“No, they didn’t, but I know people that’s happened to. Toni had to go stay with our friend Chris for a week. And this other friend of ours back home, Kiyana, her parents tried to lock her in her house to keep her from going to see her girlfriend.”
“Huh.” Carroll strokes the stubble on his chin. He never shaves on weekends anymore. “That’s probably about what my parents would do.”
“Well, but you don’t live with them anymore. They can’t kick you out.”
“No, but they’d freak out on that same level.”
I sip my yogurt. “There’s one way to know for sure.”
“What? You mean telling them?”
I nod.
“No way.” He spins his fork in his curry with gusto. “I’m nowhere near ready for that. I still have too much to do first.”
“Like what?”
“Like, I’ve never even had a boyfriend. I haven’t had any of the fun parts of being gay yet.”
I laugh. “Taking me shopping doesn’t count?”
“Not that you don’t have your charms, but no.” He laughs, too. I’m glad. The normal, happy Carroll is coming back. “You can’t understand. Your whole life is the fun parts.”
“Oh, come on. I have issues.”
“Oh, sure. You have perfect parents, you get good grades without trying and you look like a badly dressed version of Jennifer Lawrence.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes at his ridiculousness.
“Oh, wait, I forgot. You do have one problem. You don’t live in the same city as your beloved girlfriend. You’re a whole thirty-second plane ride away. That’s got to be the most horrifying thing in the world.”
“It is, actually. Sort of.”
I know he’s joking, but that hit a nerve.
“We were both supposed to go to school in Boston.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this. Talking about it just means thinking about it more. “That was the whole plan. I was going to Tufts and Toni was going to Harvard.”
Carroll slides forward in his chair. “You changed your mind?”
“No. Well, yeah. Sort of. I didn’t get into Tufts. I got into Boston University, so I was going there, but then NYU let me in off the wait list, and I...” I don’t want to say this. It’s so embarrassing. I’m just so tired of keeping it inside. “I didn’t tell Toni until the night before we left home.”
Carroll whistles. “Trouble in paradise? Got to hand it to you, babe, I didn’t see that coming. You totally lied to her.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t say anything.” I shake my head. “We said we’d go visit each other every weekend, but we haven’t seen each other since that night. We talked about me maybe transferring up to BU for the spring semester, but...”
Carroll doesn’t say anything. He’s watching me, his eyes narrow and steady.
“I kept thinking it wouldn’t be hard to be apart, because we’d still visit and talk all the time,” I say. “But it’s not the same as it was before. We said we were going to visit every weekend, but Toni keeps canceling. Next week will be the first time all year we’re going to see each other, if that trip actually happens. Plus...there’s stuff Toni doesn’t tell me now. At least, not right away. It used to be we told each other everything the second it happened.”
I tear off another piece of naan.
“It doesn’t feel right,” I say. “It’s been so long now since we’ve seen each other. It feels like everything’s changed. Like it’ll be different when we do see each other again. Like now that we’re in different places we’re turning into different people, or something.”
I stare at the bread in my hand. I don’t know why I just said all that.
Is that really how it feels?
Yeah. Kind of.
“That’s why I’m so excited to go up there next weekend,” I say in a rush, to put all that other stuff I said out of my head. “So all this weirdness can stop and we can go back to normal.”
“And so you can get laid.” Carroll pops a forkful of curry into his mouth.
“Yes! Exactly! So I can get laid. That’s all this is really about. I’m just a total sex fiend.”
“Hell, yeah, you are. Work it.” He cracks a pretend whip.
I force a laugh.
“So,” Carroll says after a pause. “Transferring to Boston University, hmm? Next semester? Are you serious about that?”
He’s trying to sound light, but there’s a hard look in his eyes.
I shrug, trying to act like I haven’t thought about it much. “I don’t know.”
“Because you realize you’d be abandoning me to the sketchy men of New York. Without you to rein me in, I’m hopeless.”
“Right, because I’m doing such a good job of reining you in now.”
“Why does it have to be you who transfers? Why can’t she transfer to Columbia or something?”
I shrug again. “I’m the one who lied, remember? Besides, it’s Harvard. I can’t expect T to give that up. It’s always been Toni’s dream.”
“Sounds like she expects you to give up New York. Far as I can tell, you like it here an awful lot.”
“Look, it’s fine,” I tell him. “For real. Can we talk about something else, please?”