Other than annoyance.
She wasn’t with Ty. She wasn’t here on time. Logical string of thought was to conclude she wouldn’t be in class today. Therefore, neither would I.
No offense to Professor Camp, but the only reason I came to class was to see Emma.
I was out of my chair and down the aisle before I could let the responsible fraction of my consciousness surface. And by fraction, I mean next to non-existent. So fractional it was incalculable.
“Stay,” I instructed the mass of meat in the back row in passing, raising a hand. Steam was all but pluming from his nostrils, but I couldn’t miss the cherry on top. “Good boy,” I said as I shuffled through the door, receiving the second hand gesture that would have earned him a night out in the barn had my mother still been around to see it.
I didn’t possess the dignity left to jog towards Emma’s dorm room. I ran. Ran like it was the only prayer I had left of saving my life. Ran like a wanted man. Ran because I wanted a woman and I wanted her bad.
Earning a gaggle more curious looks by the time I reached the dorm’s front door, I made my best effort to look out of breath. After the look the next girl gave me in passing—something that said, you’re certifiable—I’m sure I looked more like a panting monkey. I cut the act altogether, attacking the three flights of stairs with equal fervor.
I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d explain to Emma how I knew what dorm room she lived in, she’d never given it to me, but I knew confessing I’d teleported into each room in the middle of the night until I’d landed inches from her smiling-in-her-sleep face wouldn’t be the top runner. Although honesty was my policy, I didn’t think she was ready for that. I’d have to scrub the truth with a little white lie about someone I’d passed on my way up telling me what room she was in.
Walking down the third floor hall, I was again stupefied as to why I was worrying myself about explaining how I’d known which room she was in. She might not care or even remember she’d never given it to me. She might not even be there.
I ran two once again clammy hands through my hair before rapping on her door, not having to guess which side of the door she’d decorated, even if her name hadn’t been put up in cut out pictures of her making funny faces. The other side was black, cryptic, and I felt like I might get cursed if I touched the welcoming, cheery artwork. Instead of Julia’s name, it said, “Death is the best we can expect from life.”
Somebody forgot to tell Julia that she’s no longer a sixteen-year-old drama queen.
The door swung open, well, it banged open, and the spreader of sunshine and cheer straddled the doorway. Her face didn’t give anything away, and that manic look in her eyes that confused the hell out of me was still there, so I didn’t know if she was going to invite me in for hemlock and frogs’ legs or if she was going to tell me to eff off.
“Go away.” The door slammed in my face.
Okay, that was the eff off expression. I’d have to make note of it for future reference.
A whisper so soft if I was a normal boy I wouldn’t have been able to hear it told me all I needed to know. “Who was it?”
Emma was here. Julia’s instructions be damned, I wasn’t going anywhere when two inches of man-made material separated me from her.
“Like you don’t know,” Julia replied in standard volume.
Emma hissed a shush at her.
“Don’t you shush me,” Julia said, hissing her own. “I’ll shush you right back.”
“Why did you tell him to go away?” Emma whispered, completely unaware I was listening to every word.
“Because he’s so good looking he’s got to be trouble. And trouble is something you don’t need,” Julia replied, lowering her voice a decibel. “And there was this other thing he did, what was it?” I didn’t have to see her to know her face was screwed together in a searching expression. “Ah, that’s it,” she said, snapping her fingers. “He said something that made you cry. That’s a death sentence where I come from.”
I didn’t want to know where someone like Julia came from, but a few possibilities jumped to mind, the least bothersome of them being the land of brimstone and Beelzebub.
Emma stayed silent for a second, long enough for Julia to get another word in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you had a thing for assholes. I’ll just invite him in and inform him it’s open season on your heart.” Julia’s boot clomping feet came at the door, but a scuffle ensued before the door opened.
“Wait a minute,” Emma whisper-laughed at Julia. “I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Do you have a piece of gum or something?”
“Get your nasty breath out of my face,” Julia said, as things toppled and turned over inside the room like an earthquake was taking place. “Here, take this before you decimate our room,”—I was listening so intently I heard every note of the piece of gum sliding from its container—“although I’m now questioning just exactly what kind of tongue thrashing you had in mind for our man behind door number one. Because the kind he deserves doesn’t involve gum, frantic hair brushing, or deodorant.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Jules,” Emma whispered. “Grab the door and stall a minute. I’ve got to put a bra on.”
My brain heard everything she said, but my body only heard the word bra. When the door opened for the second time, I was blushing like a girl.
Julia slid the door open a crack, blocking the space with her black and violet clothing wrapped form that managed to be rather imposing for someone as tall as what I’d been when I was eight.
“Hey,” I offered lamely, my vocal chords playing the puberty trick on me. All thanks to the bra word floating around in my subconscious.
“You hurt my Emma,” Julia greeted, folding her arms one over the other.
“I know.” My voice was back to its manly self.
“Do it again, and I’ll rip each and every appendage from its socket. Starting with your dick.” It wasn’t an empty threat—this was the full meal deal.
Clasping my hands in front of me, down in front of me, I cleared my throat. “It won’t happen again.”
“Of course it won’t,” Julia said, casting a look behind the door. “They’ll promise anything if you threaten their manhood. That’s all they care about.”
“I promised that because I care about Emma.” It slipped out before I recalled the girl in question was hiding behind the door working her way into a . . .
Dammit. Red face alert. Again.
Of course the door thought this would be the ideal time to open all the way, revealing the lovely, bra-ified Emma.
“Hey,” she said, a small smile capping her greeting.
“Hey,” I answered back all witty-like.
I felt Julia’s eyes rolling in a big way. Before I could mess this up with any more comments of the “witty” variety, I unzipped my jacket, revealing the t-shirt underneath.
Emma gave me a look, waiting for me to say something, but that took away the whole point of the t-shirt. Taking an exaggerated look at my chest, I knew she’d taken the hint when she choked on a laugh.
“’I’m an idiot,’” she read, making a concerted effort to keep a flat expression.
“Obviously,” Julia mumbled.
Keeping my lips zipped, I raised my index finger, hoping the peanut gallery would repress further comments until my message had been delivered in its entirety.
“Although idiot’s a bit of an understatement,” Julia continued, establishing that, like her roommate, neither of them did what I hoped they would.
Sliding out of my leather jacket, I spun around and shoved my hands in my pockets to flatten out the second half of my message.
“’Forgive me,’” Emma finished, although I’d posed it as a question, not as a demand. Actually, if you read between the lines, I was more like begging than asking.
“Nice view,” Julia said. “And I dig the t-shirt, too. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that’s your slogan.”
“Jules,” Emma said, her tone o
f reprimand quite possibly the least reprimanding I’d heard. Pulling me into the room and closing the door, she said, “You’re forgiven. And you’re not an idiot.”
My jaw was hanging open, I knew this, but what other response could a man give when a woman forgave him after the first attempt?
“One more thing,” I said through the awe. I gathered her hands in mine, not caring that the man-eater in black was a witness to my male vulnerability. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry,” I said. “More sorry than anyone in the history of screw-ups. And I promise I’ll do everything in my power to never hurt you again.”
Emma appraised me and, from the look of her face, my apology plan had worked. “I like that,” she said. “When Ty does something stupid—”
“Hourly.” Julia continued to add her one word interludes.
Ignoring glum motif girl, Emma continued, “He always promises to never do it again. But how can you promise with absolute certainty something like that?”
It didn’t look like she expected an answer, but I gave her one. “You can’t.”
“Exactly,” she said at the floor. “Don’t make me promises you can’t keep.”
“I won’t,” I vowed. Now that was a promise I could keep.
Something of a moment was being shared between Emma and me, I knew it from the way the world around us blurred and slowed just enough to make me take note. The slamming of a coffin-shaped clothes chest made sure to cut us off.
Glancing over at Julia, I made an effort not to glare.
“So the flowers are impressive, I’ll give you that,” Julia began, stalling her nail-polish chipping to take a quick inventory of the room that had been transformed into a greenhouse thanks to the no-limit account I’d opened at the local florist. “Acknowledging his wrongness—has to be a first in man history,” she continued, peeking up at Emma to make sure she was paying attention. “And he apologizes. Which may be only the second time in man history.” As she peeled off a chunk of witchy purple polish, I waited for her to exaggerate.
Most people, after noting a laundry list of personality traits, drew a conclusion. Julia wasn’t most people.
Breaking the bloated silence, I said, “When was the first time?” I didn’t know how else to reply, and I was intrigued.
Shrugging, she said, “The time I kicked my ex in the balls for cheating on me. I threatened if he didn’t apologize, I’d strap on my steel toes and have another go at them.”
That would have been funny if I didn’t have balls and knew what it felt like to be kicked in them. I withheld the wince at the memory.
“Weren’t you just heading to the library to study, Jules?” Emma broke in, subtle hinting obviously not one of her strengths.
Ceasing the nail polish massacre, Julia grabbed a ruck sack in her very favorite color and shouldered it. “If by the ‘library,’ you mean the graveyard,” she said, plugging ear buds into place, “then yes, I’m going to the library.”
In any other company, I would have laughed, but with the steel-toe-ball-kicking image fresh in my mind, I vowed to never piss Julia off in person. “You study at a graveyard?” I asked, genuinely curious because I’d seen a lot of things in my days, but this was a first.
“It’s quiet,” she answered simply, pulling a hoodie that was five times too big over her head.
There were about a dozen follow up questions to this, but I knew I didn’t want to unravel the reasoning of a madwoman. Julia studied at the graveyard. Good enough for me—case closed.
“Oh, real quick,” Julia said suddenly, snapping her fingers. “Could you turn around for a moment? While you’re still feeling generous?”
Going with my two prior mental notes regarding Julia, I did as commanded, not having a clue as to why. “This what you had in mind?” I asked, spreading my hands to the side like I was about to be frisked. For all Hades knew, I could have been.
“Damn,” Julia said finally, sounding like she’d just run a few miles. “You should wear jeans of the butt hugging variety more often.” I’d never enjoyed being objectified less. “I feel a bout of inspiration. Should make for some particularly dark poetry.”
“Dark poetry and a graveyard?” Emma said, clucking her tongue. “Jules, you’re too predictable.”
I caught Julia flick a wink back at Emma right before she grabbed a handful of my right buttock. “Bon Appetit.”
Julia’s goodbyes were just as warm and conventional as her greetings. The door slammed shut—one befuddling woman down, one more to go.
“Sorry about that. She can be a little rough around the edges, but she’s got a heart the size of Africa,” Emma said, tucking a leg underneath her as she plopped down on her bed.
“Sandpaper’s rough around the edges. That girl’s a frickin’ Sherman tank plowing you over. And then she puts it in reverse just to make sure she got you good and flat,” I said, looking for a place to sit. I wanted to sit next to her on the bed, but knew this would make her uncomfortable, and I most definitely did not what to sit on whatever voodoo witch magic was infecting Julia’s bed, so I did what I rarely do and took the middle ground.
I hooked the computer chair with my leg and scooted it towards Emma. “You weren’t in class today,” I stated, the fact that she was wearing a pair of boxers that were made for someone twice her size, coupled with a Stanford Football sweatshirt, hitting me. It was a mix of emotions, seeing what she wore to bed at night, but realizing these were Ty’s.
“You noticed,” she said, fidgeting with the hem of the tent sized sweatshirt.
“It’s my job to notice,” I said. Her eyes flashed to mine, something unreadable in them. “As your Love Project partner, that is.”
The warmth flooded over the unreadable in her eyes. Crash landing averted. “Thanks for checking on me. I just wasn’t feeling well enough to go to class today.”
“And you’re the kind of girl who wouldn’t skip a class even if she woke up and discovered her arms had been sewn to the carpet,” I said, scooting a couple inches closer because I couldn’t help it. I was magnetic and she was metal, or maybe she was the magnet and I was metal. Whatever I was, I was drawn to her on a subconscious level. “So I’m not buying you woke up this morning and had a scratchy throat so you decided to skip a Monday’s worth of classes. Spill your guts.”
“Not feeling well doesn’t only relate to the physical you know,” she said, grabbing her pillow and folding it into her stomach.
I was thrown by her sudden flash of vulnerability. Emma showed the least vulnerability of anyone, man or woman, I’d ever known. So of course that meant she was likely the most vulnerable.
“Don’t I know it,” I said, following her lead down vulnerability lane. “I’m so mental I was the test subject for half the psychology books on the market. My ‘sick days’ are what my brothers like to call mental health days.” Actually, they called every day a mental health day when it came to my life, but I didn’t feel the need to elaborate on that.
She threw me a sympathetic smile, but even that was rimmed in sadness. There was a story, a long, detailed one, behind why the never-seen-a-B-on-a-report-card girl was hiding in her dorm room on a glorious California fall day. However, I was smart enough to know if she wasn’t going to elaborate, I wasn’t going to push it.
“Thanks for everything,” she said finally. “The flowers, the shirt, the apology. You’re kind of special, you know that?” she said, unable to meet my eyes.
“Special ed, right?” I said, beating her to the punch.
“No,” she said, “special, special.” She continued, clarifying everything, “you have a gift for drawing people to you—it’s like everyone you pass has to look.”
“It’s my mad fashion sense,” I said, never one for deflecting a compliment, but the sincerity of Emma’s words and the tilt of her brow as she struggled to get it out had me squirming in my chair.
“I can see that,” she said, staring at my present attire. “But I think I understand it now. Why people
are drawn to you without even knowing why.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“It’s because you’re this giant, warm fuzzy,” she said, grinning at my expression of disbelief. “It’s impossible to not feel better when you’re around. Positively hopeless. I mean, I was feeling crappy. Like, crappy day of the decade award glum. And then in you stroll, smiling that one you’re sending my way now”—she thrust her hands at me in accusation—“and you’re acting all sympathetic, and understanding, and apologetic, and, well . . . perfect.”
“I’m not perfect,” I emphasized, raising my hand. “A far cry from it, in fact. A perfect guy wouldn’t have made you cry.”
“I made myself cry,” she replied. “You didn’t say anything that was untrue or overly harsh. I cried because I made myself cry.”
I couldn’t take the martyr thing any longer. I’d never been a fan of the whole taking-the-weight-of-the-world on my shoulders thing.
“You cried because I acted like a dickhead. I wish I could say that my actions and words Saturday night were selfless, only brought to the surface because I had your best interests in mind, but that would be a lie,” I began, wondering why, after a lifetime of striving to tell the truth, it was so darn hard right now. “When I lost it on Ty, and then lost it on you, I was focusing on my anger, my frustration, what I wanted. I wanted to believe I was doing what I was to help you, but I was only helping myself. And when he put his hands on you and threw you down, I saw red. I wanted to kill him right there, and I could have,” I continued, despite her eyes widening with each sentence. “But you know what was the number one reason I wanted to cease his existence?”
I didn’t expect her to answer, but she did. “Because you thought he hurt me?” Her voice sounded small, fragile. Like I could break it if I touched it with my pinky.
“No,” I admitted, shame slumping my head down. “If I was this special, perfect guy, that’s what it would have been. That’s what it should have been, but at the forefront of my mind, my primary justification for wanting to kill him was because I didn’t have a rat’s right to order him to never put his hands on you in that way again. That right belongs to a boyfriend, or a brother, or something else that I’m not.”