It was a miracle of epic proportions that I made it to the parking lot near Hannah’s dorm without killing and/or maiming myself or anyone else. I didn’t even know which room she was in, so I just sent her a text saying I needed to talk and asking if she was in her room.
She responded immediately, and then a short time later she was at the front door, holding it open for me, since my University key card didn’t work for her building. When she saw my tears she pulled me inside and I was crushed into a hug.
“Sweetie, where are your shoes?”
I was still wearing the brand-new socks, which, by now, were filthy.
“I left them somewhere.” My voice sounded robotic.
“I have no idea why you’re crying, but you look like you could seriously use a hug. Let’s go upstairs. My roommate is gone.”
We took the stairs to the second floor and walked down the second of what I knew were four identical hallways that jutted out from the center of the building. I’d been here once before, and I’d needed Hannah’s help to navigate that time, too. On the campus map, Hannah’s building looked disturbingly like a swastika.
She unlocked her door with her key and pulled me inside.
“Sit. I’ll make you some tea and then we can talk.” I flopped down on her futon and grabbed one of the pillows. Her laptop was open on her desk and playing music that I recognized as The Black Keys “Howlin’ for You.” I would have complimented her on her choice in music, but I was a little preoccupied.
My phone went off again. Dusty had been blowing it up ever since I’d driven away from his apartment. I’d thought I’d seen him following me in his Golf, but I did a little maneuvering and lost him by pretending I was going to Yellowfield House and then doubling back to Hannah’s.
Hannah’s microwave dinged and she handed me a mug of Lemon Zinger tea.
“I started drinking it because of you. We’re not allowed coffeepots, and sometimes I’m too lazy to walk down to the dining hall.” Even though the mug was screaming hot, I held on to it for dear life. Hannah sat down next to me and touched my shoulder.
“What is it, Jos? Did something happen with Dusty?”
My phone went off again.
“Is that him?” she said, and I nodded. “Do you want to talk to him?” I shook my head. Words weren’t my method of communication right now. They were just too much work.
Hannah picked up my phone, turned it off and tossed it on her desk.
“There. Now you can talk, or not talk. If you want to sit here and watch Buffy, we can do that. Whatever you need.” She stared at me and it was with so much love and care that I started to cry again. Dusty was right. I had all these people in my life that would do anything for me. I didn’t deserve it.
“I can’t tell you. I just... I can’t.” I’d carried it for too long, this thing inside me. I’d locked it away and shoved it aside, put it to the back of my mind, where it sat there, not letting me forget. It was a devious little thing, always making itself known when I least expected it, when I let my guard down a little. It was always looking for an opening to jump into my mouth and scream itself out loud. I wouldn’t let it. Not now, not ever.
“It’s okay, Jos. I understand the secret thing. I seriously do. So what do you need? You know, within reason.”
“I need...” What did I need? A fucking time machine. A do-over. A different life.
“You gotta give me something, girl, something I can do. I’m not good with this emotion stuff. Like, you know how some girls are, like, awesome at the consoling and knowing the right things to say? I am not one of those girls.” This made me almost laugh, and given the circumstances, that was something.
“I’m so confused, Hannah.” I stared at the steam rising from the mug and took a sip of the tea. It tasted of comfort and home and waking up. If only it could solve all my problems.
“I sorta got that. Reading between the lines.” I had another sip of tea and started to feel weird that Hannah was staring at me, as if I was a bomb she was waiting to go off.
“I’m not going to explode, you know.” She shook her head back and forth.
“Yeah, I know. Like I said, I’m not good with this kind of thing. So, I’m going to do what I do when I am suffering from life suckage—watch Buffy. It works. Every time.” She got up and went to her DVD collection and pulled down the first season of Buffy. I couldn’t remember where we’d stopped, but Hannah seemed to, so she put in the disk and found the right episode and hit Play.
And for some weird and unfathomable reason, I stopped thinking about the ugly thing in the back of my mind. I acknowledged its presence, but I chose to focus on something else instead. Like a teenage girl fighting vampires. Too bad my ugly thing wasn’t a vampire I could stake that would just turn to ash. That would make things a hell of a lot easier. Bam, staked. Done.
As Buffy navigated the tangled web of high school and vampire slaying with her trusty sidekicks Willow and Xander and her watcher, Giles, I wondered, distantly, if Dusty had gone to the house, and if he had, what he would say to them. It wasn’t like he could tell them the whole story without making himself look bad, so what would he say? In a weird way, I hadn’t lied to Renee. Here I was, at Hannah’s. Yes, we weren’t working on a project, but I was where I said I would be. I’d just made a stop in between.
I could have gotten over Dusty lying to me. But this...I couldn’t. He definitely wouldn’t, if he knew. He’d never forgive me. He’d hate me. It was way better for him to just think I was a freak than to have him know that I was...
Yeah, it was much, much better to let him think I was a freak.
“Are you hungry?” Hannah said. “I have Skittles and crackers and we can raid my roommate’s fancy cookies. She’ll never know.” She went into her roommate’s closet and pulled out a bag of Milano cookies. I hadn’t had those in ages.
Hannah mentioning food reminded me that I’d left the entire bucket of candy Dusty had made for me. It was a loss, but there was no way I was going to try to get it back.
She handed me the bag and I took out one of the cookies and she took one for herself.
“What size shoe are you?” I knew her feet were several sizes bigger than mine.
“Six.”
“Perfect.” She got up and rooted around under her roommate’s bed and handed me a pair of cheap slip-on sneakers. “These should work.”
“Um, Hannah? I’m not stealing your roommate’s shoes. Besides, that’s kind of nasty.”
“Oh, please, she never wears them and just think of it like buying shoes at a yard sale. Except without the paying-for-them part. You need shoes on your feet. You can just bring them back tomorrow or something.”
She had a point. It was going to look nuts if I walked back into the house without my shoes on. That would definitely raise suspicions with Renee and it was going to be hard enough to act like everything was normal without worrying about my feet.
I took the shoes and slipped them on. They weren’t that different from a pair I owned, so hopefully Renee wouldn’t notice. Hannah grabbed another Milano out of the bag and clicked onto the next episode of Buffy when we heard a loud banging.
“What in the hell?” We waited and then it sounded a few seconds later, only closer, like someone was pounding on every door in the hallway.
“Probably a stupid inspection. Crap, crap, crap.” She jumped to her feet and rummaged in her closet, finally emerging with a towel. “This is an illegal microwave, but as long as they can’t actually ‘see’ it, I can’t get in trouble.” She flung the towel over the microwave, adjusting it so it was completely covered. It would be obvious to anyone and everyone what she was hiding, but I took her word for it.
The pounding continued, getting closer. Hannah was in the fourth room down the hallway. By the time the door pounder got close, we could hear voice
s, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Hannah did one last glance around the room and looked out the peephole seconds before the knocking happened.
“Oh,” she said, as if she was surprised.
“What is it?”
“See for yourself.” She moved aside as the person pounded again.
I fitted my eye to the peephole and was met by none other than Dusty as he said, “Does Hannah Gillespie live here?”
“Shit,” I whispered, not loud enough for him to hear.
He swore and moved on to the next room, and I saw that he was carrying the bucket of candy and my shoes in the hand that wasn’t doing the knocking. He pounded on the next door and asked the same question, but it seemed like no one was home.
“Dude, you need to go talk to him before someone calls campus security. Like, seriously.” Hannah opened the door and shoved me out into the hallway, but she came with me.
Dusty turned when he heard the noise and I met his eyes. Oh, Jesus H. Christ, shit, shit, shit.
“Jos.” He walked toward me, but Hannah blocked his path and put her hand up to stop him.
“Listen, dude. I don’t know what happened between you two, but all I want to know is if you hurt her, because I swear to God and everything else that if you did, I will make you eat your own dick.”
Dusty didn’t take his eyes off me.
“I have no idea what happened. You just took off and I’ve been trying to find you. I knew you’d either go home or come here, so I went to the house and you weren’t there, so I knew you would be here. Did I do something? Please, I can’t...” He let go of the bucket and it banged on the floor, but the top stayed on. An anguished look passed over his face, and I thought he was going to cry, but he didn’t.
“Please, Jos. I just... I can’t bear to think that I’ve done something to hurt you. I couldn’t live with myself.”
Hannah took her eyes off Dusty and looked back at me.
“Do you want some privacy? I can find somewhere else to be if you two need to talk. But I think we should move this little shindig somewhere else.” I finally looked away from Dusty and realized nearly every door along the hallway was open and several sets of eyes were staring at us.
“I can’t.” They were the only two words that came to my lips. Dusty made a sound of frustration and walked toward me as if he didn’t care if Hannah followed through on her threat.
“Okay, okay, let’s take this down a notch,” she said, grabbing my and Dusty’s arms and shoving us both back into her room. “I’ll be outside. If you’re in trouble, just yell ‘Buffy’ and I’ll come running.” She shut the door behind us, and I heard her yelling at the onlookers to mind their own business.
I backed up, trying to put as much space between the two of us, but he had longer legs and moved faster. I thought he was going to grab me, but he held back at the last moment.
“Joscelyn.” There it was, the way he said my name that made it feel like he was making love to it with his mouth. “Please talk to me.” His voice broke. “I can’t lose you. Not like this.”
I’d never seen him so emotional. So broken. He was always so assured, so confident.
“It’s not you, Dusty. It’s me.” And there they were. The lamest and most overused words in the history of breaking up. Only this time, they were true. It was me. It was all me.
“You’re just saying that. It’s got to be something I did.” His hands reached for me, and I put mine behind my back so I wouldn’t reach for him, too. I wanted to—more than anything I wanted to fall into his arms and hear him say my name over and over and over until I forgot about everything.
“I just want to shake it out of you, but I can’t. Please, please tell me.” His anguish was almost more than I could stand, so I closed my eyes. I had to come up with something. Fast.
“I just... I realized that it wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work. You and me. It was nice while it lasted, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” My resolve to not cry crumbled, and I lost it. So much that I couldn’t stand anymore, so I folded to the floor, but Dusty caught me before I hit it. I tried to push him away, but his arms were too strong as they folded around me and held me tight.
“Oh, Joscelyn. What you do to yourself.” He started rocking me as I sobbed, and I couldn’t fight him holding me. It felt too good, having someone hold me as I cried. I’d done too much of it alone with only myself for comfort.
My hands held on to his sweatshirt and he put his hand on my head, laying it near his heart, which was beating a million miles a minute.
“Beautiful, beautiful girl.” He said other things, but I didn’t pay attention to them.
We were still on the floor, but somehow he picked me up and carried me to the futon and lay me down, lying next to me. I reached for him this time. He sighed into my hair and moved his hands up and down my back. Not in a sexy way. More like a friend comforting a friend.
He started humming, but I was too messed up to realize what the song was.
“Are you guys watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” The words almost startled me. My crying had slowed from a flood to more of a light shower. I needed a tissue, bad, but I wasn’t in the position to get one.
“Um, yeah.” My voice was clogged with mucus and leftover emotion.
“You know, I’ve never seen this show. I heard it’s really good, though. I loved Firefly. Joss Whedon is kind of a badass.”
“I’d never seen it until Hannah showed it to me. It’s pretty good, but I’m only in the first season. It was made in the ’90s, so the computers are massive.” Were we really talking about Buffy right now? Yes, yes we were. And somehow, it made complete and total sense to be talking about Buffy right now.
“Oh, are these Milanos?” Dusty pulled the bag from under me. They were slightly crushed now, but that didn’t stop him from reaching into the bag and pulling one out and holding it up for me.
“You want one?”
Was he really feeding me cookies and talking about Buffy right now?
“What are you doing? Five minutes ago I thought you were going to have a breakdown.”
“I know. I was close. But then you did, and that was more important. You’re always more important. I can’t break down when you need me.”
“Who says I need you?”
He didn’t even look hurt. “Just eat the cookie, Red.”
So I took a bite of it and he popped the rest into his mouth and then picked out another one and we did the same thing and we watched Buffy and ate cookies. It didn’t make any sense, and at the same time it made all the sense in the world.
Chapter 19
By the time the cookies were gone, my face was dry and a little crusty and I had a headache. Dusty was still holding me, and I remembered that Hannah was still waiting in the hallway.
“Oh, my God. We forgot about Hannah.” Dusty readjusted his arms around me.
“She’s fine. You don’t need to worry about her.” My nose was still stuffed up and I sniffed. “Here,” he said, searching around for something and finding a box of tissues on the floor under the futon. He’d had to let go of me to find them, and as soon as his arms weren’t around me, I realized I wanted them back.
“Here you go.” He handed me one and I blew my nose. Not the most sexy thing to do, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t already un-sexied myself as much as possible. I knew, without having to look in a reflective surface, that my face was blotched all over like I had some sort of disease and my eyes were definitely harder to open and close than they had been a while ago.
“Do you need some water? I can go get you some.”
I did, but I didn’t want him to leave, so I just shook my head.
Dusty turned his head and yelled out, “Buffy!”
A second l
ater, the door flew open.
“That’s her word, but I came, just in case,” Hannah said. “I see you’re doing better.”
“Can you get her some water?”
“Sure thing.” She grabbed a red cup from a stack in her closet and dashed away. She was back in a flash with a cup of cool water. “Holler if you need anything else.” She went to her bookshelf, grabbed something and left again, shutting the door behind her.
I chugged the water, spilling some of it.
“If you were that thirsty, you should have said something.”
“I didn’t want you to go anywhere,” I said, finishing the water and handing him the cup. He wiped my face with another tissue.
“I’m not going anywhere. Not even if you try to make me. Not again.”
I loved hearing him say that at the same time I hated it.
“We can’t, Dusty. We just can’t.” Now I was the one saying no.
He put his finger on my lips to stop me from talking.
“Not right now, Red. Later. For now, can I just enjoy being here, with my arms around you?”
I nodded. I was enjoying it, too.
“If you want to sleep, that’s fine. Close your eyes.” I did and he started humming again.
I listened and kept my eyes closed. I knew he could beat box like a boss, but I didn’t know he could sing, sing. Dusty Sharp, man of many talents. I let myself sink into his voice and his arms, because soon, I would have to find some way of getting out of this. But for now, I was going to savor this last moment of perfection. It would have to last me for a long time.
* * *
“Oh, shit, look outside,” Dusty said when I woke up. I’d fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep and woke when the light in Hannah’s room had turned dark. I glanced out the window, which was partially covered with what looked like a shower curtain. The world was dark all right, but it was also covered in snow. From the looks of it, there were several inches and it was piling up fast. Double shit.