Again (2 page)

“How are you usually?” It
was a rush. My whole body was seemingly teeming with the number nineteen,
becoming nineteen. It was bubbling out of my pores like a spell being granted
in a fairy tale. Maybe lying could be my new addiction.

He laughed, “Actually, probably
this stupid.”

“At least you know how to
open a door.”

He exhaled, his eyes focused
on mine. “It must be hard to be all alone.”

My body chilled, seemed to
fold in on itself. He understood, truly understood, loneliness. It was
something I fought against. It was, if I had to admit it, one of the main
reasons I drank. You could cover up anything with enough booze, even the
wailing of your heart, even never knowing where half of you came from.

“I’m used to it now,” I
said, but my voice was hollow. I wasn’t alone for the reason I’d given, but I
was now. With no past and no alcohol, I had been reborn by choice into someone
completely new. I had no attachments, but also no safety net.

His toothpaste commercial
smile came out again. “You probably don’t want to think about all this stuff. Let’s
start over.” He bit his lip and readjusted his stance. “Welcome to Nixon Hall.”

His saying it out loud
reminded me:
Nixon
. Of course, irony assigned me to a dorm named after a
liar. Hopefully, I wouldn’t end up leaving in disgrace too.

“My name is Carter, but you
can call me Chazz.” He put his right hand on his shirt where Resident Advisor
was embroidered.

I couldn’t help wanting to
know what his pectoral muscle felt like under his shirt, but I definitely did
not want to call him Chazz.

I cocked my eyebrow. “No
thanks,” I said.

He smirked, a
people
usually do what I tell them to do and why aren’t you,
smirk. “Don’t like
Chazz, huh?”

“No offense,” I said, trying
to forget my own cat ears hat, “but it’s a little douchey.”

“A little?” he laughed with
his whole perfect body. “Fine, Carter for you then.”

“Carter,” I said, with a
small wave, “I’m Kate.”

“I don’t remember you from
last semester. Did you switch dorms?”

“Just transferred,” I said,
reciting the lie that had already been planned.

That part of my backstory
was kind of true. I should have transferred after I’d flunked out of college-take-one
first semester, but instead I’d moved back to New York City. College didn’t
want me, so I didn’t want it either.

It’s amazing how
stubbornness appears reckless in hindsight.

“Lucky for you, I’m the RA
for floor twelve and a senior,” he said, smiling purposefully. “So, if you have
questions about anything, I probably have an answer. Including where
your
bathroom
is.”

“I’m on floor twelve,” I
said, skipping over his joke.
Crap
, apparently I would be seeing Carter
again and again, probably daily.

There was something I
couldn’t pinpoint in his eyes. “You sure you don’t want help with your bags?”
he asked.

“Thanks, I got it,” I said,
moving away from him quickly. Carter in my room on day one was not a safe way
to start college-take-two. It was hard enough to imagine having to stay away
from him when he was coming down the hallway from the shower half-naked and
glistening.

I headed to the elevator, trying
to ignore him watching me as he greeted more students and parents. Forget rule
number one, with Carter around rule number two might be the bigger problem.

Carter

You can call me Chazz? What
an idiot
. Being a second semester
senior made me a lot more confident than I had a right to be, especially when I
said stupid shit, but something about Kate made me aim to impress her.

I have a nickname,
impressive.

Maybe it was because she
seemed like she’d been through a lot more than the average freshman.

Maybe it was because when we
were alone in the bathroom, I wished she wasn’t in such a rush to leave.

She also had no idea yet
about what happened to me my freshman year. A blank slate was incredibly attractive
considering I’d spent years wishing I could erase mine.

My friend Tristan, the RA
for floor ten, came up behind me and slapped me on the back. “He shoots, he
misses,” he said, laughing like only a friend can at your perceived
embarrassment.

Tristan was a senior too. He’d
been my roommate freshman year. He knew what had happened, but believed I
wasn’t lying about it unlike most everyone else. It had been three years since
then. Long enough that people didn’t talk about it anymore, but that didn’t
mean they didn’t think about it every time they saw me or one of the other guys
who used to be in the since- disbanded TKE fraternity.

“She’s on my floor,” I said.
“It’s good I missed.”

It would be hard to avoid
her on my floor or not. I liked her confidence. It was damn sexy and rare. There
was something else, too—the way her brown eyes reminded of a deer’s, the same
hollowness—almost like they’d been through too much to give away anything.
Maybe because of what had happened to her parents. You never fully recovered
from tragedy, from experiencing the worst of human nature.

I knew.

Tristan scoffed. “Who
follows that archaic hands-off rule?”

“I follow every rule.”

Tristan paused, assessing
me. “Forbidden fruit,” he finally said, “is the sweetest of all.”

“I’m a semester away from
graduating. I don’t need any fruit, especially not forbidden freshman fruit,” I
reasoned, as much to him as to myself. Part of my atonement for what had
happened my freshman year was working as an RA, giving back to the university
that was nice enough to let me stay. My father’s sizeable endowment hadn’t hurt
either.

“Then why are you still
staring at her?” He waved his hand in front of my eyes.

“Shut the hell up,” I said,
smacking it away.

“Couldn’t have your view
blocked for even a minute?” I heard a chuckle in his voice. “Damn, you’ve got
it bad, Chazzy.”

I’d received my nickname in
my frat. I still told people to call me that as a reminder. Everyone kept
telling me to forget what happened, to move on, but I couldn’t. I never wanted
to forget the night I discovered I was a coward.

Kate was clearly the
opposite. Maybe I hoped she could teach me how to be as strong as she seemed.

“She’s new, isn’t she?” he
asked, rubbing his palm against his buzzed scalp, his own red RA polo pulling
up from his waist to show off his hairless stomach. Tristan was on the diving
team. He was good, Olympic trials good. He became an RA to do his best to avoid
the temptations college had to offer.

That was probably the real
reason my father made my being an RA a stipulation of his endowment. He was
willing to do anything to make sure I didn’t fuck up again.

“Yeah, so?” I responded,
even though we both understood what “new” meant. It meant she didn’t know what
Chazz and his frat brothers had been accused of doing to Jeanie Pratt, what
Chazz had actually done, or even worse, not done.

“So that makes you the
helpful RA, instead of…”

Just because Tristan
believed me, didn’t mean he could talk to me about it. No one could.

“I only asked her if she needed
me to carry her bags.”

“There are lots of other
people around here to ask.” He gestured around the busy lobby.

He was right—there were
tons, but none of them had walked into the men’s bathroom and gotten adorably
stuck inside. None of them had her wistful eyes.

“She was alone. Her parents
are dead,” I added, though I immediately regretted revealing that. Maybe Kate
didn’t want to tell anyone.

I knew all about wanting to
keep certain things secret. Not that what had happened my freshman year was a secret
to anyone—even the students who hadn’t been here when it happened heard about
it eventually. Maybe I hoped to be able to get to know Kate a little better
before she did.

“Seriously?” He was pale. “Shit.”

“Yeah, in some ways I envy
her,” I exhaled. “That’s terrible, right?”

He shook his head, “Your dad
is a prize-winning dick hole. Why wouldn’t you?”

It had been my father who
forced me into a settlement, my admission and his money had given me probation
and a clean record. The thing was, I had to say I was guilty of doing what I
had been too much of a chicken to stop.

 Honestly, though, admitting
something I hadn’t done wasn’t the worst part. Feeling like shit for doing
nothing to help Jeanie was.

“How’d they die?” he asked,
whispering the word.

“I didn’t ask, but I
actually told her that sometimes I wished my parents were dead.”

“Dude, do you need me to
teach you how to talk to a girl you think is cute?”

“How often are you talking
to girls you think are cute?” I decided not to bother denying Kate was. That
would be a lie.

“I had to pretend I was
straight for eighteen years,” he said. “I have more practice in looking like I
know what I’m doing than most guys do.”

“I talk just fine,” I said,
even though I was pretty sure it seemed like Kate had run from me to get to the
elevator.

“You haven’t been with
anyone in years. You might be rusty.”

“I’m not rusty…” I paused,
clearing my throat, “…I’m careful.”

He looked down, like he shouldn’t
have said what he’d said, “I know.”

“It’s cool,” I said as a
response to his unspoken apology.

“But you like her?”

“I just met her.”

He sighed. “This is the
first girl you’ve talked to for more than five minutes in years. Sorry if I got
a little excited.”

“She’s just a girl on my
floor,” I said, but even as I dismissed her, my pulse beat in my ears.

He tilted his head. “Whatever,
dude. Guess I’ll go back to being an Adam who would never have been allowed in
the Garden of Eden. Maybe I’ll find some forbidden fruit of my own.” He walked toward
a group of freshman guys with a grin as wide and open as a venus flytrap. Tristan
talked a big game, but he was trying to act normal. Treat me like I was any other
guy, instead of the guy I became that night freshman year.

The thing was, I was afraid
to be like most guys. The reason I hadn’t been with anyone in years was a
choice. I needed to be punished for what I had done.

For what I hadn’t done.

Regardless of whatever she
had seemingly awakened in me, all Kate could ever be was just a girl on my
floor.

Kate

I’d made it through the
front doors and up the elevator without incident, well, if you didn’t count the
whole bathroom fiasco and then trying not to picture licking the embroidery
stitching off Carter’s shirt.

Maybe I’d be able to do
this. Of course, I still hadn’t met my roommate.

I took a deep breath and
stepped off the elevator into the hall.

I knew nothing about her
other than she was one of the few students who had an opening in her room for
someone starting second semester. This either meant she was a total nerd or a
hard-partying high-maintenance bitch. Clearly this time around my
twenty-nine-year-old comparably arthritic fingers were crossed for nerd.

I wasn’t here to make
friends. I had a best friend at home, Veronica. She thought I’d lost it when I
came up with this idea. Eventually, I convinced her going back to college was a
better choice than rehab, which I could have paid for with the money I used to
finance this semester. I went through a very long explanation about how rehab
would only solve one problem and how I had several; the largest in my mind was that
I’d never gotten a college degree.

If I had graduated the first
time around, I never would have been David’s assistant. I would have had my own
career, my own life. I wouldn’t have only been working to make someone else’s
everything easier.

Besides, I’d told her, “If
this doesn’t work, I always have rehab to crash into.”

What I didn’t say but
couldn’t stop thinking was, if rehab didn’t work, there was nowhere lower to
go.

Veronica had said to “stop
being stupid and to do what everyone else did when they were about to turn
thirty and get Botox.”

Examining the dorm hallway,
the half-open doors and students hugging and high-fiving hellos to each other,
I wondered if I should have just stuck a syringe of poison into my brow.

Of course, there wasn’t
enough plastic surgery in the world to forget how David had ended things.
You’re
a drunk, you have no direction, you’re fired, and we’re through,
was the
basic gist. Our relationship wasn’t going anywhere anyway. He was not only my
married boss, but a father and fifteen years older than me.

I reached my dorm room. The
door was closed and music was crashing from it like a litter of kittens being
strangled. I touched my cat ears hat; she was going to hate me.

I considered knocking, but
it was my room and I was eleven years older than the person I was suddenly
insanely nervous to meet. I opened the door quickly and walked inside.

She squinted. Her
black-lined eyes slithered from my boots to my white cat ears hat.

My side of the room was as naked
as a jail cell, hers was like the store Hot Topic had thrown up and then had a
seizure all over it.

Her wardrobe matched the
walls. She wore plaid boxer shorts on top of tights, and a ripped black T-shirt
seemingly sliced to shreds by a demon’s talons with a blood-red tank
underneath. If she was on one of those makeover shows, her look would have been
a serious make
way
over.

My roommate was goth. Or at
least that was what we called them back in my day.

I smoothed down my hair. I
needed to switch off that part of my brain.
This
was my day now.

She didn’t have to ask the
question plastered on her face.
Who the fuck are you?

“I’m your new roommate, Kate
Townsend,” I said, wondering if I would
have
to go see Carter. I
wondered what the protocol was for being afraid your roommate would carve you
up in your sleep.

Maybe being stuck in the
bathroom with Carter had been safer. Clearly, I couldn’t stop remembering being
stuck with him in the bathroom.

“If you tell me to call you
Katie or Kiki or Kitty Cat,” she said, staring at the ears on my hat, “I will
kill you.”

“Kate is fine,” I said,
throwing my duffle bag on the bare mattress.  The way she looked, I believed
her. At least I wouldn’t be distracted from my studies by any late night gab
sessions.

Did people even say gab
anymore?

“What should I call you?” I
asked, attempting to show her I wasn’t afraid of her. Even though, who was I
kidding?

“Dawn.”

That seemed far too sunny
for someone so fixated on being dark. I couldn’t tell if she was being ironic
or if it was her given name. “Pretty,” I tried.

“Not really,” she explained.
“Dawn is when night starts to cease. It is an extremely dangerous time for the
underworld.”

 “Fierce,” I replied, hoping
that might go over better.

“Who are you, Tyra Banks?” she
sneered above her music.

Apparently nothing with Dawn
was going to go over better. I didn’t mention her name would probably also make
most people think about dish soap.

She regarded me more
closely, her black eyeliner vibrating as she glared. “What year are you?”

Shit, here we go.
Carter had probably given me a pass because of my fake dead
parents. This girl in a bed next to me wasn’t about to be nearly as generous. “Freshman,”
I tried.

“You don’t look eighteen.”

Fuck,
I was busted—busted by a girl who wore dog collars as jewelry.

I got carded every time I
bought alcohol. I was asked if my parents were joining me when I went out to
eat alone. I should have known it wasn’t enough.

In some countries I would
have been old enough to be Dawn’s mother. Of course, if I was, I would have
told her she was wearing way too much makeup.

I worked on not shaking, not
sweating. I needed to pass as a freshman to everyone. The stocks my grandmother
had left me in her will only paid for one semester’s tuition and board. My
credit was crap, so I’d need a scholarship to stay in school beyond that. My
best chance at getting one was being an active, actual, on campus student—a
real freshman.

If Dawn didn’t believe me,
I’d have to make her.

“I’m nineteen,” I replied, “I
took a year off.” I added quickly. Using the lie I’d planned on telling.

She considered it—and me. Her
gaze was like the sharp side of a knife. She shrugged and went back to what
she’d been doing before I arrived: polishing her nails black to match her
eyeliner, hair, outfit, and side of the room.

Cheery
.

I’d done a lot of research
to find a place that had scholarships available once you were already a
student. Hudson University in Kingston, New York, a mere ninety-one miles from
the city, was small and prestigious enough to become my choice for
college-take-two. It also helped that it was a school David always talked about.
He had an honorary degree hanging from Hudson on his wall and used to say if he
had the opportunity to travel back in time he would have made it his actual
pre-law degree.

I could go back in time.
Sure, a portion of my
decision might have been based on spite, but there was also the pure noble
intention of aspiring to do better, be better.

And of course, having something David
could never have.

Unfortunately, one of the
stipulations for a scholarship was living on campus. For someone who was
determined not to flunk out this time, living in a dorm as a “freshman” was
like carrying around a stick of dynamite.   

I unzipped my duffle. “What’s
your major?” I asked, starting to unpack.

Light conversation was
better than silence and her music and the black everywhere. The darkness in my
dorm room might actually succeed in pushing me to slitting my wrists if I
didn’t give myself something else to do.

I’d been close enough to
jumping off my fire escape the morning I turned twenty-nine—in addition to
considering rehab and college-take-two—anyway. I didn’t need
Miss Suicide
USA
assisting me any further.

“Women’s Studies,” she said.
Her lips were painted black as well, thick enough to pave a street.

“Cool,” I said, even though she
was headed down an academic path like the one I’d been on during college-take-one.
I’d been an English major and my prospects had been slim, even before I’d
flunked out; hers would be tighter than her disapproving mouth. “I’m Legal
Studies.”

That was what Hudson
University called it. I called it what I should have studied all along.

“Lawyers are assholes.”

“Thank you,” I replied, hanging
up my new nineteen-year-old wardrobe; though considering David was a lawyer I
would have had to agree. I’d chosen pre-law not only because I’d grown to enjoy
the wild adrenaline of working on a trial, but because one day I hoped to be
standing across the courtroom from him kicking his ass in a case.

I realize giving eight years
of my life for one sweet moment of shock might seem pathetic, but no less
pathetic than screwing your own married boss.

“My dad’s a lawyer,” she
added.

“So that means your dad’s an
asshole?” I could tell she thought I was.

She shrugged and slipped in
her earbuds, silencing her music and ending our conversation.

I guess I’d convinced her I
should be here, at least for now. I only had 1,400 more days and 7,000 more
undergrads to go.