Beware of Love in Technicolor by Kirstie Collins Brote Page A

and I were housed. Area 3 consisted of two near-identical brick towers, built in the eighties. Each had eight floors. They were modern, compared to Wyndham or Holt, and I immediately wished I lived out here in the woods, with the safe elevators and quiet, hidden pipes.
    The guys had obviously been getting to know each other over the moth, but I think that sort of thing comes easier for guys, anyway. Women need so many more details to feel close. Men are just looking for someone to shoot pool and eat greasy food with. I ate about half my fries, and then gave them up to the group. They descended like vultures, leaving an empty box behind in about four seconds flat.
    Jared was one of those guys I immediately had a strange feeling about. He was either going to end up as some kind of genius billionaire, like Larry Flint, or in prison for masterminding a grand-scale scandal. His dark hair was a mass of tight curls, worn close to his head. To this day, I cannot hear the Beastie Boys without thinking of Jared.
    Despite my feelings for John, Ben remained a pretty thing to look at. He was so damn good looking, sometimes it was hard to look directly at him. Like it had a power of its own. Girls were constantly flocking around him, tossing their hair and giggling. It was something to watch.
    With the door to their room open to the ebb and flow in the hallway, plans for the night started being made, parties were being discussed, and girls in baggie jeans and baggier sweatshirts were increasing in number. John checked in with me a couple of times, to be sure I wasn’t fading into the shadows. I spent a bit of time just watching him, pretending to be interested in hearing about this person’s major, or that person’s dining hall experience. He towered over everyone. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
    For the first time since arriving at the steps of Wyndham more than a month earlier, I was having fun. John, remembering that I didn’t drink, excused us from the group when talk of beer runs and “getting shitfaced” became the focus.
    “You could have stayed,” I told him as we stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor of Harrison.
    “Would you have stayed?” he asked.
    “Probably not. But I wouldn’t have been mad at you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    We were outside now, following the narrow paved path through the woods that would dump us out in the main part of campus, near the theater building.
    “What about smoking?” The chilly air gave our words weight; the billowy, steamy puffs wafted from our mouths as we strode across the street.
    “Cigarettes?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you smoke.”
    “Weed,” he stated.
    “Oh.”
    Now, I was not anti-drug in any kind of Nancy Reagan, just-say-no kind of way. I saw drugs as a weakness. They were a crutch. They were psychic suicide. It was all just theory. I had never so much as abused Nyquil.
    “How do you feel about that?” John pushed me for a response.
    “Are you not going to smoke if I tell you I don’t want you to?”
    “No,” he answered honestly.
    “Then why do need to know how I feel about it?” I was irritated that he had brought it up. I had been having a good time.
    “Because I care how you feel.”
    “You’re acting like a boyfriend or something,” I crossed my arms in front of myself. The night was cold, and I hadn’t prepared to be out this late. My teeth were chattering. My green sweater was made for style rather than warmth. Seeing this, John removed his leather jacket and placed it over my shoulders. It nearly swallowed me whole.
    “I like you Greer, and I want to be your friend.”
    “So be my friend, and stop asking me these questions,” I told him.
    “I don’t know what to make of you,” he said, shaking his head. We were back in the woods, following another narrow path beside a small, babbling brook. I paused on a wooden bridge, and looked down at the swirling water. He stood behind me, and placed his hands