by Bert Murray
“Yeah, it’s a classic,” I muttered.
“I love movies that make you cry. I’ve watched Ordinary People, like, six times.”
Liz was really trying. She started to knead my back. It hurt, but in a good way. I didn’t want her to stop.
“Wow, you’re tight,” she said.
“It’s from all this drama with Jasmine.”
“Let’s not focus on the bad stuff.”
She had the right idea. I needed to distract myself. I rolled over on top of her and kissed her hard. She felt for the edge of my T-shirt and pulled it up far enough so she could caress my lower back.
“You know what your best feature is? Your big brown eyes,” she said.
“Huh? Oh, thanks.” I squeezed her breasts. They were softer than Jasmine’s. Not as firm. But still nice.
“You’re in good shape. Do you go to the gym a lot?” she asked, pulling off her shirt and bra.
“I lift a little.”
I looked again at Liz’s breasts and soft stomach.
“I want you, Liz.”
“Me, too. I mean, I want you, too,” she said, gently pushing me aside.
She pulled down her jeans, revealing a red lace thong. Jasmine never wore thongs. There she was again! How could I get Jasmine the hell out of my head? Liz unbuckled my belt, undid my jeans, slid them off and tossed them onto the floor.
“Wait,” I said, reaching for my pants.
I pulled my wallet out of the back pocket and opened it. I found a condom and tossed my wallet and jeans back onto the floor. I ripped the package open, but Liz took it from my hand.
“I’ve got something more fun,” she said. “I think you’re going to like this.” She sat up and pulled a pink heart-shaped box off the shelf above her bed and tore open a green foil package that had a mint-flavored condom inside.
She gently placed the condom on me and held it there before using her mouth to roll it down. Damn, did I get hard. She really knew what she was doing. My expectations had been way too low.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” I said. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
She giggled. “I read an article in Cosmo on 10 ways to spice things up in the bedroom. That was No. 2.”
“I’d love to see what No. 1 was,” I said teasingly.
The sex was okay, but I wasn’t happy. I was with a random girl from the Campus Pub and Karl was with Jasmine. I still couldn’t believe I’d lost her. The breakup still didn’t seem real. Part of me was still counting on her changing her mind about me.
Liz nestled her head in the crook of my arm. I’d pulled out of her before she had an orgasm. I thought she might have been annoyed. But she wasn’t the complaining kind.
“I’m a little distracted. I’m sorry,” I said.
“Look at it this way—at least you didn’t waste all of college dating someone who cheats.”
“Wait, how did you know she cheated on me?” I asked, pushing her off me so I could sit up. “I never told you that.”
“Everyone knows that she’s been hooking up with Karl.”
“Are you fuckin’ serious?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
I felt my heart beating more rapidly, and my shoulder muscles tightened up again.
“So how long has it been going on?” I asked.
“I dunno. My friend Jill saw them together, like, a month ago,” she said, propping herself up.
This made everything worse. “No, there’s no damn way. Your friend must have been wrong,” I said and grabbed at the back of my hair.
“Jill’s pretty reliable. Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No.”
Liz leaned over to the night table next to her bed and reached for her pack of Parliament Lights.
“Tell me. Where did Jill see them?” I asked.
“Sunset Lake. She drives a white VW Rabbit, right?”
“Yeah. Sunset Lake. That was our place.” I clenched my jaw. “Fucking assholes.”
Liz lighted a cigarette and took a long drag. She opened the window behind us to let the smoke out. Some cool air entered the room. My whole body was hot, and I was sweating.
“Want one?”
“No thanks, I don’t smoke. Actually, you know what? What the fuck, lemme have one.”
Liz pulled another cigarette out of the box and put it in her mouth. She lighted it before putting it in my mouth. I inhaled and felt the smoke burn the back of my throat and lungs.
Let it sting. It was nothing compared with the sting of the words I’d just heard. Liz flicked some ashes into the ashtray she’d placed on my abs before taking another drag.
I took a deep breath. I was boiling inside. Could Liz’s friend be right? I felt heat between my fingers and realized that the cigarette had almost burned down to the filter. I quickly stubbed it out in the ashtray. Liz did the same and put the ashtray back on the shelf.
The stupid Cheshire Cat I thought I saw in the cemetery came back to me. He had his paw on the kettle of soup. He had that grin that showed all his teeth. The grin that meant he didn’t mean a word he said. Like Karl.
Karl gave me advice and pretended to be my best friend. All along, he was just figuring out how to steal Jasmine from me. I could kill that motherfucker. He’d turned my entire life inside out. So damn selfish. Karl was full of shit.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” said Liz, leaning over me. The Cheshire Cat faded. Liz picked up my T-shirt and, instead of handing it to me, put it on. She lay back down on the bed.
What was she doing? She was acting like she was my girlfriend. I wished she’d stop. I felt nothing for her.
She smiled. “I really had fun tonight.”
“Yeah,” I said halfheartedly.
Liz put her arms around me and held me tight. “Wanna sleep over? My roommate is with her boyfriend. It will just be the two of us.”
I was totally shitfaced. I didn’t want to stay, but I didn’t think I could make it home. “Yeah, sure.”
“Cool,” she said, giving me a moist kiss on the cheek. “Maybe in the morning we can go to Campus Town and get some cinnamon raisin bagels and cream cheese. That would be fun. Wouldn’t it?”
“Let’s see how we feel in the morning.”
“Wow! I’m so excited you’re sleeping over.”
I wasn’t. Liz caressed my face. I wished she’d stop and just fall asleep so I didn’t have to be reminded where I was. Or who I was with. I stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all over her ceiling.
My thoughts turned back to Jasmine. I remembered how fascinated she was by black holes and time travel. I missed Jasmine so fucking much. The universe was empty without her.
Liz stirred in her sleep. She clutched me tighter and moved her leg on top of mine. Her body heat became unbearable. I wanted to get out of her bed. I wanted to run away from the whole damn mess my life had become.
A man was supposed to be able to handle things without becoming pathetic. My mind continued to spin. For a brief second I even thought about suicide. John said in I Found Out that you can’t suppress what you really feel about yourself. Okay, I was facing my self-loathing, but I didn’t need to go to the extreme of ending my life over losing a girl. I missed Jasmine, but she wasn’t that important. Liz began to snore softly. Couldn’t she shut up?
Shit. I suddenly felt horrible. Using Liz just for sex didn’t feel like me. More like Karl. The last person I wanted to be like.
But Karl had gotten Jasmine. Hadn’t he?
11.
MY UNSHAVEN FACE was starting to itch and my T-shirt smelled of sweat. I’d hardly slept last night and didn’t have the energy to go to classes. I just snoozed on the sofa in the dorm lounge, watching soap operas.
I stuck my hand into the bag of Lay’s potato chips next to me and shoved a handful into my mouth. I’d been eating potato chips, Twinkies, Devil Dogs and Snickers and drinking a lot of coffee. I had big red pimples on my forehead and my chin. I wiped my greasy hand on the side of the couch, leavi
ng a dark stain.
Chester walked by and noticed me on the sofa looking half-dead. He dropped his winter coat onto the floor and sat next to me on a beat-up matching red armchair. He leaned over and grabbed some chips out of the bag.
“So what’s going on with Beau and Hope?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“On Days of Our Lives, what’s happening?” he asked, looking at the TV. “The last time I watched, Steve was torturing Hope with some fake acid.”
“Oh, I saw Savannah and Patch take Beau and Hope hostage. I didn’t know you watch this stuff?”
“Are you kidding?” he said, his hand in the potato chips bag again. “Speaking of soap operas, I heard what happened with Jasmine.” He stopped chewing, narrowed his eyes, widened his mouth to show his teeth and leered at the TV again. “Karl is as evil as Victor.”
“Victor who?”
“Victor Kiriakis, you know, on Days.” Flakes from the potato chips covered his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice. He licked his fingers and kept stuffing his mouth with more chips. “The whole situation sucks.”
“Whose situation? Mine and Jasmine’s or Beau and Hope’s?” I asked, completely lost.
“Your situation. I know how much you love Jasmine.”
“Loved. As in past tense. The Jasmine I loved is gone.”
I looked at Chester and realized that he looked different. His hair was combed and his skin had cleared up. He looked as if he’d really pulled himself together. It was strange. Things had come full circle. Now I was the one with a face full of pimples. How come?
“You’re looking good. How are things going with Susan?” I asked.
Chester got up from the armchair and sat on the floor on his coat. “I saw her last night.”
“Really?” My stomach was growling. It was the chips. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, but we haven’t had sex yet.” He scratched his nose.
“Wait a minute, then you guys never did hook up that first night when you met at the Campus Pub?”
He blushed. “I lied to you. I didn’t want to disappoint you after you went out of your way. All we did was kiss.”
“What you do with Susan is your business.”
“The problem is that she isn’t sure she feels enough chemistry.”
“Well, at least she’s honest and doesn’t play games with you. That’d feel a lot worse. I’m talking from experience.”
Chester looked around to see whether anyone was coming and then whispered. “Susan told me I didn’t know how to kiss.”
Poor old Chester. Nineteen and he still didn’t know how to kiss a girl.
“That stinks, Chester, but you have to remember it’s just the beginning with Susan. Over time you get in sync. You just need some practice,” I said.
“I’m crazy about her. But how am I going to practice if she won’t kiss me?”
“Just keep on seeing her and see how things go.” I knew I wasn’t helping him much, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say and I was out of energy anyway.
“OK. I’m not giving up with Susan yet.” He leaned forward and stared at the dark circles under my eyes.
“What?” I asked, self-consciously running my hand over my hair.
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“Jasmine and Karl have really ruined things for you. You know what would make you feel better?”
I shook my head.
Chester’s ferret eyes widened and he smirked. “Revenge. It works on Days of Our Lives. We could think something up. I’m good at things like that!”
“Like what?” I was skeptical. I heard voices, two of them. One in each ear. But they weren’t saying the same thing. One said, “Go, Chester. Screw Karl. Make him pay any way you can. That bastard deserves it.” The other voice said I didn’t want Chester to do something idiotic. What was he going to do? Start a fire in Karl’s room? I could see it now. Blue, red, orange. The flames were everywhere. Big billowing clouds of gray smoke. Burning everything Karl had. He’d burn down the dorm. Did I really want to take things that far?
“Well, Colin?” Chester said, eyeing me like a dog listening for his master’s instruction.
I wanted to yell, “Yes, roast him!”
Chester’s face turned into one big grin. His eyes screwed up and folded in. All I saw as I stared at him was a big gaping mouth. Upper teeth making a white border, tongue stretched out ready to lick his lips.
“I could start by stealing Karl’s wallet if you want.”
Was he serious or trying to be funny? Serious, I decided. “No thanks.” Chester was a loose cannon. “But I appreciate the offer.”
He looked disappointed. He took a brown paper bag out of his jacket’s inside pocket. He pulled a large bar of chocolate out of the bag and began to eat it. He licked the whole top part first.
“What are you going to do? You can’t let him get away with this,” he said between bites.
Small pieces of chocolate flew from his mouth when he spoke. I wondered whether I looked like that when I ate candy.
“Right now I just feel like doing nothing,” I said. “I don’t know where I am with anything.”
Chester scratched his chin. “Are you sure? Revenge is sweet.”
“Maybe those two shits just deserve each other. Maybe it’s meant to be.” As soon as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. If Karl hadn’t been such a disloyal liar, nothing would have happened between him and Jasmine. I didn’t know which one of them I hated more.
“Well, listen, Colin, I’m in your corner. I want you to know I got your back.”
“Thanks, Chester.”
He picked up his pumpkin-orange down coat and left. I went back to watching the soaps. What a reversal of fortune—now Chester wanted to help me out. Now I was the nowhere man.
12.
A WEEK HAD passed since I’d found Karl having sex with Jasmine. I was obsessed with the double betrayal. It was by far the worst experience of my life.
I saw that as soon as you let your guard down, people were ready to pounce and destroy you. I couldn’t take anything for granted anymore.
Students in the dorm noticed the change in me. Drowning in the blues, dead tired, up all night and listening to Rubber Soul until 4 in the morning. That was my routine. Then five cups of coffee just to keeps my eyes open. Up all night. Counting sheep. Hard to breathe. Couldn’t get Jasmine out of my mind.
Headaches lasted for hours. And I’d forget to shower. I smelled bad. At the Campus Pub, night after night. Another bottle of beer in my hand. Always tired, I was blowing off classes. Not studying.
Who was I fooling? Bad karma would catch up with me. Bite me in the ass.
13.
THERE WAS A knock before the door opened. It was Big Ty. He was carrying a six-pack and walked over to my desk chair without saying a word. He swiveled back and forth in the chair and scratched his chin, like someone searching for words. He handed me a cold can of beer. “It’s fucked-up, Prep. I couldn’t believe it at first when I found out. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
I was stretched out on my bed. I held the can with one hand and reached for a half-eaten bag of Fritos. “I dunno.” I felt lethargic. I didn’t feel like talking to Big Ty. I wanted to pull the blanket over my head.
“Listen, man, I want to be sure you know that I don’t respect what Karl did. Not at all. I don’t know why I do him any favors. He sure doesn’t deserve my help with all his misbehaving. Why, that boy had me running crazy yesterday looking for his football helmet. We never found it. It’s plain disappeared. Anyway, Colin, you’re a solid guy, and it’s a damn shame this all had to happen to you.” Big Ty leaned over and pulled a beer from the six-pack for himself. “Seriously, what the fuck was that boy thinking?”
“Who knows?”
“So, how you holding up?” Big Ty didn’t see that I had no energy for conversation. He opened his beer and chugged about half.
“To be honest, not so great
.”
He leaned forward, stretched out his arm toward me and put his giant hand on my knee. His fingers were twice as wide as mine. He looked me right in the eye.
“You’ll pull through, Prep. I promise. This whole breakup shit is just like a stomach virus that knocks you down cold. But you’ll recover. It’ll take a while, but you’ll get through this.” He spoke slowly, in a deep voice.
I didn’t believe a word he was saying. He didn’t know what it was like to go through what I’d just gone through. “I keep playing everything over and over in my head, you know, trying to figure out what went wrong. It’s driving me crazy.”
Big Ty wagged his thick finger at me. “There’s nothing to think about. You got played by those two. No way to prevent somethin’ like that.”
He settled his bulk back onto the desk. His flesh-filled white shirt pushed out near his belly. “But what you can do is pick your ass up and move on. You’ll feel better in a while, but only if you want to.” Ty stopped talking and looked at me. “Are you listening?”
I grunted.
“It’s like my Nana always says—‘You may not know what the future holds, but you know who holds it.’”
I stared at the beer can in my hand and pulled the tab back and forth until it broke off. I let it lie there next to me on the sheet.
“Look, the first thing you need to do is get out of this room.”
“I don’t feel like doing anything.” I just wanted to lie on my bed until the world ended or I did. I wished Big Ty would leave. But he got up, went to the window and pulled up the shades.
I put my hand over my eyes. The light hurt.
“It’s dark in here. No wonder you’re getting depressed. And what the hell are you listening to, man?”
He headed toward my stereo. For a big guy he moved fast.
“It’s a Nick Drake song. Time of No Reply. It’s soothing.” Other music seemed so loud.
“Hey, no good. This shit’s depressing, Prep. Didn’t Nick Drake kill himself?”
“So? What does that have to do with anything?”
