"You need a hand there?"

Now past midnight, everybody had retired to the various ends of the house to get ready for bed. Conceding that it would make sense to room with Adam for the night, the two were now in Josh's old room; a space that had been frozen in time.

On one wall hung a Cars poster, Lightning McQueen now faded to salmon. In another corner sat Josh's old toy box, his name stenciled across the front in red and blue. Piled on top were a bunch of cardboard boxes, labeled 'X-Mas' and 'Shannon Living Room', the handwriting belonging to one of Charlie's ex-wives.

"I've got it." Adam shook his head, struggling with the buttons of his shirt. "My fingers just suck."

"Understood."

.

Julie had already changed over in the other corner, Adam politely looking away as she slid out of her dress and into a set of flannel pajamas.

Unfortunately for his ego, her transformation was complete before he'd even gotten half of his shirt undone; leaving him faced with the prospect of her watching him undress.

At 15, that would have been a fantasy.

.

Of course, at 15, his fingers didn't labor with buttons.

At 15, he wasn't two decades removed from functioning abdominal muscles.

Now, 30 lbs., too many years, and too many surgeries later, he struggled to slide his thumb under the buttonhole of his oxford. As he fought with the Egyptian cotton, he thought in horror of what lie beneath: Given a choice between Julie seeing the mounds of misshapen flesh vs. joining a witness protection program and moving to Siberia, he knew that a handle of vodka and a pet grizzly bear were calling his name. As he watched her brow furrow with pity, he began to wonder how long he'd last in the Russian tundra; the lack of seat warmers in a Lada his biggest concern.

I should have been more specific when I said I wanted girls to take my clothes off...

.

Meanwhile, content to give him his privacy, Julie pulled back the covers and climbed into bed. Noticing Josh's old Fireman Sam sheets, she did her best to shake the feeling of sadness as she straightened her pillow.

November 20, 2000

"And this is Casey Kasem with another long distance dedication..."

"Did I make a mistake?" Julie moaned, sitting at her desk; her face illuminated by the computer screen.

It was Saturday morning, and she and her roommate Ashley were lounging in their dorm, both recovering from hangovers sustained the night before. America's Top 40 played in the background, Casey Kasem and the week's pop hits filling the silence as both bemoaned the frat house adventures that had put them in such a state.

As Julie logged into her Hotmail account, she felt a knot in the pit of her stomach-a feeling that she was unsure as to whether to blame on the three bottles of Boone's Farm, or the email staring her in the face.

Adam had emailed the night before.

He'd sent a photo attachment. A photo of him and a smiling, freshly scrubbed sorority girl with a blonde bob and pearl earrings; the kind of girl who's mediocre appearance was really beside the whole point.

She looked the kind of girl Dartmouth was made for.

The kind of girl who summered on Martha's Vineyard, and played tennis, and wore madras un-ironically.

The kind of girl Adam belonged with.

Cat Lady,

I hope you're having a fun Friday night.

Things are going really well back here, but I know Minnesota misses you.

The good news is, I think I found someone I really like. She's an economics major, and she agrees that it's okay to eat chicken strips for every meal. Pretty sure she couldn't care less about hockey, but I guess I can forgive her.

Anyway, I hope you're doing well!

Take care,

Adam

.

Leaning over to look at the photograph, Ashley just laughed.

"Definitely."

"Jerk!"

"I was kidding!" Ashley assured her, reaching for a bottle of Evian.

"No you weren't."

"No. Actually I was.

Ashley paused, looking back and forth between the computer screen and her roommate; back and forth between the two people posed in front of the Sigma Chi house, smiling in their matching Lacoste polos, and her roommate's recently acquired nose ring.

"I mean, don't get me wrong." She clarified. "He's hot. Really hot. But he's back in Minnesota, and more importantly, I'm thinking you two don't have just a ton in common."

"And what do you mean by that?"

.

Somehow, despite the inevitability of it all, it had never quite dawned on her Adam would eventually find someone else.

Even when he'd mentioned other girls during their conversations, it hadn't quite sunk in: They had all sounded like passing phases; like something that would be forgotten shortly. But now...now it felt real.

This wasn't a girl he'd rejected. This was a girl he posed for pictures in matching outfits with. A girl who he had his arm around, and who made his face light up the same way that she herself once had.

.

"What I mean is that they look ridiculous!"

"They do not!"

"So you're telling me that you're dying to wear an outfit like that?"

"Well, no, but there's nothing wrong with it."

"Of course there's not." Ashley agreed thoughtfully. "But it's not you."

"But what if it should be?"

"It's not.

Ashely paused, wrapping one of her dark ringlets around her finger. She glanced over at the posters and tapestries on her roommate's side of the dorm; at the ripped jeans on the floor and the strand of twinkle lights draped from the ceiling. And then, she glanced back at the computer screen; back at the sterile, country club perfection staring back at them. Back at the two perfect blondes, in their perfect pastel polos and their perfect khakis, smiling the perfect smiles of two people who would never leave their gated communities except for a once-a-year pilgrimage to the Mercedes dealership.

"Like, from all you've told me, he sounds like a really nice person, and I'm sure he's going to have a wonderful life, but it doesn't mean that's the life for you. I think you have a lot more to give the world than the direction he's headed."

"I don't know..."

"Well I do. There are a lot of wonderful people out there. That doesn't mean they're right for you."

"Yeah, but he was different..."

Ashley sat back in her bed, thinking back to the old phone conversations she'd overheard, and to her own experiences with the kinds of boys who shopped at Brooks Brothers on the weekends.

"Maybe so, but you're different, too. A different kind of different."

"You're seriously going to build a pillow wall between us?" Julie laughed, looking over at the fiberfill barrier that had been erected down the middle of the bed.

Determined not make her feel uncomfortable, Adam had indeed built his own border wall between the two of them, giving her more than 2/3 of the bed as he clung to the edge of the mattress.

"What? I didn't want you to think I was being a perv."

"I wasn't too worried about that." She smiled, reaching over to dismantle his creation. "I am worried, on the other hand, that you're going to fall off the bed."

"I'm fine."

Throwing the extra pillows and old stuffed animals off to the side, she put her arm around Adam, rolling him over towards her. Once he was no longer clinging to the edge, she just shook her head and chuckled, her arm still draped over him as he laid on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

"I think you're a mess."

"It's taken this long to figure that out?" He shrugged, turning over to face her. Looking into her eyes, not a thing had changed; his beloved Cat Lady still as kind as ever. "I'm really worried about the quality of patient care there in Boston."

"Jerk."

"I'm just saying. If it's taken you this long to realize that I'm a mess, I'm worried about what the lag time is to get a diagnosis on something that's not as obvious."

"Whatever. I've always known you were a mess. Loser."

"Aw man. So mean, too." He shook his head, reaching over to brush a strand of hair out of her face. "I feel very attacked."

"As you should. Keep it up, and I'll push you off the bed!"

"Go sniff some catnip."

January 1, 2001

Hey. Julie. This is Adam. I hadn't heard from you in awhile—I know you've been busy with hockey and everything. I hope you got the Christmas card I sent. Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a happy new year. I still miss you like crazy—not like that I mean, but you know...anyway, I hope you're doing well. And happy new year.

Julie replayed the message as she packed her things to head back to New Hampshire; the Gaffney's white Christmas lights still twinkling in her window.

She hadn't meant to miss his call the night before.

Or the one on Christmas eve.

Or the one the week before that.

She had also meant to thank him for the Christmas card—he was the one male on the planet under the age of 50 who sent out Christmas cards, and he really did have lovely taste. This year it had been glittery wisemen on thick, sumptuous cardstock, complete with a gold-lined envelope and a long handwritten message about how proud he was of her accomplishments. When she read it, she'd smiled at the neat handwriting, knowing full and well that it meant he'd taken his time; his handwriting was only legible if he stopped and thought about each letter as he wrote it.

.

She could picture him at his desk, carefully writing each letter as he sat there in his monogrammed boxers and a cashmere tee; his arm likely iced down after another grueling practice.

.

The whole thing had been very thoughtful, and very Adam.

Still, she'd been busy, and all of his calls had gone unreturned.

"I'll call him when I get back to New Hampshire." She told herself as she folded a sweatshirt; a part of her knowing that as soon as she got back, 1,000 other things would once again take up her attention.

"Goodnight old Cars poster."

"Goodnight silly bedsheets."

"Goodnight stuffed hedgehog."

Over the past decade, Adam had read Goodnight Moon more times than he could count, often joining his kids in their own versions of the bedtime ritual. Now, at a loss for what else to say as his first love lay curled up beside him, he once again found himself saying goodnight to the various odds and ends of the room that hadn't received much love in recent years. Julie joined in, her face nuzzled in his shoulder as she breathed in the familiar scent of Acqua Di Gio on his pajamas.

"Goodnight race car nightstand."

"Goodnight sad hockey equipment."

"Goodnight stick figure drawing."

"Goodnight Shannon's living room."

"Goodnight moon."

"Goodnight, Cat Lady." He whispered, leaning over to kiss the top of her forehead.

"Goodnight, Adam." She replied, wrapping her arm around his chest as she held him close; unable to let go.

.

In the ways that mattered, he really was exactly the same as he'd always been.

Nothing could ever change that.

April 5, 2001

"Julie?" A concerned voice at the other end of the phone asked.

Connie?

Julie yawned as she stared down at her fuzzy striped socks. Until the ringing of her dorm room's phone had awaken her, she'd been curled up with her floral print comforter, enjoying a much-needed nap. At that moment, she was practically counting down the seconds until she could get off the phone to resume the love affair with her pillow and comforter, whatever Connie had to say be damned.

"Hey Connie, is it okay if I call you back?" She mumbled, her eyelids still heavy with sleep. "I was kind of napping."

"Julie, this is important. Something—something bad happened."

Uh huh.

Yeah.

Okay.

"What did Guy do this time?" She asked, trying her best to feign concern.

"It's not Guy, it's Adam—"

"Okay, yeah, he's dating some sorority girl from Winnetka. That's not exactly news, Cons." She thought, still in her sleepy haze.

"I don't know if you were watching the game," Connie continued, trying to find the words to tell her friend what had happened, "but he—he got hurt."

Damnit.

.

She did feel guilty about the fact that she was napping through the last game of the Frozen Four, as well as for the fact that she'd never called Adam to congratulate him on making it that far.

She had meant to do that.

But, school work and hockey had been a grueling combo.

Plus, and perhaps more importantly, she couldn't quite bear to.

.

Dartmouth was nice.

She loved her friends and teammates.

But, whenever she thought about men's hockey-particularly Minnesota men's hockey-it was salt in an open wound.

.

Nobody cared about women's hockey in New Hampshire.

.

She missed the sense that the outcome of games mattered, and not just to the people in the stands. And so, that afternoon, she'd spent her time lounging around her room, eating pizza rolls and cookie dough, catching up on the sleep she'd missed the night before.

Sleep that she'd missed hanging out with Alexandre.

.

Alexandre was not men's hockey.

He was French and lovely and enjoyed red wine and hashish. They'd stayed up until three in the morning, getting to know one another in ways that Adam would have deemed improper...an admittedly low bar if ever there was one.

.

Adam.

"It's his arm, isn't it?" She realized, her mind going back to that night their freshman year when she watched his body careen down the marble staircase.

She could feel her blood pressure rising as she saw his body twisted and lifeless there at the bottom; as she thought about the fact that Phil could do that to his own son. As she thought about the fact that Adam had been playing through so much pain for the last four years, all because his dad had been a moron.

"It's a good thing that asshole is dead, because I'd go kill him right now." She thought, indignant at the idea that he could take away the one thing Adam had ever cared about.

"He broke his neck, Julie." Connie continued, trying not to choke on her own words. "He's paralyzed."

"Is-is he okay?"

Even as she said it, none of it seemed real.

Of course he was okay.

He was always okay.

Nobody landed themselves in the emergency department quite as often, sure, but nobody recovered as fully, either.

Why would this be any different?

"No.

"He's-he's in surgery right now." Connie continued, her own words broken up by the lump in the back of her throat. "Assuming he lives, they don't think he's going to be able to move anything below his shoulders. Like…ever."

"Of course he will." She thought to herself, "He'll be emailing me next week playing this whole thing off, like "Well, I'm supposed to sit out two more games, but I don't know why. It's just a broken neck; I don't see what they're making such a big deal about."

That was how things worked.

"Come on. This is Adam we're talking about."

He's fine.

He has to be fine.

"I'm sorry, Julie."

Shit.

"No."

"I'm so sorry."

"This—no. Not him."

"I know. I know. I'm so sorry."

Fuck.

"Paralyzed?"

"Yeah."

"For-forever?"

"Yeah."

"When will you know anything else?"

"They just took him into surgery a few minutes ago. I don't know how long it'll be. But when he gets out, I guess we'll at least knew whether he made it."

"Will you call me?"

"Of course."

"And if you see him before me, will you tell him I love him?"

"Of course."

He has to be okay.