“Thank you, dear. I hope your move went well. Don’t tell me about it now. Call me after you enroll in those classes.” She hangs up.

I stare at the phone. “Love you, too.”

I look up the administrative hours on the website and see I can’t actually talk to anyone for an hour. I have enough time to shower, change, and eat breakfast.

In the kitchen, I find Riley pouring milk over a bowl of cereal.

“Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“My mom told me that my scar looked ugly and I should eat less so I didn’t show it to the world.”

“So Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk.” She sets both boxes back into the cupboard and brings out slow death by sugar.

I shake my head. “I can’t. I ate your Fruit Loops yesterday and nearly went into diabetic shock by noon. I don’t know how you do it. You are all of five feet nothing, eat like a horse, and weigh less than a hundred soaking wet.”

She grins and flexes. “I’m small but mighty and need this nectar of the gods to keep me going. It fuels my metabolism.”

“That’s not how metabolism works.” I grab a bagel and pop it into the toaster. “Sugar slows down your metabolism and—”

Riley holds up a hand. “You can stop right there. I don’t want to hear your nutritionist-in-training truths. I’ve eaten this kind of cereal all my life and I can’t stop now. It’d be a cruel shock to my system.”

“I thought I told you I was an English major.” Technically, I planned to write for a living—grant applications, speeches, reports. After years of writing for Jack, I figured I might as well put my experience to good use.

“Oh, you did, but all the groceries you’ve bought are healthy stuff.” Riley pours herself a giant bowl of cereal and drenches it with her chocolate soy milk. My teeth ache watching her eat, but if eating sugary things for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is her worst trait, she’ll be the best roommate ever. “So what are your plans for today? My family is still in town if you want to hang out with us. I apologize in advance for my younger sister, Rachel. She’s at that awkward age between knowing it all and knowing nothing. Plus, we can’t have her anywhere near your hot brother or she may try to hump him.”

“After that convincing invitation, I’ll pass. No offense.” I’d met Rachel yesterday, and she acted every bit as sullen as Riley describes. “But thanks for the warning regarding Jack. I’m glad you seem to be immune. My roommate at junior college desperately wanted in the pants of a football player. I tried to warn her that so many of the players are one and done. That’s how they get the label player.”

“I’m not saying I’m immune, but I’m not dating my roommate’s brother. There lies madness.” She stabs her spoon at me to punctuate her point. “Besides, I’ve had my eye on this guy from my advanced economics last year. He was adorable and, according to his Facebook status, he’s still single.”

“Booyah,” I say and give her a high five.

“What about you? You into the football players?”

“No. I dated one in high school and that was enough for me.” That’s a bad memory I don’t want to revisit. It’s the source of so much guilt, which is why I shouldn’t have lingered in the stadium to flirt with Masters, and why I left before I could fall under the spell of his easy charisma. “I don’t know what I want, but it’s not a jock. I mean, I know football players are all different, but their focus is the same—winning, whether it’s on the field or off.”

“Yeah,” Riley sighs. “It’s the same everywhere. Most of the guys I’ve met just want to hook up.”

“I think I’d marry the first guy who hit on me in the bookstore.”

We share a commiserating sigh.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she says between giant bites of chocolate cereal.

My phone rings again. “Jeez. It’s like Grand Central in here.” But I pick up when I see Jack’s face.

“Hey, Jack. We were just talking about you.”

“About how awesome I am? That would be my topic of choice, too.”

“How about you’re not as interesting as an econ major.”

Riley winks at me and gives me another high five. “Sorry, Jack,” she yells. “You have too much body fat for me.”

“What?” he says, instantly outraged. “You tell your roommate my body fat is 8%. In no world is that too much.”

“Apparently it is in Riley’s world.” Riley gulps down the last of her cereal and heads back into her bedroom while I hit my own room to get ready to face administration.

“Your roommate needs a little education, Ellie Bellie.”

“First, do not call me that, and second, no dating the roommates.” I rifle through my closet to find an outfit that says I’m a serious student. I think that means a skirt and a button down shirt. I find a navy pencil skirt that looks like it belongs in my mother’s closet and a white Oxford shirt.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Look, are you having dinner with me tonight? You blew me off last time to have dinner with your roommate, so you kind of owe me.”

“I can’t. I’m going over to the learning center to meet with the director. She can’t make time for me until after six. You should come with.” For one of my classes I’m writing a mock grant, and I chose the Agrippa Learning Center, a nonprofit that specializes in helping at risk kids who have learning disabilities.

“No, thanks. Why are you going now? Classes haven’t started.”

“I wanted to get a jump on things. Are you sure you don’t want to come with? It’s a cool place.”

Maybe you’d get inspired by seeing some kids working through their disabilities. They seemed so bright, interesting, and courageous. I wish Jack could see that, but he refused. As though even going near a center like that would make people think him dumb.

“Ellie, you told me it was painted the color of piss-yellow and smelled about the same.”

“I might have exaggerated.”

“Yeah, still not interested. You’re having dinner with me tomorrow then.”

Tomorrow would be Thursday. Did he have a team dinner then? I’d like to avoid the football team as much as possible. “I’ll think about it.”

“Either you come willingly or I’ll send the offensive line to carry you over,” he threatens.

“I said I’d think about it.”

“Too bad. It’s happening,” he says cheerfully. “Gotta run. Love you, Ellie Bellie. See you tomorrow at six.”

And for the second time before the clock even rolls to nine in the morning, someone in my family hangs up on me.

3 Knox

I’d convinced myself at some point, maybe senior year of high school or maybe my first year at Western, that going without sex made me a better player. That belief had held me in good stead for years. Whenever I felt like wavering, I reminded myself that the pursuit of my dreams was more important than screwing some girl I wouldn’t remember after I’d moved on. So it surprises me a little that while I can’t get the brunette from the stadium out of my head, I’m sharper than ever.

This morning’s scrimmage feels like I’m playing Madden on easy mode. I see everything JR “Ace” Anderson, our quarterback, will do before he does it. I’m reading the shifts in the offensive line as if I was in their huddle. Coach takes me out after the tenth series.

“Save some of that for the game,” he orders. “Besides, you’re killing Ace’s confidence. Go do the ladder. You can work on your footwork and get rid of some of that goddamned energy without demoralizing half your team.”

“Yes, Coach.” I give him a cocky salute and go off to run through the string ladder set up between the twenty and third yard lines opposite the line of scrimmage. There I do multiple sets of agility exercises—the centipede, the Icky Shuffle, the Riverdance—and the whole time I have brown eyes in my head watching me, clapping for me to go faster and harder.