanie brings his acoustic guitar and sings a love song about environmental waste. I’m moved to tears by a Black girl who artfully turns classic lullabies like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” into a spoken word eulogy for her mother who died of cancer.

And then Jack steps to the mic, his hand shaking and holding a crumpled piece of paper. “Hi, everyone. I’m Jack Reid, freshman from Vermont. I’ve been writing a lot of poetry lately, which I never used to do. I’ve heard that’s what CIA does. You come in wanting to be the next Hemingway, and then one night, everything changes.”

His voice cracks as he looks out into the crowd, and our eyes meet. His jaw sets. “This is called ‘Disappointment.’ ”

He reads from his paper like a slam poet, and I hold my breath.

I drink whiskey with my father

It doesn’t matter that I’m not legal

or that the church would frown

to spite the blood of Christ

“You’re a man, a guy’s guy”

as he pours me a glass

in a snifter

and tells me it’s smooth

like velvet,

and it’ll give me hair

on my chest

like a real man, like him,

the son he wants me to be

He teaches me to sip,

how to hold it in my hands