The Fire In My Eyes

by Christopher Nelson

  “Well, that's good, I guess?” Drew looked at me as if I could predict what she'd do next. I didn't know the girl, but she seemed cute and nice, if a little energetic. It wasn't as if she was going to attack him.

  “But you did do something wrong. You know what you did, don't you?” Lisa's tone was silky smooth and infinitely dangerous. There was something going here that I was missing and I didn't know what it was. Jess was grinning like a cat and Max covered his face with his hand, then shook his head.

  “I think so?” Drew was starting to sweat. He looked from side to side, but there was no escape.

  “Then you realize that when you do something wrong, you need to be punished, right?”

  “I'd much rather not-”

  Lisa's knee lifted sharply, at a very unpleasant angle for Drew. I realized at that moment that I was very wrong about her. His eyes went wide and he made a strangled noise, an uncomfortable noise, a noise that I had made once or twice during my life as well. “That, my dearest Andrew, is why you shouldn't stand a girl up. It gets them upset.” Lisa's voice was sultry and dark and it promised things I didn't want any part of. Drew didn't reply, not even when she let go. He pressed his hands to his crotch, spun, staggered, and collapsed onto the lower bunk. His head clunked against the wall and then he curled up into a ball.

  I found that I had turned sideways. Jess caught my eye and snickered. It was time to cut our losses and retreat. “So, Max, do you think it's time to take our leave?”

  “I think you might be right, Kev, we should probably get out of here and come pick him up later, maybe in a couple of hours, maybe in a couple of days-”

  “I didn't hit him that hard!” Lisa protested. “Come on, you guys can't even take a little tap? I was just showing him who's the boss around here. Me. Right?”

  Drew grunted from the bed. Whether he was agreeing with her or not, I didn't know, and I didn't want to know. “You know a tap like that is exquisitely painful? It's probably an order of magnitude worse than just slamming your knee up there. He's probably going to be there for a while,” I told her, against my better judgment. Giving her more information like that might backfire someday.

  Max shook his head as we both moved toward the door. “He might throw up in your bed,” he added.

  “He better not! I'll do it again!” Lisa snapped. Drew grunted and curled up more. “But I don't think he will, because he's learned his lesson, and now we can start over. Right, Drew?”

  I looked straight at her. “Lisa, you're one scary chick.”

  She beamed. “I know! Guys think they can walk all over me because I'm tiny. But you know what? A girl has to think about her reputation. And you're going to think twice before you ever stand a girl up now, right?”

  Max and I looked at each other. “I hate to admit it, but she's got a point,” he said. I nodded.

  “Like you'd ever get a date, Max!” Jess laughed directly at him.

  “Are you saying you'd never go out with me?” he asked.

  “I wouldn't say never,” she said. “But I don't think you'd survive to be the last man on earth, so it's sort of a moot point.”

  “Hey, that's harsh, I'm date material,” Max protested. “You know that. Hey, Drew, back me up here. Date material, right?” Drew groaned and declined to answer. “Kev? Back me up, man. I'm counting on you.”

  “I don't know about that. I wouldn't date you.”

  “What if I was a girl?”

  “Max, you'd be a really ugly girl.”

  Lisa and Jess both burst out laughing. Even Drew laughed before subsiding back into painful groans and grunts. Max rolled his eyes, then punched my shoulder and grinned. “Jackass. I think I like you. You'll do just fine here.”

  “As long as you give up on that fantasy of entering me in a show,” I told him.

  Chapter Two

  By Sunday afternoon, I wished I had brought my computer from home, regardless of the damage it would do to my social life. I had gone to breakfast with Drew, picked up a few things at the campus store, and come back to the dorm. Max had still been asleep by the time we got back. He woke up close to noon, mumbled something about lunch, and disappeared. Drew had a lunch date, so he took off as well, leaving me alone.

  At home, I was used to solitude. Dad and I had been more like roommates than parent and child. It never bothered me then. Here, away from home, it was definitely getting to me. If I had brought my computer, at least I’d have something to do.

  “Stop being such a coward, Kevin,” I told myself and sat up. There had to be something interesting going on somewhere. Orientation was still ongoing, too, so I could always head to some of those sessions. Maybe I’d run into the girl from yesterday. That settled it for me. I swung my legs off the bed and got ready to head out into the cold.

  Just as I reached for the doorknob, the door opened. “Kev! You heading out?” Drew and Max pushed past me, Max shivering noticeably.

  “I was going to see if there was anything interesting going on,” I said.

  “You were going down to campus to see if you could find that chick,” Max said. “Never give up. Never surrender. Stalker in training.”

  “Stop being an asshole,” Drew told him as he took his coat off. “Hey, Kev, don’t want to derail any plans you have, but do you want to meet our dorm assistant guy?”

  “Residence assistant,” Max said.

  “Yeah, that.”

  I shrugged and took my coat off. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Good man. Andreas is a cool guy. Friendly, smart, and the most likely to blow the building up by accident.”

  I paused as I hung my coat up. “Maybe I’ll go out after all.”

  Max chuckled. “Don’t worry so much. He’s just a little weird. You’d have to be if you were working on two doctorates simultaneously. I’m surprised he’s as stable as he is.”

  “And coming from Maximillian Ulysses Pendleton, our resident expert on stability, that should be taken seriously,” Drew said.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Besides, he only gets really unstable when he’s been drinking.”

  “He drinks a lot, Drew.”

  “You would too, in his situation.”

  I held my hand up. “Question. Is he really crazy or not?”

  My roommates looked at each other. “Yes,” they said.

  “Wonderful. I’m going to campus.”

  “Don’t be such a pussy.”

  We walked down the hall to room B201. Like all the other doors, it had a cheesy star on the door with the resident’s name written on it. “Andreas” stood out in black marker on the white star. Unlike all the other doors, his door was painted black. “So, why did he paint the door?”

  “It was painted red, and then he got drunk and listened to that Rolling Stones song,” Max said. “That's what he told me, at least. He was sort of drunk at the time though.”

  “He told me that he wanted people to know that they were passing through a dark portal into a dark realm,” Drew said. “He was sort of drunk then too, so I'm not sure that's right either.”

  “It sounds like he's drunk a lot,” I said.

  “Like we said before, you’d drink a lot too in his situation,” Max said. “Dual doctorates in computer science and biotechnology? He’s probably as deranged as they get.”

  “What else does he say when he's drunk?”

  “You'll find out sooner or later,” Drew said as he knocked on the door. “Don't worry about it. Rule of thumb, if he starts ranting in Norwegian, run.”

  “Heading to campus was such a good idea,” I grumbled.

  “Don't be such a pussy,” Max told me again as the door cracked open.

  “Drew? Did you come alone?” asked a hoarse whisper. His speech was slightly accented, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Of course not. Are you hung over again? Let us in, we got the new guy here to meet you,” Drew said. “Or I'll just push the door open and we'll pillage your fridge.”

 
“Ah, I see. Please, come in.” The door pulled all the way open and I got my first look at Andreas. After the way Max and Drew had described him, I had been expecting a mad scientist wearing thick glasses and a stained lab coat, disheveled and disreputable. Instead, he was as tall as Drew, but rail thin. His pale blond hair hung straight to his shoulders, and an untied tie hung loosely around the collar of his white shirt. I got the feeling we had interrupted him before some sort of formal event.

  “How'd winter break treat you, man? Did you go home for it?” Drew and Max walked in, leaving me in the hallway.

  Movement down the hall caught my attention before I followed them in. Once again, the guy in the trench coat stood down the hall, seeming to stare at me. I stared right back at him, flipped him off, then followed Max and Drew into the room and closed the door behind me.

  Andreas's room had more than enough space for a single occupant, and there were actually two rooms. Being an RA seemed to have some perks. There was a clink of glass from the other room, telling me where he had disappeared to. Max and Drew had occupied a small couch, and I sat down on a wooden chair that creaked as I put weight on it. In the back of the room, a partition blocked view of whatever was behind it.

  “May I offer you something to drink?” Before I could ask further questions, Andreas appeared in the doorway to the other room, two glass tumblers in each hand.

  “Thought you'd never ask,” Drew said. My roommates extended their hands for a glass, and I followed suit.

  “You must be Kevin Parker, transfer student. An interesting academic history. A mysterious transfer.” I felt my cheeks begin to burn. Andreas stared, his expression unreadable. “Any friend of Drew and Max is a friend of mine. You will have to excuse my curiosity, though, as the circumstances of your arrival here are indeed mysterious.” He pushed a glass into my hand. “What will you have?”

  “I'll have whatever they're having, I guess,” I said. Fancy glasses, nice and thick and heavy. You didn't pour soda into glasses like these.

  He nodded. “I shall return.”

  He disappeared again and I continued to glance around his room. The room was styled in dark colors, mostly shades of black and gray. It was similar to how I had painted my room back home. There was a large widescreen television mounted to the wall opposite the couch that my roommates were sitting on, and I could see speakers mounted around the room. Folding chairs were stacked neatly by the partition. I could hear the familiar quiet hum of computer fans from somewhere in the room. Andreas was a computer science graduate student, so I assumed he had multiple systems stashed around his place. I pushed away that curiosity.

  Andreas reappeared with a pitcher. He poured smoothly into the glasses, filling them about halfway, but pausing before he poured mine. “I have neglected to properly introduce myself. I am Andreas Eriksen, residence assistant for this wing. If you need any assistance with situations that may arise during your residence here, come to me.” He smiled, revealing straight white teeth. “Are you are sure you would like this, or would you prefer something non-alcoholic?”

  “Wait, you're distributing alcohol to minors?” I asked. “I thought that residence assistants were supposed to discourage students from drinking, not the other way around.”

  “Ripley University does officially discourage students from such things, yes. Unofficially, however, it is permissible in controlled situations, such as drinking with an older and wiser responsible adult. That is part of my role and function here.” His smile transformed into a sly grin. “It is also perfectly legal, as you have not purchased alcohol, only been provided with it.”

  “Older, sure. Wiser?” Max asked.

  “Definitely not after the first drink,” Drew said.

  Alcohol hadn't thrilled me like most of my friends back in high school. I had tried a couple of beers and while I had gotten a slight buzz, the taste hadn't been worth it. What Andreas had didn't look like beer, and I didn't want to turn down the gesture, especially with Max and Drew watching. Besides, I was thirsty. “In that case, how can I say no?”

  “Excellent,” Andreas murmured, and filled my glass about halfway. I raised it to my lips and took a cautious mouthful. It burned on the way down, but the aftertaste was nowhere near as disgusting as I had been expecting. It definitely wasn't like the cheap beer I had had before. “So?”

  “Good,” I managed to say. My throat felt raw and I resolved to sip carefully.

  “Andreas is a man of many talents,” Drew told me. “We're usually guinea pigs, but this tastes familiar. Is it the same as you made before winter break?”

  “It is similar, as you have noticed. Slight tweaks to the ingredient ratios,” Andreas said. He relaxed into a chair opposite mine and stared at me. “My analysis indicated that only slight changes were needed to create an ideal flavor. I think I may lock this recipe into the book.”

  “I don't know how you keep all that shit straight,” Max said. His glass was already near empty. I wondered if he had something against his internal organs starting with the letter “L”.

  “It is simple. I remember almost everything,” Andreas said with a perfectly straight face. “And what I forget, my computers remember.”

  “Got a server farm back there?” I asked.

  Andreas glanced toward the back of the room. “That? That is my workspace. My personal system is in the other room. Are you interested in computers, Kevin?”

  “A bit, I guess,” I said, trying to hedge.

  Max put his glass down on the table with a clunk. “I don't suppose you've got more? This was damn good, some of your best yet.”

  “Thank you, Max. Sadly, that was the last of my current stock.” I silently thanked Max for changing the subject. Drew had been giving me a funny look. I took another sip to cover my mistake. I had come here to start over, not to become a shut-in all over again. “I do have some domestic beer for emergencies, but I do not feel that this situation warrants it. My next experimental batch will be ready for testing next weekend, though, and you are all invited to come and try it.”

  “I'll be around if I'm free, which is questionable,” Drew said. “I'm sure Max will be over since he's got no social life whatsoever.”

  “I'll be around too,” I said before Max could reply. Everyone looked at me and I felt my face heat. “What? I don't know anyone besides you guys.”

  Max leaned toward me. “It'll be nice to have some moral support. Drew just wants to avoid the weird experiments, like the big coward he is. He had an incident a few days before finals last trimester. Remember, don't try anything Andreas makes if it's tinted green.”

  Drew clapped a hand to his mouth. “Dude, I felt like I was dying for three days! I was sick for weeks afterwards. I couldn't even look at anything green.”

  “I'd say it was acute alcohol poisoning, but Andreas swore up and down that the alcohol content wasn't anywhere near high enough for that. It didn't bother me. Drew's just a big baby,” Max said.

  “I believe I isolated what caused Drew's reaction,” Andreas said. “As long as he does not get sick today.” Drew looked down at his glass and put it down on the table as if he was afraid it might break.

  Max laughed, then looked up at Andreas. “So, any intelligence? Any room changes? Any hot new girls in your domain?”

  “Sadly, no. A pair of dropouts from the third floor left, replaced with new freshmen. Some of the sophomore girls on the fourth floor swapped roommates. Otherwise, the only notable addition is Kevin.” He raised his glass to me. “I did run into Jessica and Lisa yesterday, though. Lisa mentioned that she was looking forward to seeing you again, Drew.”

  “She sure as hell was,” Max said. “She got her revenge on the dumbass here. Don’t ever stand that girl up.”

  Drew crossed his legs and cleared his throat. “Lesson learned, gentlemen. Do not cross the tiny Asian girl.”

  Max leaned toward me. “So here’s the whole story, Kev. This dude was hot for her all last year. Granted, that didn’t stop him f
rom playing the field, but every time he saw her, he’d try to pick her up.”

  “Literally or figuratively?” I asked.

  He smirked. “She’d turn him down each time, but he never gave up. Finally, right before finals, she agreed to a date. Drew promptly forgot all about it.”

  “In my defense, I did have three finals that day,” Drew said.

  “At least it looks like you’ve been forgiven,” Max said.

  “That’s true. So what’s up with you and Jess?”

  “What do you mean?” Max’s tone shifted. His face turned slightly red.

  Drew leaned forward and grinned. “Did you ever get her away from her computer?”

  Max muttered something inaudible and Drew laughed. Andreas looked to me and shrugged. “Jessica is, to put it bluntly, a nerd. A gamer, a shut-in, an introvert of the highest caliber.”

  “I noticed,” I said.

  “To put things in perspective, she had close to three hundred empty cans of soda stacked in the corner of their room last year. Most of them were Dew or Jolt or similar.” I blinked and did the math. It was a scary amount of soda. I had never been quite that bad, but I had still gained close to twenty pounds during my most sedentary phase, and I’d only just started to lose it.

  Andreas abruptly stood up and began to tie his tie. “I hate to be such a poor host, but I have a meeting on campus to discuss my research goals for the year. I shall return around six or seven this evening. You are all welcome to return at that time, and we can watch a movie, or play some games.”

  We all stood up. “Sounds good, man,” Drew said. “Think you’ll be up for that, Kev?”

  I nodded. “Sure. I do want to hit the campus store again, though. There are a lot of little things I need to get that I never thought of.”

  “I still can’t believe you had to buy sheets. How unprepared was that?” Max shook his head. “Especially with how expensive they are at that place, and I’m not much for caring about expenses.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll be fine, I’ll just put it on my card.”

  “Be careful with that,” Drew said. “Bad financial habits are hard to break, man. It’ll get you later in life.”