With nearly twenty-three frozen tabs on top of my computer screen, I had a hard time coming up with something that could make my summer busier.

Lazy afternoons at the beach, long road trips, spa days were past luxuries I would probably never get to afford again.

My usual homework and research article tabs were each reduced to tiny-sized icons because of the ridiculous number. Next to them, I had some new pages open about Miles Whitman and his books.

I would have liked to think that I could remain pretty detached from his issues and Alec's, but apparently, it was now one of the major focus points of my internship.

Not that I had even tried to show any resistance as more things to think about stacked into messy piles in my brain—even more unresponsive than the tabs on my computer.

In my defense, it didn't really help me stand my ground when Miles looked at me the stupid way he did, like my soul was already bare on a silver platter in front of him, just waiting for him to crush it.

I skimmed an article about his debut novel, picking up on about five words from every paragraph. Whitman's debut novel... half of North Carolina... probably because of his rich father... honest writing... your friendly neighborhood reporter... average young adult novel.

This was probably not the way to understand the context of all the bits I was catching, but I didn't have the time for that.

I skipped to the end, where a particular word had caught my attention. I had been seeing it everywhere since Mr. Crawford had mentioned it last Friday. He had also spent every minute of his class this morning trying to make sure we got it.

"Just This Once," the reviewer wrote, "is all heart, plus a special disregard for typical grammatical rules. It's not a new concept, but it's real. That's what has his audience—which is essentially all of Raleigh—waiting for whatever he has to say next. And if this one was any indication of what's awaiting us, it's going to be good."

I clicked the "submit" button on my own story for Mr. Crawford's class minutes later. I had edited it without mercy and with detached eyes like it was somebody else's work.

If I had forced myself to recall that these words had come from my own fingers' anxious typing, I wouldn't have been able to get through.

Staying detached was the only thing that was working for me, and I would stick to it.

Everything Mr. Crawford emphasized spread into my everyday life scenarios. The more I noticed it, the more I wanted to rebel and show that I could still be good without using his advice.

So, I didn't email. Not this time. He wouldn't get the twisted satisfaction of being right from me today. I would make it with my own philosophy.

➷➷➷

Crazy Marge was really blossoming in this role as the classic old next-door neighbor she had forged for herself.

I had opened the door to find her, holding a large tray of homemade snickerdoodle cookies.

"It's my apology for the last time I came. I'm sorry about your mug; it seemed special to you."

"My mom gave it to me when I was moving," I told her, trying not to stare too hard at the bright flowery dress that shifted around her feet with every movement. "It's not all that important."

Her eyes squinted at me, and I knew I wasn't going to like whatever she said next. "You ought to consider spending more time with your mother."

"I don't have more time—College owns me right now. There's no room to budge. I don't have even have time to do the things I want to do." I took the tray of cookies she was holding out to me.

"You're at home right now," she pointed out, stealing a glance inside my apartment.

"Not for long. I have a night class." The only redemptive aspect of Tuesday night classes was that I shared them with Ace. Because he couldn't stand the thought of waking up early for classes, his options were fairly limited.

She seemed to look through instead of at me as though she could see someone else in my doorway. Her lips parted to form a small "o", but no sound came out. Then she dropped out of the staring contest, in which she had been the sole participant, and stepped back.

"Well, I wasn't planning on staying too long. Enjoy your class." She turned around and walked away, but inches from her own door, as I continued to follow her with my eyes, she turned back to me. "Don't blame your mom, girlie."

"For what?" I asked, but it was as if she had lost her hearing.

Her door closed behind her with a conversation-ending noise I couldn't overturn.

I didn't think much of it. I had stopped expecting her to express herself in something other than cryptic one-liners that she would never explain.

➷➷➷

That evening, I found Ace and Emma in front of my class when I finally made it on campus. The parking lot had been about as scary as during daylight for different reasons.

The issue in the morning was with the anxious scanning for open parking spots. Too many students and not nearly enough lots to make up for it. Although at night, I couldn't tell whether shadows were actually dancing the Macarena behind me or if I was imagining it, mornings were much, much worse.

"Are you seriously keeping her up?" I asked Ace, sliding down the wall onto the floor, my face scrunching up in a grimace at the impact.

"Keeping her? You give me too much credit. It's not like she listens to me. She volunteered to drive me because I was dozing off." He intertwined her thin fingers with his and took a small sip of coffee with his free hand. "Something about caring about my life and stuff."

I smiled. "Ew. How dare she?"

"Right?"

"I'm right here," Emma reminded us, scowling at her boyfriend.

The Social Sciences building was an apocalyptic kind of deserted right now. I couldn't detect any other sound beyond our echoing voices. The perks of haunting the halls at night.

"It would be impossible not to notice you," Ace told her, handing her the cup of coffee.

"Did you end up finding your ice cream spot?" My head rested against the wall, unable to sustain itself.

"Better yet. We went to 15 of the 30 shops that weren't all that far. That's fifteen times more ice cream than I would have gotten to eat had we found it. Either way, I think I found a parlor that's even better than my old favorite. So, road trip success." He didn't say anything for a moment, then he asked, "How did your thing go?"

"My what?" I asked, then I remembered what he was referring to. There was no mischievous, scheming look on his face. He wasn't trying to trap me. "Oh. Yeah, it was good."

Disrupting the silence, a guy walked out of a classroom across the hall, dressed in a professional outfit I had never seen anyone wear at school. He carried a guitar case and cables in his hands.

"Oh!" Emma waved at him once she could make out his face and waved him over, jumping from her spot on the floor.

The guy gave her what looked like a polite smile that didn't match her excitement as he glanced at us with narrowed eyes.

"This is Sebastian," she said. "I told you about him earlier. He offered to help me with the musical segment of my choreography for the homecoming showcase."

"What do you play?" Ace asked as he stood up too, leaving me as the sole nutcase on the floor. Seating on the floor was only cool when with company.

"A few different things, but mostly the piano," he replied with a shrug.

"He's been playing since he was five and is an absolute musical genius," Emma added when she noticed he wouldn't expand.

Sebastian fixed his glasses on his nose and brushed away imaginary dirt from his black pants.

"What are you doing here so late?" Emma asked, shifting from talking about him to addressing him directly.

"There's an isolated room on the top floor. I was working on the piece I'm composing for you," he said.

She turned back to us for background info we didn't ask for. "We were struggling to find something fresh. He's only ever composed music for his classes. He figured it would be an interesting challenge to come up with something on his own." She couldn't conceal the excitement from her voice. "He's written several measures of it already from watching my rehearsals. It was impressive."

"Ooh, what else can he do?" Ace asked, his tone more teasing than annoyed, but she still didn't catch the sarcasm laced in it.

"Well, he's also a really good choreographer. He's been giving me a couple of pointers about what I'm working on."

Sebastian nodded as a confirmation that she wasn't making up entire paragraphs of his life. The curly black strands of his hair bounced along with his head, tracking his every move.

"Oh, and that's Ace, my boyfriend. And this is Kelly," she said, pointing to me on the floor where I continued to follow their interaction.

I managed to pull off a tired smile for lack of a better way to communicate "nice to meet you" without any words. Sebastian's eyes lingered on Ace, scrutinizing him.

"Nice to meet you," he finally said, putting his guitar case down for a moment to shake Ace's hand while returning my smile.

"It's a pleasure," Ace said, his honest eyes giving away the truth that he wasn't getting any kind of pleasure from this.

"I have to get going." Sebastian waved with his instrument. "I'll see you in the morning," he added to Emma.

"Great running into you," Emma said as he walked away.

We settled back down while waiting for our class to start. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to come so early. But I figured Marge wouldn't have assumed I lied to get rid of her if I didn't leave early.

Our conversation carried on as before, teasing and joking. So I figured I was the only one to notice that the silences in between were tenser than they had been a few minutes earlier.