Letters of Love (Lessons in Love)

by Clarissa Carlyle

  “He didn’t get expelled,” Miss Dunne said suddenly, as though able to read Alex’s thoughts. “That’s what you want to ask me, right?”

  Alex was taken aback by her teacher’s astuteness, and it left her speechless.

  “Mr. Deloitte is still here studying at Princeton,” Miss Dunne continued, “but by the look on your face, you were hoping he wasn’t.”

  The color drained from Alex’s face as she finally succumbed to the grim reality that Oscar was walking around campus and just choosing to ignore her, not caring that he’d not seen her, no longer having any feelings for her. Her chest became tight as though someone had just drove a knife into it but was then applying extra pressure, turning it to induce as much pain as possible.

  “You want my advice?” Miss Dunne asked sharply, her smile long gone.

  Alex could only nod numbly.

  “Forget you ever met him and focus on yourself. It’s been working for you so far this year. You’ve got perfect attendance and impressive grades. There’s a lot more to life than men; don’t forget that.”

  Miss Dunne nodded at her young student, satisfied with the knowledge she had imparted, and walked purposefully out of the room, her heeled shoes clicking methodically against the hard floor as she left. Alex listened until the footsteps were beyond earshot before slinking out of the classroom, her head down, eyes on the floor. She felt as though she’d just been stepped on.

  “He’s still here!” Ashley screamed when Alex told her about the conversation with her teacher.

  “That’s what she said.”

  “And he hasn’t bothered to get in touch with you since classes began! The little rat!” Ashley was fired up, pacing around their shared bedroom in her pink fluffy slippers.

  “I’m not surprised, to be honest,” Alex said sadly.

  “He better hope I never see him!” Ashley declared through clenched teeth.

  “Ash, it’s okay. I’m trying to do like Miss Dunne suggested and just forget him.”

  “Well, you must be Ghandi to be able to be so calm about it all!”

  “I’m trying to take the high road,” Alex said softly.

  “Good luck with that.” Ashley waved a dismissive hand. “Personally, I’d feel a lot better once I’ve smashed a few windows out of his car, or at least slashed some tires.”

  “He doesn’t have a car.”

  “Of course he doesn’t! Because he’s a rat!”

  The soft tap at their bedroom door caused Ashley to cease pacing. Cindy’s head came poking around the white wooden door, glancing first at Ashley and then over at Alex, who sat on her bed.

  “Just to remind you that the Kappa Pi pow wow starts in five minutes,” Cindy whispered into the room.

  “We can tell the time, Cindy.” Ashley sighed. “Pow wow starts at five every day. You don’t always have to come in and tell us.”

  Cindy scowled at Ashley and then closed the door, leaving the roommates once more in peace. Things had been icy between them and Cindy since she’d found them after their reunion evening.

  At precisely five Alex and Ashley headed out of their room, down the wooden staircase and into the lounge area of the sorority house. There were already a dozen girls waiting, leaving them no space to sit except on the floor.

  Alex positioned herself cross-legged next to Ashley. She glanced around the living space, feeling like it was a faraway memory when she was alone in the house. It felt like a lifetime ago, as did her time with Oscar. It pained Alex how time could erode so much. Recently, she found herself struggling to remember her father’s face. Panicked, she’d looked at his picture to remind herself, but she was beginning to feel like she was looking at the picture of a stranger. It had been so long since he was a part of her life it felt like he was no longer in it at all.

  When Alex told Ashley about her fears that she was forgetting her father, Ashley had nodded sympathetically.

  “Don’t worry, Alex, you’re not forgetting him. You’re just healing and learning to cope without him.”

  “But I can’t remember how he used to smile or what he smelt like,” Alex declared desperately.

  “None of that matters. You might forget the small stuff, but you’ll always remember the big things.”

  Alex felt comforted by her friend’s words but was still distressed over forgetting details about her father. She feared that life and the passing of time would eventually steal from her what she had left of him.

  “Good evening, sisters,” Marie Spencer, current president of Kappa Pi, greeted the collection of girls gathered around her.

  “Evening, sister,” the girls chorused back at her.

  “Thank you for meeting me for our daily pow wow,” Marie continued. The meeting always started and ended with the same generic greetings. Alex felt it was all the more tiresome that these were daily events and attendance was mandatory.

  “I hope we are all settling into the school year.” Marie glanced around at her sisters. “We need to start focusing on getting pledges. We’ve got some important initiation parties coming up, so it’s important you all attend and spread the word about Kappa Pi!”

  The mention of a party always got the girls excited, like a disturbed flock of birds, chirping and flapping with anxious anticipation.

  “And we want to extend a big Kappa Pi congratulations to one of our own. Stand up, please, Alexandra.” Marie gestured towards Alex, whose eyes widened with surprise as she awkwardly got up off the floor.

  “Alexandra has worked hard all summer, forsaking holidays and fun, so that she could study and raise her GPA, and she is now in the top four percent of her class! So let’s give it up for Alexandra!”

  All around Alex her Kappa Pi sisters graciously clapped for her achievement, sending approving glances her way, while Alex blushed profusely, embarrassed by the attention.

  Marie gestured with her hand that Alex could sit back down.

  “Let Alexandra be a lesson to us all that with hard work and determination you can always find your way back to the top.”

  Alex wasn’t sure if she offered her sorority sisters such a great lesson. She knew that she should feel proud about her improved grades, about being close to the top of her class, but still her mind was polluted by thoughts of Oscar. She began to wonder if no achievement would ever satisfy her.

  She just wanted to know what he was doing, how he’d spent his summer and, more importantly, if he missed her, because she missed him terribly. He haunted her dreams and existed on the periphery of her waking thoughts, seizing any lull in activity to enter her mind.

  Ashley placed an arm around her friend and gave her a comforting squeeze after once more spotting the faraway glance, which meant that the boy with the mad curly hair was on her mind.

  “It gets better,” Ashley whispered to her as Marie began giving more precise instructions about the impending pledge parties.

  “Does it?”

  “Sure. It only hurts because you loved him, but that’s the thing with love, you’ve got to risk the pain.”

  “Focus please, girls!” Marie instructed, throwing a warning glance over at Ashley. But the command to focus was lost on Alex, who could only sit there for the rest of the pow wow thinking about Oscar.

  ****

  Alex sat looking out of her bedroom window at the trees swaying lightly in the breeze. Her heart felt heavy as she watched the leaves dancing to a silent song. She liked to just sit and watch the world from her window; it helped calm her. It was a tactic she had employed since she was a young girl.

  Normally when she sat in such a melancholy stance, it wouldn’t take long for her father to gently knock on her bedroom door before entering and asking what was wrong. He was always so in tune with his daughter’s feelings, knowing instinctively when something wasn’t right. Jackie Heron had never been able to hone such intuitiveness between herself and Alex.

  Sighing, Alex allowed herself to momentarily pine for her deceased father. She tried to limit the time sh
e spent missing him, knowing it did more bad than good these days, especially since she was so often wracked with guilt as minor details no longer had room within her memory bank.

  But today she missed him. She knew that if she were back in their grand home in Woodsdale, he’d be outside tending to the garden and notice her gazing forlornly at the trees. He’d wait another half hour or so before coming up and asking, his face pinched with concern, what was wrong. And whatever the problem was that was occupying Alex’s thoughts, her father always knew the answer. He was the greatest man she had ever known, and she knew that no other man would ever come close to him, especially not Oscar.

  Alex scowled at the thought of him, wishing she could remove him from her mind, erase their time together so that she didn’t have to feel this constant pain, this never-ending sense of emptiness.

  A gentle knock against the bedroom door surprised Alex, and for a moment she wondered if she was dreaming and somehow magically back in Woodsdale and when the door was pushed open, her father would be there, ready to solve all her problems.

  But it was Ashley who entered.

  “Ash, you don’t need to knock in your own room.” Alex turned briefly to address her friend, who remained hovering nervously in the doorway.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex turned from the window, giving Ashley her full attention.

  “I didn’t know whether to come up here and get you or not.” Ashley wrung her hands together repeatedly, her feet pacing on the spot.

  “Tell me what?”

  “You know him of whom we do not speak?” Ashley asked tentatively.

  “Yes, sadly I do.” A few days ago Ashley had made Alex swear never to speak of Oscar again, insisting it was essential to her recovery from the relationship that her lips never again uttered his name. In theory it sounded like a decent enough idea, but in practice Alex had found that it wasn’t working.

  “Well…” Ashley glanced nervously around the room, biting her lip as she thought about what to say next.

  “What is it?” Alex was growing anxious.

  “He’s here, at the front door. Asking to see you.” Ashley dropped the bombshell and let the dust settle around them before speaking again.

  “I wasn’t sure whether to even tell you or not, but I thought that I should.”

  “No, thanks. I’m glad you did,” Alex managed to reply, though she suddenly felt sick to her stomach and was struggling to suppress the urge to vomit all over her bedspread.

  “Are you going to go and see him?”

  “I… I guess that I should.” Alex didn’t sound certain.

  “You might finally get closure,” Ashley suggested helpfully.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  ****

  Oscar Deloitte was leaning against the open door frame of the Kappa Pi house as though he didn’t have a care in the world, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He was too preoccupied with looking into the room to notice Alex descending the opulent staircase. As he heard her footsteps approach, he turned in her direction, but his expression gave nothing away. He looked full of nonchalance.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” Alex said sharply as she drew closer to him, hoping that he couldn’t tell that her heart was racing frantically in her chest. She had to keep discreetly wiping her sweaty palms against her jeans.

  “This place is certainly an ode to excess,” Oscar commented, leaning in slightly to take in the full grandeur of the house. “Pretty much as I expected it to be,” he concluded, shrugging.

  “Oscar, why are you here?” Alex demanded, aware that some of her sorority sisters were lingering close by, hoping to be privy to a heated argument they could later gossip about. “Did you stop by just to criticise the house?”

  “No,” Oscar answered simply. “I was hoping that we could talk.” At this point he lifted his gaze so that his eyes met Alex’s, and an intense moment passed between them. Alex wanted to walk back up the stairs, declaring that she had no time for him, but the magnetism between them locked on to her like a laser beam through his eyes, and she found herself unable to resist going to him, closing the heavy door to Kappa Pi behind them as they stepped outside.

  “Okay then, talk,” Alex ordered as she stood on the neatly trimmed lawn, glancing away from Oscar and briefly breaking the spell between them.

  “Is there not somewhere a little more… private?” Oscar said.

  “Do you have somewhere in mind?” Alex placed her hands on her hips, wanting to seem confident and in control.

  “The park?” Oscar raised his shoulders and turned in the direction of the park before Alex even had a chance to respond.

  As they walked, Oscar lit the cigarette that he’d been holding in his mouth.

  “I shouldn’t even be coming with you to the park,” Alex lamented as they walked.

  “Yet here you are,” Oscar said coolly.

  “You don’t deserve my time or the opportunity to talk!”

  “Wouldn’t you like answers?” Oscar asked her.

  “Of course I would, but you’ve ignored me all summer!” Alex was growing agitated.

  “Well, wouldn’t you like to know why?”

  “That’s why I’m here, Oscar, stupidly following you to the park where you’re probably going to feed me a load of bullshit. Did your new girl dump you or something? Is that why you’ve come crawling back to me?”

  “There’s no new girl,” Oscar said calmly.

  As Alex grew more infuriated, Oscar remained cool and collected, which only angered her more. She managed to control her anger until they reached the park and sat down beneath a tree in a more secluded area. It was cool, but the sun was out, so there were a couple of students sitting around enjoying the last bit of nice weather of the year.

  “Fine, we are in the stupid park. Now talk!” Being so close to Oscar and yet being unable to touch or kiss him was driving Alex mad. She hated herself for still being so attracted to him after how badly he had treated her.

  “How did summer school pan out?” Oscar asked, glancing briefly at Alex before focusing on a distant part of the park.

  “I got through it.”

  “Good, so you got to stay and study this year. That’s good.” Oscar nodded to himself.

  “What about you? How the hell do you manage to stay here? I doubt you ever go to class!” Alex said angrily.

  “And stop smoking, and have the decency to address me directly when we are talking, after I’ve been good enough to come here!”

  Oscar stubbed out his cigarette with slow, deliberate movements before turning to face Alex, his eyes locking on to hers and making her feel nervous.

  “Happy?” he asked her.

  “Happy? How can I possibly be happy? You haven’t spoken to me for months, and now you show up out of the blue seeming to want to catch up! What is going on, Oscar? I thought you loved me.” Alex knew how plaintive she sounded but couldn’t help it. She rubbed a sleeve across her eyes, pushing in some tears that were threatening to drip down her cheeks.

  “I know I’ve behaved badly and that I owe you an explanation.”

  “Good, so where is it?” Alex crossed her arms across her chest and scowled at Oscar, who would usually have been bemused by her outburst, but instead he just looked sad.

  “For a long time I haven’t taken anything seriously, especially not my studies,” Oscar began, running a hand through his hair as he spoke. “My folks keep pushing me to step up and achieve, but I didn’t want to, didn’t feel the need. Life is too precious, and I know how easily it can be stolen away. The only reason I got into Princeton is because my grades are good and my uncle sits on the board of directors. Every year I mess up he has to make my case to them about how one day I’ll make something of myself. I pity him having to go cap in hand like that, and he always gives me a hard time about it, but every year it’s the same thing.”

  “Then why don’t you apply yourself?” Alex asked gently, aware that Oscar had never opened up like this before
.

  “Because I fail to see the point.” Oscar shrugged.

  “But your future is the point.”

  “I don’t believe in my future.” Oscar’s tone darkened.

  “But why not?”

  “Because I don’t deserve it.”

  “Why would you think that? Of course you deserve your future!”

  Oscar looked away into the distance, at the trees on the far side of the park and the people walking around. Alex noticed how his dark eyes misted over, something she had never seen before, and when he went to take another cigarette, his hand trembled.

  “Can I smoke?” he asked Alex without looking at her.

  “Yeah, sure.” She wanted to place her hand on his leg to comfort him, seeing how distressed he was becoming, but was unsure of what was now acceptable behavior between them. They weren’t a couple, so surely now she couldn’t touch him? There were boundaries now when before there were none. It felt so confusing and unnatural to be neutral around him.

  “Five years ago I was in a car accident,” Oscar explained.

  “Was it bad?”

  “Pretty bad, yeah. I was driving and lost control on a patch of black ice, spun around and hit an oncoming truck.”

  “How frightening,” Alex sympathised.

  “My sister died on impact.”

  Alex felt her breath catch in her throat. She had no idea that Oscar had once had a sister.

  “That’s awful.” Alex could feel tears forming in her own eyes as she imagined Oscar’s pain.

  “She was my twin sister. We grew up together, but she was always the star. She had an amazing voice, and I kept telling her that one day I’d take her to New York and help her forge a career. But that day I stole it all away from her. I walked away with surface injuries, but the truck struck her side of the car and crushed her.”

  Oscar could no longer talk. He placed his hands over his eyes and shook silently.

  “Oscar.” Alex placed a consolatory arm on his shoulder before giving in to her instincts and embracing him. He wept into her hair as she held him.

  “I should have told you,” he whispered. “But I’ve felt so terrible about it for so long. I hate myself for what I did. She should be the one here living. I’m the one who should be dead.”