Parallel

over, it meant that you and I would . . .” Heat creeps up my neck. I can’t even say the word without blushing.
    “Well, in the future, if you’d like to remove your outerwear before sleeping, I won’t take it as a signal that you’re asking for sex.”
    I squirm under his gaze, suddenly very uncomfortable with all the sex talk. If you can’t handle the sex talk, you’re probably not ready for sex.
    My phone rings from inside my purse, buried under Michael’s shirt at the foot of the bed. I scramble for it, glad for the distraction.
    “Ben and I found the most amazing costumes!” Marissa squeals before I can even say hello. “Power Rangers!” In the background, Ben belts out a very off-key version of the theme song. “She has green, pink, red, blue, and yellow,” Marissa says. “Which ones do you guys want?”
    “She?”
    “We’re at some lady’s house in Hamden,” Marissa replies. “Ben found her on Craigslist.” When he heard we didn’t have costumes yet, Ben appointed himself costume master for tonight’s activities, which consist of a pre-party at Michael’s house, a few hours at Inferno (the infamous banned-for-five-years-but-now-it’s-back Halloween party in the courtyard of Pierson College), then on to the midnight symphony at Woolsey Hall.
    “Which Power Ranger do you want to be?” I ask Michael.
    “Green!” he shouts, flinging off the covers and leaping to his feet. “Go, go, Power Rangers!” With his hair all messed up, he looks like a little kid. With underwear-model abs. “I’m gonna get some water,” he tells me, then pads out of the room in his jeans and bare feet.
    I hear the beep of an incoming call. “What about you?” Marissa wants to know. “Which color?” The line beeps again. I pull the phone away from my ear to check the number. It’s an L.A. area code, but I don’t recognize the number. Who could possibly be calling? It’s six in the morning on the West Coast, and none of the people I know in California remember knowing me.
    “Abby?” I hear Marissa say. “Did I lose you?”
    “No, no, I’m here,” I say. “Sorry. I was getting another call. Did you ask me something?”
    “Just what color you wanted.”
    “Oh! Yellow, I guess?”
    “Yay! Okay, we’re buying them. See you guys tonight!”
    As soon as we disconnect, it dawns on me that Caitlin probably doesn’t have a costume yet, either. She’s been spending so much time at Dr. Mann’s lab (and on the train getting to Dr. Mann’s lab) that I doubt she even knows it’s Halloween. I text Marissa to tell her to get all five suits, just in case. As I’m putting my phone back in my bag, it vibrates with a new voicemail.
    “So what’re you up to today?”
    Michael has reappeared, holding two glasses of water and sucking on an Atomic Fireball. His face is damp, like he just washed it. I, meanwhile, can feel dried drool on my cheek. I grab a stick of gum from my bag, eager to mitigate the effects of last night’s beer pong. My tongue feels like it’s coated in cotton.
    “Library,” I say. “I have a YDN article to write and two hundred pages of reading to finish before my Philosophy of Theology midterm on Monday.”
    “Let’s study together,” he suggests, handing me one of the glasses. “I loved that class.”
    “You took Hare’s class?” I ask between gulps.
    He nods. “Freshman year. After twelve years at a Christian school, I figured it’d be an easy A.”
    “You went to Christian school?” I’d pictured a prestigious East Coast prep school, somewhere with a Latin motto and its own coat of arms.
    “Yup. K through eleven.” Michael turns away and starts digging through the pile of clothes on his desk chair.
    “But not senior year?”
    “Nope. Senior year was public school.” He pulls out a Red Sox T-shirt, smells it, then puts it on. “Clean,” he declares, and grins. “You want some breakfast?”
    There is so much I want to know about this guy whose bed I’ve just slept in. Despite the amount of time we’ve spent together over the past seven weeks, I can still count the things I know about him on one hand: He’s from Massachusetts. His middle name is Evan. His parents are divorced, and he’s never mentioned any siblings. And now, this latest tidbit: twelve years of parochial school. It’s not that he’s evasive about personal stuff—he just doesn’t offer it up. And I, not wanting to pry, don’t ask.
    “So?” Michael says as he walks me to the door.