He had a few habits I hadn’t really picked up on until that afternoon. He’d run his fingers through his hair whenever he said something he thought sounded a bit too silly or perhaps too honest. He bit the inside of his mouth a lot, particularly on the right side, sometimes going on for minutes on end, chewing that very spot while thinking about, looking at, or admiring something. And he cracked his knuckles and most of his bones all the time—every single finger, both his wrists, his back, his neck. Whenever he’d crack his neck, it was overawing the way every vein would inflate, every muscle tighten and contract, forming the most bewitching, intricate patterns on his skin. I couldn’t help but bite my lip whenever I witnessed it. And he also always looked back. That was something I’d noticed before, which was worth paying proper attention to. Whenever we made our way through a particularly crowded street and he had to go in front of me in order not to bump into anyone, he’d keep looking back over his shoulder, time and again, making sure I was still following his lead. It made me think about how that could be a good way of measuring someone’s character or perhaps gauging their intentions, separating them into two groups: the kind of people who looked back to make sure they hadn’t lost someone, and those who didn’t—at least not until it was too late.

Entering his building felt oddly familiar. Maybe it was because the first time I’d been there was during the night, or maybe it was just weird how good it felt, coming back. Once inside, he threw his keys on the table and put the box he’d gotten from The Donut Pub down so he could go through the mail.

“I’m waiting on a few admissions myself,” he volunteered, throwing the letters on the circular table dismissively once he’d found his name wasn’t on any of them.

We hadn’t even started talking about that. All I knew was that he wanted to go to Yale, but even that piece of information felt unnervingly superficial. Strange, how it seemed as though we’d talked about everything, yet there was still so much we didn’t know about each other.

“Rosalind is here,” he said after we heard the staccato beat of high heels over the wooden floor. “My dad’s girlfriend. She was going to come grab a few things.”

I immediately tensed up, which he noticed.

“Don’t worry, she’s cool,” he reassured me as he doubled back and gave me a quick kiss.

He took hold of the hem of my T-shirt and proceeded pulling on it, making me follow him toward the sound.