Devin regarded me disdainfully. “The last I knew, he went to shoot hoops.”

As I walked to the gym, the fading sunlight was yellow and the air smelled like cut grass. Though I’d imagined that Devin might have misled me and I’d find the gym locked for the night, the door swung open when I pulled it. Climbing the stairs leading to the basketball court, I could hear the pound of a ball against the floor.

He was alone. For a few seconds, I stood in the doorway, as he must have once stood, unobserved, in the doorway to my room. He dribbled up the court and shot from the three-point line. The ball dropped through the net, and I began clapping.

He looked up from retrieving the ball. “Hey.”

As he walked toward me, his face was red, and beads of sweat rested on his forehead and ran in streaks from his hairline down his neck, and down his arms and legs as well. I was wearing a cotton skirt and a linen blouse, but all I wanted was for him to embrace me. Of course, he wasn’t going to-it was still light out, we were standing up, he was holding the ball. And besides, he hadn’t touched me in more than six weeks.

“I came by last night,” I said.

“Yeah, Devin told me. Sorry I missed you.” As we regarded each other, he seemed to realize that I was waiting for more. “I was down the hall in Thad and Rob’s room,” he added. I had never known him to lie, but it seemed so much likelier, it seemed so heartbreakingly logical, that where he’d really been was with Melodie Ryan.

And then I couldn’t help it-I’d wanted to ease into the conversation, to not seem overwrought-and I asked, “Did you see Low Notes?”

I often imagined that my own unseemly frames of reference would elude other people, but Cross said, “Yeah, I saw them.”

“And?”

“The A.V. is written by a bunch of losers.”

I looked down at the floor, the painted lines and blocks against the shiny wood. “But is it true?” I said, and my voice caught. I had never wanted to cry in front of Cross, because girls who cry-especially girls who cry while having talks–are so ordinary. “Is she your girlfriend?” I asked.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Cross said.

I blinked several times-no tears had actually fallen-and said, “Right. How foolish of me.”

He said nothing, and I understood that whatever I had to say, I’d have to say outright; he wouldn’t tease it from me.

The knowledge, unfortunately, wasn’t much help-I still couldn’t say what I wanted to because it was lodged inside me like a bowel movement and all that was coming out was hot stuttering air. “I guess the big question,” I said, “is am I fish or cheese?”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“No, I’m really curious.” I made my voice earnest.

“Devin’s a prick,” Cross said. “And letting him upset you is a waste of time.”

“If he’s a prick, why do you room with him?”

“He wasn’t always this way. He’s bitter now because he’s going to Trinity.”

So Cross had also been experiencing roommate tension this year; all along, we could have commiserated. Surely there were other, ordinary things we could have talked about if only we’d known-how annoying it was to wait in line to take a shower every morning, for example.

“Anyway,” Cross said, “that’s trash talk. It’s what guys say in the dorm when they’re showing off.”

“But you’re the custodian of the list.”

“The what?”

“Devin said-”

“Lee, Devin’s full of shit. I don’t know how much more plainly I can put it.” Even saying this, Cross wasn’t angry; he hadn’t yet made the investment that being angry would require, and I had the strong feeling that he wanted to go back to shooting baskets. “Frankly,” he said, “I’m having a tough time seeing what this conversation is about.”

I probably knew then that this was my one chance, which made it harder, not easier, to say what I meant. “I just don’t understand what you were doing with me,” I said. “I mean ever. Sometimes I try to see this all from your perspective, and none of it makes sense. You come into our room and you’re all drunk and maybe you knew I’d had a big crush on you or maybe it was just random. And I’m this dorky girl but I cooperate. I melt at the slightest touch. So we fool around, whatever. But then you come back. That’s what I don’t get. God forbid you ever talk to me at dinner, but you keep coming back for the whole year.” Actually, not for the whole year-not much past spring break. And wasn’t I only able to say this because he’d stopped coming? It felt like I was trying to salvage something, but wasn’t it all already finished?

Cross shifted the basketball so he was holding it against his right hip. “Saying that I never talked to you at dinner-you’re acting like I tried to hide something.”

“Well?”

“Are you for real? Lee, people knew about-about”-I think he was hesitating to say us–“about what was going on,” he finally said. “You’re crazy if you think nobody knew. And regardless, you’re the one who set the terms. You can’t deny that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said let’s not tell people about this, don’t kiss me at breakfast. It never seemed like you wanted a boyfriend.”

“So is that why you didn’t send me a flower on Valentine’s Day? Because I told you don’t send me flowers, was that it?”

“That’s exactly what you told me.”

“You would never have been my boyfriend,” I said.

His jaw tensed, which meant that at least I was getting to him.

“You wouldn’t have,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”

“That must be nice to be sure of things.”

Simultaneously, I had the impulse not to contradict him-just to let his comment sit there so that later I could cling to its implication-and I had the impulse to destroy it for the lie it was.

“I’m not sure of everything,” I said. “But I’m sure of this. You would never have been my boyfriend.”

For a long time, we watched each other. Finally-not meanly-he said, “Yeah, you’re probably right,” and I began to cry. (When I went over the conversation, and over and over and over it, thinking of that part continued to make me cry. It never made things any better to remember that I had forced the admission.)

“Lee,” he said, and his voice was pleading. “Lee, it was-there were a lot of things that were good. You were funny. That was one of the things.”

I wiped my eyes.

“You were-this will sound weird, but you were businesslike. It was as if you expected me to come back and were trying to plan for it.”

I had been businesslike?

“You’ll be happier in college,” he said.

I blinked at him.

“I just think you’re that kind of person.”

“Is this about the Times article?”

“No. Well, not exactly. It’s not like anything you said in the article surprised me.”

To be talking about something other than us and whether he’d ever touch me again seemed a waste of time. And yet I was intrigued.

“Your mistake wasn’t expressing your ideas per se,” he said. “It was expressing them in The New York Times instead of writing an editorial for The A.V., or giving a chapel talk. In the Times, you’re just giving ammunition to people who want to think prep schools are evil, which isn’t what will make anything change on this campus.”

“So you think things should change?”

“Some things, sure. On the whole, Ault does a good job, but there’s always room for improvement.” Of course he thought this-what a balanced perspective!

“Were you appalled that I said all that stuff to the reporter?” I asked.

“You could have chosen a different forum. That’s my only point. That, and that I think it’s good you’re going to a big school, somewhere less conformist than Ault. Which isn’t to say you’re as weird as you think you are.” (How bizarre this conversation was turning out to be, what surprising remarks were emerging from Cross’s mouth.) “You confuse being weird and spending time alone,” he continued. “But anyone who’s really interested in anything spends time alone. Like basketball for me-look at what I’m doing right now. Or Norie Cleehan and pottery, or Horton and ballet. I could give twenty other examples. If you want to be good at something, you have to practice, and usually you practice by yourself. The fact that you spend time alone-you shouldn’t feel like it’s strange.”