You Look Different in Real Life

asked you to go? Just as something to do on a Friday night.”
    So I had supposed , and now I’m here. Watching Nate Hunter take off his sweats. Okay, I will objectively admit that he is a beautiful boy. But I admire him theway I’d admire a male model in a magazine underwear ad, glossy and glistening yet one-dimensional and ultimately, not real. He’s got lines on his body that seem carved by some high-precision tool. I let myself look for only a moment.
    True to form, Lance and Kenny are quickly poolside, just close enough to get good shots without disturbing the Swimming Messiah.
    Leslie pans the crowd with her camera, then suddenly travels to the other side of the bleachers, where Keira is sitting. With the cameras distracted and Felix engrossed in the meet, I decide to step outside so I can regain my hearing for a minute.
    The hallway of the college gym is decorated with trophy cases and banners, and I start reading about a student named Maeve O’Bannon who, back in 1978, apparently did superhuman things with a volleyball. On the other side of the doors to the pool, I hear a starting horn and splashes and more cheers, and then the opening and thudding closed of the heavy metal door. I look up.
    It’s Keira. She’s wearing a khaki shirt dress with a big buckle and high brown leather boots, and anyone else would look overdressed for a swim meet, but with her you get the sense this is maybe something she just wears around the house.
    “Oh,” she says, bored and distracted. Like this is her version of Hi .
    “I’m hiding out,” I say.
    “I’m taking a very long trip to the restroom,” she says without any twist of sarcasm, and starts walking toward it. She has to pass me on the way, though, and I offer her a smile as she goes by. She smiles back, but only half as much.
    I don’t know why it’s so important for me to talk to Keira. I’d liked the way Leslie had whined, “None of you guys have anything to do with one another anymore,” on the phone last night. Taken some pleasure in it.
    But for me, Keira is different. Maybe I’m just like everyone else, caught by her mysterious tractor beam of charisma.
    “How has it been, so far?” I call after her as she’s reaching for the restroom door. Now she stops and really looks at me, almost amused.
    “It’s great. Terrific. Just lovely.” She smiles for a second. A fake smile. An almost mean smile. “And how about you? You always seem to have so much fun with this.”
    When Keira says the word fun her brow crinkles and she bites down hard on the f .
    “Do I?” I ask.
    “Don’t you?” says Keira, and now she snorts. It’s a haughty little sound. She swings open the restroom door and moves through it, letting it slam.
    Keira Jones hates me. She hates me, and I have no idea why.
    I liked it a lot better when I thought she didn’t care about me.
    I would leave this place. Right now. Except my stuff is back at the bleachers and something drives me forward into the restroom. Keira’s just standing at the sink, staring blankly into the mirror, as I step inside and let the door slam just like she did.
    “What did I ever do to you?” I ask, and there’s something about addressing the back of her head that lets me be brave. “You haven’t lowered yourself to look at me, let alone talk to me, since we were eleven years old. What exactly is your problem?”
    Keira does glance at me now, but in the mirror. It’s disconcerting. At least I have her attention.
    “ My problem?” she asks, genuinely surprised. “Aren’t you the one who pulled a total diva in Journalism?”
    When I don’t answer, she turns to face me head-on.
    “Do you have any idea how that made Nate feel? That you wouldn’t do a simple group project with him on camera?”
    Her face is softer now, and she reaches up to her hair with both hands, twists it behind her head into a temporary bun. This seems like a pretty weird thing to do in the middle of what I see as a face-off, but then again, it is Keira.
    How would Nate feel?
    “Why do you care so much about how he feels?” I ask.“Are you guys going out? Or maybe just doing it?” As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I cringe. I may think hateful things like that all the time, but I know better than to say them.
    Keira’s expression hardens into a look of contempt, a strange mixture of anger, pity, and disgust. Then she releases her hair and walks past me out of the restroom.
    I stare at the door after it closes behind