by D Haltinner
“We can fix it!”
“It can’t be fixed, don’t you see that? It’s too late.”
Rachel bent forward at the waist, bringing her hands to her face, “Don’t do this!”
“I have to.”
“No you don’t!”
“It will be better this way,” Darren said. “You’ll see.”
Rachel dropped to her knees, sobbing into her hands. Her cries vanished into the icy breeze, her sobs being carried across campus. Darren hadn’t noticed the people watching him and Rachel from the nearby paths and the windows looking down on top of them, but now that she was sobbing as loud as a crow cawing, he noticed all of the eyes on them. He wanted to get Rachel on her feet and calmed down so that the spectators would stop staring, but that wouldn’t help getting his point across to Rachel.
Instead, he turned, and started to walk toward his dorm. There was nothing left to say to Rachel. They were through, she was going to have to get through the breakup on her own.
She was taking it a lot harder than he thought she would. He thought that she was already cheating on him and that she was getting tired of having him around, but it seemed like the opposite. She didn’t seem to even see this coming, but how was that possible? Were all the problems only in Darren’s head? Was he only doing this to make himself feel better about being with Audrey too? Did he really want to have both of them?
No, he didn’t want that. He wanted Audrey. Even if things could have been repaired between him and Rachel, he didn’t want to go through all that effort in fixing things. It was easier to start over the Audrey.
Was it really that much easier? He didn’t even know Audrey yet, so what if she turned out to be worse than Rachel?
She wouldn’t.
But how would he know that? He didn’t even know her. What if she turned out to be more trouble than Rachel turned into?
She won’t.
That’s easy to say. Maybe if things don’t work out with Audrey, he could go back to Rachel.
She’d never take him back.
Why not though?
Because she got dumped for another girl, that’s why.
But she wasn’t dumped for another girl, she was dumped because it was too hard to have a relationship with a girl who was never seen and spent the weekends in an alcohol induced haze.
Still, she was dumped, and she didn’t take it that well.
Audrey better just be everything Darren hoped she would be.
She will.
Only time will tell. And they’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other after they explore the tunnel this afternoon. Their first date, after their first kiss, but still, it would give Darren plenty of time to learn about his new love.
Love already?
Why not? His feelings for Audrey were stronger than they were for Rachel.
That’s infatuation, not love.
It’s early love, and it will turn into the full fledged thing in time.
In time. Already had that with Rachel, and that was all thrown out the window.
The love was already gone.
Was it? Or was it just being overshadowed by another distraction?
It was gone. It was gone before Audrey ever entered the picture.
And Audrey’s going to be better than Rachel ever was?
Darren hoped so. He hoped that will all of his heart.
Chapter 21
Darren looked up from the table when he saw Audrey approaching through the corner of his eye. Was she ever a sight for sore eyes.
“I hope you smell better now,” Audrey said as she dropped her backpack on the floor and slid in beside Darren.
“I thought you said I didn’t smell.”
Audrey shrugged.
Great. Darren lifted his arm and smelled his armpit, but it didn’t sense anything unpleasant.
“I was just joking,” Audrey said, reaching over and grabbing his hand.
“I hope so.”
Audrey squeezed his hand. “You okay? You seem worried.”
“Just thinking,” Darren said. “I’ll stop.”
“About the hatch?”
He was thinking about Rachel and how she was handling the breakup, but he couldn’t tell Audrey that. “Yeah.”
“Still thinking about coming down there?”
“You’re for sure going?”
“Not if you don’t.”
“But you want to.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Has anybody ever been able to tell you no?”
Audrey let out a small laugh. “It’s rare.” She reached in for a kiss.
“I still don’t know,” Darren said. He hadn’t even thought about it for the last couple of hours, he had been more worried if dumping Rachel was really the right thing to have done.
“I still am not sure it’s worth the risk.”
“Well, I won’t pressure you into it.”
“That’s very nice of you.”
“We did meet to discuss the history paper.”
“I haven’t even given that a second of thought.”
“Me either.”
“We should just do it and get it done with.”
“I have all weekend to work on it.”
“Why don’t we just sit down then and get it done?”
“Sounds fine.”
“The hatch won’t be distracting us anymore after this afternoon, so we should be able to just pound it out.”
“Maybe we’ll even have time to relax together.”
“You’re confident you’ll want to see me again after our date tonight?”
Audrey’s smile grew. “Let’s just say it’s a formality.”
“Ahh. Then what’s this? A lunch date?”
“Mmm. How about as collaboration of the minds?”
“We don’t seem to be doing anything academic right now.”
“But that was our intention.”
“I suppose so, but did we decide on a new plan for the hour?”
“I have an idea.”
“And that is?”
Audrey squeezed herself closer to Darren and dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Just to spend time together.”
“That’s not a bad plan.”
“We’ll have to eat though.”
“We can find time for that.”
“Should we do that now?”
“I suppose we should get it out of the way.”
Audrey lifted her head, kissed Darren and stood back up with Darren following behind her. She led the way up to the restaurants, holding Darren’s hand as they looked over their choices. They bought a pair of sandwiches and carried them back down to the table, and climbed back into their spots.
Audrey unwrapped her sandwich and put her feet up on the chair across from her. “I forgot to grab a napkin.”
“I’ll get one for you,” Darren said, setting his half-wrapped sandwich down.
“Such a gentleman.”
“That’s me.”
Darren slid out from the table and made his way back to the restaurants, grabbed a handful of napkins, and started back toward the table. He froze mid-step when he saw Rachel approaching the table.
No!
Her eyes were swollen and red as if she hadn’t stopped crying since Darren left her on the paths between the dorms. Her teeth were clenched and her hair was a mess, and she marched her way to the table, stopping in front of Audrey.
Shit, shit, shit!
Darren ran toward the table.
“Stay away from him,” Rachel said, her hands moving to the rolls above her hips.
“What?” Audrey asked, looking up from her meal.
“Stay away from Darren.”
“Who are you?”
Darren slowed and approached the table from the side. He didn’t know how to dissolve the situation before it got too far, but he needed to think fast because cleaning up after Rachel was going to be much harder.
“His girlfriend,” Rachel said.
Audrey’s eyes widened and shot toward Darren.
Darren approached Rachel. “Rachel, we broke up, you need to just move on.”
Rachel stepped back from Darren. “Don’t come near me, you two timing bastard.”
“We broke up!”
Rachel looked down at Audrey. “You just stay away from him,” she said. “He’s not yours.”
Audrey sat in a stunned silence, her lips hanging open.
Darren moved toward Rachel again. “Why are you doing this?”
Rachel stepped back and raised her palms out in front of her. “I’m going.” She looked back to Audrey. “I don’t care who you are, you just keep away from him, or else I’ll make sure you never see him again.”
“Rach-”
Before Darren could finish the word, Rachel spun around and stormed off toward the building’s exit. Students around the room were staring at them, but Darren ignored the looks and took his seat beside Audrey.
“I’m so sorry that happened,” Darren said.
Audrey continued to stare off after Rachel. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I broke up with her, but I didn’t think she’d do something like that.”
“Apparently she was rather attached to you.”
“I never expected her to do that.”
Audrey looked over at Darren, worry spread across her face. “Should I be worried?”
“About what?”
“She did threaten me.”
“I wouldn’t worry about her.”
“She seemed a little psychotic to me.”
“I’ve never seen her like that before.”
“Why’d you break up with her then?”
“She loved alcohol and partying more than me.”
Audrey nodded, more to herself than Darren. “Do you love her?”
Darren shook his head. “No. At one point I did, but not any longer.”
Audrey nodded again. She picked up her sandwich and took a bite.
Darren could tell she was tense. She didn’t look scared, but she did appear a bit stressed. She had every reason to be though, and Darren didn’t know what to do to try and calm her back down.
“I’m sorry that happened,” Darren said.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“She is my ex.”
“But she is just that, your ex.”
Only for the last couple hours, but Darren didn’t feel the need to clarify that point.
“You don’t think she’d actually act on her threat, do you?” Audrey asked.
“No, she’s not a violent person,” Darren said. “I never thought she’d confront you either, but I don’t think she would act on her threat.”
Audrey nodded.
“I could talk to her about it,” Darren said.
“No,” Audrey said. “That would only give her the attention she wants.”
“You think it’s best to just ignore her?”
“Well, it won’t be that easy, but yeah.”
“I’m so sorry she did that.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It feels like it is.”
Audrey bit into her sandwich, so Darren followed along. Her perma-smile had disappeared for the first time since Darren saw her, and without it, the aura of joy she carried, died. She was just like all the other stressed out and depressed students running around the campus. She was still just as beautiful, but the absence of her strongest suit just seemed so unnatural and it was pulling every ounce of joy from Darren himself.
The pair ate in silence. Audrey still sat so close that her thigh pushed against his own, warm and inviting. He wanted to rest his hand on her leg and feel her so much closer than he was, but with her solemn mood, he refrained from even attempting it. When she settled down from the interruption of Rachel, maybe she would go back to her bubbly and touchy self and initiate something later. Maybe even on their date tonight.
Audrey finished her sandwich without uttering a single word and crumpled up the wrapper, leaving a line of crumbs across the surface of the table. She brushed them onto the floor with the side of her hand.
“I suppose we should wander over to class soon,” she said after Darren finished his own meal.
“Already?”
“I figured we should talk to Jack to see when and where he wants to meet us. We should probably let him know about the other hatch we found.”
“I suppose, but he’s in another class right now.”
“We can wait for him.”
“If that’s what you’d like to do.”
Audrey nodded and slid out from the table, untangling her jacket and putting it on. Darren grabbed her garbage before she could make a grab for it and tossed it all into the trash bin before slipping on his jacket and hefting the backpack onto his shoulders. Audrey walked slow and quiet toward the exit, keeping her head down and her eyes on the path in front of them. A wavy strand of hair well across her face, but she seemed to ignore it and kept on walking to the door leading outside.
They pushed out into the cold and Audrey zipped up her jacket before shoving her hands into her pockets and starting down the trail.
Was she mad at Darren? She always slipped her arm around Darren, but she won’t be doing that now. Could she actually be angry with him? She said it wasn’t his fault, but if he learned anything about women from Rachel, it was that women have a habit of lying. And not a little, but a lot. They don’t lie about events of facts though, but what they always lie about was their thoughts and feelings. They expected men to know what was going on in their heads without having to ask, so they make it ten times more difficult for a man to figure it out by lying about it.
He couldn’t expect Audrey to be any different. Even his own mom was like that. Did women lie to each other like that? Or was it only to men?
Doesn’t matter. Audrey really was upset with Darren, but she wasn’t going to be admitting it any time soon. She wanted Darren to figure it out himself.
So he better try.
Darren closed the gap between them as they walked and slipped his arm around Audrey’s waist, letting his hand rest inside of its curve.
Audrey laid her head on his shoulder and walked with Darren, matching step the entire way to class.
Chapter 22
Two hours later, Darren stood outside of the Jefferson Arts Center, waiting for Audrey to slip through the doors. They agreed to meet Jack in the study area of the library after Audrey was done with her creative writing class, and even though Darren hadn't agreed to go down into the tunnel, Jack promised to bring enough supplies for everyone.
Darren pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and looked back to the building’s door as students began to trickle outside. He had left his backpack in his room, and now he was starting to wish he had grabbed a sweatshirt to wear underneath his jacket too. The wind was burning his dry skin every time it gusted past him, and he was starting to think about waiting inside of the building to protect his skin when he saw her step out of the door, hair blowing around her back from the same gust that clawed at Darren.
Darren made his way closer, moving into her path to intercept her. Audrey’s perma-smile was back in a weakened state, nothing like it had been before Rachel’s appearance though. Darren hoped he could get her back to her normal joyous mood by the time their date was over, but it was going to be more of an effect of time than his own doing.
Audrey strutted up to Darren. As Darren held out his elbow to her, she slipped her arm around it, reaching down into his pocket instead of her own. He didn’t protest, rather he interlaced his fingers into hers.
“Have a good class?” Darren asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s a lot warmer in there than it is out here.”
“We can hurry to the library.”
“Let’s go then.”
Darren and Audrey started northeast, rushing down the path, passing anyone who was moving slower than they were. Audrey’s grip tightened on Darren’s as they jogged across
the road, and out of the corner of Darren’s eye, he saw her smile lightening and growing as they ran.
“Have you given any more thought to going down there?” Audrey asked when they were past the road.
Darren sighed, his breath billowing out of his lungs into a thick fog that blended in with the clouds of exhaust drifting off the road. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have much time to decide.”
“I just don’t know if it’s worth the risk still.”
“But there is no risk, that’s the point.”
“Troy got caught.”
“Because he climbed down there with no intention of trying to close up the hatch. He was an idiot.”
“But what if they’re watching the hatch now?”
“If that was the case, why didn’t Jack get caught?”
Daren shrugged.
“I don't think they have any reason to expect anyone to try and go down there after what happened to Troy.”
“No one knows what really happened besides the three of us.”
“And no one knows about the tunnel either.”
“They threatened me to stop looking into Troy and the tunnel.”
“And it worked?”
“Pretty much. It sure scared me from wanting to go down there at least.”
“But you still want to know what’s down there.”
“Yeah.”
The pair turned onto a path leading toward the library, dodging a pile of leaves that the wind had created in front of a wooden bench.
“I’m sure they feel the threat must have worked,” Audrey said.
“Why do you say that?”
“I would have expected them to threaten you again. Or at least keep an eye on you. But they haven’t done either.”
“They could be watching us.”
“They would have known Jack went down there then.”
“I guess.”
“No one’s watching us, and no one’s expecting us to go down there. They might not even know that Jack or I even know about it.”
“They know about Jack.”
“They do?”
“He asked his dad about Troy.”
“Oh yeah.”
“So they probably don't know about your interest though.”
“They may not know about Jack still.”