by Celia Loren
“Chase!” I hear myself calling down the hallway, just as my thumb slides up against a thorn on the stems in my hand. The prick feels fair. “I'll...let's think about it. Okay?”
He smiles. I smile. Tara waves her hands in the air behind me, like a deranged, human Cathy cartoon.
I. Am. (In.) Such. Shit.
Chapter Nineteen
To track down Brendan Kelly, I have to eat some more crow. I pound on RA Jeff's door, from behind which I can hear vocal indie rock of the 90s persuasion. When he opens the latch, I find my roommate's fuckbuddy in a red velour bathrobe, holding a brandy snifter. It takes some surprisingly strong will not to laugh in my new friend's face.
“RA Jeff, I need to look up a room number. It's an emergency.”
“I can't just go giving out room numbers, willy-nilly. We RAs follow a code.”
I can hear Tara, padding down the hall behind me in her soft bunny slippers. She's got one hand in a bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos. With a shock, I realize this is the first time I've ever seen my roommate eat an actual human snack.
“Honey,” she simpers—in a voice I barely recognize—“Avery needs to look up the hot rocker guy from the other week. It's a matter of life or death.” I wonder then what their recent fights have been about. I've been so focused on my own boy problems that I haven't been checking in with my roommate, like a good friend should.
As he laughs, some of RA Jeff's robe falls open, revealing a taut, smooth stomach and a few pleasing coils of chest hair. He reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, continuing to stare at Tara. It's then that I see it. For the first time. A strange line of electricity, running from his eyes to hers. For all her talk and his pomp, they're in love with each other—you can totally tell. And yet they seem so mismatched, so strange! A line from that stupid book comes to mind: you know love when you've never seen it before.
“Please,” I repeat, my voice catching. It all comes down to looks, doesn't it? The Melora and Chase look. The way I feel when Brendan looks at me. “Please, Jeff. I really need to talk to Brendan. It is important.”
I know that he's conceding because of the girl behind me, but I'm still thrilled when he retreats into his dorm room and returns a few minutes later with an index card.
“Use this wisely,” he tells me.
“I will.” I turn to go, brushing some more stray sand off my rear. I want to avoid Tara's judgmental gaze, but she plants her tiny self square in my path.
“Avery,” she says, halting me with her tone. This is also probably the first time she's used my real name. A day for firsts. “Women do a lot of dumb shit just because they don't want to hurt a man's feelings. But the heart wants what it wants, okay? You can be polite and no one's slave.”
Before I can respond, my roomie rises up and kisses me on the cheek. Her lips are soft and slightly sticky with gloss and chip crumbs. The gravitas almost makes me laugh again, but I know this shit is serious, so I nod instead. I admit it: there are things I can learn from my friends.
Outside, a light drizzle has begun to fall. It soaks through my t-shirt, and seems to remove some of the sand and salt on my skin. The traces of Brendan.
I take the stairs to Monroe Hall two and three and four at a time, confidence building with each step. I remember how good he made me feel on the beach, merely hours before. How peaceful, how free from the prison of my own brain. As soon as I see his face, I tell myself, I'll know what to do about Chase. Maybe we can even approach him together. That image delights: Brendan and me, holding hands on the sunny steps of Hampton Hall. Somehow, in my fantasy, everyone would turn out as friends in the end. My reconciliation with the injured Kelly would lead to a recreation of all our afternoons together under the old oak tree...just with more hot sex between two of us.
Outside his room, I can hear strands of familiar music. I haven't heard it many times, but the song already feels ingrained, somehow: Runaway, runaway—though you told us all that you would stay/ I watch your future float away/ runaway—runaway. I press my ear to the door, just to listen to my song for a minute more. It's me! I want to shout to the concrete walls of the silent dorm. I'm the runaway! But I'm back! He sang me home.
That's when I hear a woman's voice, speaking in dull tones over the music. “Brendan, it's not that...murmurmurmur...what people DO...murmurmurmur...this is what relationships ARE.” I'm so shocked that I actually make a little involuntarily throat sound. In the same beat, the song fades out, and sleuth-like footsteps approach the door. When it jerks open, my face falls forward—square into the considerable cleavage of a tall, pretty brunette with dark skin who looks familiar, though I can't place her immediately.
“Who the hell are you?” the girl says, putting her tanned arms out in front of her as if to fend me off. I frantically scan the room for Brendan, and find him lying down in a twin bed, eyes glazed. He's shirtless, and idly strumming an acoustic guitar. His taped-together watch catches light from his desk-lamp. Despite the serious-sounding conversation I've just overheard, it's evident on his face that he's not all the way in the room.
“I'm Avery,” I manage, eyes still roving furiously. The dorm is neat, for a boy's—neater than mine, anyways. Brendan has two or three guitar cases stacked around and on his desk, and I spy a stack of sheet music resting next to a full ashtray on his nightstand. But then there's also a bra. Long and satin and fuchsia, a fuck-me bra, draped over a post of his twin bed. Brendan sees me see the evidence. He sits up.
“Avery,” he says, and his voice is infuriating. It's that famous, “Be calm, crazy lady,” voice that boys are always using to subdue their ladies in public. It reminds me of...Savannah. I can't believe what a fucking idiot I am. Not hours ago, I'd let this man inside of me.
“No. Never mind,” I stutter, looking from the brunette to Brendan and back again. She's putting two and two together at the same moment I am, I can see the wheels spinning in her pretty brown eyes. She purses her lips. Brendan tosses his guitar aside and takes two giant leaps towards the door.
“Wait. Please, Avery. Wait,” he says to me, coming to stand beside her. They look like the American Gothic painting, suddenly—a tall, joyless duo, designed for one other. A love I've never seen, and never want to know. I turn and run, my borrowed-from-Tara flip-flops slapping wetly against the tile.
And this time—big fucking surprise—no one chases me.
Chapter Twenty
“Everyone raise a glass!” Trevor slurs, “To...well, fuck me. What should we toast to?”
“To friendship!”
“To rock n' roll!”
“Overruled,” Tara crows. “Sappy.”
“To not fucking needing a penis to complete you!” I holler, right in Mabus' ear. The tiny guy peels away from me, unamused—but everyone else laughs and clinks their glasses.
“Damn straight,” Louise adds. “I'm all about the vajayjay lately. As an appendage, a penis is just a big, blunt rod. It lacks imagination.”
“Okay, L Word,” Trevor snaps, smacking his glossy lips. Tonight he wears a face of make-up reminiscent of the Glinda look, from weeks ago—glittery eyeliner, high red spots on his cheeks. Some days I truly miss Fuhgettaboutit. “Some of us have no choice. For me, man-meat is the only thing on the menu. And darlings, I do not complain.”
“But men are such scum!”
“Personality-wise, often enough. But who here wants to live in a world where we can't at least Google pictures of Idris Elba's arms, and imagine what lies beneath? Or fantasize about the ass of a young Brad Pitt? The eyebrows of an old George Clooney? Face it, ladies. We are all of us slaves to the Adonis, the quarterback, the cock. Boys are our art. Penises are our pursuit.”
“And white wine is not your drink.”
We burst into giggles. Tara slops some of the contents of her champagne flute across the floor. The Ruby Room bartender frowns at our little band of freaks, but I couldn't personally care less. Today I turn twenty-one, and I'm turning up with my new best friends at college. I
'm in a slutty dress and I'm probably failing English, but who the hell cares? Tonight, we are young. Kelly, Schmelly.
“And Tara Maureen Rubenstein, if you mention any passage from The Enlightened Orgasm right now, with God as my witness I will mushroom stamp your face.” Tara pouts at this, apparently found out. Then, my roomie signals the barkeep for another round of shots.
It's been more than a week since I've spoken to either Kelly, which feels like just what the doctor ordered. In Professor Chen's class, I made a point to arrive late, when the only available seats in the lecture hall were ones in the front row. This didn't earn me any favors with the Prof (who was even less amused when she learned I hadn't completed my extracurricular assignment), but it felt worth it. The idea of sitting next to Brendan, interpreting silence and accidental brushes and coughs for an hour and a half, seemed like sheer torture.
The other brother, to his credit, has been drowning me with text messages. I received ten “I'm sorry!”s, four “Can we talk?”s and three cutesy jokes attempting to change the subject. I'd spied Melora Handy sailing around campus in the meantime, looking like a bombshell in Liz Taylor glasses and printed sundresses. On the other hand, I hadn't spied the brunette KO from Brendan's room, the girl I'd later realized I recognized from the club crawl. She'd been the one to come up to Brendan and touch his elbow, just as I was being directed toward Chase like bait. This memory, when it came to me, was only more infuriating fuel for the fire of confusion going on in my brain. I felt like I should have seen, or known, or assumed...something.
So, per Tara's advice, I'd laid low. I'd responded to Chase (with a curt but sincere, “I'm not ready to talk just yet”) and avoided our date haunts, just because it didn't seem impossible that I'd run into one of the sex-addict twins out with some other girl entirely. I was determined to purge myself of the Kellys, in an attempt to locate how I really felt about both of them. You should remember that you didn't talk about exclusivity with Chase or Brendan, my ever-so-supportive roomie kept reminding me. Her maddening voice of reason act was so much harder to swallow because it was, finally, true. Neither Kelly had exactly betrayed me, or strung me along. For some reason, it just seemed easier to believe that the twins were dirt bags, who'd each taken advantage of our history, and my ever-present distrust of men.
In any case. I didn't frickin' know, and still don't.
“Stop,” Trevor says suddenly, reaching across the bar and pinching me on the nose. “I can tell you're thinking about them. Stop thinking about them.”
“It's not quite that easy.”
“If only because we don't want to listen to you whine anymore,” Mabus mutters darkly. Though we're all supposed to be some sort of posse now, I'm pretty sure this new dude doesn't like me.
The door to the Ruby back-room opens and a leggy blonde and her surfer companion swish by, trailing with them the sound of a familiar tune, being played... live. Now it's my turn to frown.
“Guys,” I ask my laughing companions. “As much as I appreciate being abducted and taken to a bar on my birthday, is there any particular reason we chose this bar?”
Louise looks at the ground. Mabus smiles, a little evilly. Trevor cocks his head like an innocent doll and Tara shoots me the tight, slightly fake grin she was wearing the day I met her. What a pack of fucking charlatans. I am the worst picker of people.
“Great. Well. Thanks, and bye!” I peel myself off the vinyl stool with a little bit of effort, my ass having gotten stuck to the material. There's just no way I can face him. Not tonight. And certainly not in this slip of a dress that my sneaky-ass best friend insisted I wear.
“What if you just talked to him?” Tara is saying, as I gather my things. “Baby's Alright will be finished in a few minutes. Avery, you're totally obsessed with this guy!”
“Am not!”
“I've seen every one of your paintings, bitch! Don't lie to me!”
“I resent that! I'm an abstract artist!”
“Yeah, abstract my ass. You think I can't recognize the shape of a haircut? Or a trademark tattoo?”
I grip my drink, grouchily. The Ruby Room, so pleasant just seconds ago, now feels stifling and close. Someone else opens the door to the back room, and that does it. My stomach shifts, and this time I can name the attendant feeling immediately: it's fear.
As I stomp away from my friends, I hear his rattling coda in my head—runaway, runaway. So, I'm a runaway. So be it.
Chapter Twenty-One
No sooner have I holed myself back up in the silent dorm room than my phone goes off. The contact photo is goofy, because I snapped her candid one morning as she was waking up—her eyes are crossed and her hair is messy. I laugh at the picture and with a pang of compassion, realize how much I've been missing the caller. Zooey.
“Hey,” I say first, with no little trepidation. I have no right to expect that my old Georgia buddy would ever want to talk to me again, given how much I've been ignoring her since fleeing West.
“You remembered!”
“Of course I remembered, silly. Also, so did Facebook.” I think I can make out the faint sounds of a party in her background—or at least voices and music competing for attention. She's out, and yet she remembered to call me. I'm touched.
“Listen, Zo. I'm sorry...”
“I'm sorry, too! Oh, let me apologize first. I never should have been so judgmental of your new crew.”
“And I should never have been so spacey! It's like I got to college and immediately dropped you! I really didn't mean to be such an epic jackass.”
There's a pause, then we both break out into laughter. It's a relief. I didn't even realize what a burden it's been these past few weeks, not being able to confide in my old friend. Not that Tara and the new crew aren't wonderful people, but there's something about the friends you make first.
“You know what this reminds me of? That scene in Clueless where Cher and Tai make up at Travis' skateboarding thing.”
“Does that make me Cher?”
“If the satin shoes fit...”
“I'm surprised, Z-Money. That's a very preppy movie for you to enjoy. I thought the whole valley girl, SoCal thing was 'not your speed.'”
I wait for a second on the line, breath bated as I test this joke. I want to clear the air fully, though Zooey's never been awesome at laughing at herself.
“I actually wanted to tell you something serious,” she says, suddenly breathing heavily. “But I don't know how. So I think maybe I'm just gonna blurt it out.”
“Is everything okay?”
“No. Yes! I mean, I'm fine, but—I just heard a few weeks ago about what you went through last year at school. With Ruben.”
Hearing his name, even after all this time, sends a nasty jolt through my spine. Which makes me even angrier—that he still has power over me.
“Do you not want to talk about this at all?”
No. No. Never, ever again. But Zooey's voice is so plaintive that I do what I always do, and give in to her.
“I'm trying really hard to put it behind me. But...I mean, what do you wanna know?”
“I guess I don't have any questions. I just wish you could have felt comfortable enough to tell me. What you were going through. And, like, why you left.”
“But Zooey, you've gotta understand. It was so private. And it wasn't—it's not—about you.” The words sound harsh even in my teacher voice, but I'm proud of owning them. I feel the way I did in the library, with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. There's no greater feeling, I begin to think, than owning exactly what you mean to say exactly when you mean to say it.
“That's not how I meant it. Crap.” Zooey takes a sip of something, on her end of the phone. I try to imagine the party she's at. It's probably full of art kids, in all their alterna-glory. The scattered good old girls and boys from town. I loved Savannah, but I have to admit: I never felt like I was home there. I don't miss it.
“What I mean to say is: I'm so proud of you. And amazed and shocked and sad that yo
u went through all that, all alone.” Her voice is cracking, which of course drags me down, too. The contents of my dorm room begin to blur. “I'm here now,” Zooey blubbers, finally. “That's what I want to say. Even though we're far apart, I want you to always know that I'm here for you. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And I won't ever judge you. And we can always talk.”
“Okay.”
There's the sound of our co-mingled, strangled-sounding breath, and then this too gives way to laughter.
“Happy birthday, Avery. Love you, bitch.”
“Bye, Tai. Love you, too.”
We click off, and I'm suddenly exhausted. The good kind of exhausted, though. The kind where all your bones feel sleepy and satisfied.
Who needs guys, I muse to myself as I flop face-down on my twin bed. When you have great friends?
I hear it in my dream, first. Lyrics, clear as a bell, seeming to sail from the ground up:
Now that it's all coming clearer,
Know that I wanna be your mirror
I'm sorry we're not all as strong
But know you're right, and I was wrong—
You are moon and you are sky,
You're the waves on the beach in the evening tide
You were past and now you're present
Please-oh-please...
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
...be with me..
“I WILL CALL CAMPUS SECURITY ON YOU, FUCKING LLOYD DOBLER!”
...AVERY...
I think it's my name that finally does the trick.
When my eyes slide open and I'm snapped back to reality, the first thing I see is Tara, crouched by our courtyard-facing window. She's staring down at something I quickly reconcile with the content of my dreams, looking serene in a pool of moonlight. When she sees me sit up, she beams with a genuineness I'm not accustomed to seeing on my slightly-scary friend. She beckons me over. And though I begin to awaken, it's all a little hard to believe.