I wonder what Mom would think. Maybe I should write it in my next letter. "Dear Mom, How are you? I'm fine. The work we're doing is interesting and challenging. I hope you and Luke are talking again by now. I think I've fallen in love with Paris. The weather here sucks. Write soon! Love, Rory." I can just imagine her reply. "Dear Rory, I'm okay. Luke is still being an ass. Have booked you a comfortable room at the mental institution in Hartford. The toaster is broken, so I am suffering from Pop-Tart withdrawal (and no, microwaved Pop-Tarts do not taste the same). Wish you were coming home tomorrow. Xoxo, Mom."

I wonder what Dean would think. I don't think I want to know what Jess would think, not that I'd tell him. I probably shouldn't even tell Lane. I wonder if she'd even care. I wrote her a letter and I took up six pages front and back, so twelve pages in total. She took two weeks to write me back and she only wrote four pages, front only. In my letter I told her about Jess (a mistake) and Dean (a bigger mistake). In her letter she didn't mention any of it. She talked about a boy she met in the music shop and her drums and the latest CDs she snuck in from Amazon. I wonder if she thinks I'm a terrible slut. I wonder if she'd even tell me if she thought I was a terrible slut. Maybe she's sympathetic toward poor wronged Dean and secretly thinks I treat him badly and I don't deserve him. Maybe that's just what I secretly think and not what she thinks at all. Maybe she was just busy. Maybe her mother only allowed her to have four pieces of paper.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand. Why on earth would I want to do anything like that with Paris? I don't even like her. I mean, I don't dislike her, but she's always made me nervous, even if I try to pretend I'm unfazed. She's just so determined all the time. At least that's what I thought before we came here. Strangely enough, now that she's in what I guess is "her element," she's relaxed, almost vulnerable. She likes following orders, and I never thought she'd be comfortable doing anything but giving them. It's like she's still her, but there's this whole other side to her personality that no one knows, no one except me now, like she's chosen to share this secret with only me and I'm not quite sure what that means.

But she still makes me nervous, no matter how good I've become at pretending. We spend most of our time together, since the other people here all seem to stick to their own little groups. So I wake up to her face and her voice and they're the last things I see and hear before I go to sleep. And I'm already dreading going home to my own bedroom and not seeing her every day, not playing out our little sleepy bathroom-sharing caffeine-preparing morning routine. How can we ever just go back to being school acquaintances? Will I end up calling her every night just to talk? How did I get to be friends with her? When did this happen?

What if I decided I couldn't stand it anymore? What if I threw off this slim bedspread in a uselessly dramatic gesture, sat down on her hard mattress, and asked her, "Did you ever feel like--I mean, have you ever just wanted to--" and then she interrupted me, answered my question, made it easy for me?

I wonder if it would be different with a girl. I wonder if she's a good kisser. I wonder if I'm a good kisser. I mean, Dean said so, but maybe he felt obligated. I wonder if any of this would be happening if I wasn't stuck here with her. I wonder if it's my cruel destiny to fall madly in love with everyone I meet who seems to like me back. I wonder if a psychiatrist would say I do that because my father left so early and then started flirting with coming back but never did. I wonder if it would be true. I wonder if I'll ever be brave enough to tell her. But most of all, I think I wonder if I'll ever be able to sleep again if I don't do it soon.

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