The College Obsession Complete Series (Includes BONUS Sequel Novella)

by Daryl Banner

  Oh, and how comfortable, too.

  “Anything you need, just ask,” she tells him, looking up at the guy like a little girl talking to a bird in a tree. “Make yourself at home.”

  If there’s one thing I can say about Tomas, it’s that he’s one of the most respectful houseguests I’ve ever known. He keeps his hands to himself. He doesn’t touch anything at all without expressly asking my permission. He is so polite and does the whole “yes, ma’am” thing so incessantly that even my mom gives me a look of “Is this guy for real?” when he leaves the kitchen after helping himself to a glass of water.

  When the sun’s down and my mom’s at the hospital, Tomas cuddles up with me on the couch as we stare at the tiny glowing TV screen—the only source of light—and watch back-to-back episodes of Family Guy. Instead of ever laughing at the jokes, Tomas just smiles to himself. Half the time, I find myself laughing alone, then wondering if I should be quiet like him. If I’m being too loud, he isn’t complaining.

  He doesn’t say much, ever. Except: “Can I hold you?”

  “Sure,” I murmur.

  And then we’re cuddling again. Honestly, the cuddling isn’t half bad. In fact, I like it. Maybe we don’t ever have to have sex. Maybe this is enough, just the feeling of being close to someone, feeling their warmth, noticing the subtle changes in their breathing, enjoying when their body moves slightly to accommodate your own, their presence reminding you that you’re not alone in this room and a perfectly available set of lips live just behind your head, ready to kiss.

  We still kiss. More accurately: he sucks my face off.

  I’m starting to see having a boyfriend as a lot more of a functional fulfillment than an emotional one. Tomas is like an interactive body pillow, really. He can even carry a proper conversation if I pick the right subject. Like absent fathers. Or music theory. Or the utter lack of grass behind the School of Music. Or the questionable campus security after dark. Or upright pianos versus grand pianos.

  Well, that last subject put him to sleep one night.

  Guess I should’ve talked about bassoons.

  On Christmas Eve when I’m in a closet wrapping Tomas’s gift—an obscure collection of unique woodwind sheet music I got him, secretly hoping he might consider taking up a flute, or a piccolo, or literally any woodwind other than a bassoon—I get a call from Dmitri. I stare at the phone for a bit, wondering if I should answer.

  Of course I do. “Hey,” I breathe into the phone.

  “You alright? Out of breath?”

  “Christmas wrapping is the worst,” I complain.

  He chuckles. “Hey, speaking of. There’s something coming to your house. It was supposed to be there yesterday, but shipping during the holidays is such a—”

  “No, no, no,” I say at once. “You … You didn’t get me something. Tell me you didn’t. I didn’t get you anything.”

  “It’s nothing much, seriously. It cost me nothing, except maybe for the paper.”

  “Paper? The wrapping paper?”

  “Nah, I can’t wrap for shit. I just put your gift in a box.” He sighs, seems to stretch from the sound of it, then asks, “How’s the boyfriend? Is he still a stump of deadwood in a forest of blah?”

  I cringe hearing the words. It’s something I said during a moment of heatedness when Tomas was annoying me and the only person I could think to vent to was Dmitri. It was Thanksgiving. “He’s fine.”

  “Hmm. Alright.”

  I sense something in Dmitri’s voice. “And how are you and Riley?”

  “I talked to her last weekend. Really, she’s a bit more of a family girl than I realized. She wanted to spend Christmas with her family, alone. I guess it’s sorta too soon to, like, invite me to those sorts of things. Even if we’ve kinda been going out for, uh, how many months now?”

  Two months and eight days. “I have no idea.”

  “I kinda wonder if I’m just some way to piss off her daddy. She’s a daddy’s girl, no doubt about it, but she’s also got this rebellious streak about her. I feel like she thinks I’m her ‘safe’ option to rebel with. Like, showing me to her dad would cause a family rift, much to her delight. But as much as she wants to do that, she hasn’t yet, and she still keeps me hidden like some dark secret.” He sighs again. “I just don’t know.”

  “You’re such a bad boy, Dmitri,” I tease, catching myself smiling for the first time all day.

  There’s a moment of stillness where even the crinkling sounds of my own gift-wrapping cease, and all I hear is Dmitri breathing. I frown into the silence, curious.

  Then: “Dmitri?”

  “Yeah?” he murmurs softly.

  “Are … you alright?”

  “Totally. Tomorrow’s Christmas. I can’t wait to see what Santa’s got for me.”

  I purse my lips and stare down at my gift. It’s so horribly wrapped, it’s comical. Haphazard strips of tape decorate every edge. There’s a big dent on one end of the box, and the paper is crinkled along the side.

  I guess I’ve never been very good at boxing things up.

  My chest feels heavy when I say, “I miss you. I’m ready to be back on campus. My home is so … stifling.”

  “Mine, too,” he mumbles. “Though, it is nice to see my sisters. You know Devin graduates high school this year, right? She might enroll at Klangburg in the fall.”

  “Oh. Two Katzes at Klangburg? Can the campus even handle the both of you at the same time?”

  “Not likely. She’s a whirlwind of awesome, that Devin. Though I kinda regret that she’s coming in right when Clayton’s leaving. Would have been nice to introduce them. Not that all deaf people have something in common, but, y’know …”

  Not all musicians. Not all writers. “I know.”

  “Oh, and Brant’s leaving, too. Plus Eric graduates this year. Shit. Is it just gonna be us next fall?”

  “Chloe. Oh wait, no. She leaves for New York. Fuck. Wait, Brant is leaving? He just began a photography major. I thought—?”

  “He’s thinking of dropping out,” Dmitri tells me. “He might finish out the spring, then will likely drop out to pursue something with his photography without a degree. Oh. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet.” Dmitri chuckles emptily to himself.

  “Lips are sealed. I guess it will be just us next year.”

  “Well, Eric’s just doing local theatre, so he might still be living with me. Not sure about Brant. Anyway, I’m sort of avoiding family stuff, so I better get back to it.” Dmitri takes a breath, then adds, “Oh, tell your uncles hi for me, alright?”

  “They’re not here this year, but I will,” I say, smiling.

  He hangs up, and then it’s just me and a box in my closet. I grab a recycled bow from one of last year’s gifts and slap it on top. Voila.

  The house reeks of coffee on Christmas day due to my mom’s cursed coffeemaker choosing this particular morning to malfunction. Gifts are exchanged, Tomas loves his sheet music, my mom loves her fancy banana scrubs, and I enjoy a box of music note chocolates and a necklace with a piano charm and a tiny bassoon dangling from it.

  The piano is light as a marshmallow. The bassoon trinket is as heavy as a thimble. I’ll try not to draw any symbolic conclusions from this observation. The weight of the necklace digs into my skin the moment I put it on, but I hug Tomas and thank him anyway because that’s what you do.

  And then for the rest of the night, I fidget with it.

  Because that’s what you do.

  Dmitri’s gift comes the day after Christmas in a little box that has every square inch of it covered in clear plastic tape. I have to cut it open with scissors and nearly nick myself in the process. I don’t know why, but I have to take the gift somewhere secret, so I end up opening it in the backyard with two pecan trees as my witnesses. It’s cold out here, but I can’t even find it in me to shiver; I’m much too excited.

  When the flaps of the box open, a pair of tickets and a tiny note are its only contents. I read the note fir
st: “For you and your man, Sam. A glimpse into your future. Always remember the music that gave you that first spark. Merry Christmas. Dmitri.”

  The box balanced in my lap, I pick up the tickets with my other hand. They’re to a video game music concert happening Valentine’s Day. A full orchestra will perform symphonic arrangements from popular video game series: The Legend of Zelda. Super Mario Brothers. Final Fantasy. Castlevania. Even Metroid.

  The rest of the day, I’m wearing a smile that’s so big, I don’t even feel the necklace cutting into my neck. Dmitri even thought of Tomas, I realize, feeling my heart swell. He got two tickets for us. When I tell Tomas about them, his eyes brighten and he exhibits more excitement about anything I’ve seen yet. I might as well have just told him that I want to give up my body to him tonight and invite him into my other house—the one between my legs. He kisses me on the side of my forehead, then says, “You have good friends, Sam!”

  Correction: I have one good friend. He’s always been there for me.

  Always.

  By the time the evening of New Year’s Eve is upon us, the presence of Tomas in our house feels frighteningly normal, like he’s a new lamp my mom found at a garage sale and our eyes are just now adjusting to its added light in the corner of the room. The truth is, I think despite the awkwardness—and the endless stoicism, and the lack of sex, and the void of anything passionate or reckless—I feel more thankful than not that Tomas wanted to come home with me and spend most of the winter break together before he goes to spend time with his own family. It was nice having someone with me even if we didn’t really do anything except lounge around my too-small house and write a song or two.

  Well, he wrote a song or two. I haven’t written a thing for months.

  It’s the Monday morning after Tomas leaves to spend the rest of the break with his family. Tomas’s smell is all over my bed. It fills me with an odd loneliness, sleeping in the empty sheets after a couple weeks of having him here, even if my heart was only halfway into it. Even after washing the sheets, I swear I can still smell him.

  “I haven’t heard you at the piano much since you’ve been home,” my mom points out over morning coffee. “Why is that?”

  “I’m not sure,” I confess.

  My mom’s getting ready to leave for an early shift at the hospital, so I don’t want to get too deep into a conversation about how dead my muse has been. Also, I go back to school in just under a week, so I’d like to make these last days pleasant. “I write better when I’m … um …”

  “Alone?” she murmurs after giving her coffee a blow, succeeding in completing my sentence.

  I shrug lightly, then peek nervously over my shoulder—as if I might find Tomas lurking there even though he’s in some other suburb with his family by now. “It’s not that Tomas is a bad influence on me or anything, but—”

  “Of course not,” sings my mom softly.

  “But we just aren’t ever on the same … artistic frequency. He doesn’t really get me when it comes to the music. And I spend so much time around him when he plays his bassoon that I’m starting to worry that … that I don’t get me anymore.”

  “Why don’t you play the piano a bit, sweetie? You’ll have the house to yourself today,” she points out. “Compose something pretty. Maybe that video game concert your friend Dmitri got you tickets to might inspire you? Oh, write me a song today and it can be something I can look forward to hearing when I come home later!”

  “Right. But …” I smirk, looking away and trying to find the words.

  They don’t come quick enough. “Oh, and Sammy, would you mind checking my computer before I go? I was trying to open up my email and this dumb thing popped up. I hope it isn’t a virus.”

  “Viruses basically died in the 90s. It’s all about password phishing and malware hijacking now,” I explain unhelpfully. “And it’s Sam.”

  “Work your magic, will you, Sammy?” She’s ever persistent in adding that extra syllable to my name. “I need to see if Rosie sent my schedule, and I left my phone at the front desk last night.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I head down the short hall to her messy room. There are so many clothes, containers, old electronics, magazines, and shoeboxes piled up that I have to crawl across her bed to get to the table where her little computer sits. I wonder why she still keeps such a big bed when dad hasn’t been home since he left. It swallows up the whole room and honestly makes me wonder if my mom’s expecting him to show up one day on our doorstep. I wonder if we’d even recognize him.

  Or him, us.

  When I move her mouse and click in a few places, I’m left patiently waiting for the computer to respond as I listen to the sounds of my mother cleaning things up in the kitchen and zipping and unzipping her purse a thousand times. Then her computer beeps and a browser window that was minimized suddenly covers the whole screen, asking if I want to log out. I squint, confused, then discover that it’s our bank account. Mom must have been checking something earlier.

  It’s showing our transaction history. My eye catches a single word.

  I lean forward, staring. My mouth opens.

  I have to read it ten times.

  Then my eyes glance down the list of transactions. I see the word again. And then again. And again.

  Hermits.

  “Did you figure it out, sweetie?” comes my mom’s voice at the door. She’s wearing the banana scrubs I got her.

  I look up from the computer, my mouth still agape and my eyes wet with astonishment. “Dad?” I blurt at my mother.

  She has a dish towel wrestling between her hands in her effort to dry them. Her hands still, and her face freezes in place.

  I try again, this time pointing at the screen. “Dad? … H-Hermits? Dad’s band? Hard Hart & The Hermits? Is that what this is?”

  Her eyes glaze over. “Um … well …”

  “Dad’s … Dad’s been sending us checks …?” I ask, my stolen breath reducing my voice to an eighth of its strength. “All these years?”

  My mom speaks softly, her words gooey as molasses. “I … I didn’t want to get your hopes up that he’d come back. I told you, he’s still your father and my husband, but … well, he helps out when he can.”

  “I didn’t even know. You didn’t say anything.”

  “Your college isn’t free, obviously. And it sure isn’t cheap. I mean, I didn’t know how this college stuff works. You said that things would be supplied, like bed sheets and … and I didn’t know that I just sent you off with nothing those first two years. I’m trying my best to—”

  “Mom, that has nothing to do with this. I know you’re busy. I just didn’t want to bother you with those things. But Dad could’ve—”

  “He’s not sending us mountains of money, Sammy, just a little bit here and there to help cover our bills. You can see that yourself.”

  “It’s Sam.”

  “I still have to pull doubles at the hospital, and you’re working at the movies every summer, but—Hey, Sammy, look at it this way—”

  “Sam.”

  “With your father helping us out, sending us little bits here and there, it puts less of a strain on both of us. You don’t want to work at that movie theater every summer, do you? You only have three more semesters to go and then you’ve got yourself a college degree. Do you even know what that means? No one in our family—not one person—has graduated from college. Hell, your Aunt Jess didn’t even finish high school. And your father’s help—”

  “I don’t want my father’s help.”

  “Don’t say that. He loves you, sweetie. It’s the only way he can help us while he’s on the road.”

  “I thought he was dead,” I blurt. I feel something wet on my cheek, so I wipe it away quickly. “He hasn’t once come home. Not once.”

  “Sweetie. Please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying.” There’s something else on my other cheek. I wipe that annoying thing away, too. “How can he love me and then not
even have the decency to come home and say hi and see how I’m doing? He wouldn’t even know who I am. I’ve changed.”

  “You’ve changed,” she agrees, smiling with tears in her eyes and tilting her head. “You’ve grown so much, sweetie. You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m broken. I’m not beautiful. And I’m empty. And if he was around, maybe I’d have a clue who I am as a musician. Or a person. Or why I seem to think I don’t deserve someone like Dmitri.”

  My mom frowns. “Like who?”

  I close my eyes and bite my tongue. I can’t believe I just said that. My teeth clatter, furious with myself, with my dad, with my mom … I don’t even know where to direct the anger anymore. I want to burn a piano and listen as the strings pop and screech and groan beneath the flames.

  I hear bedsprings, then my mom’s perched on the edge next to me.

  “You didn’t need your father around for you to blossom like you have,” my mom whispers to me. “You were born a musician, and that’s just the plain truth. You had the blood in you since you were a baby.”

  I shake my head and look away. “I don’t need empty words.”

  My mom squints at me, then seems to make up her mind about something. “Alright. Come here,” she says, crawling back over the bed toward the door. I stare after her wonderingly. “Come on … Sam.”

  Sam. I let out all my breath, then make my way across her bed and follow her out of the room. We maneuver through the cluttered house, out the back door, and into the old, dusty garage. The walls are lined with junk stacked to the roof, some of the piles threatening to tip over if one were to pull on them the wrong way.

  It’s by an old folded-up ping-pong table that my mother takes me. She rubs at a spot on the wall, then points. “See that?”

  I lean in. The morning sunlight coming in from the garage window by my dad’s workbench illuminates the wall enough to reveal the start of the ABCs scratched into the wall by a child’s hand. My hand, to be precise. “Yeah, I see it.”