Eternal Eden

I sprinted into the darkness, feeling nothing but my legs pounding the earth beneath me and my arms pumping through the damp air. If I’d run like this at the state conference in high school, I could have annihilated the record. Nothing like a little adrenaline and the fear of losing your life to make you run like an Olympian.

  I heard nothing but my erratic breathing and saw nothing but the dull glow of lampposts dotting the campus grounds. How, in a campus this large, could there not be a single person around other than the two I was fleeing?

  I surveyed the ground in front of me before checking over my shoulder—neither man had called out after me, nor had I heart their footfalls in pursuit.

  I screamed at the same time Troy’s arms cinched around me, whipping me to a stop.

  “You’re fast,” he said, no hint of exertion in his voice. “But you’re got to be faster if you want to outrun me.”

  He twisted me around in his arms, thrusting me tighter against him. His breath heated the space between us.

  “I’ll only ask once, and keep in mind I’m not nearly as nice as him”—he pointed his eyes to the side, where Ben was leaning up against a tree, cross-armed and looking bored. “Where is William?” he growled.

  A cough escaped my lungs, no doubt a result of the cold air gulped from my all-out sprinting. I looked him straight on, feeling confidence rising, despite the angry veins that were bulging like roadmaps over his face.

  I pointed my eyes at his shirt collar. “I think that tie’s cutting off the circulation to your head.”

  I’d barely finished my sentence before I was flying backwards through the air. Before I could wrap my mind around the idea that I’d just been “pitched” like I’d weighed all of a pound, I came in contact with something as hard as it was unforgiving. My head bounced like a beach-ball against the brick wall of the building.

  My vision blurred, and then I felt the hot streams of fluid running first down my face, then my neck. More stitches—I’d be more Frankenstein than human if I kept up at this rate. For some insane reason, this made me laugh, and I rested my battered head against the wall behind me. I laughed louder, barely caring about the blurry image of Troy coming at me.

  He kneeled beside me, putting his face an inch from mine. His face was twisted into a snarl. “Feeling a bit more cooperative?”

  I laughed again, hysterically now. He was going to kill me—this man was really going to kill me—and all the fight I was putting up was a laugh. I’d lost it—officially now.

  “She’s laughing,” Troy said back to Ben, still leaning against the tree as if this was some sort of everyday occurrence for him. Get up, take a shower, eat lunch, brutalize a young woman . . .

  “Must not have hit her hard enough. I’ll make sure I don’t make the same mistake.” He grabbed my shoulders, fingers drilling into my skin.

  I looked him straight on, calming my laughing fit, but I was still grinning. Sane people dealt with life and death situations by screaming, fighting, running, or maybe even fainting . . . I dealt with it by laughing like a lunatic. Sane had left the station long ago.  

  “Anyone ever diagnosis you with anger issues? There’s a great 12-step group that meets at the senior center in town if you’re interested.”

  He slapped me across the cheek, the sting of it more painful than the head wound seeping droplets of blood around me. “You’re a wild one. I like that,” he said, brushing his finger across the same area he’d just slapped. “It’s too bad I’m going to have to kill you.”

  I twisted my face away from his fingers, waiting for it to be finished. Waiting for fate to at last catch up with me after a one year stint of outmaneuvering it—well actually, if I was being honest with myself, my whole life I’d been dodging it.

  As I was closing my eyes for the last time, my blurred vision caught sight of the tiniest ball of light, glowing xenon blue in color. The light burst into a beam of light, and had I been looking up at the sky, I could have been gazing at a shooting star. The streak of light closed in towards us at an unfathomable speed, the light growing larger, monopolizing my field of vision, until it exploded in front of me.

  I heard Troy’s snarl surprise echoing away from me. In his place stood someone else—my materialized shooting star.

  William was quivering with rage, squaring himself between me and Ben, as the echoes of something large splintering rippled into the courtyard.

  He chanced a look back at me, his face falling as if he was looking at my corpse. His eyes narrowed into slits as he turned them back to Ben. “How dare you.”

  Ben raised his hands at William. “Let’s not do anything you’ll regret.”

  William started for him, his body rigid. “Trust me, I won’t regret it.”

  Ben’s eyes widened, looking the most emotional I’d seen him so far, when Troy made his reappearance in the courtyard.

  William stopped abruptly, stepping back and angling himself between Troy and me.

  Troy looked too composed, like a volcano about to erupt. He paced towards us, glaring at William through lowered eyes. He stopped a few yards in front of him, running his fingers through his hair and pulling something from the back of his head.

  “Tree killer,” he sneered, throwing a half-foot sliver of wood at William’s feet.

  My vision was far from twenty-twenty at the present moment, but the sliver looked glossy with dark color . . .  as if coated in blood. I’d hit my head hard—hard enough to believe that Troy had just pulled a six-inch piece of wood from the back of his head. Oh yeah, and that William had swooped in via a ray of light to save the day.

  Time to chalk up delusional to my ever-increasing list of maladies.

  “I think I understand why you took an unannounced sabbatical in the land of the lowly,” Troy said, slicking his hair back into place. “I like my girls spirited too, and where we come from that’s hard to come by. I wouldn’t mind breaking her in if you can’t.”

  William started forward, fists at the ready, when Ben stepped forward. “That’s enough, Troy. We were not sent to carry out our usual bidding.”

  Troy took a step back, obeying, although it looked like it took every bit of self-control he had to do it. “Sorry,” he said, before mouthing in William’s direction. “Sorry someone’s so sensitive.”

  Ben ignored him. “We are here to merely deliver a friendly message,” Ben said, watching William carefully.

  “I know the rules,” William said, his jaw tight. “I don’t need any reminders.”

  Ben’s eyes circumnavigated the area purposefully. “It appears you do. We won’t press the issue tonight, I think our message is obvious”—he eyed me in explanation—“If I might make a suggestion? Don’t make John send for you again.”

  “Well he knows where I am now,” William said, the challenge in his voice unmistakable.

  “Yes,” Ben said, his eyes glinting. “He does.”

  “Farewell, Mr. Winters,” he said jovially, bowing his head. “Until next time.” Ben turned to leave, gesturing with his head for Troy to do the same.

  “Just so you know,” William called out to the retreating pair. “If either of you so much as lay one finger on her again, I will tear you both apart starting with those filthy appendages.”

  Ben said no more, disappearing into the trenches of the night, but a chuckle came from Troy’s throat as he turned to leave. One that said, let the games begin.

  William held his sentinel in front of me, in anticipation of Ben and Troy returning, or perhaps just not wanting to look at me. Judging from the blood crusting the pavement around me, I knew I looked like a horror movie victim who’d happened upon a deranged chainsaw aficionado.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a bandage on you, would you?” I said, hoping to get through the wall of man before me.

  He shook his head, looking everything but amused.

  “It’s a joke,” I said. “You can laugh, you know.”

  He didn’t, he stood before me, rigid and looki
ng regretful.

  “Or loosen up,” I said under my breath as I leaned forward to tie my shoe, realizing the movement was a bad idea. Every square inch of my body throbbed or felt bruised.

  “I heard that,” he said, his voice softer.

  “Good,” I said, inspecting the damage from my head on collision with a brick wall. I ran my thumb down the center of my head, wincing.

  “Let me see that,” he said, kneeling beside me. His fingers maneuvered mine out of the way, as he scrolled around the gash, exploring and inspecting as if he’d done it innumerable times before.

  “I need to get you somewhere so I can get you stitched up,” he said, slipping out of his canvas jacket.

  I shook my head with as little movement as possible. “It’s just a scratch.”

  He barely rolled his eyes. “It’s just a scratch that requires stitches.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I don’t let pre-med students use me as their guinea pig,” I said, trying to ignore his warm breath that fogged the space between us. “That’s what cadavers are for.”

  He smiled, his mood finally lifting. “A twelve-year-old girl who can stitch a hem could manage ten measly stitches.”

  “Then find me a twelve-year-old-girl.”

  “You’re just going to have to make due with me,” he said, scooping me up suddenly. He rested his balled up jacket behind me, pressing it tightly against my head with his shoulder.

  I was caught off-guard, too overwhelmed with being wrapped in his arms and the scent of him that was a dizzying concoction of cedar laced with cinnamon. He was halfway across the courtyard before I cleared my head enough to make a response.

  “I can walk you know,” I said it because I thought I should, not because I actually wanted to.

  “I’m sure you can.” His arms pulled me tighter against him, as if he was fearful I’d be pulled away from him by some invisible force.

  “Then why are you going all Gone With the Wind on me?” I asked, although Rhett Butler didn’t hold a candle to him. And I certainly wasn’t a Scarlett O’Hare.

  “Several reasons. One, we’ll get where we’re going faster,” he said, breaking into a run to prove his point. “Two, there is a possibility in your state you could stumble or lose consciousness and you really don’t need any more damage done to you tonight.”

  I glared up at him, not amused at him making fun of my lack of grace.

  “And three”—he shrugged—“because I want to.”

  I tried not to smile like too much of an idiot. “Well those are your reasons, I guess,” I said. “Although they’re not good ones.”

  He slowed back down, although not because he was fatigued or out-of-breath. His breathing remained unchanged, and from my agreeable positioning with my head against his chest, I heard every unhurried beat of his heart. He didn’t say anything else, just rushed forward into the night with me.

   Silence didn’t bother me, it was actually where I felt most comfortable—in the things that didn’t need to be spoken—but this was a very pregnant silence that was starting to give me labor pains.

  “Okay, so I’m going to address the elephant in the room”—I looked purposefully around us—“so to speak.”

  His hint of a smile encouraged me onward.

  “What the heck just happened?” I had no other way of summing up my loaded question.

  His face was guarded—too guarded. “Big picture or microscope view?”

  I managed something of a shrug. “I’m a details girl.”

  He grinned. “I guessed that, too.”

  I watched him, waiting for his mouth to open in response, and while I wouldn’t have really minded gazing at his mouth all night, I needed answers.

  “So?” I asked, drawing the word out.

  “So what?” he asked innocently.

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “So now is as good a time as any to give me that microscope view.”

  “Not now,” he said quietly, looking straight ahead in such a way I knew he was avoiding making eye contact.

  “Yes now,” I demanded. “You know what they say, live in the now, there’s no time like the present, et cetera, et cetera.”

  He was fighting a smile, that was a good sign. “Now”—he said it like it was a person—“is not the right time.”

  “When is the right time?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But I know it won’t be when you’re bleeding from the head and in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.” He looked pointedly at the dark hallows under my eyes—caused from sleepless nights trudging through homework that wouldn’t cooperate and thoughts of him that wouldn’t go away.

  My eyes narrowed, probably making the circles look more dramatic.

  “I will answer any and every question you have for me,” he said, “soon, but I want to give you my full attention as I’m certain your questions will require it, and right now I’m too preoccupied with getting your body back to normal.”

  “Who’s John?” I asked, chancing a quick look at his face to see if I was pressing my luck. It remained unchanged.

  “I suppose you could call him a kind of godfather,” he replied carefully.

  This wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting. “The religious kind or Francis Ford Coppola kind?”

  He grinned, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “Both.”

  “Why does he want you to come back, to wherever that is . . .”

  “Of all the off-limit questions you’re trying to sneak in tonight,”—he looked at me in a knowing way—“you’re asking all the wrong ones.”

  “What are the right ones? Since you’re the expert apparently.”

  “Why did they come after you?” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “Why did they . . . hurt you?” he said tightly, looking up at the starless night sky.

  My eyes turned upward, although it wasn’t the sky I was gazing at. “Bad luck, destiny, fate,” I answered, not wanting to question why yet another tragedy had befallen me. No matter what the reason was, bad found me. Like a noxious weed, the world had been trying to pluck me from its soil from the beginning. “Take your pick.”

  He shook his head. “Wrong,” he said as if he’d never been more sure of anything in his life. “They sought you out because of me. Because they knew you were close to me.”

  “No, this happened to me because of them,” I said with more conviction than I’d intended. “I would have been this”—I went limp as a fish and stuck my tongue out the side of my mouth dramatically—“if not for you.”

  “You are in this position,” he pointed his eyes at my head in explanation. “because of me. I should have foreseen this happening.”

  “Foreseen?” I quoted. “Do you read crystal balls now? Or maybe palms? What can you tell me about my future?” I teased, turning up my hand at him.

  He stared at my hand with so much intent, I was almost convinced he could see what life held in store for me and what it had already doled out. I snapped it shut.

  “Really, you can’t take the credit for my uncanny ability to find bad luck around every corner,” I said, laughing a few notes. “I was overdue for a near-death run-in, so now I can scratch that off my To-Do list. I should be good to go for another month or so.”

  His lips were pressed shut, and his pace had quickened in that stewing sort of way.

  “Are we going to fester now?” I asked lightly, forming my mouth into an exaggerated frown.

  “If this is your idea of lightening my mood,” he said, “you’re doing a lousy job.”

  “You didn’t even give me a chance to get warmed up,” I said. “But since you’re not being very receptive to my mood-lightening attempts . . . who were those guys and how do you know them?” I asked casually, and before he opened his mouth, I knew my question wasn’t going to be answered.

  “No more questions. For tonight,” he said.

  “But—” I protested, ready to break into my rebuttal.

  “Trust me,” h
e said, the undertone of a plea in his voice.

  I exhaled. “I don’t want to.”

  “Ah, but you do,” he said, sounding elated. “That’s the thing about trust, it’s like love. You can’t help who you trust or love sometimes—you just do—you can’t turn it on and off when you want to.”

  “My brains are practically spilling out of my head,” I said dramatically. “Could we keep the psycho-analytics to a minimum? It’s giving me a headache.”

  “Touchy,” he said under his breath. “I must have hit pretty close to the mark, but what mark—the trust or love?”

  He eyed me mischievously from above.

  “Headache status updated to migraine,” I groaned.

  “This should help,” he said softly, sliding one hand up to my outside temple. His thumb massaged the area first—I closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see them rolling in the back of my head—before applying a growing pressure that literally jolted every nerve within me like a live wire, before they all dulled into the most relaxed, glowing stupor. If this was a drug, I’d just become a hardcore junkie.

  I shifted my eyes to the side, wondering if I could combust from staring at him for too long. When I did, I let out an audible gasp. I clasped my hands over my mouth. “How did you know?” I whispered through the tangle of fingers while I eyed the penitentiary-inspired building before me. Never during any of our conversations had simple dialogue come up, things like hometowns, favorite colors, or which dorm I lived in . . .

  I felt his body stiffen, before he let out a long breath. “You know how you said you hadn’t seen me this week?”

  He didn’t wait for me to respond. “Well I saw you. A lot.”

  I took a second before replying, attempting to sound stern, “Is this bordering on stalker status?”

  “If you’re going to label me, I prefer the term scientist.”

  “Scientist?” I repeated, not understanding what he was getting at, but not caring either. Was he saying what I thought he was? I hadn’t seen him once, but he’d seen me . . . a lot without me even realizing it. Something wasn’t factoring out right, but there wasn’t enough time to work it all out in my head.

  “Yes, someone who studies something, trying to figure out what makes it work, makes it tick,” he said, looking like he was lost in the recesses of his thoughts. “So they can best manipulate it to achieve a desired outcome.”

  “Are we still talking about science here?”

  His mouth softened in the corners. “My favorite kind,” he said, staring down at me. “Chemistry.”

  I didn’t look away, despite the color I could feel rushing into my cheeks. I should have, I knew that, but somewhere in between being bloodied to the present moment, we’d crossed a line. Unlike other lines, there was no retreating back to the other side now. Whatever fate, destiny . . .  or my bad luck had in store for us.

  “So this is the reason you didn’t wait for me?” A voice that was familiar, and incredulous, sounded from behind us.

  William’s arms tightened around me.

  Paul came up beside us, screeching to a stop. He crossed his arms, his narrowed eyes rotating between William and me. After a few repeats, they narrowed in on my head.

  “What the heck happened?” he hollered.

  “Nothing,” I said instantly.

  “It doesn’t look like nothing,” he said, walking towards me.

  “Okay, someone decided to toss me against a brick wall,” I said, glaring at him. “Happy now?”

  “You were attacked?” Paul shouted, his voice cracking.

  “Paul, it’s been a really long, crazy night”—that was an understatement—“I’ll explain later. Right now I need some alone time.”

  “Does alone time involve him?” he said, waving his head at William.

  “That,” I warned him, “is none of your business.” He wasn’t my dad, brother, or boyfriend—that line of questioning was in off-limits territory.

  He cocked his head back. “It kind-of is since we were suppose to go out tonight.”

  I felt another flush burning its way to my cheeks, although this time it was from my anger igniting it. “Really?” I asked incredulously, forming my expression into a you really don’t want to go there one.

  “Really.” He looked me straight in the eyes, not backing down.

  I shifted, trying to get out of William’s arms so I could give Paul a piece of my mind standing up . . . the palm of my hand leading.

  “Why don’t you make yourself helpful,” William burst in, thwarting my escape by pressing me harder against him. “Since making her upset isn’t helping anyone.”

  Paul’s mouth curled on one side, and turned his focus on William. He opened his mouth, looking like something would spill out so filthy it would take a bar of soap to clean it out, right as William tossed a set of keys at his chest.

  Paul snagged them before they fell to the ground, looking like he was ready to torpedo them right back.

  “I’ve got a first aid kit in the back of my car,” William said calmly. “Think you could retrieve it and bring it back to us?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m going to get her inside.”

  Paul’s fist closed around the keys, all the answer William needed.

  “Good,” he said, stepping around Paul and striding towards the entrance.  “It’s the navy blue Bronco three rows back,” he hollered over his shoulder.

  I rose a brow at him as he headed for the front entrance. “Parked car right outside living quarters, not too close to be conspicuous, not too far so as not to be able to make a quick escape,” I listed off. “Classic stalker behavior.”

  He laughed a couple notes. The kind of laugh that made me wish I could bottle it so I could put it on a shelf and save it for a later time. “I suppose you’re right. It is borderline stalker behavior.”

  I heard Paul making his way back into the parking lot, grumbling to himself, but just loud enough for us to hear.

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re too nice?” I asked, trying to speak up to drown out Paul’s continued tirade.

  He looked puzzled. “No. Never. Why do you say that?”

  “Because I could barely contain slapping him straight across the face,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Under any other circumstances I probably wouldn’t have remained so calm.”

  “Other circumstances?”

  “I wouldn’t want you to witness two idiots brawling for your attention,” he said. “And despite what you want to think, Paul is just concerned because he cares for you.” His face was unconvincingly flat. He pulled the door open with one hand, managing to keep me firmly rooted where I was.

  “I think you’re giving him way too much credit,” I said, taking an internal sigh as the warmed air blanketed around me.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he allowed, steering into the empty common’s area. Every other night it was bursting at the seams with students, but tonight, following a basketball game, there were more parties taking place than students enrolled. “But I would have had to let you down to teach him a lesson, and I wasn’t ready for that yet.”

  He cleared his throat, distracting his attention to the square room that screamed utilitarian  . . . seventies-era style. Table lamps that were tall, ugly, and topped by even taller and uglier lampshades, orange and mustard yellow was dosed over everything that would hold still, and olive-colored carpet that had at one time been shag before several decades of passage had smashed it into a bad looking toupee. Curling his nose, he looked between the two threadbare, stain-ridden couches as if trying to decide between the lesser of two evils.

  I made his decision easy. “That one will work,” I said, pointing to the couch against the picture window that looked somewhat less distressed and more “hygienic” than the other.

  He cringed, looking around as if wanting to find a blanket he could spread over it before setting me down. “You’re as brave as you are beautiful,” he said, arranging me on the couch.

/>   Knowing what I did of my beauty—and how it’s lack thereof would be just as obvious to him—he must think of me as the cowardly lion.

  “Do you mind if I take a look,” he asked, eyeing my head anxiously.

  “Be my guest.” I couldn’t feel the warmth of new blood running down my face any longer, but I could only imagine how I looked. Blood drying and cracking like zebra lines down my face, and I was positive my impossible hair looked like a bomb had exploded in it.

  As if reading my mind, he went over to the sink, pulling a piece of cloth from his back pocket. Was that a handkerchief? Did guys still carry those around? The last time I’d seen one had been when my great-grandpa offered one to me after I’d fallen from the tree house in the large sycamore out back when I was five.

  Even then, disaster prone.

  He adjusted the temperature of the water before running the cloth through it. Given everything else about him, I don’t know why I couldn’t do anything but stare at his hands—lined with blue veins, canyons of flesh set between mountains of bone—but they were the most intriguing pair I’d seen. Hands that were strong and flawless, but also weary and aged.

  He hurried back to me, kneeling beside me as he dabbed at my face with the damp cloth. He finished with my lips, pressing them clean before removing the cloth. His eyes stayed fixed on my mouth, which naturally gave me heart palpitations.

  He looked up, his eyes telling that he hadn’t meant for me to notice him so fixated. He sucked in a breath through his freshly parted lips, closing the distance between us at an agonizingly slow pace. So slow I had time to think, oh my gosh, this is it. The night my lips will finally update their status to non-virginal.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” a voice that was acid called out behind us.

  William’s head snapped around, the moment shattering into a million pieces.

  “Nice timing,” I said under my breath. William shot me a sideway’s smile.

  “Here’s your bag of crap,” Paul said, chucking a black leather bag at William’s face. “I thought first aid kits were little white plastic boxes filled with bandages and gauze. A little excessive wouldn’t you say?” he eyed the bag William was sorting through, pulling items from it like he’d done it a thousand times.

  “Doesn’t seem excessive given our current situation does it?” he replied back, not sounding the least bit antagonizing.

  Paul just puffed his chest out and crossed his arms.

  I eyed over the contents of William’s bag, trying not to look like a child staring wide-eyed at a hypodermic needle.

  He looked up, noting my stare. “I’ll be quick, I promise.” He clasped his hand just above my knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I felt an injection of calm enter me, dulling my unease. He climbed up on the couch and hitched a leg over my head, situating himself on the back of the couch where I sat agreeably positioned between his legs.

  His fingers scrolled around my head, no doubt inspecting the damage. “It’s not so bad,” he said finally, jolting me from the lull I’d succumbed to from his touch. “I’ve seen much worse.”

  So had I.

  “I didn’t realize we were in the presence of an MD,” Paul said, reminding me or his presence. “How lucky for us.”

  I heard the smile in William’s voice as he replied, “You’d be amazed what you learn in boyscouts.”

  Paul leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “So who is this tool?” he asked, looking hard at me, as if the subject of his comment wasn’t ten feet in front of him.

  “Tool,” William said, as if to himself, contemplating. “As in a device to perform or facilitate mechanical or manual labor?”

  Paul tilted his head against the wall and chuckled. “That’s right Encyclopedia Britannica. Or in layman’s terms: screwdriver, hammer—”

  “How about a wrench,” William interrupted, his voice too level not to be up to something.

  “You’ve got a quick learner on your hands, Bryn,” Paul said to me, clapping his hands. “Sure, wrench works just fine as well,” he said, his eyes narrowing on William. “Whatever blows your skirt up buddy.”

  I felt the chill of iodine drenched cotton balls circle around, soft and methodical. “Well a wrench would come in handy right now,” William mused. “Because you definitely have a couple screws loose.”

  Paul shoved off the wall, and from his expression you would have guessed William had given him the most unthinkable insult known to man. “I take that back. You’re not a tool,” he seethed, his turquoise eyes growing stormy. “You’re way worse, something that hasn’t been given a name. You’re that guy who preys on innocent young women, and you know what, you’re going to be doing the same thing fifty years from now. You’re going to be that old dude in the bar with the designer jeans and seedy smile who thinks he’s still got it, not realizing everyone’s laughing at the sorry old geezer. You could have five more lifetimes and you’d still end up alone.”

  “Paul,” I interjected when it didn’t look he was going to be wrapping up his soliloquy anytime soon. “Enough.”

  Red lights suddenly flashed through the windows, casting their nets over me, ensnaring me into the recesses of my memories. Taking me back to that night when those same red lights had appeared and made everything so real, just as they were doing now.

  I glared at Paul, noticing the cell phone he was gripping in his hand. “Tell me you didn’t call—”

  “It’s just campus security,” he answered immediately, taking a step back. “As a resident advisor it’s my responsibility to report any kind of attacks on campus.”

  “You had no right,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s none of your business what happened—”

  William cleared his throat, obviously wanting to cut in.

  I didn’t secede right away. “Don’t even think about saying he only did it because he’s looking out for my best interest.”

  “I wasn’t,” William replied. “I was going to agree with you. It was none of his bloody business.”

  Paul uncrossed, crossed, and uncrossed his arms again, obviously unsure what to say and knowing we were right. He looked away, just in time to see a security guard, probably only a few years older than me, charge into the room. Just from the look on his face, I knew this wasn’t going to go well.

  His eyes locked on me, studying me as if I was more a chalk drawing than a living, breathing person. “You the one that got jumped?”

  I didn’t think my blood-matted hair and debris ridden clothes needed an answer, but he was waiting for one. Not the brightest crayon in the box.

  “Yes,” I said, offering nothing more.

  “Name?” he asked, marching towards the couch.

  “Bryn Dawson,” I said it like a question. “Yours?”

  His march turned to a strut. “My frat brothers used to call me the beaver charmer when I was a student here a few years back,” he smiled at William and jumped his brows in a you know what I mean kind of way.

  Just perfect. A former student who couldn’t hack it in the real world now dressed in a uniform and on a head trip. Just when I thought my luck couldn’t plummet any farther south.

  “Do you expect me to call you beaver charmer?” I asked, just barely able to contain my laughter when I heard William choke on his.

  “Only my friends and the ladies call me that,” he said, hooking his thumbs under his belt. “You can call me Officer Simchuk.”

  Officer? Had the standards for gaining the title of officer fallen to driving a minivan and sporting a flashlight as a weapon? I take it back . . . this guy was on a major head trip.

  “So we’ve established who the victim is here,” he said. I imagined him checking off his list of what to do at the scene of crime. Crime scene investigation for dummies.

  “What’s your story, pal?” he tilted his chin at William and studied our positioning on the couch. “You the boyfriend?”

  “No,” Paul answered immediately, stepping forward. “He’s the o
ne that found her.”

  “He’s the one that saved me,” I edited.

  “Does our savior have a name?” Simchuck asked, grabbing a metal chair and twirling it to him.

  “William. William Winters,” he answered, focusing his attention back on my head. Simchuck grabbed a writing pad from his chest pocket, licking his finger before rolling it open.

  “Which dorm are you assigned to,” Simchuck asked him.

  William paused before answering, “I live off campus, actually.”

  “Are you done yet?” I whispered up at William.

  “Two minutes,” he whispered back, his mouth just outside my ear. Goose-bumps ran up my back, blossoming on my neck. I was hoping he’d be too consumed to notice, but right then he scrolled his fingers from the base of my hairline down to the collar of my shirt More goose-bumps . . .

    Simchuck’s chair screeched as he turned to Paul. “And you are?” he asked with an edge of sarcasm, viewing him head to toe. “Captain America?”

  I had to turn my head so Paul couldn’t see my smile. From Paul’s cleft chin and blinding smile, to the way he was standing with arms crossed and legs spread wearing his OSU letterman’s jacket as if some superhero garb, Paul could have been an identical twin.

  “Funny,” Paul said, crossing his arms tighter. “Paul Lowe.”

  “Great.” Simchuck continued scribbling away. “How are you involved?”

  “I was the one who called you,” Paul answered, puffing out his chest.

  “Super job, Captain,” he said as if to himself before looking Paul straight in the eye. “Scram.”

  “Excuse me?” Paul said, taking a step forward.

  “I said beat it. I don’t have any questions for you and Bryn looks like she has enough support here already.” His eyes moved back to where I sat wrapped between William’s arms and legs.

  I expected Paul to look angry, but instead he looked confused. He probably wasn’t used to being sent away from a gathering.

  “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” Paul said to me, before shooting Simchuck an evil eye as he left the room.

  “So, Bryn,” he scooted closer and put on his good cop face. “You were attacked tonight?”

  We were going to get nowhere if he continued to re-ascertain I was, indeed, the one who had been attacked. “Yes,” I answered, trying not to vocalize my impatience. “Again.”

  “Can you describe what happened?” he asked. I imagined him checking off number three on his list.

  I shrugged. “I left the basketball game and was walking through the courtyard when a couple guys showed up and banged me up a little. Not much else to tell.”

  “Were they students?”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond not knowing what the relationship between them and William was, but knowing I didn’t want to say anything that would jeopardize him, I answered vaguely, “They could have been. It was so dark I couldn’t really make out their faces.”

  Simchuck frowned, doodling a football in the margins of his notebook. “No details at all? Not even height, build, approximate age?”

  I shook my head, squeezing my lips together, nudging William in a get-me-out-of-here way. Right on cue, I heard a bandage being ripped open.

  “The first man was in his late twenties, six foot, one-eighty, maybe one-eighty five,” William listed off. “Brown hair, green eyes and a medium complexion. He has a scar two inches long running down the left side of his face. The second one is early twenties, five foot eight, stocky build, reddish-blonde hair, brown eyes, and has a chain tattooed down his right arm.”

  Simchuck’s pen was scratching like mad to keep up.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about them showing back up here, but you’ve got their descriptions just in case.”

  “Chain tattoo . . .” Simchuck whispered to himself as he continued to write.

  “All done,” William said, brushing my hair back from my ear.

  “You’re the best,” I said, nearly jumping up from the couch.

  “If you’ll excuse us Officer Simchuck”—William winked at me from the side—“I need to get Bryn back to her room so she can get some rest. It’s been some night.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” Simchuck waved us on, continuing his note-taking. “I think I got what I need.”

  “Have a nice night,” William said formally, reaching for my hand and knotting his fingers through mine. That moment, feeling him reach for my hand as if it was instinctual, was worth a hundred more run-ins with Ben and Troy. It felt so good it actually hurt.

  He led me out of the room, and I allowed him to, swearing I was done holding back from him. I was going to be an open-book from now on. A Bryn re-model was in order, starting off by tearing down the walls barricaded around me.

  “I knew I forgot something,” Simchuck said behind us, an audible smacking of the forehead following. “One more thing, Bryn,” he shouted out at us as we were escaping into the hall.

  I stiffened, wondering if we were far enough away Simchuck might assume we were out of hearing-range. Unless we were practically deaf, I didn’t think that would fly. I turned my head back at him, keeping my hand rooted in William’s.

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you have any reason to believe you might know these guys? You know, had a run-in with them in the past where they tried to mess you?

  I would have sworn Simchuck had just pounded me in the stomach than asked me a question. I felt the stopper burst from the bottle I tried to keep my past—that night—trapped in.

  I felt my knees give a little, like my body had suddenly become too heavy to keep upright. My scars became open wounds, searing pain that sucked the air from my lungs. My hand fell out of William’s, right as the pain became too much. I clutched at my stomach and back, pawing at the scars as if I could extinguish the flames I felt burning in them.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, worry heightening his voice an octave. “Are you hurt?”

  I couldn’t answer, partly due to the pain, but mainly due to there being no conclusive answer. The physical damage had healed long ago, but the hurt that goes deep and burrows in like a parasite never goes away.

  William pried my hands away and nudged my shirt up timidly, running his fingers over the purple lines of my past.

  “These are entry and exit wounds,” he whispered assuredly, although as if he wished he was mistaken. “You were shot.”

  “Everything alright?” Simchuck called out as he approached us.

  I found my voice, a small miracle in its own right. “Everything’s fine,” I said, before chancing a glimpse at William who was still rubbing over my scars, as if he was trying to erase them.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered down to him. “Really.”

  When he looked up, I knew I hadn’t convinced him anymore than I had myself.

  I composed my face and turned back to the fast approaching Simchuck. “To answer your question”—I cleared my throat—“they’re no one I know. I’ve never seen them before.”

  I held Simchuck’s stare until he was convinced. He clicked the top of his pen and hung it over his shirt pocket. “Thanks for your time. If you think of anything else, give us a call.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, not having to fake the sentiment. I was beyond thankful he’d made our proceedings as quick and relatively painless as rent-a-cop possible.

  “Here’s my personal number.” He slid a card in my hand and his eyebrows peaked in an expectant way before he hustled around William’s kneeling form.

  “See ya, Savior,” he tapped William’s shoulder before extending his arm at Paul, perched halfway up the staircase—no doubt eavesdropping without looking too blatant about it. “Catch up with you later, Captain.”

  Paul flashed a humorless smile, lifting his middle finger to the sky. It snapped back the instant he saw me looking at him. “Sorry,” he mouthed, looking down.

  “Mature,” I chided, attempting to encourage William from his freeze
-framed form. “You’re the one that called him, remember?”

  “Let’s hope that’s the last mistake I make tonight,” Paul replied, his tone full of implications, but I was too consumed trying to pull William from his trance to decipher the meaning behind his words.

  “I’m gonna hit the sack now to make sure it is.” He pushed off his thighs to rise, eyeing William. “Hasn’t anyone told you chivalry’s dead, man? Chics don’t dig that whole opening doors, getting down on one knee thing.”

  “Good night, Paul.” I made the warning in my voice so obvious even a jock-rock (my term for jocks with rocks for brains) would hear it.

  Without another word, he jogged up the stairs, hollering over his shoulder, “See ya, Bryn.”

  I exhaled, two male problems attended to, one more to go.

  I wasn’t sure how much, if any, of my past I was willing to divulge to William. I’d only told my account of that night once, to the police who were the first on the scene, and hadn’t whispered a word about it since. Not even when counselors, distant relatives from Texas I saw once every few years, or my professors back home, encouraged me to talk about it—let the pain ooze from the wound before sealing it up, not to let it fester. But I’d been a fester-er  my whole life, how could everyone just expect me to change and bawl my eyes through a box of tissues every week at some support group?

  William rose and I felt him studying me, trying to work out a problem in his head that was unsolvable, inconclusive . . . the null set.

  “What happened?” he said finally, his voice so tight it seemed it might snap.

  I sniffed, looking anywhere but in his eyes. “I was shot.”

  He nodded twice before rolling his head into a shake. “With the location on your body, a centimeter to the right or left and it would have killed you instantly.”

  I’d never looked at it that way—that I was lucky I’d made it. I chose to focus on the bad luck of being shot and having everything taken from me that night. “Lucky me, right?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he said. “It’s like something—some force—wanted you to survive. To make it to this moment.”

  There was a serious lightness to his statement, so I replied in turn, “So I could be here with you, right now?”

  A slow grin rose. “Something like that. At least that’s what I like to think.”

  “Again,” I said, trying to look through him like he had so many times with me. “Lucky me.”

  He held my stare like it was the most natural gesture between near strangers, with the practice of a staring contest champion. I felt my eyes puckering with dryness before I blinked, forfeiting the win to the master.

  “I’ll take you to your room,” he said, resting his hand over the small of my back gently, as if I was too fragile to touch with any kind of urgency.

  Up the staircase that seemed taller, down the hall that seemed longer, coming to a stop in front of the door that seemed more empty. Mine was easy to identify; it was the only door void of glittered construction paper cut-out names and corkboards splattered with photos.

  I cupped my hand around the doorknob, stalling, still undecided. In the end, my soul made the decision for me.

  “It was six months ago,” I said, sounding stronger than I thought I could breeching the topic.

  He braced his hand against the wall, sucking in a long breath.

  I twisted the door opened, the light of my room dosing us in 100 watt incandescent light. I always kept at least one light on now, the dark and I didn’t get along anymore. “I want to show you something.”

  My legs fought the journey to my desk, my arms fighting even harder as I whooshed the bottom drawer open. I didn’t have to turn my head to know he’d followed me in, I could feel him—like the spring morning sun on my face. I dug under several pre-law course books when that dream had still been alive, finding what I was searching for at the very bottom. The metal of the drawer had cooled the thin paper. I fought back a choke, I wasn’t going to chicken out now.

  Pulling out the cut-out newspaper article, I flung my arm behind me, not able to look at it. Once had been enough for one lifetime.

  William took it, his contemplation saturating the air like a heavy night fog. I stayed crouched where I was, unable to look.

  “Three Shot, Two Die, One Still at Large in Dawson Family Tragedy,” he whispered, reciting the title of the article that had turned into a highly publicized case. Despite the overabundance of violence out there, it still seems to turn a lot of heads when a respectable attorney and his wife are murdered in cold blood, while their Ivy-league daughter narrowly escaped her own death on her nineteenth birthday.

  I closed my eyes, focusing on inhaling  . . . 1,2,3,4,5 . . . exhaling . . . 1,2,3,4,5.

  He didn’t read anymore aloud thankfully, although I’d already teleported myself back in time to that night and was sprawled on the asphalt drenched in blood and rain, shivering and alone.

  He glanced down at me, his eyes filled with the rawness of someone who had experienced the kind of loss I had, although how could he truly understand my sorrow? William couldn’t know what it felt like to lose his entire family and know he was the one responsible for it.

  He couldn’t know what it felt like to have a man walk up to you and shoot the two people you loved most in the world, before he turned the gun on you; what it would feel like to wake up in the hospital two weeks later to be told you were the only one to survive and there were no leads as to who’d killed the only people you loved—no one to hold responsible for your pain other than yourself.

  Months later and still not a single lead, no fingerprints, no motives, no eye-witnesses; my parent’s lives evaporated with no one to blame but me. After all, it was my selfishness that had begged them to come visit me on my birthday up at Stanford so I wouldn’t have to celebrate alone, me who’d chosen the ill-fated restaurant where we’d all been met with a 9 millimeter and destiny, and me who’d ordered dessert and wasted away another hour at the restaurant.

  If I’d only resisted my sweet tooth we’d have been out of there earlier and still together today. Sure, the gunman had been the one to pull the trigger, but I’d loaded the gun. That day I awoke parentless, I made a sacred vow that I would never again let my selfishness compromise another person I cared about. Never again.

  I heard the newspaper fold back into place before he kneeled beside me. He replaced the article at the bottom of my drawer, grabbing my hand in his. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he said, the last thing I imagined him saying given the information he’d just been privy to.

  The surprise of it broke me out of the snare of remorse and guilt I got caught in every time I revisited that night. I looked at him and his eyes were victorious, not sad, or doling out pity like the multitudes had.

  “Here you are,” he said, gesturing at me. “Fighting like there’s no tomorrow. Fighting to make them proud, even in death.” He smiled, it was all teeth and fondness.

  “Come again?” I asked. He had to be joking. Me, a fighter? Yeah, and elephants fly.

  “You can act as humble as you like,” he said, pulling me up. “But anyone else would have given up on their dreams and let fear and sadness cripple them.”

  Did he realize that was me? Fear, sadness, guilt, remorse, self-loathing . . . take your pick.

  “Your parents must have been incredible people,” he said, drawing his fingers over my cheek.

  “They were the best,” I said, and instead of trying not to think about them, I let my memory bank fill with them. Summers on the Oregon Coast, strawberry crepes Saturday mornings, my mother’s perfume that was like walking through a lavender field, the way Dad’s favorite polo shirt would smell after mowing the lawn. I let the memories overtake me, and unlike what I’d thought, they gave me strength instead of flat-ironing me to the ground.

  “I’ve upset you,” he said, watching a tear skid down my face. “I didn’t mean to.”

  I nodded. “No. You’ve
made me happy,” I said, sniffing through a laugh. “Strangely happy.”

  “Are you alright?”

  I eyed him.

  “Given the circumstances?” he edited.

  Attacked by a couple men that were as mysterious as they were terrifying, letting the skeletons topple out of my closet onto a man that was so near perfect he should have taken off in the opposite direction from me, but here he stood, firmly rooted to the shoddy carpet in my dorm room. I should be anything but alright, but I felt nothing but. “I’m the most alright I’ve been in awhile,” I said, knowing he was the reason for this.

  “The article said you went to Stanford,” he said, looking strangely amused. “Why did you transfer?”

  I waved my hand in the air. “I needed a change, and had heard such wonderful things about rural Oregon, and there was this little thing”—I pinched my thumb and index fingers together—“called academic probation I was put on.” After my parent’s had been murdered and a bullet had run through me, my mind was on everything but study sessions and declaring majors.

  “A change,” he repeated, the only thing he’d pulled from my explanation. “I wonder what it would take for you to make another change.”

  I looked back at him, and I already had my answer, but it shouldn’t have come so quickly or without doubt. It defied everything I knew of this world, this couldn’t exist . . . but at the same time, I couldn’t deny what was taking place within me. Thankfully, I didn’t spurt out what the very core of me knew. “Something pretty big, I guess.”

  “Pretty big like what?” he pressed.

   “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, stepping back and removing my hoodie, glad I had on a tee-shirt that was clean, fitted, and didn’t have some fill-in-the-blank fun-run sprawled across it. “But I’ll let you know when I find it.” I smiled and tossed the hoodie in the garbage; there was no amount of stain remover that could ever wash tonight off it.

  “Okay, so something pretty big then,” he quoted me as if committing it to memory. His eyes outlined my figure, although I could tell he was trying not to let them.

  Feeling self-conscious, I fidgeted with my shirt, pulling, twisting and smoothing, not able to meet his gaze.

  “What are you doing Sunday?” he asked suddenly.

  I took a step back and gripped the footboard of my bed. “Not much. Homework, laundry, chess club”—I said in a joking voice (sadly, I actually did have chess club on Sunday afternoons)—“exciting stuff like that.”

  He swallowed, looking like he was working up some courage. “Would you like to spend part of it with me?”

  I hoped my face didn’t scream, duh, too loudly.

  A rapping on the door jolted both of us. I glanced at the alarm clock on my nightstand; it was way past courteous visiting hours. It had been a good month since I’d had a knock on my door, and had no reason to be expecting one now—especially given the hour. I started towards the door.

  “Don’t.” He grabbed hold of my wrist. “Just pretend you’re not here.” There was something urgent in his voice, which only further piqued my interest to discover who was standing on the other side of that door.

  Another knock. This one longer and more impatient sounding than the first. I pulled free from his handcuff-like hold and pulled the door open, peeking out, praying I wouldn’t find a duo of men sporting suits and malicious smiles.

  A painted-on sweater dress had replaced the orange and black pleated skirt, and the ribbon had been pulled from her hair, showcasing shampoo-commercial shiny hair shimmering over her shoulders.

  “Sorry to wake you”—she eyed my outfit and make-up free face—“but is Will here? Paul said he might be,” she asked eagerly, like a golden retriever anticipating the toss of a tennis ball.

  I felt my mouth twisting. “I don’t know about a Will,”—I turned the word out like biting into a tart apple—“but I’ve got a William I’ll give you.” I shoved the door open so hard it banged against the closet, revealing him.

  Her brown eyes went all starry. “Here you are. How long were you planning on keeping me waiting?” She tapped her wrist where a watch could have been.

  “He was caught up with me,” I said, crossing my arms. “I had to go and bust my head open, bear my soul to a misogynist . . . you know, that kind of thing.” I said, starting to bite my lip, although I couldn’t tell if I was trying to hold back tears or a tirade.

  Her eyes turned to me for a second, her expression saying TMI, before looking back at William. Before she could say anything else, I backed away from the door, careful not to look at him.

  “Have a fun night.” It was pathetic how weak my voice sounded.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You have fun sleeping too,” she said generously, now she was sure I wasn’t any threat. “You look like you need it.”

  I wanted to stick my tongue out her, but chose to act my age.

  William didn’t budge, in fact, he hadn’t said a thing. I guess he didn’t have a carefully rehearsed speech prepared for when two of his love interests found out about each other. Seemed cavalier given his obvious reputation.

  “You can go now,” I said, turning towards him, focusing on the rainbow of blues in the industrial-type carpet.

  I noticed his head finally turn to the auburn-haired vixen in the doorway, what had taken so long? “I don’t want to leave her”—he nodded his head towards me—“with the head injury she’s sustained.”

  Before his eyes could go regretful or she could volunteer some other schmuck to sit vigil for the poor handicap recluse girl, I looked up at him. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

  “Just go,” I mouthed at him.

  His face twisted, as if I’d hurt him. Only another tool in his arsenal, giving the other woman the pained face before he rode off with someone else . . . just in case this one didn’t work out and he needed a back-up plan. I certainly wasn’t one of those used goods girls, damaged goods for sure, but I wasn’t going to be anyone’s back-up plan.

  For the second time that night, he listened to me. I wanted to take back the words as soon as he took the first step towards her and away from me. I wanted to shout, choose me, pick me. How pathetic was that?

  I couldn’t resist the urge to gaze through my window, despite knowing it would only bludgeon an already bruised heart. I watched them walk into the parking lot side-by-side, drifting away in the darkness together. I told myself I didn’t care; I didn’t want that kind of man, anyways.

  My mom had always said the heart wants what the heart wants. For the first time, I understood what she meant.