I'm with Stupid Read Free Page A

for football.”
    We ended up choosing Wisconsin, Northwestern (not smart for me), a School That Shall Not Be Named, and Stanford. Two were close to Bluffton; one was a giant national football powerhouse; and one was near San Francisco, where Aleah might end up.
    I went home and told Jerri. She looked up from her accounting book and said, “Northwestern? That’s dumb.”
    â€œOh,” I said. “Yeah, I guess.”
    I went downstairs to my bedroom and thought, Thanks for all your help, Jerri.
    That tweak, that hole in my stomach, opened big. I am alone in the giant universe of pain! That’s crazy crap. I thought, You are pretty crazy. I thought, Thanks so much, Jerri.
    Granted, Jerri has problems.

Chapter 4
    Aleah
    Late that night, Aleah and I Skyped. Since we first got together, a year and a half earlier when her dad was a visiting poet at the college in Bluffton, we’d barely seen each other at all except for Skype. Those couple of months that she was in town were awesome. They were great. Aleah and I are like one person with two heads and two bodies. We’re so in sync when we’re together that it’s weird. (Like mind-melding aliens.)
    We biked together and went to Country Kitchen and laughed through eating sandwiches and made out in her basement and walked through the cow-pie-smelling Bluffton evening holding hands. I was pretty damn sure we’d get married and probably live on the side of some mountain in a giant house with a piano that she’d play and blow me away with, but then she went back to Chicago and we barely saw each other and we broke up once (over the prior summer). When we’re apart, we’re not so good.
    It was a little past midnight. Our Skype connected. Aleah was lit only by her computer. She wore white flannel pj’s. She sat on her bed. She whispered because I assume her dad, Ronald, was asleep in the room next to hers. “Hi there,” she said.
    â€œHey. Big news. I have my college visits set up.” I whispered too, even though Jerri sleeps like a brick.
    â€œOh,” she said, nodding. She didn’t look happy. “Good?”
    â€œI’ll be at Northwestern in a few weeks!”
    She perked up. “Can we see each other?”
    â€œI think! Why not? I’m staying in a hotel! Can you stay with me?”
    â€œI’m going to stay with you even if I can’t!” she said.
    â€œYes!” My heart began to beat. I thought of Aleah stretched out on a bed next to me. That’s good. That’s not lonely. “It’s going to be awesome to kiss you.”
    She nodded and smiled.
    â€œI’m visiting Stanford too. Any chance you can go? Maybe visit that school you liked out there?”
    Aleah didn’t say anything. She just stared at her screen.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œMaybe,” she said.
    Here’s the thing: the only reason I chose to visit Stanford was because a few weeks earlier, Aleah had said she’d researched good football schools near San Francisco because there’s some conservatory in San Francisco that teaches composition (I thought she meant paper writing, which confused me, but she meant music writing) and Stanford seemed like a good place for me. So…
    Here’s the other thing: Aleah doesn’t have to go to college if she doesn’t want to. She was paid professional money to play in Germany over the summer. She had constant, growing offers. I knew this. But I hoped. Back when we were sixteen, we said we’d go to college in the same place.
    â€œAre you okay?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œDaddy’s angry at Jerri,” Aleah whispered. “She has a bunch of his books and she won’t respond to him, but he needs his books back.”
    Here’s one other thing: Jerri and Aleah’s dad dated over the summer. Jerri broke up with him because she wants to focus on school. (Jerri developed a bad habit of dating my