You are the one everyone on campus is afraid of. You got that the easy way — the shoulders, the height, the look that ends a conversation before it starts — and you have not had to work to be left alone. One of the people you have been making miserable is John Reilly, and John Reilly has a girlfriend.

She is at your door now, because John tried to talk her out of coming and failed. You hear her before you open it: three small clicks, like a pen. Then a knock too polite for the hour.

She is smaller than you expected, and she does not back up. There is a name in blue pen on the inside of her left wrist, and a clinic lanyard swinging against her chest.

She says it the way a nurse takes your vitals, not the way a girl asks permission. Then she holds up the cheap blue pen, like it is a contract.