I lived through the narrator for the next few days, thinking of his life during my work in the field, suddenly knowing that there was a place for me to go that was mine, which was completely my own. As soon as work was over, I changed into my clothes, grabbed the book, and walked out through the gate, but not to the spot where I knew you’d be. I wanted to be by myself for a while. I found a place by the river, in the other direction, shielded by thorny bushes, and there I’d lie on my back and sink into Baldwin’s world.

One day, when I’d only just settled down to read, a shadow passed over the page. I turned around and saw you standing behind me.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” you said, sitting down beside me. You looked at the book, which I’d quickly shut and set on the ground. “So, it must be very good, then.”

I couldn’t say anything; I couldn’t even nod.

“What’s it about?”

My heart started beating fast.

“It’s about a boy,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “An American who lives in Paris.”

You looked at me expectantly. “And? What’s he doing in Paris?”

“He . . . He’s trying to figure out what he wants, and how to choose for himself.”

You looked at the cover. “Can I see?”

I handed it to you, regretting it immediately, as if I’d handed you something heavy and dangerous. “Why is it glued between other covers?” you asked, eyebrows furrowed.

I shrugged. “It’s sort of unauthorized, I guess.”

To my surprise, you laughed. “I didn’t suspect you of being such a rebel,” you said, handing the book back. “Can I read it when you’re done?”

My stomach dropped. “If you want to.”

“Yeah, I want to. I’ve never read an underground book.”

“Really?” I smiled, feeling pleasure, an ounce of power. “I would have suspected you of being more of a rebel.”

It surprises me that I shared the book’s existence with you so early. But I felt a strange trust there by the bank. There was something about the way you looked at me that made me feel as if you didn’t judge. There are only so many people we meet in life who give us that feeling. And yet that night, as I lay in bed reading after the others had gone to asleep, I was scared. Scared about the hole I had made by trusting you, scared by the vulnerability it had created. And the more I read, the more scared I became: the immensity of the truth and the lies I’d been telling myself all those years lay before me, mirrored in the narrator’s life, as if someone were pointing a finger at me, black on white, my shame illuminated by a cold, clear light. In the brightness I could examine it with almost scientific clarity, and suddenly the narrator’s pain didn’t soothe my pain anymore. His fear fed my fear. I was like him, David, neither here nor there, comfortable in no place, and with no way out.