He didn’t.
Only when they met for breakfast in the dorm cafeteria. Only when she came to his room late after rehearsals to get help with an assignment or to cry about what was happening at the theater. She wouldn’t stay over, not with his roommate there. He felt hungry for her all the time.
“We spent more time alone when we lived with our parents,” he complained to her on a rare Friday afternoon she spent in his room, letting him hold her.
“We had nothing but time in high school,” she said.
“Why does everyone else around here have so much time?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Everyone but you,” he said. “Everywhere I go, I see people being together. They’re in each other’s rooms. They’re in the lounge and the student union . They’re taking walks.” That’s how he thought it would be when they got to college. He’d pictured himself lying next to Sam on narrow dormitory mattresses, holding her hand on the way to classes, winding up with her on benches and coffeehouse couches. “I have time for that.”
“Then maybe you should spend your time with everyone else,” she said. She was pulling away from him, buttoning her black cardigan, sweeping her hair into a barrette.
“No. I want to spend it with you.”
“I’m with you now,” she said.
“And it’s wonderful. Why can’t it be like this more? Even once a week?”
“Because it can’t, Lincoln.”
“Why not?” He hated himself for sounding like such a baby.
“Because I didn’t come to this school to spend all my time with my high school boyfriend. I came here to start my career.”
“I’m not your high school boyfriend,” he said. “I’m your boyfriend.”
“There are probably half a dozen girls on this floor alone who would love to spend the next four years cuddling with you. If that’s what you want.”
“I want you.”
“Then be happy with me.”
SAM DIDN’T WANT to come home for winter break. She wanted to stay on campus and be in a local production of A Christmas Carol. (She was pretty sure she could land the role of Tiny Tim.) But her father cashed in some frequent flyer miles and sent her a first-class ticket home. “I’ve never flown first class before,” she told Lincoln excitedly. “I’m going to wear something Betty Grable, something with wrist gloves, and order gin and tonics.” Lincoln was taking the Greyhound, which Sam said would be fascinating. “Very American-experience. I’ll make you sandwiches.”
She didn’t. She said she couldn’t see Lincoln off at the bus station because she had a theater meeting that afternoon. He told her that was okay, that he didn’t want her to come anyway. A girl who could pass for Tiny Tim shouldn’t walk home alone from the bus station.
But Lincoln hated that, between the bus trip and Christmas, he’d have to go a week without seeing her. At least they’d both be home. And they’d have the week after Christmas together, and New Year’s. Maybe it would do them some good, to see each other back in their natural habitat. He decided to leave a note for Sam, telling her that he’d miss her, before he caught his bus. He bought an inexpensive bouquet of flowers at the convenience store across from his dormitory and wrote on a piece of college-ruled paper: Sam, Lo, though I travel through the Valley of Death, My heart flies first class.
Love, Lincoln That sounds romantic, he thought as he walked to her building. And geographic. And vaguely biblical. He stopped on her floor, in the elevator lobby, to add a postscript: I love you and I love you and I love you. As he finished writing the last “you,” one of the elevators opened.
Lincoln almost smiled at the sight of Sam. Almost. She was standing on tiptoe, her whole body arching upward, her arms cast triumphantly around another man’s neck. The two of them were kissing too …too enthusiastically to notice that their elevator had arrived. The man had a handful of Sam’s black curls, and a handful of her short skirt. The wrongness of the tableau didn’t fully register with Lincoln until the doors were closing. They must be rehearsing, he actually thought. Didn’t he recognize this guy from the theater?
Lincoln reached out and pressed the down button. The doors opened again.
Sure, he recognized him. Marlon. He was small and dark and from someplace else. Brazil. Or maybe Venezuela. He was the kind of guy who always had a crowd of people around him at wrap parties. The kind of guy who was always standing on a table to toast something. Marlon. He and Sam had been in a play together back in September, The Straw.