You Look Different in Real Life

but actually moving her body in a rhythmic fashion . With a guy. Who’s not Nate. He’s tall and smiling down at her and she stares at his chest for five seconds, then at his face for five seconds, then back at his chest.
    Nate’s watching nearby, like a bodyguard. I’m not sure how he managed to create this situation in the short time Felix and I were gone.
    “Was this a naturally occurring phenomenon?” I ask him. Felix has disappeared to the bathroom to splash water on his face.
    “He asked her. She said yes. These things do happen, Justine. Even to Rory.” We watch for a few moments, then Nate asks, “Can you stay and keep an eye on her? I want to go back and see the rabbit.”
    “Sure,” I say, and as Nate moves toward the room he was in earlier, he crosses paths with Felix. Felix nods quickly at Nate. Not really a greeting. Barely an acknowledgment. But still.
    When Felix finds me, he looks at Rory and the guy and says, “Whoa.” The guy has moved about an inch closer to her. It feels like any second she could scream and run away. Or, alternatively, she could throw her mouth onto his and they could mack out in front of all these people. I’m not sure anything could surprise me anymore.
    I move so she can’t see me easily, turn on the camera, and shoot her and the guy for a good minute. Nate still hasn’t reappeared, so I lean in to whisper at Felix, “Can you watch her? I’ll be right back.”
    “Does she know she’s got the Secret Service here?”
    “I think it’s the only reason why she’s able to do this.”
    When I get to the door, I knock twice, then pause, before walking in.
    He’s sitting on the floor with a black-and-white lop-eared rabbit in his lap. He looks a little nervous, but seeing me, he relaxes, and his hand starts moving again along the rabbit’s back. It has its nose burrowed into his elbow and seems to be shuddering with joy.
    I take a seat on the floor facing him, also cross-legged, like we’re back in kindergarten and this is the multi-colored carpet at the front of the classroom.
    “Felix okay?” asks Nate.
    “I think he’s going to start kind of eventually being okay, yeah.”
    Nate raises his eyes to me, questioning, and I nod. He seems to relax even more. Now we’re silent. I’m not sure what I had planned, coming in here. I just wanted to see him, having this fresh information. I just wanted to see if he looked different.
    And he does. He is Bunny Boy again. Obviously, the rabbit helps. But there’s something dug-up about his manner now, a shiny trinket found in the mud after years of being buried. There’s so much I want to ask him. I start with this:
    “Do you mind if I shoot?” He doesn’t look up but shakes his head. I turn on the camera and zoom in on the rabbit, then zoom out slowly to frame a shot of them both.
    “His name is Ratso,” says Nate, as if knowing what question I’m about to start with. “They bought him from some guy on the sidewalk one night when they were drunk.”
    “Ratso Rizzo,” I say, nodding. “That’s a disturbingly appropriate Midnight Cowboy reference.”
    Nate laughs, but only a little. “They have no idea how to take care of a rabbit. They’re not even supposed to haveit in the dorm. He’s pretty skinny, but nothing a good diet won’t fix.”
    Now I know exactly what to ask Nate. I need to ask him about Nimbus, and the boys who made his life a living hell that year, and why he never asked Lance and Leslie to come forward with all the footage they must have had.
    But just then, Nate’s phone rings in his pocket. He contorts himself in order to get it without disturbing Ratso, and actually this is pretty funny. He looks at the phone and his face lights up.
    “Hello?” he asks, in that way where you pretend not to know who it is despite the caller ID.
    He listens. He stops blinking and slows his breath. This is how I can tell he’s alarmed. Also, I can hear Keira’s voice on the other end. It doesn’t really sound like her. She sounds too something , like she’s running on the wrong speed.
    “Just stay there. We’re a couple of blocks away. Give us a few minutes.”
    Nate hangs up, stares at the bunny. “That was Keira,” he says.
    “I figured.”
    “She’s at a bookstore down the street. She’s changed her mind about seeing her mom and now she’s scared to be in the city at night by herself. We need to get her.”
    But he doesn’t get up, and neither do I. Why don’t we get up?
    We