Page 2 of Love Immortal

One

September 1987

Vermont

M y green Chevy Nova makes a series of pitiful popping noises as I pull the rusty clunker into the parking lot in front of West Hall. I guess that’s to be expected from a car that’s almost as old as I am. Except nineteen in car years is ancient; I’m lucky it’s still kicking at all. I won’t have money to fix it anytime soon.

A shoebox filled with letters sits safely on the passenger seat beside me, and the back seat and trunk are loaded with the rest of my earthly possessions, which amount to exactly two boxes and a laundry hamper filled with clothes and bed linens. At least the dorm room is furnished, and I won’t have to sleep on the floor anymore like I have all summer.

I snag a spot not too far from the entrance and head inside.

West Hall is one of Camden’s five residence halls, a three-story red brick colonial with white windows and deep-green shutters. This will be my dorm for my sophomore year. True to its name, it sits on the western edge of campus. Baseball and football fields and the adjacent athletic buildings are the only things that lie between it and the sprawling, luscious woods of Vermont’s Green Mountains.

Once inside, my first stop is the resident assistant’s room located on the first floor. There’s a small line outside the door, but it moves quickly, as most students already moved in earlier this weekend. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that. Perpetually short on cash, I tried to squeeze in as many hours as I could at my summer job in the valley town south of here.

As I wait, I see familiar faces bustling about the hall, some accompanied by excited or teary-eyed parents helping them lug boxes of their belongings. Unlike most of these students, I have no family to help me move in, and no home to return to during school breaks.

Instead, this past summer, I rented a dingy studio apartment above someone’s garage and worked long hours at a shitty gas station, because even full-ride scholarships don’t cover summer housing—or clothes, or ridiculously expensive textbooks, for that matter. But I’d rather starve and sleep in my derelict car than go back to the people who made my life a living hell. I promised myself that much a long time ago.

“Name and student ID,” the RA says.

“Jonathan Evergreen,” I say, flashing her my card for a quick inspection.

“Signature here.” She points to the ledger on her desk. After I sign it, she retrieves a manila envelope with my keys and hands it to me. Judging by the number written on it, my room is on the third floor. Not too bad.

Even without help, it takes only three trips to carry my things from the Chevy to my room. As expected, the room is small, and I’m sharing a bathroom with six other students. But the space still has some of the charming original details from when the dorm was built in the late 1800s, like the oak wainscoting on the walls and the heavy cast-iron radiator under the window. I’m a bit disappointed by the absence of a fireplace—I’ve heard some rooms have those, though they’re no longer functional because it’s a fire hazard. But I’m not about to complain. I’ve finally gotten what I want—a single .

Starting a new life in a new place looks so much smoother in movies. In reality, however, you put on a brave face and change locations, but people are still people. Sure, being accepted to Camden and moving to Vermont from North Carolina was a vast improvement, except for one little thing: Camden has a policy that all students must live on campus during their freshmen year and have a roommate. The assignments are supposed to be random and nonnegotiable, and of course, it was my “luck” to be paired up with a legacy because look at how inclusive we are at this elite institution ! Everyone gets the same opportunities, whether you’re a scholarship kid or someone with so much inherited wealth and privilege that it should be illegal. Never mind that there’s an unbreachable chasm between people like Madison Jr.—the youngest son of the senator whose family has owned huge swaths of Vermont for the past four generations (I don’t even know why they bother to run for office, they might as well just declare themselves kings)—and people like me, whose families have disowned them.

I lost count of how many times I was locked out of my own dorm room because Mads Jr. was having “fun” with a new girlfriend. Sometimes, I came home and found the place completely trashed because his clique, a bunch of rich and spoiled legacies like him, had thrown another raging party. Having nowhere else to go, I spent an awful lot of time in the library. Full disclosure: I do love libraries, and my GPA is a solid 4.0, which was the one silver lining of this whole situation. Mads Jr. and his buddies, on the other hand…I honestly don’t know if I ever saw any of them holding a book. None of them got a failing grade in a single class, though. Because when your family name is on a college building, or you’re the sole heir to a real estate empire, you’re not beholden to the same set of rules as everyone else. I plan to interact with them as little as possible this year.

Relishing the much-desired solitude, I begin to unpack. Carefully, I put the letter-filled shoebox on my bedside table before I move on to the large boxes. There isn’t a lot in them: a reading lamp, a few of my favorite books that I brought with me when I left North Carolina, a clock radio, and some school supplies. I empty the laundry hamper and hang my clothes in my small closet. Lastly, I make my bed.

My room is sparse but neat—I can live with that. The window could use some curtains, but I don’t have any. At least nothing will obstruct my view of the mountain range, which is quite nice.

I open the window and let in some fresh air. Below me is the back courtyard of West Hall. It transitions into a patch of mostly green lawn studded with occasional maple and aspen trees. Many of their leaves are already spotted yellow and rust-red. I’m still not used to how much earlier fall comes in this place than in North Carolina. I hope I’ve acclimated enough by now that I won’t need to bundle up in all three of my sweaters the moment the skies turn gray and the temperatures drop below sixty, which is bound to happen by the time October rolls in.

Camden University is by far the most remotely located of the elite institutions. Last year, we even got snowed in, and the power was out for three whole days. The blizzard was so bad they couldn’t plow the roads to allow the electric company to fix the downed power lines. Of course, classes were canceled, and the entire campus turned into a party. Mads Jr. had enough stashed alcohol to outlast the entire blackout. I holed up in the student center—reading, of course—as it was one of the few buildings with a functioning generator.

But honestly, I don’t mind the occasional snowstorm or the wilderness or the isolation. Even if Camden hadn’t offered me a full ride, I still would’ve fought tooth and nail to go here. Because Camden has something no other campus in America does: the biggest university library of rare books in the country.

It’s a special collection that houses titles from as far back as the eleventh century. Scholars and researchers from all over the world visit to study these books. I’d like to join them someday. Once I graduate, it is my dream to work in book conservation and historic document archivism. This past summer was supposed to bring me closer to that dream, but at the very last moment, the opportunity that was meant to be mine was snatched away from me by none other than a damn legacy student.

I grip the windowsill angrily. These past three months could’ve been so different. I could’ve avoided the embarrassment of working at a shoddy gas station that smelled like spit and gasoline fumes. I could have been learning about old books. I could’ve done so much more if not for that stupid?—

A familiar voice carries through my door, which I left ajar. “I’m gonna give you exactly three seconds to explain why you ghosted me all summer. One?—”

I whirl around, startled. “But I called last week!” I say defensively as Fiona Onayemi leans against the doorframe with her arms folded and her eyes narrowed.

“To kindly inform me that you were still among the living and that you got your room assignment? Wow, Jonathan. Sometimes, I wonder if you even consider me a friend.”

Fiona is wearing a turquoise silk bomber jacket with a denim bell skirt and tall socks. There’s a satin bow which matches her jacket that’s holding back her curly brown hair. And from the fierce look on her face, I can tell she is not in the mood to buy any of my bullshit excuses.

So I don’t try to sell her any. “Sorry. That wasn’t cool,” I say sheepishly.

She stares at me for a moment. “No legitimate excuse, then?”

“Other than the fact that my summer was pretty pathetic, and I didn’t want to ruin yours by talking about it?” I shake my head. “Not really, no.”

Fiona’s eyebrows fall as she sighs. “You know, acting as a receptacle for venting is a part of being someone’s friend. You let your pals spill their rage and heartbreak and commiserate with them, and in return, they do the same for you when you need it. It’s mutually advantageous.” She steps forward, opening her arms for a hug.

“I know,” I say apologetically, squeezing her back.

The truth is, I’m really happy to see Fiona again. It would’ve been nice to hang out with her this summer. She’s the one soul in Camden who knows about my situation, and she generously invited me to visit her family in Albany. But the way my summer plans went south—and the fact that I never have enough money—squashed my desire to see anyone, or even talk to my best friend.

“Your hair’s longer,” she says when she pulls away.

I brush my floppy mess of brown locks out of my face. “I need a haircut.”

“It’s very rock ’n’ roll. You should keep it.”

I snort. “Can’t believe you’re accusing me of looking cool.” With my faded jeans and my collection of stretched-out T-shirts and old sweaters, I’m hardly fashionable.

Fiona grins. “Well, they say even a broken clock is right twice a day. This might be your year to shine. You even lucked out and got a single.”

“Wait, you didn’t?” I ask, surprised. I know Fiona applied for one too, and her academic standing should be good enough for her to qualify.

“Nope. Got assigned to East Hall.” She shrugs, disappointed but not overly so. “I’m rooming with this freshman girl, Becky, from California. She’s nice. Total airhead, though. At least I don’t have to share a bathroom with the entire floor.”

“That was the worst,” I say.

Besides not being allowed to choose their roommates, most first-year students are assigned to Allen Hall, which is the oldest dorm with the tiniest rooms and only one coed bathroom per floor. Whoever approved that building plan should’ve been forced to live there for the rest of their life as punishment. Too bad they’re long dead by now.

“It was disgusting,” Fiona grumbles. “The toilets were always a mess. Oh, by the way, did you hear that Mads Jr., Callahan, and Eric Stockton moved off campus? Rumor has it they’re renting a giant mountaintop mansion. Lucky jerks. I can’t believe anyone would let a bunch of nineteen-year-old douchebags live in a mansion by themselves. They’re so gonna destroy the place.”

I laugh humorlessly. “I’m sure their parents will pay for the damages. And if this means we won’t have to see Mads Jr. on campus anymore, I fully support it.”

“True. I’m still jealous, though. They probably have private bathrooms with bathtubs,” Fiona says, her voice full of yearning. “So, are you done unpacking?”

“I think so,” I reply, taking a cursory glance around the room.

Like the future badass lawyer she is, Fiona sees an opening and pounces on it. “Then you have absolutely no excuse to ditch me. Whether or not you wanna vent about your woes, I’m telling you all about my summer, Jonathan Evergreen. Pancakes?”

I grin. There isn’t much entertainment in the small towns surrounding Camden. The nearest movie theater is a thirty-minute drive away. But there’s a tiny bookstore (that had no job openings left by the time I inquired at the beginning of the summer), a bar, a country club, and a diner off Route 7. Getting late-night pancakes there is our version of therapy. I’ve spilled most of my life story to her over half stacks and strawberry shakes. When I got unbearably lonely over the break, I caved and drove down there for a solitary midnight vanilla malt. It improved things a little.

I hesitate for a moment. Money is tight, as always, and I don’t know what astronomical prices they’re going to demand for my textbooks this year, but I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and there’s no way I can refuse the invitation. “If you’re driving,” I say.

“Of course I’m driving,” Fiona says confidently, already on her way to the door. “I’m not gonna force the last living dinosaur into extinction, assuming it still runs.”

I chuckle. “I wouldn’t call it running. More like puffing along at a leisurely pace.” I grab my room key and wallet and scramble after her.