Chapter Two
T HE LAST TIME I SAW Will Langford was an accident.
He was always supposed to stay in the high school section of my brain, where I keep disappointing math grades and embarrassing prom photos. But I saw him by chance four years later, when I went to Middlebury to do a summer program and he was moving out after graduation.
Then that was supposed to be the last time I saw him. If it were up to him, at least.
But he’s here now, at Perrin, in front of me, taller than I remember. Not that my memory is trustworthy. In the last six years, I’ve replayed the last time I saw him so many times that the memory is both crisp and blurred. My mind never knows what to do with it.
He looks tired. Crow’s-feet, faint under-eye bags. He smells like how I remember—some uniquely him medley of spice and salt and musk.
“Do you guys know each other?” Hazel blurts out, watching our strange, strained interaction.
Will’s jaw muscle tightens just a hair, then releases. “Yes—”
“We went to the same high school,” I say quickly, though I wonder how he would’ve put it had I let him finish. Social decorum may dictate that now would be a good time to give him a loose hug in lieu of a handshake, but I can’t make my body do it, and he clearly isn’t going to initiate contact, either.
Will nods and looks me dead in the eye, his own wide and puncturing. “It’s been, what? Six years?”
Six years, two months. I say “Yes” instead.
The group moves on, chatting among themselves once again. Will stays in front of me and I feel the urge to touch him, just to prove he’s neither ghost nor myth.
“I didn’t know you would be here,” he says.
Obviously. I haven’t kept up with Will, and frankly, I haven’t wanted to. I was never his friend on Facebook, didn’t follow him on Instagram. Standing before me now, he has the same expression he did six years ago, when he abandoned me on a sun-drenched sidewalk in Vermont: cold and unwavering.
I laugh. “I guess we haven’t really spoken since Middlebury.”
He grimaces, which satisfies me. “I saw your poem in the Goldfinch Review last year.” His eyes leave mine to drift to my feet, my hips, my mouth. I feel the movement like the crash of a wave.
“Yeah, well… that was just sort of a random piece I sent out.”
He nods and looks at me searchingly, as if waiting for me to say something else. I don’t.
“But you’ve been well?” He angles his body away, glancing around the room as if begging for someone to save him.
“Yeah, great.” I twist the stem of the wineglass between my fingers. “And you?”
He opens his mouth, then hesitates, and I see something brewing behind his cold gaze, some sort of energy in his body that makes him flex his hand, purse his lips. But then he stands up straighter and becomes more looming than ever.
“I’ve been good.” And that’s that.
I desperately need an excuse to leave this conversation. Luckily, Sharon Kitchener opens the door to the deck and ushers us outside, where Daniel grills peppers and chicken breasts, the smells of paprika and fresh-cut grass intermingling in the day’s heat.
Will leaves my side to grab a beer. Within seconds, Kacey is next to me, whispering, “He’s very attractive,” turning to make sure he’s not there. She says it conspiratorially, as if we’ve known each other for years and she wants to gossip. My stomach tightens, but I also very much want to make a friend, and Kacey’s willingness to confide in me so early is a good start.
“He’s okay,” I whisper back, and she snorts as if I’ve said something inconceivable.
Outside, on the patio, Daniel’s backyard is glow-glazed with early evening. I want to see if Will is looking at me, but that would require looking at him, and I won’t give him the satisfaction. I try to concentrate on the group of writers in front of me—Wiebke, Athena, Christine—but I’m too distracted. A strange tension in my chest threatens to bubble over.
Daniel sets down his spatula and claps. Everyone quiets. “Well, friends, I am just so impressed with this cohort of fiction writers and poets. So, so many talented writers apply to our program every year, and you should feel very proud to be here. We’ve selected you based on your work and the fierce intellectual curiosity you demonstrated in your personal statements, and we’ve tried to create a diverse cohort with diverse styles.”
I eye the group, but Will, several feet away from me, stares straight at Daniel.
“I hope the next two years are those of great development and growth, both as writers and as humans. The people standing around you today are the ones who will push you, elevate you, learn with you. By the end of this program, I hope you emerge with work you are proud of, as well as relationships that will define your artistic and personal lives.”
We all offer one another shy smiles.
“So with that, please enjoy tonight—we have plenty of wine, plenty of beer, and in about an hour, the second-year cohort will join you for even more merriment.” Daniel claps again and raises his own glass. “To a year of growth and lots and lots of writing!”
We all raise our glasses and cheers. And that’s when I notice Will is looking at me.
It’s 8:00 p.m. and I’m buzzed on wine. Everyone else is, too, and our conversations have finally pivoted from the other MFA programs we were deciding among (Hazel wants everyone to know she almost went to Michigan; I share with no one that this was my only option) to the writers we admire, which is only nominally better. I imagine it will take another round before everyone relaxes and stops talking about writing.
Kacey is the best friendship bet so far. She reminds me a bit of Gen, a bit of my sorority clique at Tufts. She doesn’t seem to have the natural pretension the others have. In her ripped jeans and tank top, she looks more like a camp counselor than a poetry student.
But I’m not sure about the others. They all want to talk about poetry and writing. I want to talk about the food we’re eating, maybe the logistics of our schedules, the cities we’re from, how nervous I am about the MFA. How I hope they’re nervous, too.
“So what kind of poetry do you like?” Hazel asks. It feels like a trick question, and I’m not sure how to answer. Beyond what I was assigned to read in college, I didn’t really read poetry in my spare time. The rare times I went looking for it, I enjoyed online lit mags with more experimental, pop-culture-focused poems. The only poet whose body of work I really know is Erica Go. But I’m certainly not about to announce that on day one.
“Oh, I read a bit of everything.” I volley it back to her. “What about you?”
She rattles off five or six names. I’ve only heard of one of them (Ocean Vuong).
Christine, the fiction writer from North Carolina, joins the conversation and tells us she writes in a surrealist style, like a recent short story about a woman giving birth to a fish that won a prize at a small literary journal.
“It’s less about the fish and more about the mother’s capacity to love her child,” she adds.
“Wow, that’s really interesting,” I say, like an idiot.
Across the backyard, I see Will talking to Wiebke and Morris. I imagine they’re discussing all the fancy journals they’ve been published in, the fellowships they’re going to get after the MFA, the famous writers who wrote their recommendations.
But the low din of voices and indie music is soon cut by a ruckus in the house. And out comes a group—the second-years.
“Hey y’all!” drawls a girl with thick purple-rimmed glasses and an arm covered in geometric tattoos. “We’re here to pick up the first-years and take you to my apartment for a cozy little after-party!”
There’s about five of them there, and they all look to be around the same age range as us—mid-twenties to early thirties. One man is very handsome with cornflower-blue eyes and long blond hair he’s tied in a bun on top of his head. He makes brief eye contact with me, and my stomach fizzes.
We say goodbye and thank you to the Kitcheners and are then led three blocks away to the girl with tattoos’ apartment. Her name is Penelope and she’s a twenty-five-year-old poet from Boston. Her apartment is significantly less nice than the Kitcheners’ house, but it is indeed cozy and has a cooler full of Pabst Blue Ribbon. A record player spins something I don’t recognize, and North Carolina’s humidity has our faces dewy.
Will talks to the guy with the blond bun and a tall, lanky girl with a mullet and an angular, modelesque face. I sit next to Hazel, Penelope, and Kacey in the living room. And for the first time all night, I’m able to take my time looking at Will.
He stands with all his weight on one leg, shoulders leaning against the door of the kitchen as if he can’t balance on his own, his chest oriented toward the living room. I watch his lips tug upward. I watch him chuckle. A sliver of dark chest hair peeks out from where he’s unbuttoned his linen shirt.
Across the room, his eyes meet mine and his entire expression calcifies like stone. My immediate urge is to look away, but as if to test him, or maybe myself, I stare back. He breaks away first, and I feel immense satisfaction.
“Leigh?”
I jump back into consciousness. Penelope stares with a kind smile. “Sorry.” I force a laugh. “I’m definitely feeling the wine. I’m going to get a cup of water, actually.”
She points to the kitchen. “Cupboard above the sink has cups.”
“Great, thanks.” I walk toward the kitchen, passing Will and the two second-years, careful not to look at any of them.
In front of the sink, I steady myself and drink two cups of water in a row.
“Whoa, slow down there.”
I turn, and it’s the guy with the bun, grinning. “Too much wine,” I say, extending my hand. “Don’t think I’ve introduced myself yet. I’m Leigh.”
He shakes it, and his blue eyes are pretty enough that I feel self-conscious looking for too long. He must know they’re pretty, from the way he smiles.
“August. Let me guess. You’re a… poet?”
“What gives it away?”
“Poets always get drunk first at MFA parties.” A pearl of sweat forms above his lips.
“So you’re a poet, too?” I smirk back.
“Yes, but I must say, after a year of this, I’ve gotten better at holding my liquor.” He takes a sip of Pbr and leans forward, smelling like tobacco. “I think it’s time for shots,” he whispers. Turning his head from me, he cups his hand around his mouth to yell, “Shots!”
I hear woos in the background. The light is dim, the mood is light, and within minutes I’m shooting Fireball with everyone else.
Kacey appears next to me, and she’s just as tipsy. “Hi, Leigh!” she says with great enthusiasm and a subtle Texan twang. Despite our drinking, her dark-brown eyes look alert.
“August is going to guess if you’re fiction or poetry,” I announce as August sips on water.
“Oh! Okay, do it.” She stares at him pointedly.
August looks her entire body up and down. He’s shameless in the way his eyes linger at her neckline, her breasts spilling over in her low-cut tank top.
“Poet,” he declares after a moment of thought.
“Oh my god, that is amazing,” Kacey exclaims, slapping her palm to her chest in disbelief. “How can you tell?”
August goes to stand behind her and dips his head low to hover in the crook of her neck. He points to the couch at the center of the living room, where Hazel, Jerry, and a few second-years are sitting. “Half the fiction writers went home already. It’s the wild ones who are left.”
This makes me snort. I’m drunk, but I’m hardly wild. I’m wearing seersucker.
Kacey seems slightly more impressed.
“In what ways are you wild?” she coos, turning to face him.
I’m no longer interested in this conversation and how it will inevitably play out, so I take another glass of water to counteract the Fireball and turn back into the living room. But instead of making it to the couch, I stumble into something firm and musky, and watch water slush out of my cup in horrifying slow motion.
“Oh my god.” I jump backward, but a steady hand grabs my bicep to still me.
“Maybe shouldn’t have taken that shot,” a cool, low voice says. Of course it’s Will, whose linen shirt is now dripping from the center of his chest down, like a bleeding heart.
“I’m not drunk,” I declare, drunk. “Not drunk enough to do this, at least.” I point to his chest, then my chest, then back again. I’m about to turn away when I realize he’s still gripping my arm.
“Leigh.” It’s almost like a scold, but there’s an undercurrent there that I can’t identify in my haze. His eyes are so dark, and I feel their blackness against my throat.
“Will.”
He releases me. “I, uh”—he coughs—“go by William now. I sort of transitioned to that in the last few years.”
“Why?” I look him up and down as if that will reveal the answer.
“Just… grew out of ‘Will.’ Wanted to try something different, and it stuck.”
“I’m not going to call you that.”
He clearly has no idea what to say to that, so he ignores it altogether. I’m not sure if it’s just the alcohol, but his face shades a deep strawberry.
“So how have the last six years been for you?” I lean my body against the doorframe for support.
He hesitates. “Good.”
“Do anything fun? Get published in The New Yorker yet? Are you living the dream?”
“I did a master’s in English at Bucknell. Then worked as an editor for a magazine in Pittsburgh for a bit. Now I’m here.” He pauses, looking at me as if he’s waiting for something. “And you?”
“Graduated. Was working as a copywriter for an ad agency in Boston up until last month.”
He nods. “Sounds productive.” Then adds, in a low voice, “You look good, Leigh.”
He looks better, but I don’t tell him that. Instead, I do something even more self-indulgent, something I absolutely know I’d never do if I were sober.
“So, you bring your girlfriend to move here with you?”
There’s a glint in his eye, and his lip curls, and I hate that in that moment, he knows he’s won something.
“I’m not seeing anyone right now.”
“Ah,” I say dumbly. “Well, that’s great, it’s always more convenient to—”
“Are you?” He cuts me off.
“No.”
“Cool.”
“Is it? Cool?”
“Yep.”
“Great. Sorry about the water.” His now-damp shirt is molding into the planes of his stomach like a taunt. “Okay, bye.” I shoot across the room onto the couch next to Hazel, who is still regaling her audience with hot takes about Iowa.
“We were thinking of going to karaoke at the dive bar down the street,” Penelope says. “You in, Leigh?”
In the kitchen, Will blots his shirt and says something to August and Kacey, who look like they’re about to devour each other.
“Yeah… think I need to sleep, actually. But next time.” Penelope nods. The rest stand up and start grabbing bags and wallets.
I take one more glance at Will, the sharp edge in his voice pond-skipping across my brain. And in that moment, I already know how this is going to end.