True love wasn’t guaranteed. No one owed you love. And you couldn’t earn it.

  You just had to be in the right place for it.

  Summer had been in the right place for it, with Charlie—Oldfather Hall. They were in the same modern languages class. Summer had been reading a book that Charlie had read, too, and he’d started talking to her about it.

  Later he told her that he’d noticed her before that, that he’d liked her auburn hair and these earrings she wore sometimes, with little bells on them.

  The henna eventually washed out of Summer’s hair. And Charlie eventually told her that he felt like Summer had been misleading him from the very start—like the first thing he’d liked about her wasn’t really a thing about her. Maybe everything he thought he liked about her was just a false flag . . .

  It was so unfair. Summer didn’t even wear makeup.

  None of this boded well for Charlie, either. It meant he could be easily fooled and long delayed. They’d wasted more than a year on each other.

  Summer had settled on “Silent All These Years” as her breakup song because it made her sad in ways she didn’t even understand. The piano part at the beginning was so unsettling, and Tori Amos’s voice crawled right under her skin . . .

  “Years go by, will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand?”

  Summer had sobbed the first time she listened to this song after the breakup—after Charlie left her room for the last time. It had felt so good to cry. Like her outsides matched her insides. (How often did that happen?) Like she was perfectly centered inside herself and her misery.

  She wished she could keep crying like that.

  The song lost its power the more that Summer listened to it. Now it was just keeping her suspended in a permanent state of dull grief.

  Summer listened to the Tori Amos song while she got ready for class in the morning. Then she turned it on as soon as she got back. She’d even been listening to it when she worked on homework, in the hours when she couldn’t afford to lie on the floor.

  At some point, she would stop.

  But stopping would be the start of getting over what had happened. And Summer had no interest in doing that. She wanted to stay right here, as long as she could, mourning the loss of Charlie. And more than that, mourning what she’d had with Charlie—being in love, belonging to someone, being part of something warm. And even more than that, mourning the loss of herself.

  Summer had always been the sort of person who believed in true love. She wasn’t a hopeless romantic, but she’d thought that when she said, “I’ll always love you,” it was a promise she could keep.

  It wasn’t.

  She’d know now that she couldn’t be trusted.

  Probably Summer would never make promises like that again—but if she did, she’d know they were written in disappearing ink.

  And she’d know not to believe the next person who promised to always love her.

  Summer was the sort of person that love didn’t stick to. That was a terrible thing to know about yourself.

  There was a knock at Summer’s door.

  Her friend Michelle usually stopped by her room after dinner, and they’d go work out at the rec center together. But Michelle knew that Summer was out of commission . . .

  She might be checking on her. Summer didn’t want to be checked on. She ignored the knocking.

  But it didn’t stop.

  Summer got up and looked through the peephole in the door. She didn’t know the person who was standing there. Or, like, she did know him—they lived in the same building—but she’d never talked to him.

  It was that big, kind of gross guy who wore his gym clothes in the cafeteria and was always too loud in the elevators.

  She thought about ignoring him, but he started knocking again while Summer was standing there—so she opened her door and frowned.

  “Hey,” the guy said, “I’m going to need you to turn that off.”

  “Turn what off?” (“Silent All These Years” had just started again.)

  “The music.”

  “I’m listening to it.”

  “You’re listening to it, I’m listening to it, floors ten through twelve are listening to it.”

  Normally Summer would apologize in a situation like this. She didn’t want to impose on anyone. She didn’t want to be a bad neighbor. But she really didn’t like to be told what to do. And she felt, in her current state, entitled to some rude behavior.

  Also, once, when Michelle was holding the elevator for Summer, this very guy had gotten impatient and smacked Michelle’s hand away, and the elevator had closed while Summer was running for it.

  “It’s not that loud,” she said.

  “It’s pretty fucking loud from where I’m trying to study for a quantum mechanics test. Your speakers are sitting on my ceiling.”

  She grimaced. She had no idea this guy lived directly below her. That was an unpleasant thought.

  “I’m losing my mind,” he said. “I can hear this song in my sleep. It follows me around campus like a ghost. That Twilight Zone piano . . . I can’t take it. I know you’re sad about your breakup—”

  “How do you know that?” Had Charlie told him? Did Charlie talk to this Neanderthal? They did live on the same floor . . .

  The guy rolled his eyes. “Well, I didn’t think you were listening to ‘Silent All These Years’ on repeat because you were happy. Either you just got dumped, or you’re having a stroke.”

  Summer was blinking. There were tears in her eyes. (It felt good.) “I didn’t get dumped.”

  “Oh.” The guy looked thoughtful. “You broke up with him? Good for you. It was about time.”

  Summer was crying a little harder. (It felt great.) “I don’t want to talk to you about this.”

  “And I don’t want to talk to you!” He waved his finger between them. “This is a win-win situation. Just put on headphones.”

  Her headphones were broken. “No.”

  “Okay, don’t put on headphones, I don’t care. But I will definitely tell my RA if I hear any more Tori Amos tonight.”

  Summer was really crying now. She knew it was mostly embarrassment and anger and the fact that she couldn’t handle confrontation, but it felt fantastic. Like she’d tapped into herself again. Like something was moving inside her.

  “Just leave me alone,” she said.

  She didn’t slam the door in his face, but she closed it with vigor. Then she crawled onto her bed. She was still crying. It felt so good. It was such a relief. Like her emotions and body were in synch with her brain again. She cried into her pillow until she didn’t have anything left. Maybe now she’d be able to sleep . . .

  She was just drifting off when there was another knock at her door.

  Summer got up and looked through the peephole. It was the big guy again. He had a dumb-looking tank top on. He loved tank tops. (Summer had seen more of this guy’s armpit hair than her own.)

  She opened the door. “I haven’t been listening to anything.” Her voice was hoarse.

  “No, I know.” He was looking at her with his eyebrows down, like he felt bad about something. “Look, I made you this.”

  He held out a CD in a clear case.

  “What is it?”

  “Music. That you can listen to.”

  “Are you critiquing the music I listen to when I’m grieving?”

  “No!” He gestured when he talked—as if he wasn’t big and loud enough. “I get it. You’re upset. But if I have to grieve with you, I need a little variety.”

  Summer looked down at the CD. He’d written Songs for Getting Over Dipshits on the case.

  “I can’t believe you’re trying to dictate what I listen to while I cry,” she said, fully affronted. “You don’t even know me. This is such a guy move.”

  “A guy move?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who dumped you.”

  “He didn’t dump me.”

  “If you dumped him”—he spread his arms—“why are you listening to suicide music?”

  “It’s not suicide music! And it’s because I’m sad!”

  The guy rubbed his face. He was also wearing weight-lifting gloves. Why couldn’t he put those on when he got to the gym? Was he trying to draw attention to how big he was? That was unnecessary . . .

  You know how, in high school, there were those guys who already looked like grown men? Like their necks were already thick, and their beards were already full?

  This guy was the college version of that.

  He looked like a grown grown man. He was a head taller than most people and proportionately wider, and he always seemed to have five-o’clock shadow. He was too much.

  “I understand that you’re sad,” he said. “I’m just saying—there are lots of sad songs.”

  “I can hear your music, too, you know.” (He listened to very aggressive rap music. Charlie said it was the Judgment Night soundtrack.) “I’ve never come down to harass you about it.”

  “If you ever need me to turn it down,” he said, “I will.”

  Summer shook her head. She hated knowing that this guy lived below her. Now she’d be constantly thinking about what he could hear. “Just leave me alone,” she said.

  “Fine,” he agreed.

  “Fine.”

  He walked away before Summer could close the door in his face. She swung it shut and sat back on her bed looking down at the CD. Who was he calling a dipshit?

  Summer bought new headphones at the university bookstore for $7.99. She’d been saving up for a new pair of Vans, and now she’d have to wait another week. She blamed her downstairs neighbor for that. For the last day, she’d been more angry with him than she had been miserable about Charlie.

  But then she saw Charlie at dinner—she’d just finished getting her food, and she’d walked out into the dining area, and there he was. In a Pavement T-shirt and a flannel shirt. Summer had panicked and whirled around. She walked the wrong way through the food line and out into the other side of the cafeteria, the north side.

  Michelle hadn’t been able to find her, so Summer ate alone.

  After dinner, Summer skipped working out, and went and sat in front of her stereo, plugging in her new headphones.

  She had to lie very close to the stereo, so they wouldn’t come unplugged.

  She started “Silent All These Years.”

  It was like sinking into a warm, unhappy bath. Like being gently raked from head to toe with familiar misery.

  The song played over Summer and through her, and she settled into it, hollow and numb.

  Summer had to move her stereo, so she could listen to music on her headphones while she worked at her desk. It meant she couldn’t lie on the floor anymore. She hated wearing headphones. She hated feeling tethered. But it was worth it to never have to talk to her neighbor.

  She’d eaten on the north side of the cafeteria again tonight. She’d tried to talk Michelle into eating on the north side from now on. But Michelle liked a guy who ate on the south side, and the rest of the girls on their floor all ate on the south side.

  “Don’t let Charlie change your life like this,” Michelle said.

  “It’s not much of a change,” Summer said. “It’s literally just the other half of the cafeteria. They have all the same food.”

  “You know that the soft serve is better on the south side . . .”

  Summer couldn’t argue with that; it was true.

  She ate dinner by herself for the rest of the week. Like a first-semester freshman.

  Summer had listened to “Silent All These Years” so many times, she could hardly even feel it anymore. She could hardly even hear it. It was just the sound that her room made.

  She wasn’t sure she even remembered how to listen to other songs . . . She had a one-track mind now. Every other song sounded like a mistake someone made while they were trying to play “Silent All These Years.”

  She flipped through her CD crate, feeling tetchy and fickle.

  She hated her new headphones. They’d taken her last eight dollars—but they were so cheap, they were already buzzing in one ear.

  She’d shoved that CD from the guy downstairs in here with the rest of her CDs. She wondered what a guy like that considered breakup music . . . Metallica? Korn?

  Summer ejected her Tori Amos CD and put the CD he’d given her into the carousel. She hit play.

  She didn’t recognize the first track . . .

  Maybe she’d heard it on an oldies station?

  Or in church? It kind of sounded like a church song. It didn’t sound sad. How was this a breakup song? The lyrics weren’t sad. The piano wasn’t sad.

  “Morning has broken, like the first morning . . .”

  Summer’s head dropped into her hands. There were tears streaming down her cheeks.

  All she listened to for the rest of the night was “Morning Has Broken.” On repeat. Trying to figure out why it was so devastating.

  Why it reminded her of things she’d completely forgotten—like waking up with Charlie after the first time he’d slept in her dorm room and walking to class together in the rain.

  How could a song she’d never heard before remind her of something?

  Summer stopped crying after the first few times she listened to it. But she still felt . . . something new. Wretched in a new way. Like her misery was a sculpture, and she’d walked around to get a different view of it.

  Track 2 was another song she only sort of recognized. Another song that you could sing in church. Another song that made Summer cry.

  Track 3 was Metallica. She still cried. (It was acoustic.)

  Track 4 was a Tori Amos song that she’d never heard before. Summer thought she’d heard every Tori Amos song before. (It was a cover of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” obviously a bootleg. The guy downstairs probably stole music from the Internet. He was probably really into Napster.)

  The song reminded her of lying in bed with Charlie and watching cartoons. They’d always stayed in her room because Summer didn’t want to get caught sneaking down to the boys’ floor. Sneaking onto the boys’ floor made her feel like a tramp. Letting Charlie into her room felt divine.

  Summer cried.

  Track 5 was a song Summer just couldn’t get into.

  She skipped to Track 6—Judy Collins. “Send in the Clowns.” Judy Collins was sort of the 1973 version of Tori Amos. Summer cried a river.

  It took three nights for Summer to get through the eighteen songs on the CD. Thirteen of them were exquisite. Two were just okay. And three were skippable.

  The songs were mostly new to her, so they were slow to lose their power. She listened to the CD whenever she was in her room. Tethered to her stereo. Sometimes just leaning against her desk.

  Her headphones gave out in the middle of writing a paper. Summer threw them across the room. She listened to the CD with the volume turned low.

  She listened to the CD with the volume turned loud.

  She lay on her floor, with her eyes closed, remembering how Charlie slept with his fingers coiled in her hair.

  Summer went through the north side of the cafeteria line and out into the dining area, looking for a table.

  The meathead from the tenth floor was sitting by himself, right next to the salad bar. He smiled when he saw Summer. It was a knowing smile. Like—I know you’re listening to that CD I gave you.

  Summer rolled her eyes and walked past him.

  She knew he knew! She hadn’t forgotten how space and sound worked. She couldn’t afford new headphones right now. It was either listen to the CD and know he could hear it—or not listen to the CD, which was . . . untenable.

  Summer stopped, just past his table, and came back around to the other side. He grinned up at her.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” she asked.

  He kicked the chair across from him, pushing it away from the table. He was wearing a neon tank top, and his weight-lifting gloves were sitting next to his tray. She sat down anyway.

  “So,” he said.

  “So,” Summer conceded.

  “You usually sit on the south side.”

  “So do you.”

  He shrugged. “The line was shorter on this side tonight. I’m trying to get to the gym.” He narrowed his eyes. “I know what you’re doing over here—you’re trying to avoid that dipshit.”

  She shrugged. “It seemed advisable.”

  “You should make him sit on this side, to avoid you. You can’t let him get the good soft serve in the divorce.”

  “The soft serve is perfectly fine over here,” she said.

  The sides of his mouth pulled down. “Is it?”

  “It must be.” Summer spread her paper napkin in her lap. “All these people eat here every night. They seem happy.”

  The guy looked around. “The only people who eat on this side of the cafeteria are freshmen and the lactose-intolerant.”

  Summer shook her head. None of this mattered. She was too sad to eat ice cream. “I know you know,” she said.

  He was grinning at her. He had a very big head. And a very big smile. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a month. “What do I know?”

  “That I’m listening to that CD you gave me. I like it, okay?”

  He grinned down at his tray. He had two dinner plates wedged onto the tray, with two servings of roasted chicken. He’d covered it all with spinach and cottage cheese. He also had three bananas. “I did know that.” He looked up at her. “It’s pretty good shit, huh?”

  “Yes,” Summer said, sounding irritated, “it’s very good. I listen to it all the time.” She leaned over her own tray (where there was a very normal cheeseburger with a normal serving of French fries). “How did you know? I mean—was that just a mix that you had left over from the last time you got dumped? Is that your go-to breakup mix?”

  He looked offended. “No. I made it for you.”

  “But you don’t even know me!” Summer practically shouted.

  “You’re right!” he practically shouted back. (He was so loud.) “But I know a lot about what kind of music you like.”

  Summer shuddered. Mostly for effect. “Are you listening to me listen to music?”

  The guy looked at his food again and picked up a fork. “You’re not making me feel bad about that. I’m not some creep. All I’ve done is bear with your obsessive-compulsive bullshit for the last two years and tried not to complain about it.”