The Distance from A to Z (6 page)

It's a harder laugh. Rough.

“I should go.” I've switched to English too, and it feels like
I'm losing something. Now it's the English words that feel awkward in my mouth. “Can I take the list so I can copy it down into my notebook?”

“I was planning to type it and e-mail you a copy.” All in English. All technically fine. All completely different from the last three hours.

“Okay.”

“Au revoir,”
he says. Until I see you again. I used to think it sounded so much prettier than
see you later
. But right now, with Zeke back to being focused on his phone, it doesn't sound that terribly different after all.

TUESDAY MORNING, I WALK INTO
the cafeteria to find Zeke with his arm around Stephie, waiting in line for eggs. Which makes me skip the hot breakfast aisle and grab cold cereal and a muffin. And coffee. Because I wouldn't care if Zeke were making out with Stephie under the coffee tap; I still need it.

When I get out of the line to pay, I make my way to the farthest table under the big leaded-glass window. I focus on eating my healthy high-fiber cereal with my black coffee. And my chocolate chocolate-chip muffin. I deliberately sit with my back to the rest of the room so I don't see Zeke. When I turn back to the room, he and the redhead are gone. And I only have three minutes to get across campus for class.

After that, Zeke and I get into a daily pattern. We eat breakfast separately, though at the same time. He's always at
a table with three guys who look like they just came from playing basketball and anywhere between six and eight girls who flick their hair so much I'm not sure how stray pieces don't make it into their food. And I sit by my window, watching the quad. We walk, separately, to class. I leave first, but he arrives at the building no more than thirty seconds later, sliding into his seat with a grin, looking like he just rolled out of bed.

“Morning,” he says as Marianne walks into class.

And each morning, I say,
“Excuse-moi. Je ne parle pas anglais. En français s'il te plaît.”

I'm sorry. I don't speak English. In French please. Exactly what Marianne encourages us to say when a classmate speaks in English.

And each morning his eyebrows waggle and he says,
“Bonjour.”

Hello.

And each morning, I can't help but shiver.

And I hate that for the next hour I'm still annoyed until we break off into partners, and then I thaw. And then we joke and tease each other through to the end of class. And then he disappears for a few hours, and reappears freshly showered. And we spend the next few hours walking around campus and bantering in French.

And then start again.

French Zeke is fun and charming and maybe, maybe the kind of guy I daydream about a bit. But English Zeke is not. English Zeke wears a baseball cap and a lazy smile and his hand in some girl's back pocket as he walks across campus.

But whatever else is true, French Zeke is a great class partner. While his written French needs work, his spoken French is fairly flawless, especially as he gets into the groove of talking. And even after we pass our ten-hour minimum by early evening on Wednesday, he doesn't hesitate to keep going. His phone stays buried in his back pocket and his focus remains on me and our assignments, both the required ones and the ones we do for extra credit.

Hours and hours and hours.

Des heures et des heures et des heures.

And I love it so much that it hurts.

By Friday, I'm weary to the point of collapse. I struggle through my walk across campus after breakfast, certain that the cafeteria workers replaced the caffeinated coffee with decaf, a beverage that has no business even being legal. My slower pace means that I can hear Zeke catching up to me as I cross campus, which means I can hear the annoying giggle that accompanies him.

“Why can't you skip class?” she asks, her voice high-pitched and cloying. This girl is built the way boys like girls
to be built, all firm thighs and small waist, big boobs and shiny hair, but I swear if I were a guy, I would lose interest if a girl ever used that voice on me.

“Sorry, I don't skip. But I'll look forward to catching up with you later?” So while he says no, his voice is definitely still flirty. And it makes me want to remove all my veins and use them to strangle myself.

I don't care about Zeke Martin.

I don't care about Zeke Martin.

Provided he does his work in class, that he keeps his extracurricular activities to times that don't interfere with our French speaking, I don't care what he does. Or who he does. I keep telling this to myself.

“But everyone skips . . .”

If I wasn't so freaking tired, I'd sprint to the front doors of Lederer just to get that damn voice out of my head. But then there's giggling and more giggling and instead, I focus on not vomiting.

Except then, when he sits next to me, he smells like girly perfume. And it makes me sneeze. Over and over.

“Are you getting sick?” he whispers. This is the time when we're supposed to be ignoring each other, giving me a chance to warm up to him. Marianne is passing out photographs that we're supposed to use as prompts for an in-class writing assignment. Not only is he not paying attention, but
he's speaking in English.

“I think I'm allergic to your effing girlfriend's perfume.”

“What?”

“Monsieur Martin, if you have something to say, I'm happy to pause the lesson and wait.” Marianne's French words are sharp, and I expect him to mutter an apology, but he doesn't.

“
Excusez-moi
. I'm concerned that Abby isn't feeling well.”

Abby ne se sent pas bien.

Abby doesn't feel well.

Though ironically, it's close to: Abby doesn't smell good.
Abby ne sent pas bon.

“I'm fine,” I whisper urgently, the words in English because between the sneezing and the smell of perfume, I can't seem to find any French words at all. Except
sentir
. Feel. Which is the same word as
sentir
—smell. I feel fine. I smell fine.
“Je sens bien.”

Crap. That's
I smell good
.

“Je me sens bien,”
I correct under the faint noise of tittering behind me.

“I'll get you some water.” And before I can stop him, he steps out of class, the strap of my water bottle banging against his thigh. I stare down at my blank sheet of paper and sigh.

“I'm sorry about that,” Zeke says once we're finally dismissed
from class.

“Can we not talk about it?” I mean, it's lovely that he fetched me some water and tissues. And that, given his water-splattered T-shirt, the wet ringlets of hair framing his face, and the pervasive smell of soap, I'm guessing he washed his face and neck. But it's still mortifying. It feels like something you'd make up. Like,
please don't make out with my across-the-hall neighbor before class because I'm allergic to the smell of her on you
.

Even though as soon as he washed his face and neck, I stopped sneezing.

“I assume since it's Friday night that you don't want to meet up tonight to work. Would you rather do the assignments this afternoon or later this weekend?” I ask.

Zeke pulls out his phone, his head shaking as he taps the screen. Taking a deep breath, he exhales and drops his phone into his bag; then he reaches over to massage his shoulder.

“What's the deal with your shoulder anyway? Your leg seems better but your—”

He looks up quickly, his eyes narrowing. “Nothing.”
Rien
. But his voice is no longer apologetic, no longer sweet. It's hard.
Rien
. The word rips through our conversation.

Because he's lying.
Il ment.

Lying.
Mentir
. It rhymes with
sentir
. Smell. And
se sentir.
Feel.

He smells like a girl's cheap perfume; he lies; he's the kind of guy I should stay away from.

Sentir. Mentir.
Reasons I shouldn't care at all.

Except—

“Are you okay?”

I speak in French because things are different in French. In French we're not quite Abby and Zeke, the distance between the two an entire alphabet. We're two people in love with a language that almost everyone we know doesn't care about. In French I pretend he doesn't look like a guy who's into sports, that he doesn't remind me of every guy who was once on Si's or Jed's baseball team, like Eddie and Ryan and every guy I used to go for.

Guys like them aren't trustworthy; they have legions of girls following them around. But Zeke is hurt. . . .

“Seriously,” I continue, my hands coming up toward his shoulder, “have you had someone look at it—”

“Drop it.” Zeke is using English and he's not looking at me. His knuckles are white around the strap of his bag, his back tense.

“You aren't limping as much anymore.”

“It's none of your business. Just like who I date or whose perfume I smell like. Not your business.” He stands up abruptly, swinging his bag onto his back, the movement
causing him to wince. “I'm not around this afternoon or tomorrow. So let's see if we can whip out our assignment on Sunday. I'm sure you'll welcome the time away from me.”

And then he takes off, and it's only in staring at his retreating figure that I still see traces of his limp.

I spend Friday night watching French movies in my room.
Amélie
.
Intouchables
.
Paris, Je T'aime
.

For dinner, I pour a box of water crackers on a plate and toss in three discs of Babybel cheese and a handful of grapes, clearly hitting all the major food groups. Alice decides to go to her poetry reading with a friend from class, and I almost tag along just to make sure she'll be okay. But instead I make her promise she'll call if she can't make herself go in, even if she just wants me to sit beside her.

By eleven o'clock, I want to call her and tell her to come back to our room because I'm lonely. But instead I pop in another movie,
La Vie d'Adele
, the very racy
Blue Is the Warmest Color
. It's the first time I can really watch the movie about two high school girls falling in love without somehow worrying that my brothers will walk in.

Except halfway through the movie Alice walks in.

“Whatcha watching?” she asks, plopping on the bed beside me.

Merde
.

“How was the poetry reading?” I ask, shutting my computer.

“Incredible,” Alice says, dropping backward onto the mattress. “The people reading were amazing and there was a good vibe. I thought the whole thing would be terrifying but everyone there was so supportive.”

I flick on my desk lamp and notice that Alice has that dreamy look on her face, her eyes closed behind her thick black glasses.

Black glasses that are a lot like Zeke's.

Zeke who isn't here.

“Do you think you'll read?”

“Eventually. We start by doing it in a small group but toward the end of the course, we'll have to do it at an open mic night.”

She's chewing her bottom lip. “I'm not sure I'll be able to get up there in front of a crowd—”

“I'll definitely come if you do,” I promise. “And I'll sit in the front row, and you'll just stare at me and it'll be like nobody else is even there.”

Alice smiles sadly, her gaze on my comforter and not me.

“I'm excited to hear you read your poetry.”

She glances over at me and I'm relieved to see her bottom lip has escaped her teeth with minimal damage. “So how was your study session with Zeke?”

I'd tried to downplay all things Zeke but apparently Alice isn't oblivious. Because she's scanning the room as though she is expecting to find traces of boy. Except there's nothing boy here because as far as I know, there hasn't been a boy in this room since Si and Jed left me here on the first day of school.

Certainly no Zeke.

“He had other things to do.” I try to appear like I don't care but Alice narrows her eyes.

“What things?”

“Dunno.” I shrug. “He said he'd be away tonight and tomorrow.”

Just then, like it was timed in a cosmic feat of crappiness, I hear a girl's voice bellow: “Zeeeeeekkkkeee!” down the hallway, like it isn't midnight and people aren't possibly sleeping.

“Hey, babe, I thought you'd be still out,” I hear. And while for a split second there was the slim possibility that there were other Zekes in the dorm that I had yet to meet, that voice I'd recognize anywhere. Even in English.

“Want to come hang out?” Cloy Voice asks, and Zeke laughs.

“Hang out, eh?”

“Oh yes,” she whispers, her voice all breathy. Though unfortunately for me and Alice, the fact that she's directly in front of our door means that even if she was in our room we
couldn't possibly hear them more clearly.

“Please kill me,” I mouth to Alice, conscious that if we can hear them from in here, they can hear us from out there.

“Your Zeke?” she mouths.

I think of shaking my head because there's no my Zeke, but that seems like splitting hairs.

Alice presses her lips together and then opens them wide. “Abby!” she shouts. “I'm not going to hang out in the common room and wait for you guys to finish making out. I want to go to sleep, and I'd rather be able to do it without listening to you guys suck face all night.”

Her speech is so shocking, from the lie to the fact that it's Alice bellowing it out, that I don't even think to stop her until she's looking at me triumphantly.

“And I can't believe you guys are watching that movie together. I mean, get a room. Not my room. A room where you can be alone.”

“Alice!” I squeak, not knowing whether to high-five her or slap my hand over her mouth.

“Rawr,” I hear Cloy Voice say, which makes me want to go out there and pull her off of Zeke. Because what kind of girl says
rawr
in real life?

“C'mon, we should get out of here,” Zeke says, and he doesn't sound nearly as flirty and happy as he did before.

And suddenly I'm quite sure that as utterly humiliating as
Alice's speech was, high-fiving her wasn't nearly enough to thank her.

So I tackle-hug her.