by Lori L. Otto
“Are you afraid of a little tampon, Trey?” She watches as my face turns the color of the tape I’m still holding. “Oh, you are! That’s so cute!”
“Shut up,” I warn her, embarrassed.
“You make it very difficult not to crush on you,” she says. “Blushing over a ‘lady product.’ Who calls it that, anyway?” She laughs harder.
“Okay, I’m leaving. Go write a sonnet about it,” I tell her.
“Don’t think I won’t!” she calls after me.
“Don’t make me edit it!” I holler back.
“Wait!” she says. “You have my keys!”
I look at my hands, so distracted that I honestly didn’t realize I still had them. I examine the keychain, a picture of her standing in between two guys about our age, all their arms around each other. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top. Her hair looks about the same length, even though it’s swept to the side in a low ponytail that’s pulled in front of her left shoulder. The picture has to be relatively recent. One of the guys could be her brother; the other must be her boyfriend.
“Was this on the pier?” I ask her, showing her the picture when she reaches me.
“Yeah, last year over spring break.” She takes the keys and studies the image, smiling wistfully. “It was a good day.”
“Hence why you’ve memorialized it in a keychain, right?” I remain focused on the ends of the tape roll in my hands, pretending not to show much interest in the picture. “Is one of those guys your twin brother?”
“Mmhmm,” she says. “That’s Joel.” She points out the guy on her right. He’s wearing a lime green Elvis shirt and a big smile. I’m more interested in the other one now. He’s smiling, too, sort of, wearing black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt. “It’s killing you, isn’t it?”
“What? No,” I lie, looking up and shaking my head.
She rocks on the balls of her feet and stares. “Why does your skin do that?”
“Do what?” She doesn’t have to tell me. I feel the blush, my own personal lie detector going off for the world to see.
“Your fair skin is all… mottled… like you were standing under the sun too long, only some of your face was sheltered by trees or something.”
“Maybe I’ve just been in the sun too long.”
“No… there it is. Now your whole face is the same, red color. You’re blushing again.”
“Jesus Christ. Yes, I want to know who the other guy is. So what? I’m curious.”
“You should Google him.”
“What, is your boyfriend famous?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Well, who is it?”
“Nyall. N-Y-A-L-L. Nyall Fitzsimmons.” I lift my brows curiously, unsure that I should be privy to this information now that I know he’s a relative.
“I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Well, fuck, Trey, now that I’ve told you his name, you’re either going to look him up now or later in the privacy of your apartment. You’ll want to talk to me about him.” She nods encouragingly. “Go on.”
I swallow and hand her the tape I was holding so I can get out my phone. She heads over to a short, protruding wall from the side of the building and takes a seat. After typing in his name and hitting the search button, I do the same.
A bunch of news articles come up, but I pick the one from the Arlington Connection. The date is a little over six years ago. I read it aloud.
Son of local cop and special agent holds teacher and classmates hostage for three hours
Yesterday, just after 3:30 p.m., Arlington police were called to West High School, where fifteen-year-old Nyall Fitzsimmons had locked himself, band director Farah Rogers, and two other classmates inside the teacher’s office. It was initially believed that Fitzsimmons, son of Washington, D.C. Police Lieutenant Beth Fitzsimmons and Martin Fitzsimmons, a special agent who also works in Washington, D.C., had obtained a weapon from the home of one of his parents.
After hours of talks, negotiators learned that the student was not armed, and they diffused what had begun as a tense situation. Fitzsimmons let his three hostages go; thirty minutes later, he also emerged from the classroom with no further resistance.
An investigation is still underway.
I look up at her, wondering if she expects me to keep searching for more articles. “So what happened?”
“To make him do that, or what happened to him after?” she asks.
“Whatever you’re comfortable telling me. If you’re comfortable telling me.”
“I figure I know everything about your family. You should know a little about mine,” she says with a small smile. “I’ll tell you what happened in those three hours first. He was asking them all to kill him. Pleading with them. He said no one was leaving the room until he was dead. He was out of his mind. Literally.” Her voice changes as she shakes her head and tears swell in her eyes. “My parents and Joel and I were outside of the school, waiting. We were listening to him over a speaker that the task force had set up. My mom is a trained negotiator, too, but Nyall had made it clear he didn’t want to talk to my parents. So we listened to him beg for someone to take his life. It was the scariest day of my life–up until that point, anyway.
“When he came out of the school, he was sobbing. They had him in handcuffs, and as they were putting him in the car, he was saying, ‘I don’t know why I did it. Mommy, Daddy, I don’t know why I did it.’ I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him call them Mommy and Daddy. He’s two years older than us. And there was a crowd of hundreds of people there–so many of his friends and classmates and teachers.”
“Was he a troubled child?” I ask her.
“No,” she says. “Not at all. I mean, he wasn’t great in school. He was a little weird; had a weird sense of humor that leaned a little dark sometimes, but no one thought anything of it. That night, he was taken to a hospital for observation. We went to see him. He was handcuffed to the bed–it was awful. He couldn’t understand why he was there; why he was in handcuffs. He didn’t even remember what he’d done. He just wanted to go home. We all watched him cry himself to sleep. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to curl up with him, but they wouldn’t let us touch him.”
Coley starts crying now, the emotions of that day still very clear and close to her heart. After scanning our surroundings and feeling certain no one is watching, I put my phone in my pocket and place my arm around her shoulders. She leans into me, but starts to take deep breaths in an effort to compose herself.
“I don’t talk about this often.”
“We don’t have to now, Coley. It seems very raw, still. But, I mean, he’s obviously free now, right? He was at the pier with you last year.”
She pulls away from me and shakes her head. “He’ll never be free. Truly free. He’s institutionalized in a private hospital. That wasn’t the only time there was trouble. He can’t control them. Violent, brief attacks of derangement. There are some moments when he wants to die and other moments when he wants to kill. There’s no sure sign of when one will strike, but he can’t be trusted to be alone or with anyone who’s defenseless.”
“Holy shit.” I allow that to sink in. “How often does it happen?”
“Maybe twenty or thirty times a year.”
“So how did he get to the pier?”
She sighs. “For one week, two times a year, my parents both take time off together and they invite him home. Dad moves in with Mom so they can both be there around the clock to watch him. We do it at spring break and Thanksgiving. The hospital only allows it because of my parents’ training. So last spring, we brought him to New York so he could see where we’d be going to school.”
“Joel goes to Columbia, too?”
“He goes to ICC.” I shrug my shoulders. “The International Culinary Center.”
“Cool. But Nyall… they don’t know what brought it on? Like, initially?”
“Well, after a year and a hal
f in therapy, he opened up about something none of us knew. From the time when he was seven until he was twelve, he was sexually abused by his older best friend and his best friend’s father. He never told anyone. He was so embarrassed. That friend and his family moved away; that’s the only reason the abuse stopped.
“But we found out that the day he took that teacher and students hostage, his ex-friend had moved back and enrolled into his high school. So I think it’s safe to say that’s the impetus. That’s what brought it all out of him. But everything was boiling beneath the surface for years. It was just a matter of time before everything erupted.”
I’m still stunned by everything she’s told me. “So, did anything happen to the father and son that abused him?”
“The father is serving a twenty-year sentence. The son, they say, is a victim, just like Nyall. They say that he was only doing what his father taught him to do; what he thought was normal. But, I mean, he was fourteen when they moved away! He had to know better by then, right?”
“You’d think so,” I agree with her.
“He has to go to court-appointed counseling. That’s it. And they’ve ruined my brother’s life.”
“It doesn’t seem right.” She’s quiet. “Where is Nyall’s hospital? Can you visit him outside of those two weeks?”
“Yeah.” Her blue eyes regain a little of their shimmer. “It’s in Berryville. About an hour outside of DC. Joel and I go there at least one Sunday a month.”
“Are you going this weekend?” I ask.
“No. Probably not for another two weeks. I send him letters and silly poems. I don’t know if he likes getting any of it. He never says. He never writes back.”
“I bet he does. Deep down, I bet he feels loved. And who doesn’t like that feeling?”
“I don’t know that he knows that feeling. I think someone confused that feeling for him to the point that he doesn’t understand the definition–emotionally. He doesn’t trust the feeling.”
“That’s devastating.” The realization hits me hard, but I understand what she’s saying. She looks so small, slumped over in her sadness. “Come here,” I say, encouraging her with open arms. She accepts a hug willingly.
“Thank you.”
“So you live here at Carman Hall?” I ask her, standing up.
“I do. Right here.” She lingers outside awkwardly. I do the same. “Do you live close by?”
“Yeah. I rent an apartment at Morningside and 110th.”
“That’s not that close.”
“I wouldn’t recommend you come stalk me late at night, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I nudge her playfully. “Too many drunk frat guys out that late. Which, by the way, I spend plenty of time on the next street over from you at our frat house.”
“Speaking of that. Are you friends with Asher? Our president? I think he’s in your fraternity,” she says. I was hoping bringing up the house was a good segue into this conversation.
“He’s one of my best friends, yeah. Why?”
“He asked me out,” she says with an incredulous laugh.
I nod, then look over at her. “So? When are you going out with him?”
“Oh, I’m not.” Smug satisfaction. It’s the only thing I feel right now. “I told him I felt it was unethical to date the president of the paper. Between me and you, I’m saving myself.”
I look at her skeptically, remembering the pills that had fallen out of her purse but not wanting to state the obvious. I have to ask, though. She made the statement that begs the question to be asked. “For marriage?”
“That ship’s already sailed,” she says, laughing. “For the right guy. Plus, Asher gives off a weird vibe.”
“Did he take the rejection okay?”
“Well, he promised to keep it between us. He said no one had to know–that it was just one date. And he gave me his number and told me to call him when I changed my mind. When. Not if, but when.”
“He can be a little overly self-assured,” I comment.
“Cocky, Trey. He’s cocky.”
“All right, yes. He is. So did you keep his number?”
“I figured I might need it for the paper, so yeah.”
“I’m your editor. That should be enough. I mean, I would think…” Let it go, Trey.
“Probably so. I should maybe, I don’t know. Delete it?”
“If you think you need it…” I say, shrugging as I look up at her building. As much as I don’t want her to keep Asher’s number, I have no right to tell her to get rid of it. “Let me guess. You’re on the third floor.”
She shakes her head, grinning. “No. I’m on a co-ed floor. The ninth, to be exact.”
“As long as it’s not the sixth.”
“It’s not the party floor.”
“Good, because I need you to be focused on your writing.”
“Yes, boss,” she tells me.
“If you have any questions about this weekend’s assignment, just call or text. I’ll be around.”
“Sounds good. Thanks, Trey.”
“Anytime, laureate. Aslon wants your poetry, so… just stick to the assignment; but be you, Coley.”
She nods her head. “You asked for it.”
chapter seven
After finally getting into my studying routine, coach told me in practice today that my backstroke is sloppy. I have to add ten hours of practice this week, which seems next-to-impossible for me, but that’s not something I could tell him. I’ll just have to take it out of my gym time and sleep time.
I finish a light dinner of chicken and squash, then check my email to see if Coley’s assignment is finished. The notification is in my inbox. At least I have something to look forward to when I get back. Editing her work invigorates me. Playing with her poetry is a challenge, and I like it. Hopefully she’ll want to work with me, even though it’ll be a little later than normal.
- - Hi, boss.
Her instant message pops up in the corner of my screen.
- Hey to you. I see your article’s in the folder.
- - Do you have time to work on it?
- I will later. I have to go up to Baker to log some water time.
- - You’re going swimming?
- I am.
- - I need to do that.
I tap my red pen on my desk a few times, probably not long enough to properly think through this idea.
- Come with me.
- - Can I? Even if I’m not on the team?
- Sure. I’ll be there.
- - You don’t mind?
- What? Having someone who actually can critique my supposed-sloppy backstroke? Not one bit.
- - Are you leaving now?
- I can wait.
- - I can be ready by the time you get here.
- Then I’ll be there in ten minutes.
I call down to the concierge and ask them to have my car ready, then gather up a few towels, my goggles and my stopwatch. Before I leave, I drop my things by the door and go back to the bathroom to brush my teeth and gargle with some mouthwash.
Fresh breath shouldn’t matter to me right now, but it does.
I’m going to pick up Coley, my stomach is in a knot all of a sudden, and yes, fresh breath matters to me. I don’t care what that implies; I’m just going to shove that to the back of my mind while I go work out with my friend who happens to need the practice just as much as I do.
As soon as I get in my car, I go through my music and try to figure out what I want to listen to–what I want her to know that I listen to. I settle on my playlist of The Aurange Peace, skipping the first song that comes on because it tends to take me to a darker place than I want to go. Their music is pretty melancholy, but their sound has depth that few artists can capture these days. I also like that I discover something new with their lyrics just about every time I listen to their songs.
I’ve seen them live four times and was lucky enough to meet them the last time, thanks to Jon’s brother, Will. In addition to him being a scien
ce god, he’s also just as talented musically, and he plays with Damon Littlefield, one of the most talented, acclaimed and popular artists to come out of Queens in this century. When I talked to the band after their show, I was surprised to learn that Bryce, the lead vocalist for The Aurange Peace, only writes the lyrics after the rest of the song has been completed. I expected him to be a poet with an active mind like Coley’s, but he works differently. For some reason, to me, it gave the songs more dimension, knowing the words were borne from the sounds they would eventually overlay.
Coley’s waiting for me on the curb in front of her dorm when I pull up. She puts her tote bag in the backseat before joining me up front. Her hair is pulled back in a messy braid, and her face is fresh, naked of all makeup. Her bright, blue eyes make me feel buoyant. I forget to breathe for a second; forget my words.
“Hi!” She shuts the door and buckles her seatbelt before producing her phone from her pocket. “I’ve never been to Baker before. I didn’t know if they’d have a place for me to change, so I just wore my suit under this.” She pulls her down coat back to expose the strap of her bathing suit.
“You must be so cold!” I say, navigating my way back toward Morningside Drive and turning on her seat warmer.
“You underestimate my coat.”
“Did you bring something to change into? Because you will be freezing after we’re finished.”
“I did. I guess you’re telling me they have locker rooms,” she says as she pulls her braid over her shoulder and starts to play with the end of it.
“Of course they do.”
“I just wasn’t sure if you’d have access to the women’s room. That’s all.”
“I’ll make sure you have a room to change, regardless. I doubt this place will be busy at this time of night. The only people that’ll be here are the ones in trouble with their coaches,” I tell her with a chuckle.
“So your backstroke is giving you problems?”
“So he says,” I tell her with a little dissent in my tone.
“I don’t mind being the judge.”
“I appreciate the company. I mean, someone who actually knows how it should look, who knows good times.”
