With his pillow under his coat to keep it dry
and his toothbrush in his back pocket, Ned follows Bobby out into
the storm. Wind whips through the buildings in their complex,
sheering across the sidewalks, flinging ice into Ned’s eyes.
Pulling his hood close around his face, he struggles to get his key
into the lock on his door, bare fingers frigid with the wind and
ice. Just as he’s about to say f**k it—who’s going to steal
anything in weather like this? There’s no one else on campus
anyway—the key turns and he hears the lock click. “Damn,” he
mutters. The word is ripped from his throat and tossed away by the
wind.
Bobby waits a little ways off. As Ned
approaches, stepping cautiously on the thin sheet of ice that’s
formed over the sidewalk, Bobby shouts to be heard over the st
