"Running?" Corey stared at me as if I'd told him that I kicked a puppy off the Golden Gate Bridge. "I told you to show some interest in the girl, so you asked her if she wanted to go running?"

"Lay off me, alright?" I grumbled while lacing up the frayed laces on my running shoes. I flexed my feet back and forth, noticing that a small hole had appeared in the toe of my left sneaker. I stuck my finger through the opening to poke my sock underneath. "I panicked. It was the first thing that I could think of."

"The first thing that came to your mind was running?"

I sighed. "Apparently."

"Do you think that's normal?" Corey asked, and now he sounded like he wanted to have me committed. "Instead of dinner or going for drinks--"

"I get it."

"I mean, are you trying to get with her or audition to be her personal trainer?"

"That's the whole point," I said, getting to my feet. Crossing over to the wall opposite my bed, I placed my palms against the wall and extended my left leg straight behind me, careful to keep both of my feet flat on the floor. It felt like all the muscles in my calf were waking up with a giant yawn. "I'm not trying to do anything with her at all right now. I'm just... Testing the waters, I guess."

"Gotcha." Corey hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his basketball shorts and hiked them up so that they covered his boxers. "So, uh, have you told Gemma? You know, about your date tonight?"

I straightened and turned to stare at him. "I thought you said I didn't have to."

He raised his eyebrows. "I thought you said you wanted to be honest."

"I do, but--"

"Yeah, yeah." Corey laughed. "Standard nice guy behavior."

"Anyway, it's not really a date," I pointed out before beginning to stretch my other leg. "Like you said, there's no food involved."

"But would you tell Gemma if there was?"

I thought about that for a moment. "No."

"Why not?"

"Why are you giving me such a hard time, huh?" I demanded, unable to stop myself from sounding defensive. I was beginning to feel the same anxiety as when I'd walked up to Melanie earlier in the day. Even with the image of her smiling in my head, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was doing the wrong thing. "The only reason I asked Melanie to hang out is because you said it was fine."

Corey held his hands up. "It is, and you can. I was just curious."

"Yeah, well, don't be," I muttered.

I sank into a lunge while Corey thumbed through the CD collection that I'd left scattered across my floor. I didn't know why I still bought CDs at all, especially since I didn't have a CD player in my room. Maybe it was a leftover habit from when I was in high school.

Michael had been a senior when I was a freshman and one of the conditions that came along with him being allowed to drive to school was that he had to take me there and back each day. What our parents didn't know for most of that year, and what Michael paid me not to tell them, was that he'd been dating a third year from the woman's college on the other side of town at the time. I never learned how they met, though I eventually figured out her name was Anna and she was a Russian Literature major. The beauty of it was that as much as Michael resented chauffeuring me around, he also knew that I would've been more than happy to spill the beans after I found out about his secret love life. It forced him to be at least somewhat nice to me, though I could tell it killed him to say yes whenever I asked for a ride to Parker's house.

We eventually reached a compromise: in exchange for my continued silence, Michael would dump me at the mall twice a week after school with a crumpled ten dollar bill and a vague estimate as to when he'd be back. Some days he'd pass me a twenty with instructions to make it home on my own, which was honestly fine with me. It wasn't that hard to catch a bus or to find someone that I knew whose parents would be willing to drop me off.

So, while Michael was presumably getting busy with his mystery co-ed, I spent quite a few afternoons in Roscoe's Records with a wallet full of money and a list of CDs that I wanted to buy. The arrangement probably would've continued until the school year ended but my parents somehow got wise to the whole thing. To be honest, I don't think my mom and dad really cared about what Michael was doing in Anna's dorm room during his visits, but they did care that he'd left me to take the city bus home. I don't think I've ever seen my brother look more devastated than the moment that Dad pried the keys to Michael's old Camaro from his hand.

"You listen to some weird stuff, man," Corey said, turning a CD case over in his hand. "I like it."

"That's a good album," I replied. I slid my I.D. into the pocket of my running shorts before checking the time on my phone. "Melanie should be here soon but you can borrow it if you want."

"Yeah?" Corey skimmed the track list. "Thanks."

He followed me into the hallway while I fumbled to lock my door. "When do you want it back?" Corey asked, and I shrugged.

"No rush."

"Cool."

Corey fell in step beside me as I headed for the stairs. The door to Parker's bedroom was open and I held my breath, hoping that he wouldn't notice me while I snuck past. It was inevitable that Melanie had updated Parker with a play-by-play of my bumbling attempt to form a coherent question when I saw her earlier in the day, and while I didn't care if he knew, that didn't mean that I wanted to talk to him about it. At least, not right now. Maybe if I walked by quickly enough...

"Hey, Scott," Parker's voice called out, and I cringed. Had he been waiting for me to go by? "Come in here for a sec."

"See you later," Corey said. I nodded before taking a deep breath and stepping inside our president's room.

For whatever reason, I rarely spent much time in Parker's single; like Mattie, he always seemed to find his way to my room. The first thing I noticed was that it was much cleaner in his mini-suite than I'd expected. Although most of the clothes that he'd worn the night before lay strewn across his rug, I noted that he'd draped his jacket over the back of his desk's rolling chair. As I looked around, it became increasingly obvious that Sophie had been put to work in decorating the space. All of the vintage movie posters that Parker had previously hung from thumbtacks were now displayed in sleek frames. The frames all matched, too, just like his sheets matched the navy down comforter that he was laying on top of.

"What's up?" I asked, holding my hand up to catch the tennis ball that Parker lobbed at my head. I tossed it back to him and watched as he threw it up towards the ceiling.

"Where are you going?"

"For a run."

"With Melanie?"

I shoved my hands into pockets and wrapped my fingers around my phone. With my thumb, I jiggled the sound button on and off. "Yeah, why?"

"Just wondering what your deal is, that's all."

"What do you mean?"

Parker cleared his throat. "Look, I told her that I wouldn't say anything, but Melanie's pretty into you." He caught the tennis ball with a lazily outstretched hand and then glanced at me before chucking the yellow globe towards me again. I let go of my phone long enough to catch it and then threw the ball back at him. "Like, really into you."

"I figured."

"How?"

"I didn't realize you were trying to be subtle about it."

"Whatever." Parker sat up, dribbling the ball on the floor. "What do you think?"

"About Melanie?"

"Yeah."

I scratched the back of my head. Despite my conversation with Corey--or, maybe because of it--I felt like I couldn't answer Parker's question honestly. I'd known him long enough to know that Parker and the rest of our friends had completely opposite views when it came to dating. If I told Parker half of what Corey and I had talked about that afternoon, there was a good chance I'd walk out of his room with my head ripped off, and that was especially likely because he and Melanie were so close. As a matter of self-preservation, I knew I would have to evade his questions until I found an opportunity to escape.

"She went out with my brother," I said, studying the photo frame on his dresser. He and Sophie always looked so happy in pictures, though staring at their smiling faces for too long made me feel a little nauseous.

The rhythmic motion of the ball slowed down while Parker scoffed. "Yeah, on one date."

"It's weird, man."

"Seriously?" Parker asked incredulously. "It was one date; they didn't even kiss."

"You're an only child, you wouldn't understand."

Parker grabbed the ball one last time before tossing it onto the ground. I bent to pick it up when it bounced next to my feet and rolled it between my hands. "You're being an idiot," he said, frowning. "She's a really cool girl."

"I know, she's great," I said, tightening my grip around the tennis ball. I stared as the tips of my fingers turned an angry shade of red. "I just... Things are complicated right now."

Parker shook his head, though he thankfully spared me from whatever lecture was running through his mind. Instead, all he said was, "Melanie would be good for you."

I could concede to that. "Probably."

"I'm serious." He leaned back so that his neck lay against his bed's headrest. "But, anyway, do what you want."

Rolling my eyes, I gave him a mock salute. "Thanks, boss."

I placed the tennis ball on Parker's desk as I moved to leave, though I stopped when he said, "Actually, I take that back."

"What?"

"Do whatever you want, just don't screw with her."

I turned to look at him and Parker held my gaze with an unwavering steadiness. It was the same sort of protective glare I'd witnessed when he stood up for Corey the night before, though instead of being fueled by anger, I could tell that he was concerned. His expression struck a chord of guilt inside me. I didn't know what to say, so I nodded wordlessly before hurrying from his room.

Still slightly flustered by the time I reached the house's main foyer, I decided to wait for Melanie outside. We'd agreed to meet at five and I hoped that I'd be able to avoid having anymore conversations in the few minutes left before she was due to show up. An incoming text message from Gemma made my heart jump into my throat but I couldn't bring myself to open it. Between the knowing look that Parker had given me and the gnawing worry in my stomach, I wondered if I should just call Melanie and tell her that I was too hungover to go for a run. I locked and unlocked my phone screen a few times while I went back and forth, but by the time I'd made a decision, Melanie was already walking towards me.

Pocketing my phone, I shot up from the step that I'd been sitting on and waved. She tugged at her ponytail, her hands moving from the red strands to the back of her neck in an oddly anxious pattern. I watched as she stared up at the sky for a moment before looking both ways and jogging across the street. There was a tightness in her smile when she waved back at me but she smiled nonetheless.

"Hey," she said once she reached the sidewalk in front of the fraternity. "You ready?"

"For you to lap me? Not really." I ran a hand through my hair, wishing that there was a way for me to grab onto my racing thoughts and stop them in their tracks. "I thought we could run down Hoover, maybe cut through campus and loop back around once we reach the football stadium. We can check out the University Rose Garden while we're out there, too."

Melanie nodded. "Sounds good to me."

"Great."

When she didn't move, I realized that she was waiting for me to take the lead. Strangely nervous, I tapped the toe of each shoe against the ground before starting off at a slow jog. I reached back while I ran to make sure I'd closed the zipper of the pocket where I kept my phone, wincing when I realized that it was vibrating again. Two short pulses followed by a long buzz--that was the new alert I'd set for Gemma's texts. I tried my best to ignore it.

"So," Melanie began while we made our way towards the school, "I didn't want to pry too much earlier but are you really okay? After what happened last night, I mean."

"I think so." I paused before continuing. "Corey was pretty messed up about it at first but now it seems like he just wants to forget about the whole thing."

"That makes sense."

"Really? Because I can't imagine ever forgetting what happened."

Melanie made a thoughtful sound. "I'm trying to look at it from his point of view and I think--I think I'd try to do the same thing if I were him. I don't know how else I could deal with the fact that there are people in the world who hate me for no reason at all."

"The crazy thing about what the bouncer said is that Corey's the least likely person to cause trouble out of any of us, you know? His dad's some bigtime scientist at Yale, he went to a super fancy prep school..." I swallowed. "I know that none of that stuff really matters but of all the people in the world for that to happen to, Corey definitely didn't deserve it. Well, obviously no one deserves it, but--"

"That's the thing, though, isn't it?" Melanie said, interrupting my rambling. "Racism's crazy because it doesn't have to make sense."

We ran in silence after that, our arms occasionally brushing as we neared the university's main grounds. Each time we touched, I caught myself checking Melanie's reaction. Her skin felt like fire against mine but if she felt the same jolting sensation, her expression certainly didn't show it.

----------------------------------------------

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! Once again, this was supposed to be one long chapter but I figured I'd cut it in half because I know most of you probably read on the app. My law school's prom (lol, I know) was last night and today's probably going to be a write off, which means Part 2 will be posted shortly. Thank you all for reading and voting!