I choose Pirrip as Ben’s middle name because I saw Rose reading that very novel when we were sixteen. She won’t remember because she never saw me. I passed her in the conference room lobby during Model UN. She sat straight as a board on the edge of the hotel’s lobby fountain, the book opened on her lap. I wanted to stop and talk to her, but I was with three Faust boys. We pushed onward, and my head turned. I had never looked back in that way before, but for the very first time, I did. I looked back, and I only looked back at her.
