Chapter 2

I’m not stalking Reyna Castillo, I decide, firmly.

Stalking implies nefarious intent, premeditation, maybe a corkboard with red string connecting photos and newspaper articles. What I’m doing is more like observational research. Field work. The kind of thing anthropologists do, except instead of studying an indigenous tribe in the Amazon, I’m studying a five-foot-two chemistry TA who’s been giving my assignments Ds and Fs all semester.

Besides, I tell myself: there’s no ill intent here. Writing her name down will be doing her a favor.

The Notebook -- I’m increasingly thinking of it as having a capital N -- will make me exactly what she wants. Just like with Isabel, it’ll turn me into a satisfying experience for her.

It’s me that I need to worry about.

And -- speaking of Isabel -- that was four days ago.

Four days since I sat on my bed watching her walk out of my dorm room with both my dignity and the half-finished bottle of wine.

Four days since she blackmailed me into writing essays for her. Which I’ve started doing. What else am I going to do, commit social suicide? She’d tell everyone. I can imagine her in the quad, like some kind of town crier with a charming Italian accent, telling the story of how Miles Park came right away from a blowjob.

I’d spend the rest of my college career as a punchline.

So: I’m writing an extra essay for the next English 201 assignment. It’s fine. I’ve got time to kill while I watch Reyna anyway.

She basically only goes to four places.

The coffee shop on Elm, where she sits in the same corner booth every morning from seven to eight-thirty, headphones in, a cortado in a ceramic cup that she drinks without looking at it. Sometimes her laptop is open and she types fast. Sometimes there’s a stack of papers, which she grades fast. She doesn’t look up when people walk by. Sometimes there’s another grad student or two with her; sometimes not.

The chemistry building, where she holds multiple review sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays and attends Dr. Okonkwo’s graduate seminar on Mondays and Wednesdays. She carries a leather messenger bag that’s too big for her frame and walks with the purposeful stride of someone who is late for something, although she’s never actually late.

Her apartment, a second-floor unit in one of those sad beige complexes near campus that house grad students and young professionals who haven’t given up yet. She has a window box with herbs in it. She goes to bed at a reasonable hour. I notice all this from the sidewalk across the street, which is a public sidewalk, which means I’m allowed to be on it.

And, last of all, the gym. She goes at six AM every other day, which I know because I also went to the gym at six AM, specifically to confirm this. It’s obvious that she’s no athlete. She does a couple miles on a treadmill at a moderate pace, a little circuit training routine with dumbbells. Just enough to check the box, work up a sweat. Maybe she saves all her intensity for grading chemistry assignments.

Although I can’t help but stare a bit at the gym.

She’s small -- really small -- but she’s built like someone stuffed an improbable amount of curves onto a compact frame. Wide hips, narrow waist, breasts that strain her sports bra appealingly, an ass that fills out leggings. Behind the severe glasses and the tight ponytail and the disapproving purse to her lips, Reyna Castillo has a body.

It is a really, really compelling point in favor of writing her name down.

Anyway. Four places. Coffee, chemistry, apartment, gym. Repeat.

The monotony of it hits me in a way that’s uncomfortably familiar. I know this pattern because I also live a similar pattern. Dorm, class, dining hall, dorm. We’re both running a loop, just in different buildings. Her life appears just as predictable and boring as mine, which is either reassuring or deeply sad.

My life was that predictable and boring, anyway. Then I found the Notebook.

Watching her reveals the limitations of my plan to do some investigating before I write a name down. I was hoping for some disqualifying piece of evidence, but her daily routines tell me so little about her. She doesn’t meet up with friends in conspicuous ways, doesn’t have loud phone conversations in public, doesn’t wear t-shirts that say I HEART KILLING BOYS. No suspicious trash bags put in the dumpster, that look like they could be full of body parts. She’s just ... a person. Going to her four places. Living her life.

She’s not a serial killer, I’m pretty sure. But -- after Isabel -- I realize that, in spite of knowing her routines and habits, I know almost nothing about what she actually wants. Who I’ll become, for her.

But I decide that’s fine. The stakes are lower here, by design. I’m not in love with Reyna or harboring a massive secret crush. I’m not building some fantasy about her moaning my name in Italian while I heroically fuck her into the mattress for hours at a time. The encounter with Isabel has humbled me; my expectations have been adjusted.

My thought process is much simpler: I’m pulling a D-plus in her class. She’s smart as hell and brooks no fools. I’ve always thought she’s hot. I’d fuck her in a heartbeat.

What she wants has to be someone who’s also smart. Even if she doesn’t, if she really wants to fuck me, I think that I can come out the other side of this with a passing grade as a trade. That’s honestly all I’m looking for.

A low bar. But if you have low expectations, it’s easier to meet them, right?

I pick up the Notebook that evening.

I’m sitting at my desk. Paul’s side of the room is still empty; his mom’s recovery is going fine, apparently, but he’s electing to stay home another week. Milking the family emergency for all it’s worth, I suspect. An approach that makes sense to me.

The battered leather is warm in my hands. That same unusual warmth, like it’s been sitting in sunlight, except it’s been in a desk drawer the last few days.

“So you’ve made a choice.”

Volupta is sitting on my bed, the top bunk. Legs folded beneath her, the white sundress pooling around her, shoulders showing off bare, perfect skin. She’s so gorgeous that it’s jarring, like she isn’t really a part of this scene, she’s just been copy-pasted into my dorm room for the moment.

“You show up when I hold the Notebook,” I say. Not a question. I’ve been been thinking about it, playing back our prior interactions. This confirms it.

“I prefer to think of it as showing up when you’re ready.” She tilts her head. “And generally when you’re ready, you pick up the Notebook.”

“Do you always have to do that? Be weird and cryptic? Can’t you ever just say ‘yes, Miles, that’s right’?”

She rolls her eyes and doesn’t address that directly; she just nods toward the Notebook. “You’ve picked someone. I can tell. The woman you’ve been following? Or did you see something that scared you off?”

That gives me pause; this is, I think, the first clear sign that she knows what’s happening when the Notebook isn’t around. I file that away for later.

“Reyna Castillo. My chem TA. And yeah, she seems normal enough; I’m going to pick her, I think.”

Something shifts in her expression. Not surprise -- I’m not sure Volupta is capable of surprise -- but a flicker of ... interest. Amusement, maybe. The corner of her mouth curves upward.

“Because you need a better grade,” she says. Another non-question.

“Yeah. Think it’ll work?”

“Maybe. It’s the sort of thing that often works, but it’s hard to know for sure.” She uncrosses her legs, recrosses them. “I figured you’d pick her.”

I start to stare at her legs but catch myself. “Why is that?” I can feel the impatience creeping into my voice, certain she’ll say something unhelpful.

Sure enough: she shrugs, and says, “You’ve got a type.”

In point of fact, I don’t think I do. But I can see how Volupta might reach that conclusion; Reyna and Isabel are both attractive brunettes.

If she can tell what I’m thinking, she doesn’t give any sign. After a moment, she prompts, “Write the name, Miles.”

I look down at the open notebook. Isabel’s name is still there on the first line, my shaky handwriting a permanent record of my first attempt. I turn to the next blank page. The paper is thick and smooth under my pen.

REYNA ALEJANDRA CASTILLO

She’s got a LinkedIn profile that includes her middle name. I write it carefully this time: steady hand, clear letters, right under Isabel’s name. Less shakiness. I’ve done this before. I know what comes next.

I look up at Volupta. She’s watching me with an oddly pleased, expectant expression, like she’s seen this movie and we’re approaching a part she particularly enjoys.

“Any advice?” I ask. “More specific than last time, ideally.”

“Pay less attention to the physical changes, as entertaining as those can be. More attention to the other kind.”

“ ... Like how I learned Italian from writing Isabel’s name down?”

“Yes, Miles, that’s right,” she deadpans, sarcastically.

I blink; it’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from her.

Then she shrugs. Even by Volupta standards, it’s an elegant, almost sensual shrug, the kind that belongs in a perfume commercial. “Sleep well. See you tomorrow.”

I avert my eyes, sparing myself the nauseating distortion of space that accompanies her departures.

When I look back, she’s gone. The bed is empty, the sheets slightly indented where she sat.

I close the Notebook. I set my alarm for early; I want to make it to the first review session of the day.

It takes me a while to fall asleep, wondering what version of me Reyna Castillo wants.

The answer is: an obscene one.

I stand in front of the mirror the next morning and the person looking back at me barely qualifies as the same species I was two weeks ago.

My jawline could cut glass. Not figuratively; I actually run my finger along it and it feels sharp. It has an edge. It’s the kind of bone structure that makes people assume you have famous parents. My cheekbones have risen, my eyes have gotten slightly more hooded in a way that gives me this perpetual almost-smoldering look.

My body is ... I pull off the undershirt that I slept in, and just stare. The leanness from the Isabel transformation is still there, but now there’s definition layered on top. Not bulky -- I’m not suddenly a bodybuilder -- but every muscle group is now visible and sculpted in a way that looks like I’ve been training with a personal nutritionist and a professional photographer’s lighting rig for about five years. Shoulders broad, waist tapered, abs that actually do resemble a washboard.

My arms have veins running along the forearms in that way that I’ve notionally understood women find attractive, but never really got, until right now. Looking at my arms prompts the thought almost unbidden: okay yeah, that’s objectively pretty hot.

My hair is doing the effortless thing again, but better. Fuller. The kind of hair you see on the front of a men’s magazine, artfully disheveled in a way that communicates I woke up like this even though nobody wakes up like this.

I’m taller again. Another inch, maybe two. The room feels smaller.

I look like an influencer. Like I should be making short-form video content to tell people about my diet and skincare regimen, because it appears to be magic. Like I’m about to sign an extremely lucrative brand deal and show up on Times Square billboards in a few months.

“Holy shit,” I breathe.

Then I pull down my sweats.

“Holy shit.”

The notebook was generous before, and it has only improved upon it. I’m holding something that looks and feels like a fucking weapon -- emphasis on both fucking and weapon. It’s thick, heavy, and I’m not even hard yet. The proportions are bordering on absurd. If the Isabel version was impressive, this is the kind of cock that makes a woman pause and recalibrate her expectations for the entire encounter.

Reyna likes her guys big, I guess.

I’m grinning. I can’t help it. I know -- I know -- that the Isabel experience should have taught me that a big dick and a hot face don’t automatically mean that this will have a good outcome. I know that Volupta warned me to focus on other changes.

I know that the Notebook plays by its own rules. The sex serves the other person’s fantasy, not mine.

But fuck, man. Look at me. All I can think about is Reyna’s body, the things I’m going to do to her.

I shower. I get dressed. My jeans fit like they were tailored. They weren’t; they’re the same Levi’s from Target, but they sit on my new frame like they cost ten times what they did. A simple black t-shirt looks like a fashion choice instead of a default.

I check my schedule. Reyna’s review session is at nine. It’s eight-fifteen.

I grab my bag and head out.

The trip to the chemistry building is interesting.

Women register me in a totally different way. Some of them stare, eyes roving over my chest and face. More than one woman brushes past me walking the opposite direction on the sidewalk.

Others don’t look at me, but it’s not the mild indifference I’m accustomed, where their eyes just slide off me because I’m not interesting. It’s a pointed looking away, like they’re avoiding getting caught staring.

Lots of women make brief eye contact and then look down.

God. I’m hot enough to be intimidating to women.

The thought is weird. I can’t believe there are people who go through their whole lives just taking this kind of attention for granted.

The chemistry building has its usual set of smells: industrial cleaners, broken dreams. Room 114 is a ground-floor classroom with fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look slightly deceased, which appropriately reflects how I feel about organic chemistry at 9 A.M.

I slide into a seat in the middle of the room. There are maybe twenty students here, all of whom fall into one of two categories: dedicated or desperate. They’re either crushing it because they like considering covalent bonds first thing in the morning, or they’re staring down a D-plus just like me, and hoping Reyna’s review sessions will perform some kind of academic miracle on their behalf.

Reyna is already at the front, setting up her laptop and projector. Hair pulled back tight. Glasses on. A fitted button-down tucked into high-waisted slacks that do incredible things for her figure -- the curve of her hips visible even from here, the fabric of her shirt straining slightly across her chest. She’s got a dry-erase marker in one hand and a coffee cup in the other, and her expression says that the next hour is bound to disappoint her immensely.