I have no idea what Connecticut was like in 1985, but I’m guessing I’ve oversold it. “My school, I mean. It’s … pretty progressive. Run by hippies.” God, I think I’m screwing up decades.

Tawny’s face has returned to its previously untroubled state. “That explains it. If you’re around them a lot, you probably just imagine them everywhere.” Her use of “them” is killing me, but I just nod. “We don’t have any here. It’s not allowed.

“It’s in the handbook and everything,” she adds. “But any boy who’s not like Gordo—”

“A human meat locker?” This wins laughs from both, my good graces being restored.

“Exactly! If you’re not like that, the other boys pick on you. Call you all sorts of things.”

Leeza’s voice is grim. “Chaz has taken a lot of heat.” She closes her eyes like she’s imagining the future. “But that’s all about to end.”

My head hurts. I can’t even.

The bell rings for second lunch. I apologize to Tawny and ask her to make sure Chaz knows I didn’t mean anything by it. She assures me that he’ll understand, that he’s the sweetest guy ever, and we’ll all be great friends. I am so relieved when she leaves, I could cry.

Leeza takes my arm when they’re gone. “At some point,” she says, “We need to talk.”

Time travel is exhausting. It’s been like twenty-four hours (and thirty-six years) since I bonked my head in the arts building, and I’m so tired I could cry. Right now, I have a number of good reasons to just howl. I am in my new room, home of the future Mr. Gale.

He has (reluctantly) taken down some of the posters on what is now my side, but the ones he left up are baffling. Who has Farrah Fawcett in a red bikini and The Sound of Music? KISS and Ms. Pac Man? There’s even an authentic “The Scream” poster but with no meme. It’s like someone gave him a dorm manual that said “Hang up posters” but didn’t specify why.

The bathroom we share with the next room is a disaster. I mean not to gender stereotype, but this is straight-boy-in-a-frat behavior. A damp forest green towel is wadded up on the floor, begging the universe for mildew. The toilet paper sits on the floor, too, and the roll contains one shredded ribbon that will help nobody; it is not immediately clear where the next roll hides. The shower has three slivers of soap, one of them mint green like a toothpaste, and it is clear that no one has ever considered actually scrubbing the walls down or replacing the curtain liner. Half of the few products—a hairspray, a deodorant, a cologne—are called Brut, which smells like alcohol, and I’m guessing is the Axe of its day.