My plan was to become the next Norman Borlaug. I was going to major in plant pathology and genetics like he did and create a new variant, similar to his semi-dwarf-wheat that saved over a billion people from starvation. The problem, as I was learning in class, was that even with some of the high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties Borlaug gave us, there was still a need for rice that didn’t need so much water or corn that could mature faster. I was looking at taro and breadfruit and many others that people could grow in smaller spaces that needed little to grow. I needed to help feed the world.
It was the whole hierarchy-of-needs thing that we learned about in psychology. I figured if everybody was fed, if everybody had somewhere to live, then we could move on to the whole peace-on-earth thing. The problem now was that everybody wanted us all to get along, but people were still starving and living on the streets. It made no sense to me. My plan was to fix that. Not alone, of course. Me and my team and my really hot, brilliant, kind partner who adored me and wanted to screw me into a mattress anytime he got an extra minute away from helping me solve the world’s famine problem. If I was dreaming, I was going to go big. Funny that everything, all of it, came rushing at me when I heard the football player yell out for me.
He ran up to me and stopped a few feet away.
“You fixed the printer in there.”
I squinted at him. “Yeah?”
He shrugged. “My stuff was up next, so I just wanted to say thank you.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
The corner of his mouth lifted and curled. “You look surprised.”
“I am,” I agreed softly.
“So, uhm,” he murmured, taking a step closer. “Sorry about before, all right?”
I nodded.
“You look like you wanna ask something.”
Tipping my head, I smiled. “Seriously, what’s with the sunglasses? Are you hiding from your fans?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Okay.”
He took a step that brought him into my personal space, making it so I had to tip my head back to look up at him. “It’s Vince, right?”
I nodded.
He swallowed hard, and I heard him inhale. “You were really an ass.”
It was not news. Even when I purposely tried to be decent, I came off sarcastic or snide. People I never met before in my life thought I was conceited and rude. Most of it was that I was shy, but I could own being more sensitive than I needed to be a lot of the time by attacking when maybe listening was the better approach. I was a work in progress.
Once I knew you really well, I was better, and Matt’s mother always said I was one of the sweetest people she knew, but I had known her since I was eight, so it was different. The first impression I made was never good.
“This is your chance to say sorry.”
“You were really not listening,” I said instead of apologizing.
He grunted. “Okay. See ya ’round.”
My eyes stayed glued to him as he looked me over from head to toe before turning and jogging back to the store. I was smiling as I turned for home. It was true: truth was stranger than fiction.
2
It was a little after nine, which was earlier than I wanted to get up but later than I usually did for school. So since it was kind of in the middle, I rolled off my mattress on the floor, stood like I was ninety instead of nineteen, and staggered to the front door. Someone was there, knocking, not hard but persistently. When I opened it, I was stunned to find Barbara Powell, Matt’s girlfriend.
“Is he here?” she asked, trying to look around me.
“Is who here?”
“Matt!”
“Matt?” I was confused.
“Yes, Matt,” she shrieked, and it was loud up close.
“No,” I told her, rubbing my right eye, moving so she could see inside my hovel. “And that’s it, Barb, you’re lookin’ at the whole thing.”
And with that she was sobbing.
For heaven’s sake.
I yanked her inside, warned her to be careful because the floor was uneven and dropped in places, and then went to get her some Kleenex from the bathroom.
The apartment, even though it was a two bedroom, was basically a tiny square box. You took four steps in and there was the kitchen, living room, and the door to my bedroom on the right, the door to where my computer and all my books were on the left. The entire area could be crossed easily in twenty paces. The bathroom was beside my bedroom, basically a big closet you took a step up into. There was no room for anything, so I had nothing but the futon couch Matt’s folks had gotten me.