Read Online Undeclared by Jen Frederick - Free Book Online

haunting me around campus.
    “Why are you here, at Central?” I specified so he wouldn’t respond with something lame, like “because I drove you home.”
    “It’s the Harvard of the Midwest?” Noah countered. The statement sounded more like a question, like he was asking if I bought his response. I didn’t.
    “What about ‘Bo won’t move north of the Mason Dixon line,’” I countered.
    “I may have lied about the weather to Bo and suggested it was a lot warmer than it really is.”
    “He bought that?’
    “He’d never been here before.”
    “What’s going to happen when it snows? Or the temperature falls below freezing?”
    “I may be looking for a new place to live come November, when Bo figures out that the temp gets fairly low. Got a couch?” His smile turned wry, as if he knew I was going to say no, but I didn’t know what to make of this question. It was probably just rote flirtation, no different than washing your hands by habit after using the restroom.
    “Yes, but it’s very hard. The couch has seen a lot of activity.”
    This time I gave him pause.
    “I don’t want to know, do I?” His tone was rueful but not accusatory. I didn’t elaborate.
    Perhaps sensing I was reaching my limit for small talk, Noah said, “I remembered you telling me that it was a great school, Ivy League quality but without the East Coast… What did you call it?”
    “Ancestry bias.”
    “Right, more focused on attracting new blood than maintaining old lines. I couldn’t afford four years, but I could swing two. So here I am. Fresh out of junior college and ready to get my Finance degree.”
    Everything he said made sense, but I still felt like he was leaving something out.
    I cocked my head to the side and considered him. He wore a calm look on his face, but the skin around his eyes was tight and drawn. If he had been older, maybe he would’ve had furrows in his brow. The light smile he wore didn’t seem to fit the rest of the expression on his face.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “No more questions?”
    “Why lie in wait for me after class today?”
    “Ah, well, it took me a week of recon to figure out your class schedule. Last class of the day, last day of the week seemed to make good sense at the time. It wasn’t until I was there and all the other people were around that I realized I had made a shitty decision.”
    “Smooth.”
    “Yeah, not my best.”
    “What about the library?”
    “I didn’t want to bother you during work hours, but when I came down as the library was closing, you were gone.”
    “Why seek me out at all?” I asked, remembering how I left in a hurry that day, thinking I had seen a figment of my imagination.
    “I think you may have figured out from my letters that I don’t have a lot of family. You were the only one who wrote me for my entire deployment, and any good memories I have of those four years are all tied up with you, Grace. How could I not come here?”
    There was only one response to this, but I left it unsaid. He knew he was breaking me down, but I wasn’t out yet. If he had truly felt this way, why not meet two years ago? He had talked around the issue, so I let it go. I felt exhausted, like I had run a triathlon or some other extreme physical activity that wears you out so much even your teeth ache from tiredness.
    I dropped my head and stared at the coffee table, counting the faint grain lines under the layers of lacquer. If I ran my hand across it, I would feel slight imperfections in the coating as if the lacquer had clotted up in places or an air bubble got painted into the surface. That was our conversation, smooth on the surface but lumpy underneath.
    “So now what?” I asked, turning my head to the side to peer at him. Not bothering to sit fully upright, I was unwilling to let him think he was completely off the hook.
    “Now, I…“ he paused, ran his hand through his hair.
    I finished for him. “Friends?”
    “Friends, sure.”
    I wanted to know what