by E. E. Holmes
“A refill? Did you even drink any of that?”
“It was warm. What are you smiling about?”
“The look on Gabby’s face. It was priceless,” I said.
Tia frowned. “I can’t believe this. Did you see what she was wearing?”
“Was there anyone who didn’t see what she was wearing?”
“Jess! This is not funny!”
“Yes, it is! It’s hilarious, and I’ll tell you why,” I said, hopping up into Sam’s spot on the sofa. “Gabby has shown up in what I would venture to say is the most desperate outfit I’ve ever seen, and Sam’s still not interested! In fact, I think she’s scared him off even more. I think you should be laughing your ass off.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Tia said.
“Ti, you like him, don’t you?”
Tia gave me a look that clearly said I was stating the obvious.
“Then don’t let her get in the way. Show her that class and self-respect can still get the guy. I think she needs to learn it.” I hopped up and went after Sam. It was time to play matchmaker.
I found him back at the keg trying to avoid Gabby, who was now cooing over the shot that Anthony had made in the current round of beer pong. Anthony was definitely enjoying her company.
Ignoring her, I walked up to Sam and whacked him in the arm. “Man up, Lang.”
“Ouch! Hey, what was that for?” Sam said, rubbing his arm.
“Do you or do you not like my roommate Tia?”
“Of course I like—”
“—No, I mean seriously, Sam! Do you want to date the girl or not?”
Sam was dumbstruck for a moment and then the light bulb went on. “Yes.”
“Okay, then,” I grabbed the other empty cup from his hand and tossed it into the sink. “Then enough with the beer, she doesn’t drink it.” I handed him a soda from the stash in the fridge. “Bring her this, it’s more her speed. And when you sit back down, tell her that there is absolutely nothing going on between you and Gabby. Then ask her what she’s doing on Friday night.”
“Are you sure—”
“—She’s free. Bring her to dinner at that little Italian place on the south corner of campus; she gushes over how cute it is every time we walk by it. She’s allergic to roses, but she loves daisies and lilies. She doesn’t like horror movies or anything with blood and guts, so suffer through a romantic comedy. Have her back by ten-thirty because she likes to get eight hours of sleep.”
Sam stared at me like I’d just handed him a winning lottery ticket. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, hold her damn hand when you get back in there, will you? She’s had it in prime hand-holding position for at least half an hour.”
Sam’s grin went from ear to ear. “Yes, ma’am!”
I watched him as he walked back into the living room. He definitely had a little more swagger in his step. He sat back down next to Tia and handed her the soda. Whatever he said next had her nodding and smiling, and five minutes later he was holding her hand.
Touchdown.
For the next couple of hours, there were three really interesting things happening in the room that had most everyone’s attention occupied. The first, and in my opinion, least interesting, was the game. There was some kind of outburst about a blown call and neither team could seem to make much progress, so the score kept creeping up by field goals. Also, some player, who was apparently important to the Jets, got injured and was carried off the field. Under cover of all that excitement, interesting development number two was blossoming quietly on the sofa. Sam had moved successfully from hand holding to a full-out arm around the shoulder, and Tia looked like she was going to explode with happiness. They were whispering and laughing a lot, paying absolutely no attention to the television. The third and final spectacle was Gabby. Gabby always drew attention no matter what, but she seemed a woman on a mission tonight. The cozier Sam and Tia became, the louder and more obnoxiously drunk Gabby became. She had upped the ante at the beer pong table, making the players take a shot with her every time they scored a point. She was practically glued to Anthony and he wasn’t complaining. No one was surprised when the two of them stumbled down the hall and disappeared into the bedroom. Let the hook-up cycle of regret continue.
Finally the game ended with huge cheers from the Patriots fans. Tia and Sam looked around, startled that it was over or perhaps that there had, in fact, been a game in progress at all.
“Is it over?” Tia asked.
“Yup,” I said, climbing to my feet. My ankles were numb from sitting cross-legged too long.
“I’ll walk you girls back,” Sam offered.
“I’ll get the coats,” I said, hobbling down the hall towards the bedroom.
I opened the door and stopped dead. Gabby and Anthony were on the bed. It was dark, but I could sense quite a bit of movement happening.
“Whoa, sorry,” I muttered. Mortified, I started backing out of the room. And then I heard something that utterly froze me in my tracks.
“Anthony, no! I said get off of me! I want to go home!” Gabby sobbed.
I flung the door open and slammed my hand down on the light switch. The room flooded with light.
“What the hell!” Anthony growled. “Find your own damn room! Can’t you see we’re busy here?” He was on top of Gabby, one hand grasped around her waist, the other pushing her dress up around her hips. He’d removed his shirt and belt.
“Party’s over, asshole,” I said. “Rise and shine, time to go home.”
Gabby, her face a map of mascara-stained tear tracks, struggled to sit up.
“No, stay there, babe. You’re confused. You don’t want to go anywhere. Jess was just leaving,” Anthony said, his voice somehow managing to sound reassuring and threatening at the same time.
“You’re right, Anthony. She is confused. And we are leaving. Right now.” I marched toward the bed and tried to grab Gabby’s hand, but Anthony jumped up and stood between us. He was surprisingly steady on his feet considering the amount of booze he was breathing on me. My heart started pounding but I stood my ground.
“She’s not going anywhere. She’s with me. I’ll make sure she gets home,” he snarled.
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said.
I tried to reach around him, but he grabbed my wrist. “Let go of me,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Listen, you bitch. You had your chance. Get your nosy ass out of this bedroom and keep your mouth shut or you’ll be sorry.” He tried to shove me aside, but lost his footing and stumbled. We fell into the wall and slid to the floor. I was pinned to the ground.
Anthony shook his head to clear it. Then he saw me under him and grinned lazily. “On second thought, I like you right where you are now. How ‘bout we stay put?”
I opened my mouth to shout, but Anthony clamped a huge paw over my face. Panicking, I bit him as hard as I could. He let out a roar and pulled his hand back to strike me. I turned my face aside; my eyes clenched shut, waiting for the pain.
It never came. I heard a grunt and Anthony rolled off me, moaning. A huge hardcover book lay on the ground beside us. My eyes flew to Gabby, but she wasn’t looking at us. She was crying and pointing into the corner of the room. I followed her terrified gaze.
Nothing. There was nothing there.
“Gabby, what…”
My question became a shriek as I felt hands grab the back of my sweater and drag me away from Anthony. My hands clawed around to free myself and closed around what I thought was a wrist, but it was shockingly cold. Gasping, I released it and spun around. There was no one there.
A second book lifted off the shelf under the window and hurled itself above my head across the room. This time it hit Anthony on the shoulder causing him to roll even further away from me.
I skittered across the floor like a crab. Covering my head as another book flew through the air, I ran at a crouch over to the bed. I grabbed both of Gabby’s hands and yanked. She slid off the bed and clung to me, crying into my neck.
/>
“What the fuck? What the fuck?” she sobbed.
A fourth book soared across the room, whacking Anthony in the back. I stared frantically into the corner of the room, trying to force myself to see someone or something that would explain what was happening.
Anthony clambered to his feet, his expression livid. He was staring at Gabby, apparently convinced, as I had been, that she had thrown the books.
“I’m gonna kill you, you—”
Wham.
This time a lacrosse stick flew across the room and nailed Anthony right above the eye. He staggered back into the wall again and slumped to the floor, motionless. I just stared at him wordlessly. And then, just above his head, I saw it. In the small square mirror hanging on the wall, a reflection had appeared.
My head snapped back to the corner. Nothing. No one.
I stared back into the mirror. A dark figure, shoulders heaving, fists clenched, stared not back at me, but down at Anthony. I watched him reach for another book, and then stop, hand outstretched, as he caught my gaze. His eyes were blazing and his handsome features were twisted in anger, but I recognized him right away.
Evan.
Anthony was coming to. Blood began to seep between his fingers as he clutched his face. His angry yells finally sent people running into the room.
“What the hell is going on in here?” someone yelled.
“Anthony? What happened to you?”
“Jess? Gabby? Are you okay?” I could hear Tia’s frightened voice from the doorway.
I glanced again in the mirror. Evan had vanished. Taking advantage of the sudden crowd, I dragged Gabby across the room and out the door, shoving past people. I felt as though my heart was going to beat its way out of my chest. Sam grabbed a blanket off the sofa and wrapped it around Gabby, who was on the brink of full-out hysteria.
I pulled her around to face me. Her teeth were chattering and her eyes were spherically wide. “Gabby, look at me. Look at me. Did he hurt you?”
With seeming difficulty, Gabby forced her erratic gaze to my face. Slowly she seemed to recognize me and then almost imperceptibly, she shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
A tiny nod.
Sam and Tia looked their questions silently at me.
“I’ll explain later,” I muttered. Let’s get her back to the dorm.”
“Can she walk?” Tia asked.
“Where are her shoes?” Sam added.
“Probably somewhere in there.” I hitched my thumb back over my shoulder at the bedroom. “And we’re not going back for them. She can barely stand up, let alone walk home in stilettos. Sam, can you carry her?”
“Yeah, of course,” Sam said, and without hesitation scooped her up and hefted her into his arms. “Let’s go.”
We hurried back to Donnelly Hall in the crystal night, the air painful and sharp in our lungs. Tiny sparkling snowflakes sliced through the air on needling gusts of wind. The silence was oppressive, and the echoes of our footsteps sounded oddly dead against the pavement. The only other sound was Gabby’s soft, fluttering sobs inside the blanket. Sam walked us to the door and promised he would meet us in our room after he had dropped Gabby off at the campus medical center to be checked out.
As soon as the door to our room was shut, I told Tia everything that had happened. Whatever Tia may have thought of Gabby, it didn’t reduce her outrage at Anthony’s actions. And when I reached the point of Evan’s arrival, her mouth just dropped open.
“Jess, you’re kidding me! Please tell me you’re kidding me,” she whispered.
“I wish I was,” I said, flopping into my chair after ten minutes of pacing. “But he was there! I saw him in the mirror. It was like he was coming to my rescue! Somehow he sensed that I was in danger and he just showed up and started throwing things! And thank God he did, because I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t.”
“Did Gabby see him? Did Anthony?”
“I don’t think so. He only seemed to appear in the mirror and Gabby had hidden her face by then, she was so freaked out. Does it really matter though? I mean, they both saw inanimate objects being hurled through the air! What the hell are they going to think?” I ground a fist into my temple. My head was pounding.
“And no one else saw anything? What about the people who came into the room first?”
I thought hard, trying to extract my objective memory from the web of terror that had entangled the experience. “No, definitely not,” I finally said. “The last thing to get thrown was the lacrosse stick and that was before the door opened. But it doesn’t matter, does it? There were two witnesses! How am I going to explain this? What the hell am I going to do?”
“Nothing.”
I stopped massaging my temples and stared at her like she was crazy. “How can I just do—”
“—You do nothing. It didn’t happen,” Tia repeated.
“Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
“Of course not!” she snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous! I believe you, because you are my best friend and you don’t lie. Not to mention the fact that you are completely sober and in total possession of your faculties. And that’s just it, Jess. You’re the only one in the room who was!”
“So what? Do you think they’re just going to forget what they saw?”
“Actually, yes, I do. Think about it, Jess. Gabby probably won’t have a very clear memory of any of this. You saw how drunk she was; she couldn’t even walk, and Anthony wasn’t much better. And even if either of them does remember something, do you really think they’ll trust their own memories?” Tia said in her most reasonable, Tia-like voice.
“No, probably not.”
“Exactly! You wouldn’t believe it yourself if it weren’t for everything that’s happened this year with Evan. If you’d never experienced any of that, would you be telling me this right now?”
“No,” I said, nodding my head in understanding, “I’d think I’d had some kind of freak out in my panic or that I’d been seeing things.”
“Okay, then. So here’s the story. Gabby threw the first book. That got Anthony off of you. You took care of the rest. If the other two remember anything different, it was the booze talking. Got it?”
“Yeah.” I took a deep breath and blew it out. “And you think this will work?”
“Of course it will.”
At that moment there was a quiet knock on the door, followed by a muffled voice. “It’s Sam. Can I come in?”
Tia and I looked at each other in silent agreement.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, and got up to open the door.
8
ENTER PIERCE
TIA, AS USUAL, WAS RIGHT. Sam believed our story at once, as did everyone else at the party who discovered us in the aftermath. But they weren’t really the ones I was concerned about. The real test came the next day when we saw Gabby, curled up in silky pink pajamas and fluffy slippers on the futon in her room, looking absolutely exhausted and slightly green from her hangover.
“It’s like, a total blur,” she said, nibbling on a saltine cracker. “I remember freaking out and I sort of remember you coming in and Anthony yelling, but the whole thing feels like it happened on one of those spinning rides at a carnival. How did we get back to the dorm?”
“We brought you back,” Tia cut in, before I could answer. I fought the smirk that was trying to pull my lips up. She obviously didn’t want Gabby to know she’d been whisked back to Donnelly in Sam’s arms. Not that I blamed her.
Gabby accepted the story I told her without question.
“Good, I hope I got him in the junk with one of those books!” she hissed. “What an absolute creep! It’s just so weird, because he seemed so nice at the party.”
“Right.” I’d known he was a creep from the first time I’d met him. In Gabby’s lexicon, “nice” and “hot” were synonymous.
“So, are you pressing charges or something?” Tia asked.
“I
don’t know yet,” Gabby said, chewing on her lip. “But I am definitely going to say something to the Dean. He shouldn’t be allowed to live on campus, forget hosting parties.”
Anthony wouldn’t be hosting another party again for a long time. He was put on probation and lost housing. Gabby wouldn’t get the police involved, but she did get up the courage to go to the administration and they took care of the rest. I refused to go within ten feet of him, but Sam, who probably would have liked to kill him, agreed to talk to him for me.
“He’s got a wicked shiner and three stitches above his eye,” Sam reported. “You really clocked him good, Jess.”
So, one of two things had happened. Either Anthony didn’t remember what had happened and was taking our version of events as fact, or he did remember what happened and he was either too scared or too proud to admit what he’d actually seen. Either way was fine with me. I wasn’t about to try to dig any deeper as long as he was cooperating.
And then there was me. I didn’t know how to feel about what had transpired. Of course, I was glad that nothing worse had happened to me or to Gabby, and so I was grateful that Evan had shown up. But then again, Evan had shown up! The ghost I’d been trying to convince myself didn’t exist, or at least was not haunting me, had appeared again. He’d rescued me, like some paranormal knight in shining armor. My heart was calling for him to appear again so that I could thank him, but my head was telling my heart to shut up, before I became the campus nut job, walking around chatting up a dead boy and getting carted off to the nearest available psychiatric facility.
I started spending time in the places I’d seen him, haunting them as I thought he ought to, both wishing and not wishing to see him. It was a strange combination of anticipation and dread. When I confessed as much to Tia, she looked thoughtful.
“Maybe you should try to contact him.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He left you a message he thought was important, but he didn’t explain it. How can you help him without more information?”
“Yeah, I get that, but still ….”
“Look, I’m not saying we should break out the tarot cards or anything, but maybe you could try to … I don’t know, call him, or something.”