"Home?"

"To Denver. And I have to apply to transfer, and, um, CSU has great environmental cla.s.ses and programs. . . ."

"So does CU," said Grant. "So does anywhere these days."

It wasn't exactly a welcoming hug kind of statement. What was he implying? "Well, right, I know. But I applied to transfer here."

He nearly choked on his breath mint. "Here. Really."

"Really," I said.

He didn't say anything. Not encouraging. At all. But I figured he was still mad at me from way back when, and so I'd have to really be convincingly nice from now on.

"So how are you doing? What's your job here like?" I asked.

"I'm responsible for customer service green team initiatives."

"Translation?"

"I'm kind of in charge of getting people to use reusable bags."

"Wow. Huge."

He smiled. "Shut up. I also handle customer complaints."

I raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound fun."

"I know. But it beats restocking forty-pound bags of dog food at Pet Me." He shrugged. "Some of the time." We both laughed and that kind of broke the polar-cap ice a little more.

"The thing is, even if I do get accepted as a transfer, I'll never find a place to live. I mean, everyone's already moved in. But my mom wants me out, like, yesterday."

"Your mom wants you to move?" He looked really uncomfortable.

"Oh, I wasn't asking-"

"I didn't say you were-"

"I mean that'd be really bizarre and-"

"Uncomfortable," Grant said.

"Uncomfortable?" I said.

"Sleeping on the floor. I mean. Obviously, we're fine. That wouldn't be the problem."

"Of course not. Obviously."

Ha! What a joke. If we were "fine," then I'd hate to see "horrible."

Fortunately, a customer came to the desk wanting lottery tickets and I looked behind me and there was a line that had formed. Because were we fine? Probably not, unless I apologized for the spring break thing. But I couldn't find a way to bring it up!

"Anyway. See you around?" I said.

"Call me when you find out what you're doing," he said. "And, uh, if I hear anything about any kind of, you know, openings . . . I'll call you."

"That'd be great. Thanks." I started to walk away.

"Courtney!" he called after me. "I need your number."

"Right. Right." I jotted my cell number down on the corner of a brown paper grocery bag, then tore a piece off and handed it to him.

"I could have added it to my iPhone," he said. "You just wasted a bag."

Stupid green team initiatives. I ran out to the car and started crying. So emotional. Nothing worse than getting corrected by Grant, Mr. Perfect.

Mr. Perfect Ex-Boyfriend.

LATER.

Got home. Shaken and crumbly like a stale carrot cake m.u.f.fin. Tried to call Wittenauer but he was heading into cla.s.s and didn't have time to talk. Instead, called Jane. Told her that I'd just seen Grant.

"You're kidding!!! How is he? Tell him I said hi!"

"Jane. It wasn't like that. It wasn't a social visit."

"It wasn't?" she asked.

"No!"

"What was it, then?"

"I don't know. Awkward!"

She asked if I'd told him about Wittenauer yet, and I said, no, of course not, considering as how I only saw him a few minutes and we were in the middle of customer service. Did she really expect me to rub salt in an old wound the first time I saw Grant?

But does Grant know I'm still with Wittenauer? I wondered. Why would he? How could he? Well, that could wait until our next conversation. If we had one.

Jane and I talked so long that I was still on the phone with her when Wittenauer called back after cla.s.s, and we talked for hours again. He still wants me to move back. Says he's miserable. I told him I'm more miserable. It was a contest trying to one-up each other on how miserable we are. I think I won, but is it considered winning when it's a contest for most miserable?

There is no "able" in miserable. Oh wait, there is. Able to feel misery. Lots and lots of misery. We are Les Miserables. We get very pathetic.

Do I move back to Wisconsin so I can be with Wittenauer? Or do I stay here so I can go to school, but only at a place where Grant is?

CSU has 25,000 students. Even if I do go there, and it's not guaranteed I could get in, it's not like I would see a lot of Grant. So that's not the problem, really.

The problem is that every day Wittenauer and I are not in the same zip code, I miss him. I get nervous about our prospects. And we risk splitting up.

And I hate splitting up. (See: Parents' Divorce.) 9/11.

Mom proudly handed me a letter when I went down for coffee this morning. "Congratulations! You've been accepted as a transfer student. On behalf of everyone here at Colorado State University-your future-your education-" Blah blah blah- I was still reading it, but I started crying. Mom and her man-friend wanted to know what was wrong. "I got in, all right?" I told them, sobbing.

"Hon, that's wonderful. Now all we have to do is find you a room or an apartment up there."

"Don't call me 'hon'!" I said through my blubbering.

"Wait a minute. I thought you wanted to live on your own," said Sterling. "Don't you?"

"Yes, but-that's-that's not the point." I shoved my chair back and went to the sanct.i.ty of my former room. Then I had to run back, grab my coffee, and vanish again. So much for dramatic exits.

Yes, I want to live on my own. It's not like I want to live in my mom's workout room forever. But this just all feels overwhelming and it would be nicer if I didn't feel like Mom is pretty much throwing me to the werewolves.

I called Wittenauer and we talked for a long time. He didn't want me to get accepted because he still wants me to return to CFC, but he said we need to take "the long view."

The long view: We both need to go to college. We both need to finish college. Then we can make decisions about what to do with our lives.

The short view: I have to start cla.s.ses two weeks late, and will be living in my car.

Wait. I don't have a car.

9/12.

So far I've spent the entire day looking for a place to live in Fort Collins.

Mom is so desperate for me to "gain my independence" that she went with me. We had searched every online listing first-then we drove around neighborhoods near campus looking for signs. Nothing. The places were terrible, or the roommates were horrible. As much as I wanted to move, I couldn't justify risking my life by moving in with someone who kept a pet boa constrictor.

"Mother, if you'd like to help, perhaps you could buy a house for me," I suggested. "You've been saving all that money for years, I bet you have a large nest egg, and it'd be a great investment because people are always going to need housing, plus, the market is, um, really soft. Or hard. Anyway, there are houses-"

"Why don't you call Grant instead, see if he has any leads?" she replied.

"You call him," I said. "I already asked him for help." The fact that he hadn't called me since I saw him didn't instill me with confidence. More like fear that he hated me and wanted nothing to do with me ever again.

"Ask him again," she said.

"Mom."

"Do it. Courtney, it's only Grant. Maybe you're not close anymore, but he's not going to bite. He'll probably do everything he can to help you out, hon."

She was bothering me so much that I decided I'd do whatever it took to find a place in Fort Collins. Forget that this was as embarra.s.sing as, well, tromping all over campus with my mother in her workout gear, because she wanted to do some trail running after we settled this housing thing.

Called Grant. Initiated begging and pleading. "And I'm not asking at all to live with you, not at all, but I was wondering if you have any ideas or any leads, if you know anyone-"

"Court, I'm sorry! I've been meaning to call you but I've been so busy. Why don't you move onto my block?" he asked.

Whaaaa . . . t? "Your b-block?"

"Yeah, I just noticed there's a room for rent in a house on my block."

"Seriously?" Grant must not hate me too much if he was willing for me to live close by. Or was this a trick? Was he setting me up to live in a total dump, to get his revenge? But that would be so unGrantlike.

"Yeah. I can give you the phone number from the sign."

I called and talked to a girl named Shawna, who seemed really, really nice. She said they had a room left to rent because a girl who was supposed to live there had moved in with her boyfriend. It was a long story. I didn't catch all of it, partly because she talked a mile a minute.

She gave me directions but said she couldn't meet for a couple of hours, so I applied for a few jobs on College Ave., nothing too exciting, while Mom jogged. Wait. Here she comes.

Time to go. Wish me luck.

9/13 MOVING SOON-HOORAY!

When we got to the house, a cute little brick bungalow on a small, quiet street, a girl was sitting on the front porch waiting for us. When she stood up to greet us, she looked so familiar, I felt like I knew her already. But I couldn't place her. She had long, strawberry blond hair, a lot like mine, and was tall.

I started to introduce myself but before I got very far, we both realized that we had been in the same cla.s.s year at Bugling Elk High School back in the day. We weren't really friends then-she was more of a jock, on the basketball team (coordinated, unlike me)-but we had definitely known each other, enough so that I knew she wasn't a horrible ax-murderer-type roommate.

"I moved away soph.o.m.ore year," Shawna explained. "Colorado Springs. We had that, like, awful Spanish cla.s.s together. Remember?"

"I've never been able to learn any languages since. Scarred for life."

She laughed and asked what I was up to, why I was starting at CSU so late in the semester and had no place to live. (She talked so fast that I just sort of guessed at some of what she said.) I told her the story of freshman year, and how I'd been sent back to Colorado and was now transferring to CSU. She was sorry that I had to transfer, but completely psyched I might be moving in. I asked if she was on the basketball team and she laughed. "No. Not exactly. I'm more into cycling and hanging out. You?"

"I'm more into, um . . ."

Just then her phone rang. "It's my mom," she said. "Calls twenty times a day. 'Scuse me."

The other housemate came home a second later, pulling up in a French-looking car. Her name's Dara and she's very urban chic. She wears all black, has black-dyed hair with one purple streak in it, and wears these narrow gla.s.ses that somehow automatically made me feel stupid. She's from Seattle and is majoring in Poetry. "Well, technically English, but with a minor in Russian, I mean, it's obvious I'm a poet."

"Right." I smiled, thinking, Not exactly. And you're kind of intimidating, really.

"So, how did you end up here?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't ask. I freaking hate the mountains. And the sun."

As if Colorado was such a terrible place to be? I mean . . . wait. Maybe she was just homesick. I remember that same thing happening to me when I mistakenly shipped out to Cornwall Falls last . . . fall.

From the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

"So, do you want to see the room or not?" asked Dara. She struck me as the very impatient type.

"It's in the bas.e.m.e.nt," said Shawna.

"Oh?"

"But it's huge. It's actually most of the whole bas.e.m.e.nt."

We tromped down the stairs, and I found out she was right. It wasn't as bad as it sounded, and it had potential. If you like concrete blocks, that is. If you like a general bunker feeling to your life and like to be ready for the next millennium. There were enough bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos down there to last through another ice age-Dara mentioned she had a slight problem making it through the day without a few.

I did not want to live in a bas.e.m.e.nt, but did I have a lot of choice? No. I had zero choice.

And there was Mom, grinning and standing beside me like wasn't it the most beautiful bas.e.m.e.nt in all of Colorado?