Principles of Love Read Online Free Page A

memory the vast number of academic buildings and dorms, but I know Whitcomb since it’s the closest to my house — directly across the street. Near the patio in back, two guys fling a Frisbee back and forth.
    “Hurry up,” Cordelia says.
    I finish tying my lace, but notice that one of the Frisbee tossers is the incredibly beautiful guy I’ve seen around campus. He’s got that prep school hair that refuses to stay out of his eyes, full mouth, but not so full he’d Saint Bernard-kiss you, and the physique of — I’m pathetic. I need to stop. I stand up, wishing I were alone so I could stare and long from afar.
    “Where are we going, anyway?” I ask.
    “Whitcomb — for a small matter of business,” Cordelia says. “Then for a brief appearance at the Welcome Picnic.” Every time she mentions the picnic, Cordelia puts on a Stepford Wife face and semi-salutes.
    The boys’ dorms face east on campus, making one half of an arc on the far side of campus. The girls’ dorms are flush on the other side, with all the dining hall, theatre, arts center, and academic buildings in the middle. It’s as if whoever planned the property had the segregation of sexes in mind, even though the school used to be all boys. Whitcomb is the largest of the dorms, three floors of testosterone, shirtlessness, cell phones, and various musical tastes blaring from the windows.
    Cordelia marches over to some boys in front and motions for me to come with her. There’s a bunch of gesturing I don’t understand, a couple of hello hugs, including one for me from some guy Cordelia will later describe as a Mlut, one of the Hadley Hall Male Sluts. Still, it feels nice to be included. We’re in the common room when Cordelia announces she’s “getting parietals” from the dorm parent. I know from going over the Hadley Hall handbook with my dad that this is a fancy way of saying she’s getting written permission to go upstairs into a boy’s room. There are really funny/stupid rules like you can be in the room, but not have the door closed, and you have to have three feet on the floor at all times (obviously, not one person’s three feet — that’d be highly unusual — but I suppose this is meant to keep two people from, uh, lying down).
    I’m left sitting in a worn-in leather chair. In front of me, the empty fireplace looks like a hollow mouth. Logs are stacked next to the grate for far-off winter nights, and I wonder what life will be like then. Just as I’m thinking this, the hot guy comes into the cool darkness and rushes over to me, leaning down to give me a slightly sweaty hug. Yum. He backs up and looks at me.
    “Sorry — my eyes are out of whack in here — I thought you were someone else.” He stands there for a second, politely waiting for me to introduce myself, but my mind is flipping through inappropriate responses (oh my god I love you, do me now, hey — get some Right Guard — no, wait — don’t) and my body is still reeling from his sweat.
    Cordelia comes down the stairs two at a time and hot guy wanders off, playing catch with his balled up shirt. “We’re all set,” Cordelia says, and pulls me up from the chair and my hot-boy stupor.
    “Get ready for a J. Crew catalogue montage,” Cordelia says and I don’t know what she’s talking about until I see the Science Center lawn, bannered and bright with plaids, khakis, shrunken cable sweaters and tank tops, faculty in their Hadley Hall blue blazers. Perfectly-highlighted blondes (“I used some lemon juice at the beach” is a line I hear not once but four times in an hour) and well-formed guys high-five and catch up on summer situations.
    “All we need are a bunch of slobbery dogs,” I say. And, as if on cue, shaggy golden retrievers and muddy brown Labradors weave in an out of our legs in search of hot dog ends and burger buns. “I see my dad.”
    “Meet me by the creepy fish statue in an hour,” Cordelia says. I know the landmark she means — it’s at the