Page 6 of Love Immortal

Five

“ G uess what?” I say when I meet up with Fiona in the dining hall for dinner on Friday night.

“What?” she asks before taking a bite of a golden, delicious looking grilled cheese.

I can barely contain myself. “I got the job at the Rare Books Collection! Mr. Bathory talked to them on my behalf.”

Fiona’s mouth stretches into a grin. “Oh my gosh, congrats! Also, I told you so.”

I set my tray on the table and sit, looking down. “I can’t believe he did that for me.”

“I can,” Fiona says confidently. “It’s his job to help you. Hopefully, this will teach you not to quit before trying. I think this monumental accomplishment calls for a celebration. There’s the Welcome Week party tonight. You should come.”

“Nuh-uh, I think I’m good.” I always try to weasel out of plans that involve being surrounded by a lot of loud, drunk people.

“Come on. It’ll be good for you,” Fiona insists. “Maybe you’ll even meet a cute guy.” She wiggles her eyebrows conspiratorially.

The glow of happiness that came from Mr. Bathory’s letter dims a bit. I pick up my fork and stab my spaghetti. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Fiona narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t tell me you’re still moping about that prick who broke your heart in high school.” As always, she cuts straight to the heart of the matter. But she doesn’t know everything.

“No,” I protest. “It’s not that. You know I’m not a party person. Anyway, since when are you so interested in the Welcome Week booze fest? Isn’t it mostly freshmen who go?”

“Yeah, but I already kinda promised my roommate I’d chaperone her,” Fiona confesses, putting air quotes around chaperone . “But it’s also good to be social and have fun once in a while. Also, look at you! You’re cute. You’re smart. You should have a hot new boyfriend every week!”

My face flushes.

“I mean it, Jonathan. Give yourself some credit. This whole vintage book nerd thing is very charming. Guys would be lining up to date you if you’d just let them.”

I want to sink under the table from embarrassment. “It’s not really a style choice. I just don’t have money for new stuff,” I say, conveniently omitting the fact that I’d probably still wear old sweaters and torn jeans even if I won the Megabucks lottery today. “And why don’t you have a hot new boyfriend every week?”

She gives me a sly look. “Because I had plenty of fun on my summer break. And please stop trying to change the subject,” she says gently but sternly when I open my mouth to interject. “And before you say that there aren’t enough gay or bi guys at this school, you should visit a Gay and Lesbian Alliance meeting and take a good look. There are a lot more members than last year. Chandler is doing a great job organizing.”

“I know. I’ve seen their posters around campus.” My cheeks go hot as I remember the image of two guys scantily clad in leather, posing suggestively under the slogan homosexual liberation . I guess that’s what happens when an organization is filled with mostly arts majors, half of whom are into punk culture.

“They are provocative,” Fiona concedes. “But you have to be. Otherwise, everyone will ignore you. Remember how people tried to protest the AIDS lecture they organized last year? And now the school is asking them to host it again for the freshmen. Their initiative for free condoms in the Health Center also caused quite a stir at first, but now that’s where everyone goes. Anyway, just stop making excuses and come to the party already. I promise it will do you good.”

I sigh and poke at my spaghetti a few more times before reluctantly acquiescing. “Fine.”

This year’s Welcome Week party is hosted by South Hall. By the time Fiona, her roommate, Becky, and I arrive, it’s already packed. The alcohol is flowing, and Def Leppard is blasting from the speakers.

“Wow, they really outdid themselves this year,” Fiona shouts, trying to be heard over the music. The common room has been transformed into a dance club. There’s even a disco ball and colorful lights hanging from the ceiling. I already want to leave. I know I’m supposed to like this—the obnoxiously loud music, the abundant free alcohol that tastes like paint thinner, all the drunk people dancing like there’s no tomorrow—but I don’t. I didn’t like it as a freshman either. I think I only agreed to come because I was so happy about the letter—and, well, because Fiona insisted.

Fiona is wearing a cute, tight dress with a jean jacket and a sparkly bow in her hair. Becky is also dolled up with teased bangs and neon-pink hoop earrings. She looks so California with her golden tan and wavy hair, like she just came in from the beach. I haven’t seen a beach in years, which you could probably tell by looking at my pasty white face as well. And I’m wearing the same red plaid shirt and jeans from earlier today.

We’re weaving through the dancing crowd, searching for some friends Fiona is supposed to introduce Becky to, when she spots someone of interest. “Ooh. Look, there’s Cody,” she tells me conspiratorially and points at the guy next to one of the bowls of spiked punch.

“Cody who?” I ask, confused.

“Cody is a member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance I keep telling you about,” she says with a meaningful look. “He’s in the theater program—and he’s openly gay and single.”

Clarity dawns on me. This was Fiona’s plan all along.

“Oh my god, he’s so cute,” Becky chimes in. “You should totally talk to him, Jonathan. He’s all alone.” She winks at me. I can’t believe Fiona roped her roommate into this scheme too.

“I don’t think—” I start to say.

But Fiona is already beaming at some girl with a heap of raven hair and a miniskirt. “Hey, Erica!”

“Oh, heeey !” Erica waves. Fiona swiftly loops her arm around Becky’s and ushers her toward Erica and her group of friends before I can finish my protest. I think all those girls used to live in the same house as Fiona and me when we were freshmen, but this year’s housing assignments have spread us all across campus. This party is her opportunity to catch up.

Fiona turns around to mouth “ talk to him ” before getting invested in discussing everyone’s party clothes.

I sigh. She’s been saying for a long time that she’ll help find me a boyfriend should I need a push in that direction. I guess she’s decided it’s time to start making good on that promise.

But I don’t know anything about Cody except that he’s gay and in the theater program, which Fiona just told me. I guess she thinks that’s enough to make him a perfect candidate, at least to hook up with.

I watch him for a minute. Blond wavy hair, soft manners, preppy pink cardigan in a slim fit. He ladles punch from the bowl into a red plastic cup and holds it gingerly with the tips of his fingers like it’s a delicate stage prop. He’s very good-looking. There’s no denying it. I should want to meet him. Right now, I should be nervously wondering how to approach him, planning what to say so I won’t seem awkward and unappealing. But instead, for some reason, I try to imagine what his fingers would look like holding a pen, what his handwriting is like. I doubt it’s ornate and elegant like Mr. Bathory’s penmanship. Who even writes in cursive anymore? All class assignments have to be typed up these days. Handwriting is a fading art form that belongs in the worn pages of old journals, in hidden compartments of antique secretary desks—not something that makes sense in this century.

I huff out a bitter little laugh and turn away. I’m not talking to Cody. I don’t even know why I came here.

Fiona is still chatting with her friends. She seems excited. I don’t want to rain on her parade. I can just dip out without her noticing…but I’d feel bad leaving her so soon. Maybe I’ll just get some snacks and pretend to give this party a shot so my conscience will be clean when I scamper off back to my room alone.

I locate the snack table at the far end of the common room and make my way toward it. There is another punch bowl and a couple of party-size bags of chips on it. I grab a handful of chips, put them on a paper plate, and lean against the wall to observe the crowd.

You can always tell who the freshmen are—they get drunk the quickest. Released from the tyranny of their parents’ watchful eyes, they descend on cheap alcohol like they’ll never be allowed to drink again, and most of them have no idea what their limits are. But they seem to be having fun. Good for them, I guess.

There are even more people dancing now. Someone cranks up the volume when “Tainted Love” starts playing, and the heavy synth beat rattles the windows. Most of the armchairs and sofas are occupied by couples making out.

I wish it were that simple for me. I don’t know why it’s so easy for others to find someone to like and be liked by them in return.

I knew that I was into guys by the time puberty hit, but it was all pretty hypothetical—like knowing what love was from seeing it in movies but without having experienced it myself. Even with Clay, it wasn’t instantaneous. We went to the same high school for three years before anything romantic happened. I guess that’s to be expected after growing up in the closet, surrounded by small-town small-mindedness and Christian dogma. Clay was everything I was not: the school’s star athlete, attractive in every conventional sense. All the guys looked up to him, and all the girls swooned over him. He was worlds away from a quiet book nerd like me until our English teacher assigned us to be pen pals for a senior class project, and our worlds collided. We were supposed to write letters to each other twice a week in order to pass the class. I thought there was no way Clay was going to take it seriously. He didn’t have to. The school would never let him fail, even if he didn’t write a single page.

But he did write to me.

He was timid at first, which was surprising because he seemed so confident, so sure of himself in front of others, never showing a vulnerable side to anyone. But it didn’t take long for him to open up. The assignment was graded on the honor system; we didn’t have to turn in any of the letters, so privacy and discretion were guaranteed. Maybe that helped him be honest with me.

When I read his letters, it was like I knew him. Like I’d discovered a hidden door that led to the secret garden that was the real Clay, whom nobody else met or even glimpsed. It was all mine. He was all mine. And so I poured all of myself onto those pages too.

By the end of September, we were sneaking out to kiss in the abandoned parking lot until my lips were bruised. In October, he climbed through my bedroom window one night when my parents were out of town, and I let him bruise the rest of me.

I was so naive, living in a dream world, like a dashing lover from a forbidden romance novel. But life is different from books. Because in December, we got caught.

I turn to the punch bowl, suddenly feeling a strong urge to down the spiked red liquid, let it scorch my insides. That’s the only thing alcohol is good for—reckless annihilation of self. I should know. I tried it last year, the only other time Fiona convinced me to go out. In the throes of heartache, I bought into the idea that it would help me forget. And it did. For an hour.

I think I danced. I even made out with another freshman. It was only when we stumbled into his dorm room and he pressed me against the door, eager to get off before his roommate came back, that my alcohol-induced ability to fake it ran out. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Clay’s pale face watching me from the darkness, and I felt sick to my soul. I shoved the guy away and spent the rest of that night gripping the toilet bowl, vomiting long after there was nothing left inside me.

Forgetting Clay did not work. Replacing Clay did not work either.

I look at the couples around me—they aren’t all madly in love, are they? So why can’t I be like them and not care? Or be content with caring only a little, just enough not to be alone? But I can’t. I don’t want crumbs that will never satisfy the hunger I feel inside. I’d rather have nothing at all.

But what if what I want doesn’t exist? I was so sure it did when I was with Clay. I believed we would have eternity together, that our love was the kind people write about in novels. Instead our forever lasted only slightly less than four months, and then our love crumbled into dust.

Still, even if all that’s left of us is a box of letters that haunt my dreams, a memory that aches on rainy days like a broken bone that fused back together wrong, it is mine to carry. And I swear I’ll keep it safe inside my own private library of rare things, no matter how much the world wants to destroy it.

I stuff the last greasy, salty chip into my mouth instead of drinking the punch. The momentary urge to self-destruct has passed. It’s time to leave.

I push myself off the wall and toss the paper plate into a nearby trash can, but just as I turn for the exit, I catch sight of Grady Callahan, one of Mads Jr. and Eric Stockton’s legacy buddies. He’s hard not to notice, as he’s six feet tall with a raging black mullet and a studded leather jacket. He’s by the punch bowl with two full cups, and he’s slipping some kind of powder into one of them. You’ve gotta be kidding me. Why is he here? Didn’t the legacies rent a fancy mansion for their fucked-up parties?

I take a deep breath. I really don’t want to get involved in this, but my conscience won’t let me walk away. Grudgingly, I trail after Callahan as he cuts through the dancing crowd to where Mads Jr. and Eric Stockton are. They are laughing, flanked by some girls. Being the senator’s kid, Mads Jr. hasn’t managed to ditch the preppy button-up and cardigan for Callahan’s edgy rock ’n’ roll look. But this year he’s bleached his hair and pierced his left ear, probably to rebel against his father’s wholesome American family image. I only recognize one girl in the group: Alessandra Lucente. I think she’s the daughter of some famous magazine model. She always dresses like she just got off the runway. Maybe she’s finally been promoted to Mads Jr.’s chief girlfriend; she’s been pining for him since last year. The other two girls are probably freshmen, judging by how tipsy they are. And lo and behold, Callahan is handing the drugged drink to the one with the neon-green scrunchie in her ponytail, the one who looks like a pixie because she’s three-quarters of his height.

This time, I don’t need punch to make me want to puke. What is wrong with this guy? He look like he’s in a rock band, and he can swim in money like Scrooge McDuck. He doesn’t need drugs to make girls want to sleep with him. He’s just using them because he can. For fun.

I grit my teeth and march straight up to them.

“Hey,” I say to the girl with the drugged drink, not acknowledging the trio of legacies whose very existence I despise. The faster I get this over with, the faster I can leave. “I saw him slip something in your punch. You really shouldn’t drink that.”

“Huh?” she asks, confused. I’ve clearly underestimated how inebriated she already is and how loud the music is blaring.

“He drugged your drink,” I shout, pointing at Grady.

I don’t bother to look at his face; I just turn to leave the scene, letting the pixie girl and her friend process what’s happening. Callahan can deal with the fallout.

“Oh my god!” I hear her squeak behind me. Good. It’s dawning on her.

I stuff my hands in my pockets and start to walk away when a large hand grabs my shoulder and yanks me backward. I spin around, nearly losing my balance, and find an acutely pissed-off Grady Callahan towering over me.

“What the fuck, Evergreen?” he barks in my face.

I jerk away. I should’ve expected that it wouldn’t be so easy to extricate myself from this. “Are you seriously asking me that?” I shout back. “Why don’t you go back to your mansion instead of trying to drug some naive freshman?”

Despite Grady’s intimidating look and our height difference, I’m not that afraid of him; it’s probably because he spent so much time in the room Mads Jr. and I shared. We had many verbal spats in the beginning, back when I thought I could maintain some control over my living situation, but eventually, I quit wasting my time. Anyway, none of our altercations ever transitioned into anything physical.

“What did you say to me?” he snarls, his face turning red with fury.

“You heard me just fine,” I say defiantly. Then I wrench my shoulder out of his grip and try again to leave. I’m done with this stupid party and these entitled jerks.

But I don’t get far. In fact, I don’t manage to take a single step because my feet lose contact with the floor. Before I can figure out what’s happening, the room tumbles around me like I’m on a roller coaster, and then I crash into a foldout table ten feet from where I started. It topples under me, spilling chips and plastic cups onto my chest and shoulders.

I blink dizzily. What the hell? A pulsating ache spreads across my lower back where it collided with the table. I’m so shocked that for a moment, I’m speechless. Did Callahan just fling me across the room?

I’m still struggling to process what happened when I notice Grady isn’t done with me yet. His face contorts into a heinous grimace, and he stalks toward me like a wild beast cornering its prey. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. This doesn’t feel right. A Depeche Mode song thumps from the speakers, but the people closest to the scene have stopped dancing and are scrambling to get out of his way. Callahan looks deranged. I’ve never seen him like this. Is he on drugs?

In a panic, I try to crawl backward, but the overturned table stops me from going anywhere. Callahan continues to advance like he wants to rip my throat out, and when the swiveling party light flickers over him, I swear his eyes flash red. My heart jumps. I’m bracing myself for whatever might come next when suddenly, Mads Jr. pops out from behind Callahan and puts a hand on his forearm.

“Grady, you need to calm down, my man,” he says in that magnanimous, charming voice that girls like Alessandra swoon over. He must’ve inherited it from his politician father. For a moment, Callahan doesn’t react, just keeps staring at me, breathing heavily. “Grady,” Mads repeats.

“What?” Grady finally growls through gritted teeth.

“Let’s not let some government moocher spoil our fun.” Mads’ arrogant green eyes slide to mine for just a second to bask in my reaction. But I’m still too rattled by what just happened to give a damn.

“Yeah, it’s all cool, bro,” Eric chimes in, emerging on the other side of Callahan.

Grady’s mouth twitches, and he gives me one last I will kill you look before Mads Jr. and Eric all but drag him away.

I exhale with a shudder. What in the holy hell was that? Was Grady seriously going to murder me in a room full of people? I don’t think even being filthy rich would save him from prison, although I wouldn’t want to test that theory. With a grunt, I push myself to my feet. My back aches. At least none of my bones seem broken.

Fiona must have heard the commotion because she rushes up to me. “Oh my god, Jonathan! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just got in a fight with Callahan.” I brush potato chip crumbs off my shirt.

“I saw!” She scowls. “What the hell is his problem?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly, shaking my head. “I think I’m gonna head back to my dorm.”

Fiona’s face falls. “I can’t believe that prick ruined your night after I finally convinced you to go to a party.” That triggers a twinge of guilt in me, but there’s no point in telling Fiona I’d given up on the fun even before Callahan attempted to murder me for ratting him out. “Are you sure you’re okay to walk back by yourself, though?” she asks with concern. She glances over her shoulder to check where Callahan’s clique is, but they are nowhere in sight.

I give her a small smile. “Don’t worry. He isn’t gonna chase me across campus to settle the score. They’re probably drunk racing his Testarossa in the mountains by now.” Which is something the legacies are known for doing during their wild parties. Anyone else would have their licenses stripped by now, but of course, those assholes are immune.

“All right, well, let me know if you need anything.” Fiona gives me a tight hug, and I try not to wince.

I wish her a fun rest of the night, leave her with friends, and trudge back to West Hall. I know I told her not to worry, but as I step into the chilly September night, a shiver crawls up my spine. Other than a few students smoking cigarettes outside the dorm, the campus looks deserted. Everyone must be at various parties or the bar downtown. The echo of the music in South Hall fades, and shadows stretch around me as I head down the small walkway that winds past the tree-lined courtyard. I try to stop my brain from replaying the image of Callahan’s vicious glare, but the whole thing still feels so surreal. How could he have lifted me off my feet like that? Maybe it was just inertia carrying me—that, or he spent the entire summer lifting weights.

A rustling noise to my right jerks me out of my thoughts. My nerves must be frayed because I jolt to a stop. The noise came from the direction of the dining hall, which is odd. It should be closed at this hour; the lights are off. Despite my better judgment, I peer into the darkness surrounding it. My pulse ticks up. Even though I don’t see anyone, an unnerving feeling that someone is watching me latches on to my skin like a cold, wet leech.

“Get a grip, Jonathan. No one’s coming after you,” I tell myself after an eerie moment of silence, and resume my walk back to my dorm at a much faster pace.

In the distance, I hear the screech of tires against asphalt as a car races away.