Will and Juan exaggerate their moves, throwing their hands in the air, grinding their hips into ours, singing loudly along with the lyrics. It’s embarrassing and ridiculous, but pretty hilarious, like a bad YouTube video. Max and I look at each other and crack up. Max takes my hand and pulls me away as Will and Juan, eyes focused on each other, dance to their own private party.

“How we doing?” Max asks as we walk over toward the pool, both giving up on dancing.

“I’m glad I came,” I say.

“Me too.”

Max puts his fingers under my chin and tilts my head toward him. I look into his face and I am overwhelmed by a rush of emotion. I may love this boy. Or maybe it’s just infatuation. Whatever it is, it’s powerful and highly addictive. I could get used to having him around.

There’s a rebel yell, and suddenly Charlie cannonballs into the pool. A huge cheer goes up, and then, one after another, people jump in after him. Most of them are in their clothes, but a few have stripped down to their underwear. The DJ turns up the music, and now there are more people in the pool than on the dance floor. The sun is setting, about to dip below the horizon, and the lights in the pool illuminate the water so that it shimmers a deep blue.

Max and I walk to the water’s edge.

“Want to go in? No eels. I promise.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

I grab Max’s hand, and together we take a flying leap into the pool.

said I’d be okay when Kylie left, and I am, but it took a while. For the first twenty-three days, I sat on my bed after school and bounced a Nerf ball off the ceiling until dinner was ready. Mom got mad at me, a lot. And I got mad back. Some days a woman named Gloria babysat me. I like Gloria, mainly because she brings me Airheads. Then we figured out that I could Skype with Kylie, and now we do that almost every day at 3:00, which is 6:00 on the East Coast, where she lives now. Sometimes she’s eating dinner when we’re talking. She eats a lot of chicken ramen. And apples. She showed me her dorm room, and I met her roommate. Once Kylie stuck her computer out the window so I could see what she sees. Lots and lots of buildings. A long street with stores and cars and buses everywhere. I saw a CVS sign and a McDonald’s sign.

Dad is still gone a lot, working, but he learned to put the fork in the right place, and my milk, and he taught me so many soccer tricks, I think I might play in the World Cup someday. I’m really, really good. I even started playing on a team every Saturday morning. Three times now Max has come over and played soccer with us, like he did all summer. I’m better than he is.

Today is Thanksgiving and Dad told me he would let me carve the turkey with him using the electric carving knife that Mom got him. It’s kind of like a chain saw for meat. Too bad Kylie’s not here. She loves stuffing and cranberry sauce almost as much as I love Airheads.

I can’t wait to see her at Christmas.

alter, you can’t smuggle food into a café and just sit here and eat it,” Gabrielle says.

“They’re just lucky I’m not homeless and reeking of urine.

This is New York. Far worse things than this occur,” Walter insists.

“It’s just weird. Buy a sandwich. Or a muffin. I don’t get why you have to bring in food from the dorm,” Gabrielle says.

“Why pay when we get all the food we can eat for free?

Besides, I’m not doing anything clandestine.” Walter holds up a sandwich, purloined from the dorm, for the world to see.

“Peanut butter sandwich, people, right here. If they have a problem, they can come talk to me. Or handcuff me. Whatever they see fit. I’ll take my punishment like a man. Until then, let me eat my peanut butter in peace.”

“Give me half.” Gabrielle holds her hand out.

“You harass me and then you want my food. I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”

We’re sitting at Café Drip, in the East Village, a bit removed from the crush of NYU coffee drinkers, and we like it like that. We’re here every Monday and Wednesday to study Western Civ. The only class we all have together. It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so we’re actually done with school and not studying today. We’re just hanging until Gabrielle and Walter have to go to the airport to catch their flights home. Walter’s from D.C. His dad is some bigwig at the State Department. Gabrielle is from Chicago. Unlike me, they’re both flying home for the holiday. I’m staying here, with a little takeout turkey in my dorm room. Mom and Dad could only afford the flight at Christmas. Cue the sounds of a violin playing in the background to accompany my self-pity. This is going to be one sucky Thanksgiving. I console myself with the fact that it’s only four days.

When I first walked into my dorm room and discovered Gabrielle was my roommate, I was horrified. Gabrielle is scary beautiful with flawless chocolate skin and a five-foot-nine-inch body. I figured she’d either be a vapid girly-girl or a pretentious snob. But she’s neither. She’s wry and sharp and curious about everything.

Walter is a lot like Will, in that he’s gay, he’s brilliant, and he’s my friend, but in other ways he’s nothing like Will. He’s the most serious, intense, motivated person I’ve ever met. His daily movie viewings, on top of all our homework, make me feel like a sloth. And don’t get me wrong, I’m busting my butt here; I just don’t have it in me to keep going and going and going the way Walter does. I can’t imagine life without Gabrielle and Walter, and yet a mere three and a half months ago we didn’t even know one another.

I still miss Will and Max ferociously. I thought it would abate as the months passed, but it’s as painful as the day I left. It helps that Will texts me throughout the day, offering up a running commentary on life at Berkeley.

Remarkably, against all odds, he and Juan are still together. “Deeply in love. Inextricably attached,” Will says. They see each other twice a month, which is a lot more than I’ve seen Max, who I haven’t laid eyes on since the day I left for New York (unless you count Skype, which I don’t), almost four months ago. We text, we talk, we Skype every day, sometimes twice a day when we can manage it with the time difference, but it’s just not the same as being there. But what can we do? It is what it is. If we can survive this, we can survive anything.

Walter looks at his watch. “We should go, Gabs.”

“You gonna be okay? All by your lonesome?” Gabrielle asks me.

“I’m gonna be fine. I’m going to study for Carter’s exam, see a bunch of movies. It’ll be nice to have a mellow weekend.” I’m not looking forward to it at all, but I’d never admit it.

We all walk outside onto Avenue A, where Walter hails a cab. We hug and then they climb into the cab. I feel like crying as I watch the car disappear into the traffic. Mostly, New York feels like home in a way San Diego never did, but on rare occasions, when I miss Max or Jake or my parents, and the city seems full of other people laughing, walking arm in arm, full of purpose, it can feel like the loneliest place in the world.

I decide to walk the eight or so blocks back to my dorm. I love the street life in the East Village. Men in dapper suits and old-school punkers with multiple piercings fight for space on these blocks. As I take in the smells of roasting peanuts and the sounds of ambulances and cars honking, I remind myself how lucky I am. I’m in New York City. So I don’t have plans for Thanksgiving. If that’s the worst fate to befall me, I’m doing pretty well this year.