I glance at the full-length mirror hanging unceremoniously from the back of my closet door. Hair, spiked. Olive green polo; collar, popped. Baggy jeans. I take a closer look: Skin’s clear, too. I do a smell check. Nothing. Maybe it’s Maybelline, maybe it’s my Asian genes, I sing in my head. I smile and then cringe. Ugh I hate myself.

It was the first weekend of freshman year, which meant one thing only: frat parties. Danielle and I made plans to hit a couple tonight.

We met the summer after high school graduation on the bus to church camp that was located in another state, five hours away. It was 7 in the morning and she plopped down next to me, cheerfully introducing herself.

“I’m Ryan,” I replied, with tired eyes and an annoyed smile. I had been hoping to nap, but Danielle wouldn’t let me. She talked the entire way. Mid-way, she took out a brown paper bag she had packed the morning of with carefully sliced apples, Milano cookies, and baby carrots. “You want some?” she asked, offering to share her snack stash. When she found out that not only were we both headed to the University of Illinois in September, but we would be living in neighboring dorms, she didn’t leave my side for those entire six weeks.

“Promise me we’ll hang out when we get to school?” she asked, on our last day of bible camp. I promised.

Our first stop was Tau Kappa Epsilon, the closest frat to our dorms. Literally, a two-minute walk. And by 9 p.m. and a $5 cover, there we were, on the fringe of a sweaty, hormone-fueled “dance floor,” which was, really, a living room that had been converted into a tragic club. It was equipped with blackout curtains and its floors lacquered with spilled jungle juice and other unfortunate concoctions that dried down to a sticky surface, like a lollipop after the initial lick, which preyed on flip-flops, suctioning them to the ground and causing people to trip and land barefoot. I shuddered. Danielle mistook it for excitement, so she grabbed my hand, planted it on the butt of her American Eagle jeggings and leaned in to kiss me, but when I felt her thrust her tongue between my lips in an attempt to wedge them open, I stepped back and twirled her around.

Danielle’s my friend. Just my friend.

I’ve kissed girls before. My last girlfriend was a white girl named Stephanie and we dated for the last two years of high school, where we did things like study nights and actually studied. We held hands and pecked each other goodnight after these dates, and I was really content with our relationship. I thought she was, too, but on prom night, drunk and frustrated, she said that she wanted me to be her first, that she wanted to go all the way. “I love you,” I told her, fear creeping into my voice, “but I think we should wait until we’re married.” She spent the rest of the night crying.

—

I couldn’t tell you what the first month of college was like except that it was a blur of classes and frat parties. And it was hot. Punishingly hot. Illinois, for the first time in a decade, saw record-breaking temperatures in a heat wave that was described as “one for the books.” And running between classes that seemed to be, somehow, on the furthest possible ends on campus, didn’t help. By the end of September, the weather and the pace of college life chilled considerably. Oh, I got a bike, too.

Danielle never made a move again nor did she ever bring up the kiss. Maybe she was waiting for me to and then gave up, I’m not sure, but for those first few weeks, we saw each other every single day. We ate all our dinners together, more out of comfort than anything. One night, she had a stomach ache and lost her appetite. For the first time since college started, I ventured out to the dining hall alone. I saw a group of guys from my floor, and catching the eye of Billy, I went over to join their group. And I sat next to Kingston Park.

Kingston was from New Jersey, an out-of-stater, and that fact alone already made him stand out among the ocean of students who hailed “from a suburb of Chicago.” He hadn’t declared a major, which, in a way, said a lot about his character. What kind of a person would spend tens of thousands more to go to a public school in another state if he didn’t know what he wanted to study? A rebel. A maverick. A wild card. Kingston Park.

Our conversation was all about New Jersey. He talked about how much he missed home, how he couldn’t stop thinking about his girlfriend, how he loved the beaches, which are better than the ones in New York, by the way, and how he used to sneak to New York City when he was in middle school, the thought of which frightened me.

The most striking thing about Kingston when you meet him is that he’s never not smiling when he’s talking. He smile-talks, like he’s telling a joke and can hardly wait to deliver the punchline. It’s the sort of smile that, against your volition, makes you smile, too, as though the two of you share a secret. Maybe it’s because he knows he’s got a great smile — rows of annoyingly perfect, blindingly white teeth that make you wonder, for just a second, if they’re even real. He chuckles after he answers a question, like he’s embarrassed by the attention. And the whole thing is like a performance so mesmerizing, you can’t look away.

After dinner, I went back to my room and looked him up on Facebook. I didn’t friend him until the next day though. But I fell asleep, rolling his name in my mouth, liking the way it sounds.

—

We were on Christine’s roommate’s bed, Kingston and I, above the covers and in the dark, propped up against the headboard. There were eight of us crammed inside her dorm room — Christine and her boyfriend were on her bed and the rest crowded on the floor, stretched out on a haphazard pile of blankets and sheets to cushion them against the unforgiving linoleum. It was almost Halloween, and Saw was the obvious and only choice for an impromptu movie night.

A twin-size bed is not meant for two adult men to lounge comfortably, so we were quite literally on top of one another. His shoulder was on mine and his bicep rested against my non-bicep until it tingled. Paralyzed from lack of mobility and perhaps from fear or happiness or anxiety. Or all of the above. My nerves were heightened, burning, at every point of contact. I held my breath to slow down my heartbeat. It didn’t help. He must feel all this, too, right? I stole a furtive glance at him, but all I saw were his eyes trained on Christine’s tiny TV, his gold hoop winking from his earlobe, and the smallest grin dancing across his lips.

Back to back, Kingston was technically taller — 5 feet 8 inches to my 5-foot-7-inch frame. But when we stood face to face, our eyes were leveled. Our mouths, too. He was leaner than me. Better looking than me. More charismatic than me. Definitely more fit than me.

One night, a group of us — Billy, Christine, Peter, James, and I — were sitting in the hallway, outside Kingston’s room when he opened the door with nothing but a towel around his waist, his broad chest and hard abs exposed, and his shower caddy gripped in his hand. He ignored Christine’s cat calls, heading to the bathroom only to then swivel around with his towel gone, suddenly in his other hand. Damn, I thought, disappointed, as everyone else howled in shock and laughter. He was wearing boxers. And when did the guy even find the time to work out?

I was with him constantly. Danielle joined us in the beginning, but she stopped altogether, and I never bothered to ask why. At first, Kingston and I only interacted whenever food was involved. We’d text or call each other to go eat, meeting up in between classes to find a snack or before heading to the dining hall. And after a while, we’d text or call to just hang out. He’d come to my room or I’d go to his when our roommates weren’t around, and we’d talk about classes, listen to music, watch YouTube videos, rent a movie. He was always leaning against me, his arms around me, enveloping me with those muscles I could never willingly touch myself.

It only happened once — the time he confided in me. We stayed up all night in an empty study room. Stressed, sleep-deprived, and wired from Monster energy drinks that the dorm provided for free, he began talking.

“I dunno. I just feel down sometimes, and I get in this weird headspace that’s really dark. You know?”

I didn’t, but I nodded anyway. He pinned it on being away from home. In ninth grade, he couldn’t muster the energy to go to school and curled up in bed for a week straight, and his parents didn’t know what to do, so they prayed it away. It hasn’t been that bad since, but he could feel it, a familiar, painful twinge that pricked the edges of every thought. I knew then I was his closest friend in college — this was a side to him that no one else ever saw.

Sitting next to him now, I strained to listen to his breathing — every catch, every imperceptible sigh — over the screams and the grating sounds of hacksaw against metal. My leg accidentally brushed against his.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“No, it’s ok,” he replied. “You can leave it there.”

—

He gave me the news the day classes resumed after Thanksgiving break. He had been excited to go back to Jersey. Almost too excited. His girlfriend was back home, but Kingston never talked about her. I didn’t even know her name, but I once saw an old photo of the two of them on Facebook, and I immediately X-ed out.

“I’m transferring to Rutgers,” he said. Only he rushed it, so it was more like, “MtransferrintoUtgers.” He probably thought the whole “rip off the Band-Aid” theory was the easiest, least painful way to deliver it, except it did the exact opposite.

“What?” I asked. I shook my head, confused.

And he had to repeat himself, slowly, averting his eyes to avoid meeting mine. “I applied at the beginning of the year. I start in January.”

We texted all throughout break. He’d been the first person I said good morning to, the last person I said goodnight to. I knew what he ate for every meal, every time he left the house, every disagreement he had with his parents. Not once did he mention anything about staying put in Jersey.

“How come you didn’t tell me earlier?” Hurt and tears sprang to my eyes, but I hurriedly blinked them away. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I wanted to wait until it was official.”

I wasn’t sure what was worse: that he kept a secret this big from me or if our friendship meant that little to him.

—

The rest of what little remained of the semester wasn’t the same. We did our best to avoid talking about it, but it hung over us in much the same way finals did, marking the end of a term. Kingston tried to make me feel better. He grew touchier, letting his hand linger on my arm during a conversation, hugging me when we parted for the night, lightly stroking my hair down when it was being uncooperative.

We said goodbye outside our dorm on an iced-over sidewalk in sub-zero temperatures. He caught a ride from someone who was heading to the airport, his luggage already in the trunk.

“We’ll stay in touch,” he insisted. He handed me a letter. “Don’t open it until I’m gone.” We hugged for so long, that his friend honked at us. “Ok gotta go. I’ll text you.”

I tore open the letter when I got to my room, my frozen hands shaking from anticipation and regained sensation. He thanked me for being his friend, that he reconsidered staying because of me, that I made school bearable for him, that I should visit him if I’m ever in Jersey.

I turned the letter over, hoping for more, but that’s all there was to it. A sense of inconsolable loss washed over me. I felt completely and utterly alone. Who was I going to hang out with? How was I going to get through the next 3.5 years of school without him? Tears blurred my vision, and I let them fall.

But why was I crying? I angrily swiped at my eyes.

Kingston’s my friend. Just my friend.