by Doyle, S.
“But we’re stuck,” I said. “And we don’t know how to move forward. That’s why we’re here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jules huffed. “Move forward? I hate to keep reminding you, but you left me for three months.”
“And I came back to a resignation letter. I still don’t know if you read my letters. I only know you didn’t write back. You didn’t even try to understand where I was coming from!” I said, attempting to keep the anger out of my tone. I tried to breathe through it, but I’d never been good with strong emotions and I’d been experiencing nothing but in the months since my father died.
I shouldn’t have left her.
I’d known the minute I left that it was a mistake. I had told myself we needed time apart. I’d told myself I was doing it for our own good. I’d convinced myself it would save our relationship. Instead, now we were almost…broken.
Almost. Not over quite yet. Because she’s here with me.
I glanced at the clock. Plenty of time left. Only now I wish I hadn’t been late. It felt like we were going to need every minute of the hour I was promised.
“Give me a sense of your relationship back then from your perspective, Ethan,” Carol said. “Julia says it was you who decided to be friends. What was it about Julia that made you seek out her friendship?”
I thought back to the first day I saw her. Sitting in my seat. Almost hard to see her over the chip on her shoulder and through the foggy haze of her uncertainty and insecurity.
“She was in my usual seat and somehow I knew she’d picked it for the same reason I had. It was the way she’d studied the room and was thoughtful of her place in it. I thought that connected us. That I understood her, and she would understand me. And I hadn’t been connected to anyone in a long time. I was…craving it.”
“No high school relationships?”
I shook my head. “I was homeschooled by tutors. Any interaction I had with people my own age was arranged by my parents. Nothing that ever came normally or naturally. I thought college would be different, but after a few weeks, I knew it wasn’t going to be. Not really. Except for Jules. I might have…I might have clung to her too tightly as a result.”
Jules rolled her eyes. “How can you say that? You had friends. Daniel, Nicki, Dara. You hung around with crowds of people. I wasn’t your only friend.”
I linked my fingers together, leaning forward over my knees. “Daniel maybe. He tolerated me, at least. The others, no. There were people who wanted to hang around me because they either knew what I’d done or they were waiting to see what I might create next and how they could be a part of that. That’s not the same thing as friends. They were…fans.”
“And Julia was different?” Carol prompted.
I nodded. “She didn’t have any expectations about me. She didn’t even know who I was when she met me. She liked me for who I was even if she never wanted to admit it. Beyond that she protected me.”
“Protected you?”
I looked at Jules. “That’s what she does. She takes care of the people in her world. If you’re lucky enough to make it over the walls and through the barbed wire fences that surround her, then you’re in. Me, I just bulldozed right past all that bullshit. And once you’re in, she’ll make it her mission not to let anyone hurt you. I took advantage of that.”
“Why do you think that is, Julia?” Carol asked. “That you’re so protective of people?”
“I think he’s exaggerating,” she said stiffly.
“I’m not and you know it. Tell her. Tell her how it was.” When Jules stayed stubbornly silent, I said to Carol, “If I was in trouble, if I needed someone, Jules was always there.”
Jules lifted a shoulder. “That’s what a friend is for.”
* * *
Harvard
Julia
It was movie night at the Quad. By mid-October the temperature had dropped but that was the fun of watching outside. Everyone brought sleeping bags and comforters, spiked hot chocolate or hot whiskey toddies, and we all bundled as close together as we could to keep from freezing our asses off.
My thermos was not spiked but I could feel Ethan getting drunk as he sat next to me. His body kept leaning into mine anytime he turned to talk to me. I glanced around to see if Daniel was going to show up. He’d said he would meet us. Nicki, too, although I had no doubt she’d be here. Any chance to hang around Ethan, she took it.
And while Ethan was flirty with her, he’d never taken it any further. Which, now that I thought about it, was strange. If Ethan had a chance to hook up, he did it. He wasn’t shy about stuff like that.
Knowing Nicki, she was probably still trying to find the exact hairstyle that looked best with a wool cap pulled over it. We’d claimed some spots next to us with extra blankets, but I wasn’t sure how long we could hold out given how the place was filling up. It felt like everyone from the Cabot, Currier, and Pfoho residences that surrounded the Quad was here already.
“This is nice,” Ethan said as he took another swig from his thermos. He wrapped an arm around me and squeezed. A little too hard. “This is us cuddling.”
“You’re too bony to cuddle with. And this is you getting drunk and handsy.”
He laughed. “I am getting drunk. Come on, Jules. One sip. I promise you won’t get caught.”
I shook my head. “Something you can absolutely not promise.”
He set the thermos down next to him. “I probably shouldn’t be, either. Not supposed to mix.”
I turned to him. “What does that mean? What are you mixing?”
He huffed. “I failed my last English lit test.”
“You what?” I had three classes with Ethan. I’d never seen him get less than perfection on any test. It was super annoying.
“I know. I’ve never failed a test in my life,” he said ominously. “And the ridiculous part is how unchallenging it would have been. I just didn’t…I couldn’t…it was there in front of me and I couldn’t make myself look at it.”
He was taking this too hard. Almost like it was a defeat.
Ethan Moss didn’t do defeat. “It’s one test, Ethan.”
“Yeah. One test. Because you’re not in my nineteenth-century literature class.”
This had my eyebrows lifting off my head. “I know you’re not blaming this on me.”
“No, no,” he said, then took another swig of whatever was in his thermos. “I’m simply stating a fact. You were the only one who was nice to me that first day. The only one who understood me and what I needed.”
I squirmed as I recalled thinking how weird he was.
“I wasn’t exactly nice to you,” I reminded him.
“You moved your seat. You agreed to sell me your notes. Everyone else I asked the same thing told me to fuck myself and shove it up my ass. No matter how early I get to lit class, this fucker is always sitting in my seat. First-hand-up-for-every-question kind of fucker. It’s like he knows sitting in my seat has power over me.”
I tugged on his arm as he began to drink more of whatever cocktail he’d mixed up in that thermos. “Ethan, tell me what you’re mixing?”
“I took some Adderall. I can’t fail. Not a test, not a class, not any of it. You don’t have a brain like mine and fail. Beyond that, I can’t give them an excuse to think that college isn’t working out for me.”
I pulled the thermos out of his hand. “If you’re on medication, then you know you can’t drink.”
“Fuck that,” he said, taking it back. It was strange because this was the first time he’d used his strength to override me. He simply took back the thermos and I had no choice but to let him have it because he was stronger than I was. “Don’t you ever get sick of not breaking a single fucking rule?”
Again, we were back to me. But I knew this drill. I’d been around enough drunk people in my life to see it coming a mile away. When John, my oldest brother, was drunk, I was his favorite target. His brainy little sister.
Because no, I didn’t
break rules. Instead, I made sure I did the right thing every single fucking time.
Because someone had to!
The anger and fury were nearly overpowering but I did what I always did and swallowed them.
“I’m going to go,” I said. I didn’t need to take his drunk bullshit. This wasn’t going to be fun anymore. I started to unzip the side of the sleeping bag he’d brought for me because I didn’t have my own.
It was standard Julia Whitford operating procedure. Leaving was always my default move.
“Jules, don’t. No. I’m sorry,” he said, sliding his hand along my arm as if trying to pat me into place. Like a stuffed animal that had gotten out of position. “I won’t drink any more. We can just watch the movie.”
The opening credits were rolling. It was starting. If I got up and made a scene, it would disturb people who were watching the movie behind me. I folded my hands on my lap and tried to focus on the large screen at the end of the Quad.
We sat together in silence. I didn’t say anything, and he didn’t drink any more. Ten minutes later, Nicki, who obviously didn’t care about disturbing people, managed to find us. I’d texted her we were on the left side looking at the screen about ten feet in front of the last bench.
“Hey, guys!”
“Hey, Nicki,” Ethan said with a sloppy grin. “Your hair looks really nice.”
She smoothed out the curls over her shoulder. Her wool cap fitted perfectly over her forehead. Well done by her. I’d worn earmuffs because knit caps made me claustrophobic.
“Thank you, Ethan. You look good, too. New hat?”
“No. Drink?” he offered her.
“Sure.” She took a sip then coughed. “Oh my gosh, that’s strong!”
I wasn’t buying it. I’d seen Nicki do shots in our room before heading out to meet people. Whiskey, tequila, vodka. Whatever she could get her hands on. She said a couple of shots loosened her up. I didn’t really want to know how much looser she could get.
Eventually she settled down, then Ethan was leaning into her more than me.
Thank God!
Like I needed a drunk Ethan falling all over me.
I watched the movie but the whole time I was thinking, How long do I have to sit here and watch this? Is there a good break at some point? I couldn’t remember if there was.
It was a classic. The Breakfast Club. One of those movies all teenagers had to sit through as some rite of passage when the reality was that everyone who starred in the movie was, like, in their fifties.
You were supposed to watch the movie and see yourself in it. The goth chick, the jock, the nerd, the rebel, and the homecoming queen.
I’d been none of those things. I was somewhere off script. The teacher, maybe, who’d handed down detention because the students had broken the rules. Or the responsible one who understood that there was never any real gain from a Saturday detention.
Although I did like how Molly Ringwald gave the finger. That sort of classy fingers-half-bent pose. I was going to practice that when I got back to my dorm.
“So do you think she is?” Ethan asked.
“Is what?” Nicki asked, hopping on a chance to be part of a conversation with Ethan. The truth was, most of the time Ethan’s conversations were over her head. Not that he was intentionally esoteric or that Nicki was dumb. They were just never on the same wavelength.
“A virgin? In the movie. I mean, it feels like it, doesn’t it.”
It was the part of the movie where everyone essentially virgin-shamed Molly Ringwald while getting ready to slut-shame Ally Sheedy.
I shook my head. This movie was so ridiculous.
“Totally, you can tell,” Nicki said. “They all walk with a stick up their ass. And they’re all a little too angry, if you know what I mean. Molly’s got the vibe down pat.”
“So stupid,” I muttered.
“What?” Ethan asked.
“Virgins don’t walk a certain way. They don’t talk a certain way. They’re simply people who haven’t fucked yet. The stereotypes are so unoriginal.”
Nicki and Ethan both looked at me as if I’d said something astonishing.
“It’s true,” I insisted.
“Oh my god,” Nicki said. “Are you a virgin?”
Ethan seemed in shock. “Seriously, Jules?”
I no longer gave a fuck about the people behind me. I scrambled out of the sleeping bag, grabbed my thermos of unspiked hot chocolate, and stepped carefully over them.
“I’m going to fall asleep. It’s too cold. See you back at the room, Nicki.”
I didn’t say anything to Ethan. Not even a reminder to take the extra sleeping bag he’d brought with him back to his room. I thought that was both rebellious and cruel of me. There were a few moans and calls to duck, which I instantly did.
Fifteen minutes and a brisk walk later, I was at Hollis Hall. Hollis wasn’t as nice as Grays or Apley, but it could have been worse, and I could have been stuck in Canaday, which looked like a big block of cement.
Happy to have the room to myself for a time, I got undressed and headed to the common bathroom for a hot shower. We had a sink and toilet in our room but that was it. The shower room was empty, and I let the hot water pour down over my head until I forgot…everything.
When I returned to the room, my phone had blown up with a bunch of texts. From Nicki. From Ethan.
I ignored them all. I wasn’t going to answer their questions and I wasn’t going to give them any more reason to speculate on an answer. My virginity or lack thereof was nobody’s business.
I was climbing into bed when this time, instead of a text, the phone actually rang. I picked it up off the nightstand because I couldn’t not look. It could be my mother.
Nicki.
Putting it back on the nightstand, I got into bed and ignored it. Until it rang again. Then again. This wasn’t a I’m-just-checking-in-on-you call. I picked up the phone.
“What’s going on, Nicki?”
“Oh thank God, I was afraid you were asleep. You need to help me. Ethan is drunk and he’s not leaving until he talks to you.”
“Where are you guys?”
“Still in the Quad. He says he’s going to spend the night on the bench in solidarity for homeless people everywhere and only you’ll understand.”
Yes, because that made perfect sense.
“Put him on.”
There was shuffling as I imagined Nicki putting the phone to Ethan’s ear.
“Jules?”
“Ethan,” I said in the stern tone I used to use with John when he was drunk. “It’s late and cold. You need to go to your dorm now. You’re upsetting Nicki and it’s not fair to her.”
“Jules, you need to come. Please. I can’t…I can’t get my head straight. I need you.”
I closed my eyes, and a second later I heard Nicki’s voice in my ear again. “Julia, please just do this. He’s being so stubborn and it’s freaking freezing out here. He’s not going to move until you come get him.”
A hundred responses went through my head. It wasn’t my fault he got drunk. It wasn’t my problem that he was a stubborn drunk. A night on a bench would leave him stiff and cold but probably not much worse off. There was no reason I had to get up, get dressed, and go get his ass.
He wasn’t my responsibility.
Julia, please just go pick up your brother. He’s too drunk to drive. You don’t want him to get into an accident, do you? I can’t do it. You know I don’t like to drive in the dark. Your father always drove when it was dark
But Mom, I don’t even have a license yet!
It’s okay. If the sheriff pulls you over, he’ll know what you’re doing. It will be okay.
Because someone had to do it. Someone had to take responsibility.
“I’ll be there in bit.”
“Oh my gosh! Yes. Thank you! Should I wait until you get here?”
A question not a statement. “No, it’s probably really cold. And he’s in the Quad. It’s not
like he’s going to get mugged.”
“Okay, because Dara is having people back to her room and I thought—”
“It’s okay, Nicki. You can go. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I just have to get dressed.”
“You’re awesome. Okay. Thanks. He’s on the bench not far from where we were sitting.”
“Yep. Got him.”
I disconnected the call before she could say anything else. She’d done her part, now it was time to do mine. I got out of bed and got dressed.
Ten minutes later I was nudging his shoulder. “Ethan,” I said. Then I nudged him a little harder.
He grunted but this time he opened one eye. “You left me,” he accused. His words weren’t too slurred. Maybe just as much from the cold as from the booze.
“I was tired,” I lied.
“Don’t leave me again. We’re in this now. I’m counting on you.”
“Counting on me to do what?”
“Be there for me,” he said as he pushed himself up, clearly trying to sort out how his head was feeling.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded. “In a minute.”
I sat on the bench next to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders, rubbing them in an attempt to both warm him up and wake him up.
Like a docile pet he, he was still while I basically rubbed him into alertness.
Abruptly, he pushed to his feet. Like he had when he sat up, he gave himself a moment to determine how steady he was. After rolling up both sleeping bags, I stuffed one under his arm and took the other. The thermos with the spiked cocoa was gone. Either someone jacked it or Nicki had taken it with her to her next adventure. Figuring we had everything, I pointed him in the direction we needed to go.
After his roommate fail with the football player, Ethan had transferred to Apley to a single unit with its own bathroom. The Shangri-La of freshman dorm rooms. I was guessing he got his father to pull some strings.
To his credit, I only had to nudge him a few times in the right direction. And he was steady on his feet the whole way. We made it inside his dorm, up to the third floor, and to his room without anyone stopping us. He opened the door and pushed it open so I could walk in ahead of him.