“Charlotte.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not sure which of the thousand things you’ve done wrong you’re sorry for now and I doubt you know either, in this state.”
The elevator opened on his floor and I got his arm over my shoulder again as we struggled our way to his door.
“Where’s your card?” I said.
He opened his eyes for only a second. “What?”
I shoved him against the door and started the lovely task of searching his pockets. Of course he couldn’t be the kind of person who wore their card on a lanyard. I didn’t either, but I always kept my card in my back left pocket.
He watched me while I searched, finding it in his back pocket. I tried really hard not to think about where my hands were going, and that only a little bit of fabric separated my hand from his skin and other things.
I moved him to lean against the wall and slid the key card into the door before opening it as slowly as I could. There was enough light from the hallway to see that his roommate’s bed was empty and I breathed a sigh of relief as I turned the light on.
One side of the room was a disaster. Clothes and cans and random crap everywhere. The other side was orderly and sparse. I figured that was the Zan side. I got him in and sort of shoved so he fell onto the bed, banging his head on the wall.
“Ow,” he moaned.
“Shut up,” I hissed. My brother and Simon were on the other side of that wall, and they were the absolute last people I wanted to find out about this little adventure.
“‘We are the mirror as well as the face in it,” he muttered, opening and closing his eyes. “‘We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.’” I swung his feet up on the bed and started yanking his shoes off. “‘We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.’”
How the hell he was with it enough to quote poetry but barely able to walk, was beyond me.
“Charlotte?”
“What?” I finally jimmied his shoes off and chucked them on the floor. I guessed it didn’t matter if he slept in his clothes, because I sure as hell wasn’t undressing him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He tried to sit up, but I shoved him back down. “Just shut up and stay here. I’m going to get you some water.”
He nodded and stayed put. I peered out into the hallway and dashed as fast as I could to the bathroom and back with a glass I’d found on his desk. I didn’t really care if it was dirty or not. He wouldn’t know the difference.
Zan was on his side when I came back.
“Here,” I said, shoving the water at him. He took it, but his hand was wobbly, so I held it for him as he sipped.
There, I’d done something good for my karma. That was it, I was done.
“Charlotte?”
“WHAT?!” I snapped before I realized how loud my voice was. Shit. I clapped my hand over my mouth, as if I’d screamed a curse word in church.
“I’m Boo Radley.”
“You’re what?” He sort of slurred it, so I wasn’t absolutely sure that was what he said. What did Boo Radley have to do with anything?
“I’m Boo Radley.” His eyes closed and he went limp on the bed.

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