Page 17 of Best Man on Campus

“The question is are you brave enough?” I pat the messed-up bedding next to me. She narrows her gaze and rolls her eyes, but she sits. On the very edge. I wrap an arm around her as much to hold her there as to comfort her.

“Why the aversion to blood?” I ask. She shrugs, looks away.

“How about you? Why do you have an aversion to blood?” she challenges me.

“I have no idea.” It’s true. But I think Jazzy knows where her fear comes from.

“That could be tough for a doctor, don’t you think?” She grins, enjoying the fact of my difficulty.

“Yeah. It’s a challenge, but I deal with it.”

“You haven’t told anyone about it, have you? No one knows? Not even your father, the doctor?” I wonder what the fuck Majik told her about my father.

“He knew about it when I was young, but he probably figures I’m over it. Like I should be by now.”

“You fucking liar. You’re a fraud.” Excitement lights her face.

“I know. But so are you. Pretending you’re a slut when you’re not.”

She laughs and it feels like angels singing to my soul, releasing the tightness, freeing everything that’s been keeping me from joy, so that I actually feel it, that lightness of spirit that I only get when I’m on the ice in skates with a hockey stick in my hands these days. She squeezes my thigh and her hand creeps higher, but I clamp mine on her wrist and stop her.

“Seriously—”

“Anything but that,” she says. “Not when you have me laughing, for fuck’s sake.”

I turn to her and caress her cheek. “I love your laugh.”

“Well don’t get too attached.”

“So what do I do, Jazzy, girl with the golden voice? Do I play hockey or play doctor?” I’m half serious, wondering what her damaged old-soul advice will be.

“You’re the golden one. Either way.” She waves her bandaged hand, then pulls it to her chest. “Fuck, that hurts. I almost forgot about it.” I put my hand over it, covering the spots of blood showing at the center of her palm, knowing I’ll need to re-dress it for her and hoping I’ll have the chance, that she’ll let me.

“I’ll feel guilty if I don’t become a doctor.”

“Because of your dad?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m over that. Because of all the people I could help.” I don’t mention my mom, whose brother died of leukemia. The last thing I want to do is whine about my losses when she’s lost so much more—or never even had parents.

She lies back on one elbow and looks at me like I’m crazy and then her expression melts into something less angry, less resentful, and more like she’s looking at something unrecognizable.

“Who are you? Some alien from the planet Do-gooder?” She laughs, but it’s not humor, it’s distrust I hear. “You know you could help people as a hockey star if you wanted to. I hear pro athletes write big fat checks to hospitals all the time.”

“Any rich asshole can do that.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “So be a doctor then. I don’t care.”

“No, you don’t.” Her words are freeing. Up to a point. I can talk to her and she doesn’t judge, has no advice, only listens and makes the kind of suggestions I’ve heard a million times. But the tightness in my chest remains as I face an organic chem exam tomorrow and hockey practice afterwards.

The choice remains difficult because they’re two different and opposite worlds, and I need to choose to live in one of them. Problem is I don’t know if I’ll fit into either one. Not completely, not down to my soul. So what? She makes me feel the so what.

I stay in her apartment all day Sunday. She never did throw me out. We make a mess of her sofa bed, sheets and blankets tangled and half torn off revealing the old yellowed mattress.

She makes sauce and meatballs while she sings and she seems content, like any other girl, if I discount the sad disturbing tone of her song. I watch her at the stove, still in her jeans and T-shirt with my number.

“What about the song you sang when I was dressing your cut?”

“What about it?” Defiance returns to her eyes, full blown Jazzy generalized rage sparking to life fast and furious like I’ve struck a raw nerve with a cattle prod. My first do-gooder instinct is to probe and sooth, but the selfish part of me doesn’t want to ruin the day, so I gloss over.