The Romantics

by Leah Konen

  The guy adjusted his cap, nodded. “Do you need me to call campus police? Has something happened?”

  Gael shook his head vehemently. “Listen, it’s not an emergency, but, well, it kind of is. I’m okay, don’t worry, I just need to get to Hinton James, like, right now.”

  The guy paused, looked Gael up and down, then adjusted his hat again. “Well, hop in, then.”

  Gael hit him with a string of fervent thank-yous and climbed in the passenger seat.

  The man took off, the UNC landscape flying by at what seemed like record speed. Gael had never stolen anything. And he had never hitchhiked. Sure, it wasn’t actual hitchhiking, the highway kind, but he still felt pretty damn good about himself. It wasn’t everyone who could manage to hitch a ride to South Campus without, well, a hitch.

  They turned down another path, leaving Kenan Stadium behind them. “So.” The guy smiled. “Who is she?”

  “Huh?” Gael asked.

  “Or he,” he added. “I guess these days I really shouldn’t assume.”

  “No,” Gael said. “She. Well, you shouldn’t assume, yeah, but she is a she. But how did you know, though?”

  He laughed, as the rising brick structures of the South Campus dorms appeared before them. “It’s after five on a Friday and you’re headed down to the dorms. I’m willing to bet this so-called emergency isn’t that you didn’t get your philosophy paper in on time.”

  Gael smiled. “Well, she’s awesome. I’ll say that much.”

  The man stopped at the corner of Manning and Skipper Bowles Drive. “I’ll have to let you out here. The dorm is just down the path.”

  “Thanks,” Gael said, grabbing his backpack.

  The man winked. “That’s what I’m here for. Go get her.”

  the girl next dorm

  It was only after the golf cart pulled away that Gael realized there were two paths. Two dorms in this vicinity. He pulled out the map, but in his agitated state, he could barely tell left from right, much less north from south.

  Shit, he thought.

  Gael took a guess and headed to the right, running as fast as he could manage down the path. As he approached the front door, Gael stopped a dude in a hoodie who looked mildly friendly.

  “Is this Hinton James?” he asked.

  “This is Craige, man.”

  Double shit.

  “It’s the next dorm,” the guy said, but Gael didn’t even stop to thank him. He just turned and bolted.

  In minutes, he was in front of Hinton James. By the grace of God, Sammy had once mentioned that she lived on the top floor, so Gael knew that, at least.

  By the double grace of God, students were regularly coming in and out of the front doors, so he didn’t have to worry about not having a key to get in.

  He breezed in the double doors and headed straight for the elevator bank in the middle. He pushed the up arrow about fifteen times.

  “Chill, dude. It’ll come.” A tall skinny girl in workout clothes gave him a bit of side-eye.

  He ignored her attitude and took a risk. “You don’t know Sammy Sutton, do you?”

  She raised an eyebrow in obvious annoyance and took a long swig out of her Nalgene bottle. Finally: “You do know that there are like a thousand people who live in this dorm, right?”

  Triple shit.

  The elevator came, and he avoided the eyes of snippy miss yoga pants as he walked in, pressing the button for the tenth floor.

  The climb up was miserable—the damn elevator seemed to stop on every floor. Plus, everyone was so laid-back and relaxed, so happy for the weekend—chatting with friends, some already smelling of booze. Just get off quickly and let me make my way, he wanted to scream. Big stuff on the line here!

  After what felt like hours, he arrived on the top floor. Gael was the only one left by this point. He bounced anxiously on his feet as the rusty elevator doors took forever to open.

  Finally, he was out. The dorm was a mess of balconies, like a crappy motel. Gael didn’t know quite where to start, so he made for the first door. Out in the fresh air again, seeing the campus from the top balcony, he headed to the right and into the first hallway. It had four doors. One of them was open. He gave it a knock as he poked his head in.

  Mumford & Sons was playing on a computer, and a bunch of pasty guys were holding forties.

  “Sorry, but do you know Sammy Sutton?” he asked, without much hope.

  “Pay the entry fee, and we’ll give you an answer,” one of the guys said.

  “Huh?” Gael asked.

  “One shot, sir,” the same guy said.

  Gael shook his head. “It’ll make me sick, and . . .”

  The guy’s friend shrugged. “No can do, then.”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” Gael asked. “Can’t you just point me to her room?”

  The third guy stood up, opened the fridge. “All right, dude. Come in. If not a shot of alcohol, a shot of pickle juice will have to do.”

  The guy didn’t wait for Gael to answer, just took an economy-size jar of pickles out of the fridge and deftly poured a shot like he’d done this a time or two before.

  He handed the shot to Gael. “Everyone must pay the entry fee.”

  Gael took a deep breath. It smelled disgusting. But he tilted it back anyway.

  It accosted his senses, making his lips pucker. If only Sammy knew the lengths he was willing to go to find her.

  “Happy?” Gael handed the shot glass back as a pickle-y burp snuck up on him.

  The guys clapped.

  “Now can you tell me where she lives?”

  “Sorry, dude, don’t know her.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Gael snapped. And he rushed out of the room before he did something stupid like punch someone when all of the guys were probably stronger than him.

  Gael headed into the next suite of rooms. There was an open door, and a different girl sat on almost every available surface. There had to be eight of them packed in, at least.

  “Hey,” one of them said. “A dude!”

  “Do you guys know—”

  But the girl didn’t let him finish. “Okay, I’m glad you’re here because we really need a guy’s opinion.”

  “Jessica!” another girl yelled.

  But Jessica just shooed off her concerns with a wave of a hand. “Okay. So Madison met a guy at a party last night who’s also in her history class, and he friended her on Facebook, but he sent her this message that said”—she grabbed Madison’s phone for utmost accuracy—“and I quote, ‘Do you know what the history reading is?’”

  The girls all stared at Gael.

  “Yeah,” he said. “So?”

  Jessica rolled her eyes. “So the debate is, is it date-y or not date-y? I say date-y, because I know for a fact that his roommate, who I talked to last night, is in the class, too. So why wouldn’t he just ask him for the reading?”

  Madison sighed. “But we talked about so many more interesting things last night. And I told him I was probably going to see the Breakfast Club, the eighties cover band, you know, at Sigma Chi tonight, and that leaves him a super-open window to ask me out. But instead, he’s messaging me about history?”

  Gael shrugged. “Maybe he’s testing the waters.”

  Jessica burst into cheers, along with a few of the other girls. “Told ya so!” she said.

  Even Madison was happy with his answer. “Maybe if you write back, then he’ll mention the show,” Gael added.

  More cheers.

  “Thank you, kind dude,” Jessica said.

  “Now I need your help.” Gael crossed his arms. “Do you know Sammy Sutton?”

  He watched in agony as all eight girls shook their heads. And then he bolted. He had no more time to waste.

  The next few attempts were equally unsuccessful. He interrupted girls putting on makeup for a night out, guys arguing about whether or not to get extra cheese on their pizzas, a huge group crowded around a laptop watching YouTube videos.

  Not
one of them knew Sammy. He was about ready to give up.

  Finally, Gael headed into a room at the end of the balcony. A guy was doing pull-ups on a bar installed in the doorway. “Do you know Sammy Sutton?” Gael asked as the guy’s chin crested the metal bar. The guy immediately dropped down and wiped his hands on the towel at his waist.

  “Yeah,” he said. “She lives on this floor.”

  Thank God, Gael thought.

  “Do you know where?” he asked.

  “Through the door there, out the other door, head to the right, and it’s the second or third suite of rooms, I’m not quite sure.”

  He must have noticed Gael’s look of confusion and despair because the guy immediately started laughing. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you.”

  He led the way back down the hall and through the doors into the room with the elevators.

  He turned to Gael as they passed through the door on the other side. “You’re not some creepy stalker guy, are you?” he asked.

  Gael shook his head. “Sammy and I are friends. I just forgot which room was hers.”

  “Got it.” He walked to the right and then entered the second door to a hallway with another four rooms. He motioned to the first one.

  “There it is,” he said. “Not sure if she’s home.”

  “Thanks, man,” Gael said, and the guy headed back out.

  Gael stared at the door. There were a bunch of silly photos and a large whiteboard tacked onto the door. The whiteboard read:

  “Can you guess the movie quote? NO GOOGLING!”

  Gael laughed. Of course, Sammy would use movie trivia to decorate.

  And then his eyes locked on the quote just below:

  Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a f&#@edup girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. Don’t assign me yours.

  Beneath the quote were a string of guesses in different handwriting.

  Punch-Drunk Love

  Lost in Translation

  Silver Linings Playbook

  But Gael knew that they were all wrong.

  He also knew that Sammy was still thinking about him. She must be.

  He popped open the marker hooked onto the board and wrote:

  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  And then he knocked on the door.

  how to lose a girl in ten minutes

  Gael heard shuffling behind the door, and his stomach seemed to leap into his throat. If it was her, what was he was going to say? Don’t go! Ditch your ex-boyfriend! Be with me, instead! All the words that came to his head sounded horribly cheesy and pathetic.

  It didn’t matter. It was too late to turn back. And he didn’t want to, anyway.

  Finally, the door opened.

  His heart sunk. It wasn’t Sammy.

  “Can I help you?” a red-haired girl said. Gael figured she must be Sammy’s roommate.

  “Err, is Sammy here?”

  “And you are?” she asked, leaning against the open door.

  “I’m Gael? Her friend from—well—she babysits my—”

  “Oh, I know who you are.” The girl broke into a smile.

  He felt himself blush. This has to be a good sign, right?

  Her smile faded as quickly as it came. “Sammy’s not here, though. She just left for the airport like ten minutes ago. You could try her phone? I think it was dead, though. She left here in kind of a rush.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, she didn’t answer.”

  The girl shrugged. “Maybe try her again. She’ll probably be able to charge it once she gets to the airport.”

  Gael stepped back, dejected. “Well, thanks, anyway.”

  “Good luck, Gael,” she said. And she smiled again, then closed the door.

  He stood there for another minute, unable to move.

  Ten minutes. A lousy ten minutes in which he was shooting pickle juice and analyzing Facebook messages.

  Sammy had told him timing was everything.

  But he’d never known how right she was until this very moment.

  familial advice: piper edition

  Gael was feeling too down on himself to even think about walking home. He opted instead for the Chapel Hill bus. He tried calling Sammy two more times on his ride, even leaving her a ridiculously awkward voice mail where, like a total weirdo, he said, “I have something I want to talk to you about.” But it was no use—her phone remained off.

  By the time he got back to his house, he was feeling worse than ever. It was too late. She would fly back to Baltimore, John would seriously be upping his game to make up for cheating on her, and all the old feelings would come rushing back. Whatever he and Sammy had—or almost had—would become but a distant memory.

  Gael’s mom and Piper were in the dining room when he walked inside. They were making a Halloween slideshow on his mom’s MacBook.

  His mom smiled a weak smile, and Piper cheerfully said, “Hello,” but he didn’t have the energy to return the sentiment, so he walked past them without saying anything. He couldn’t handle the thought of being around anyone.

  Gael headed into his room, threw his backpack down, and locked the door. He popped Eternal Sunshine into the Blu-ray player. It would probably make him depressed, but he wanted to be depressed.

  His doorknob rattled.

  “Go away,” he said. “I don’t feel well.”

  The doorknob rattled more. “Let me in!”

  “Piper,” he yelled. “Just leave me alone.”

  The doorknob stopped rattling, and he heard her steps padding down the hall. He started the movie.

  But in less than a minute, the rattling was replaced with urgent banging.

  Gael jumped out of bed and whipped the door open.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “What’s your problem?”

  Piper put a hand on her hip. “Mom says you’re not supposed to say that. She says that even if we don’t go to church, it’s disrespectful to people who do.”

  Gael rolled his eyes. “Mom’s not perfect. And neither am I. What do you want?”

  “Mom wants to know if you’re going to Dad’s tonight and if you’re going to drive me later.”

  “I don’t know,” Gael said. He started to close the door.

  Piper pushed with all her might on the door. He gave up and let her in.

  “You can’t skip again. You skipped last week and the week before. It’s not as fun without you.”

  “Fine,” Gael said. “I’ll drive you to Dad’s, and we’ll all have an awesome time. Can you just leave me alone right now, please?”

  She sat down on the bed. “You look sad.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Gael said, flopping back on the bed.

  “That means you are sad,” Piper said. “Because you didn’t say you weren’t.”

  “So?” he asked.

  “So are you going to tell me why? I’m a good listener. Dad says.”

  And then maybe it was because Piper could be so damn sweet sometimes, or maybe it was just because he felt so crappy that he needed to tell someone, but he spilled it. All of it. His realization that he wanted to be with Sammy, the map thievery, the trip to her dorm, and last but not least his complete and utter failure at stopping her from heading off to reunite with her ex.

  Piper’s mouth was hanging open by the time Gael was done. But then, quick as can be, she shut it, crossed her arms, and tilted her head to the side.

  “What?” he asked.

  She flailed her arms about dramatically. “Why are you sitting here moping and not going to find her?”

  Gael turned his palms up. “It was probably a sign. It’s not supposed to be. It would have just gone to hell, anyway.”

  Piper huffed. “You’re supposed to say heck.”

  “Well, it would probably have gone to heck, okay?”

  Piper shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “Umm, have you seen Mom and Dad? Something terrible always
ruins everything. Happy endings are just in Disney movies. I’ll pass on all that unhappiness, thanks.”

  She crossed her arms. “Mom said she still loves Dad, it’s just different now.”

  “Oh, did she?” Gael scoffed.

  “Really, she did. I asked her if she was sad that she married Dad because now she cries a lot, and she said that she would do it all over still. She said that when you meet someone as cool as Dad, you have to go for it.”

  Gael shook his head. “No way that’s what she said.”

  Piper nodded vigorously. “It is!”

  He paused. “Really?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Gael was quiet for a moment. On the one hand, his mom’s words made him feel better. Even if they didn’t make up for all the bad things these last few months, at least it didn’t mean that everything had always been bad.

  But on the other hand, this was doubly as scary.

  You could love someone, you could pick the right person, you could give your life to them, and you could. Still. Get. Hurt.

  His heart ached for his dad. And for his mom, for that matter.

  And for himself and Piper and everyone.

  Gael didn’t want to get hurt again. And yet deep down, he knew somehow that all of this meant getting hurt. That all those big feelings only happened when you put your heart in someone else’s hands. They could crush it, like Anika did. They could change their minds after twenty years, like his mom.

  But maybe missing out was worse than getting hurt, Gael thought. Maybe Mason was right—maybe it was better to love and lose than to remove yourself from the game completely.

  “Did Sammy tell you what airline she was on?” Gael asked.

  “No,” Piper said.

  Gael sighed. Of course she hadn’t. Why would she?

  “But Mom would know,” Piper added. “She drove her to the airport. She only just got back.”

  Gael jumped out of bed, quickly pulled his shoes on. “I love you, Piper,” he said, as he made his way out the door.

  “I know,” she said matter-of-factly.

  He should never have let her watch Star Wars.

  rush hour

  Gael’s mom practically fell out of her chair when she heard that he A.) liked Sammy and B.) was rushing to the airport in the name of a ridiculous, grand romantic gesture. Not only did she give him the flight info, but she sent Piper over to their neighbors and insisted on giving him a ride herself.