The more I listened to the handful of songs, though, the more differences I could identify. It wasn’t a bad thing, and it wouldn’t hurt the band, but I wondered if there would be a way they could collaborate more on the music, like they had that night I was there. They’d collaborated on everything that evening, and I felt like that song was better than any of the ones on the CD I was listening to. It had more polish and…well, more heart. I wondered if there was a way I could gently suggest that to Ethan without hurting his feelings. Really, the two men’s styles complemented each other. Brad’s playing was pretty thrash and hardcore with some death metal, groove, and even industrial influences, while Ethan’s was more traditional, if you could call it that—classic heavy metal with a lot of nu metal and alternate metal feel. And you might think they were too different, but they had no problems adding their own thing to each other’s songs (which I was more easily able to identify the more I listened to that CD), and I knew from that afternoon with the band that they could mesh even better when they worked it out on the spot.
So the more I listened, the more I loved them.
And then I felt better about being in my own skin. I thought maybe the semester would be a fresh start. Now that I’d realized I didn’t quite fit at home anymore, it was time to find my place in the world. My RA gave me some pleasant news when she told me I still wasn’t assigned a new roommate. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to have the room all to myself for the entire semester.
That first Monday made me feel better. I knew I was going to like my classes, and I hoped that at least one of them would give me an indication of what I wanted to do with my life. I recognized a couple of fellow freshmen, but no one I really knew. So late that afternoon I decided to go to Ethan’s dorm and say hi to him and Zane. Ethan and I hadn’t compared schedules before break, so I had no idea what his class schedule was like. I was hoping he wouldn’t have a class the second I’d decided to drop by. Maybe I should have texted him first, but I wanted to surprise him.
As I walked down the hall and got nearer to his room, I felt my blood begin to race. I had missed him a lot more than I would have thought. My hands started to shake, and I knew I had to get a grip on myself. It was then that I realized just how much I’d missed him.
When I got to his door, I just knocked without much thought, and I was glad. As usual, I was overthinking it and stressing out way too much. I could hear pounding music through the door, and I smiled as my mind identified that it was Slipknot. Soon Zane was at the door, pulling me in by the hand. “Val. How the hell have you been?” He embraced me in a big bear hug. “Have a seat. How was your Christmas?”
I sat down on one of the two desk chairs. “It was…great.” Oh, that wasn’t convincing. Zane lowered his head, giving me a questioning look, urging me to continue. “It was kind of hard. I…discovered that my friends and I just don’t have much in common anymore.”
Zane sat down, pulling the chair around so he could sit backward in it. “That sucks.” He shrugged. “You know, I think the only reason I don’t have that problem is that me and my friends are in a band together.” I nodded. That and he and Ethan actually went home once in a while to touch base. I hadn’t seen my friends since late August. But it might have happened anyway. Maybe my experiences at college were changing me more than I’d realized. Zane said, “Ethan’s in class right now. If my guess is right, he should be here in about ten minutes or so. Anyway…what exactly do you mean about not having much in common with your friends anymore?”
I tried to pinpoint exactly why I felt that way. “Well, we just don’t talk like we used to. I guess I don’t feel like Jill and I are best friends anymore.” I wasn’t going to tell him that she just didn’t get the whole Ethan-Brad thing at all. Of course, that would have meant telling Zane my deepest, darkest feelings, and we weren’t going to go there. Zane was easy to talk too, though, and I was glad for that.
“That really sucks. It hurts?” He said it like a question, but it sounded more like a statement. I nodded.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get over it. Jill and I just aren’t as close, and I guess I should have expected that to happen. She’s going to the community college back at home, and I’m going to school here, halfway across the state. She has her friends now—new ones she’s made at college and some of our old ones from high school—and I have mine. She said she’d try to come up one weekend in February or March, and maybe I’ll be able to talk more to her then. Maybe we’ll be able to reconnect.”
He nodded. “I hope things work out.” I could tell he wasn’t the most comfortable now that we were getting into talking about my feelings, but he was being a good sport about it. “You can consider me one of your friends, Val.”
Well, of course, I did, and I didn’t know if that’s what he was getting at or if there was something he was being coy about. I was too naïve to read anything too deep into it, so I just said, “Yes, I do. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”
“Good.” He scooted his chair closer to mine. “You care a lot for Ethan, don’t you?”
I felt the need to take a deep breath, but I didn’t. How could everyone read my thoughts so easily? Everyone, that was, except for Ethan. I looked down at my hands but finally worked up the nerve to return my gaze to his. I didn’t want to make it out to be something it wasn’t, though, because Ethan had made it pretty clear to me that we were friends only. So I said, “Yes. I think he’s my best friend now.”
His eyes bored into mine. “You sure that’s all?”
I wasn’t sure what or why he was asking. No way was I going to tell him I thought I was falling in love with Ethan. I would feel ridiculous if I told him I had stronger emotions for Ethan than I should have. After all, it seemed obvious that Ethan didn’t feel the same way for me—he only considered us friends. And if he wanted our relationship to remain that way, then I would be comfortable with it. As long as he was a part of my life, I would be happy. So I said simply, “Yes.” It was anticlimactic.
And that made Zane realize that not only was he uncomfortable with the subject, so was I, and he changed it to focus on classes. So we both talked about the new classes we’d attended that day and, before I knew it, well more than half an hour had passed and still no Ethan. “Well, I already have reading to do for my classes, so I better get started.”
“Yeah, me too. When Ethan gets back, we’ll swing by your room. Maybe we can all do dinner together.”
“That’d be nice.”
When I arrived back at my room, the resident advisor called me and told me I had been assigned a new roommate who would be moving in that evening. Well, so much for peace and quiet. I should have known better than to expect the no roommate situation to last forever. I just hoped my new roommate would be better than my last.
She began moving in from another floor not long after I’d spoken with the RA. Jennifer Manders was a sweet, demure girl, the exact opposite of Charlotte. She seemed polite and friendly. I offered to help her move the rest of her things, but she told me she could get them. She was nice about it but seemed quite set on moving her things herself. Well, it was a little possessive, but I guessed I could understand that. She didn’t know me well enough to trust me yet, so I told her to just let me know if she changed her mind. After just a few trips, though, she had all her things in our room, and she started putting them away. I lay on my bed reading my new psychology textbook and tried to give her the breathing room she seemed to need. She seemed to search for the perfect place to put each item, so I wondered how her tidy self would cope with my intermittent phases of sloppiness, mixed with my incessant love of metal. I guessed we’d find out soon enough.
Well, I had to check out a couple of things with her, and the best way to do that would be through an honest, thoughtful conversation. I didn’t want to just sit back and let shit happen this time. So, once she seemed completely settled, I asked, “Jennifer, not to pry, but why are you moving out of your old room?”
&nb
sp; She looked down at her newly made bed before sitting down on it. She seemed a little reluctant, but I could tell she thought it was important to talk. “You’re probably going to think it’s my fault. I seem to be hard to get along with. At least my last roommate thought so.” When she said that, I prepared for the worst. Great. I’d just survived one crappy roommate and now I had another to contend with. She didn’t seem to be the type who would be trouble, though. I was curious and nodded, hoping it would urge her to continue. I had to withhold judgment until I’d heard her entire story. “The first month I was here, I had a single room because the girl who was going to be my roommate decided at the last minute to switch schools. So I was all by myself. I was okay with that, even though it was kind of lonely. But another girl moved into my room in October. She’d been fighting with her roommate and I guess had been kicked out. She called her a conniving little…” She paused, seeming to rethink what she wanted to say. “Well, you know.” I nodded my head and smiled. I might not have been worldly, but I could figure out that much. “Anyway, I know now that she was the troublemaker. She was rude and inconsiderate…and a man-eater, I’m tellin’ you.”
Hmm…could it be? “Her name didn’t happen to be Charlotte, did it?” Jennifer’s blue eyes opened wide. “Charlotte Edwards?”
“How did you know?”
“I was her first roommate. I doubt the problems you were having were your fault.”
Her pale face lit up as she flashed a smile of gleaming white teeth. “You don’t know how good that makes me feel.” Well, that explained her hesitation to trust me at first. She stood up and started arranging clothes in one of the drawers I thought she’d already been done working on. What had seemed like initial shyness now became a light-hearted openness. I could see that maybe I had won a friend, and it would be nice to have a female friend. I’d been missing them.
* * *
“I’ve got it,” I told Jennifer as I crossed our small dorm room to answer the door. I was going to have to get used to having a roommate, so I wanted to let her know I could get the door instead of just pushing her aside to get there.
When I opened the door, Ethan stood there, and at that moment, I thought he was the reason for the saying a sight for sore eyes, because that he was. He looked better than I’d remembered from a month ago. His hair was a little longer, and he was growing a goatee. His sleepy eyes took me in and he said, “There’s our woman.” Unable to hold myself back, I threw my arms around him in an affectionate hug.
“I missed you, Ethan.” He laughed as he and Zane came into the room. “Guys, this is my new roommate, Jennifer Manders.” The young woman nodded out of politeness, her short blonde hair bobbing with the motion. She had a shy smile on her face. “Jennifer, these are two of my very good friends, Ethan Richards and Zane Carson.”
She waved her hand near her hip as though trying not to draw too much attention to herself. “Nice to meet you.”
Zane said, “We gonna eat or what? I’m fuckin’ starving.” Apparently, he felt the need to let my new roommate know right off the bat that he liked strong language and wasn’t afraid to use it. I had to give her credit. She didn’t even flinch.
Ethan furrowed one brow. “Jesus, man. We just got here.”
“We can talk on the way, standing in line, sitting down and eating, right? Am I missing something here?”
“Jennifer, would you like to eat dinner with us? We’re just heading over to the cafeteria.”
She smiled. “Sure.”
So, on our way to eat, Ethan talked nonstop. They’d worked on three fantastic songs over break, he said, and he wanted me to hear them sometime that week. He’d burned them to a CD and wanted me to check them out soon.
We were in line at the cafeteria when I asked, “So when are you guys gonna throw some videos up on YouTube?”
Jennifer spoke up. “Wait…so you guys have a band?” Zane smiled and nodded. “What do you guys play?”
Zane threw up the metal devil’s horn sign on both his hands. “Heavy metal, baby!” He stuck his tongue out and rolled his eyes back in his head, making an agh sound. If Jennifer wasn’t scared off by that, nothing would freak her out. That was good.
We got caught up in ordering our food, and then we went out into the dining area carrying our trays. We split up, getting drinks and salads and other accompaniments to our meal. We all met up at a booth near a back corner. Ethan sat next to Zane, and Jennifer sat beside me. It seemed that Zane made a special effort to sit directly across from me. Why I felt that way, I didn’t know, and then I realized it was likely my wild, active imagination working overtime again.
Ethan asked, “How was your Christmas, Val?” He was the one I wanted to talk to. He took a big bite out of his burger, waiting for my answer.
“It was okay.” I didn’t want to start my whine-fest again. I wanted our meal to be light and happy because, after all, that was the way I was feeling. I was lighthearted, being under the gaze of my friend whom I against wanted as my boyfriend. “How was yours?”
Ethan’s eyes moved back and forth, taking mine in. “Come on, Val. I heard you were a little down in the dumps. You can tell Uncle Ethan.”
I started laughing. He’d made me feel better already. “Later, Uncle Ethan.” I wouldn’t mind telling him everything if we could just be alone for a while.
“A bad sign, a very bad sign. The patient seems reluctant to speak about the past. I must make a note of that and, I’m afraid, I’ll have to recommend shock therapy.”
In spite of the subject matter, Ethan continued to make me giggle. “Fine. If you really must know right this minute, when I went home, I felt like my old best friend and I have grown apart. That’s all.”
Ethan lost his jokey manner and sobered up. His voice was tender, and it was as though the other two in our party no longer existed, even though Ethan and I were at a diagonal. “Sure that’s all?”
Well, yeah…aside from feeling a little lovesick, but no way were those words coming out of my mouth. “Does there need to be more?”
He smiled again. “Let’s catch up later talking about Christmas break, okay? Just me and you.” My breath caught in my throat. Maybe finally we could tell each other how we felt…if indeed he felt the same way about me that I did him. I nodded my head. “Promise?”
I smiled back. “I promise.”
At that second, all the noise and rambunctiousness of the cafeteria returned, and Ethan brought Zane and Jennifer back into the conversation. He started talking about an action/ adventure film he’d seen over the break and proceeded to tell about it in excruciating detail. I enjoyed watching his animated self entertaining me and our friends.
After dinner, though, we found ourselves alone. Zane and Jennifer headed back to the dorms, while Ethan and I decided to take a walk around campus. I felt a tiny surge of adrenaline find its way into my veins. Tonight could be our night. But I needed to quit being stupid about it. What if he really did want me as just a friend…forever? If that was the case, I needed to stop dreaming that it could ever lead to something else.
Once the other two were out of earshot and we were alone on a darkened path heading in the vague direction of the gigantic gymnasium, Ethan said, “What’s buggin’ you, kiddo? Zane told me what you told him, but is something else the matter?”
What could I say, aside from the secret desires I felt from him that I didn’t want to confess? No…those words had to stay as cold as the snow that was starting to fall on the sidewalk in front of us. “Jill doesn’t confide in me like she used to. We used to tell each other everything, but it felt like there was this huge fence between us, you know? I guess…she has other friends now.”
He shrugged, jamming his hands in his jeans pockets. “Sure, but so do you.”
“Yes, but—well, I never thought our friendship would change. We’ve been friends since grade school. But…that’s not what’s bothering me.” He looked over at me from the sidewalk. “I think there’s something she’s no
t telling me.”
“Like what?” We stopped walking, and he turned to face me.
He’d asked just the right questions, and there was no stopping the onslaught of words now. “I don’t even like to think about it.” I bit my lip, but I guessed I was going to charge full speed ahead. “She’s had this boyfriend for a couple of years. She didn’t say it, and I didn’t ask, but…I think she might be pregnant.”
Without saying a word, he laid his hand on my neck and brought my head to his shoulder. Oh, God…where the hell were all these tears coming from? And how had he known I’d needed to do that? And the words just kept coming. “I thought before that if she ever had a problem, she could come to me with it. It hurts me that she didn’t.” I sobbed and wiped my eyes with my hand. It was too damn cold to be doing this outside. I reached inside my coat pocket and grabbed my gloves to slide them on.
He kissed my cheek. Oh…it would have been so easy for me to just turn my head and make my lips meet his, but I froze. I was paralyzed. He looked me in the eyes. “Feel better now?”
I just nodded and Ethan grabbed my hand to lead me back toward the dorms. The bitter cold lashed at my wet face. His hand was firm around mine and gave me comfort. My voice was quieter than I’d expected when I said, “Thanks for listening.”
He squeezed my hand. “What are friends for?”
The snow was falling harder now and Ethan released my hand, instead wrapping his arm around my waist. I rested my head against his shoulder and didn’t care how much snow fell on my face. Ethan’s next words were unexpected. “I think Brad likes you.”
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