—The thing is, he said, I can’t afford good coffee with four years of loans sitting on my neck, so since starting here I’ve trained myself to ingest this garbage. I buy whatever’s cheapest, I’m talking the brands they use at gas stations, then I just brew the shit out of it.
I fought the urge to ask him how exactly brewing the shit out of something could be an antidote to anything. I sipped a little more, burning my top lip and barely getting a second taste, and he smacked his lap with his hands and said, So yeah, sorry you’re a victim of what might be my ultimate Rawlings sacrifice.
—I wasn’t – it’s fine, I said. I took a good swig to prove it, like drinking dirt. I said, It’s not much worse than Cuban coffee.
I made myself swallow more, knowing what this was a chance to do—not just study, but to let him know I was more like him than I’d accidentally made him think, that we were both making sacrifices, even if my mom didn’t see that in me. I forgave my fingers and put my mug down.
—I have to tell you something, I said.
—We’re breaking up already? Then he said, Kidding.
He sank down into his chair, hiding his height.
—I don’t want you to have the wrong idea about me either, I said. Those mittens? Those ones I had when we went skating. Those mittens aren’t mine.
He looked into his own mug, swished it in a circle. Color rose up his neck in blotches, connecting the dots.
He took too long to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I felt sorry for him, the way his skin was such a traitor, but right then I wished for something that good at giving me away.
—Yeah you do, I said.
I leaned forward and wrapped both my hands around the mug again.
—My roommate gave them to me, I said. I guess she sees me as her charity case.
He still wouldn’t look at me, but I needed him to understand I was an ally, a member of the same band. I decided to admit it: I said, So the thing about being an RA next year?
He slid up in his chair, tall again, his eyes hooded by his pale eyebrows but finally meeting mine. He said, I get it, you don’t have to – —I do need it. I gave a breezy snort and said, Where do I sign up?
He shook his head.
—It’s too late. The deadline passed. But knowing you, you knew that already.
I nodded because he was right: I’d looked it up the day I got back to campus.
—Thank you for – for letting me know that about you, he said.
He spun his drained mug between us.
—So that ring, it’s not really from your mom, is it?
—No.
—Did your roommate give you that, too?
—No.
—So … you are engaged to the Miami Dolphins?
That he was still joking made me not want to admit it exactly. I worried that if I did, Ethan wouldn’t keep doing this, wouldn’t continue acting like he enjoyed my company. Saying I was engaged to Omar would turn the way we kept trying to make each other laugh into a problem—at least to me. And unlike the first time I admitted it, I now knew his mom almost married young; I didn’t want him putting me in the same category as her, as my own mom. And Omar did say it wasn’t my real ring, that he only meant it to keep other guys away: certainly Ethan didn’t count as other guys. With a thousand miles between us, couldn’t I afford to be vague? It’s not like me and Omar were a list of procedures in a lab write-up.
—It’s OK if you are, he said. Even if it is to the Dolphins. You’re really engaged?
—Only to their mascot. To an actual dolphin. That’s okay, right?
His tense laugh shot across the table. He said, That’s fine with me. Dolphins are smarter than us. Besides, I could never compete with a dolphin.
I pulled my bio textbook closer to me. He was too smart, too witty.
—Good thing you aren’t trying to, I said. Because you’re graduating.
—Exactly, he said, pointing at me. That is exactly right.
We’d saved it, whatever it was; we’d given each other permission to keep going.
—Now drink your shitty coffee and don’t talk to me for another thirty minutes, he said. Time to get strict. I haven’t earned a single beer.
—My roommate saw you at an arch sing last Saturday, I said.
—God I hate those things. Get to work.
—Did they cover any hard rock hits?
—The bonds of friendship coerced my attendance, OK? Now stop distracting me.
—You’re friends with someone in an a capella group? What would Pearl Jam say?
—Seriously, he said. I’ll kick you out of the group.
—One guy is a group?
—Lizet, really. Don’t try me.
He stopped talking. I watched to see if he would smile down at his book, but he didn’t. We both got back to work.
—The Mountain Goats, he whispered to a page ten minutes later. That’s just one guy.