You Look Different in Real Life

won’t get to be alone again. Maybe ever. Can that be it? Or is this about a rabbit in his lap?
    “I’m going to bring this rabbit with me,” he says, then looks at me with such seriousness, I almost bust out laughing. “The guy asked me if I wanted him. I do.”
    “Okay. How will we carry him?”
    Nate finally stands up and gingerly places the rabbit on the bed. The rabbit makes a strange whimpering noise I didn’t know rabbits could make. Nate looks around the room and sees a backpack on the floor, grabs it. Empties it of its contents, gray sweat socks and a balled-up T-shirt. With extreme purpose, he grabs a towel from a hook on the back of the closet door, folds it carefully, puts it inside the backpack. Then he picks up the rabbit as if it’s a newborn baby, with both hands, so gently it nearly breaks my heart.
    “Okay, Ratso, you’re coming with us. I promise it’ll be okay.” He places the rabbit in the backpack, zips it up so that a few inches stay open at the top. “He should be fine like that, until we get to Keira’s mom’s place.”
    “Is that the plan? Take Keira to her mom’s?”
    Nate shrugs. “We have to try. It makes sense to finish this.” Now he smiles that smile, and once again it’s easy to feel like he laid this all out ahead of time, like everything that’s happened and hasn’t happened so far was for a specific purpose.
    Back out in the common room, Rory and her MysteryGuy are still dancing and I swear, they’re even closer now. It’s going to suck to break this up. Felix is still watching her, and fortunately, Adam and Max are nowhere to be seen. I find him and lean in.
    “We’re on the move. Operation: Get Keira.”
    “I don’t think Rory wants to leave.”
    “ You break it to her,” I say. Felix gives me a dirty look, but he knows he’s the one.
    Me, I just need to get it all on camera.
    Felix makes his way through the swarm of bodies and taps Rory on the shoulder. When she freezes, he leans in and whispers in her ear. After a moment, she nods, and Felix walks away. She doesn’t follow him immediately. She turns to Mystery Guy, stares right into his eyes. She makes an I’ve got to go gesture, and he looks deflated. Then she does something I’m so glad I’m getting visual proof of:
    She leans in and hugs him. Halfway. Loosely, like she’s draping a pretend blanket over his shoulders.
    When she turns to face us, she’s smiling. But it’s a totally private smile. Totally not meant for us, or for the camera. I get a good shot of it, then stop recording. Rory walks toward us and gives me a brief but electric glance. It’s the kind of look you give a BFF when your world has just shifted on its axis, and it thrills me.
    “So we’re going to get Keira?” she asks me. Me.
    “Yup,” I say. She nods and then leads the way out of the room.
    It’s ten thirty on a Saturday night in Greenwich Village, which means the sidewalks are crowded. I see Rory’s confidence falter a bit once we hit the pavement. Groups of students, moving en masse, make walking down the street feel like we’re in a gigantic pinball machine. Rory holds Felix’s hand, looks straight down at the pavement about five feet ahead of her.
    “How far away is it?” I ask Nate.
    “Two and a half blocks. Think she’ll make it?”
    “Are you prepared to carry her with a jacket over her head, if it comes to that?”
    “Yes,” he says, without hesitating.
    With Rory walking much faster than she did the first time we tried this, and Nate gingerly carrying the rabbit-filled backpack by its top handle so it totally looks like he’s carrying a purse, and Felix constantly swiveling his head back and forth to catch every interesting thing around us, I’ve got plenty to shoot. Each one of them is somehow different as a result of this party, and it shows. I wonder if this happens to everyone, and that’s why Vijay has such a rep.
    The bookstore is on a corner and we see it coming from a half block away, lit up and glowing, a big picture window facing the street.
    In an overstuffed chair just inside that window sits Keira, her hands folded in her lap, looking down at thefloor. She’s so still that she could easily pass as part of the window display.
    One by one, we pull to a halt when we see her, but none of us says anything or taps on the glass. I guess we’re just watching to see what she’s doing and what she might do next. After a few moments, Keira raises her eyes to see us.
    She looks