Somebody I Used to Know Read Online Free Page B

one standing before me.
    “I was going to say wouldn’t it be funny if you were some super-Christian guy and within the first three words I ever spoke to you I dropped the f-bomb.” She smiled. “But your answer kind of surprised me, I have to admit.”
    “No offense taken by the f-bomb,” I said. “I kind of liked it.”
    That was Marissa. There was nothing predictable or conventional about her.
    We left the mixer together and walked around campus that night. We told each other about our families, our lives in high school, our hopes and dreams. I was majoring in philosophy and thinking about grad school or maybe a job as some kind of social worker. Marissa wanted to travel, to take photographs and write, and maybe someday turn her experiences into a book.
    I remembered our first kiss. Late that night, we walked beneath the falling leaves on the quad, and our hands found each other as though they possessed minds of their own. Once our bodies touched that way, it was over. At least for me, it was over. I belonged to her. And that scared me, as I was sure it scared her. Young guys always got nervous when the feelings grew that deep. I’d dated other girls, sure, but I always felt in control with them. I always believed I could come and go from the relationship if I wanted. No harm, no foul. I knew that wouldn’t be the case with Marissa.
    And on that fall night, we came together. We stopped in a darkened patch between the gas lamps that lit the campus walkways. We turned to each other and kissed, and it was one of the few moments in my life when I completely lost myself. The world around us disappeared. The buildings, the students, the night sky.
    When our lips parted, I ran my hand through her thick hair, my fingers disappearing in the deep red waves.
    “Are you ready for this?” she asked.
    “For what?” I asked. “For you?”
    “For everything,” she said. “For this great adventure.”
    I told the truth. I couldn’t tell her anything else.
    “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”
    And I was. For two years, it was the greatest ride of my life.
    And I also remembered what it felt like when she broke up with me, just two days before she died. She didn’t just end our relationship. She told me she didn’t want to be my friend either. She told me she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see me again.
    She didn’t just break my heart. She steamrolled it.
    And then two days later, she was dead.
    The fire swept through the house she shared with three other girls on a Friday night in October, killing them all. An accident. A candle left burning unattended, possibly because the four of them had been out drinking. It could have happened to any young, careless kids. In this case, it happened to my favorite person.
    I tried to convince myself over the years that it was all for the best, that Marissa and I wouldn’t have spent our lives together. We would have broken up late in college or shortly after, like most couples, and we both would have gone on to find other partners, other lives.
    But I didn’t really believe any of that.
    Marissa and I often talked about life after college and our fears about ending up stumbling through the kind of conventional lives our parents lived. One night a few weeks after we started dating we hopped into her car and drove off to Columbus, an hour away, to eat at a dumpy little diner called Heywood’s. Marissa was always hearing about places like Heywood’s and insisting that we try them. After eating hamburgers and sharing a milk shake, we sat across from each other, letting the conversation go wherever we wanted.
    “We should run off somewhere,” she said.
    “We just did. Heywood’s.”
    “I mean after college,” she said. “Someplace no one would expect.”
    “Disneyland?”
    “A real place. Far away. New Zealand.”
    “New Zealand?” I asked. “Do you know anything about New Zealand?”
    “No,” she said. “That’s why we should go. Are you in?”
    “Okay,” I