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“I was professional,” I defend. “I told him it wasn’t up to him.”
Theo laughs out hard as his eyes widen.
“Well,” he says, sitting forward and rubbing his hands together. “He won’t think you’re weak, so that’s probably good.”
“You think?” I quirk a brow.
“No.” He laughs. “Nothing about maneuvering a relationship with a Bennett is good. But is it worth it?”
I hold his stare for a few seconds.
“Yeah, it’s worth it.”
“Then, there you go,” he says, standing up and pulling his bag over his arm. “See? You didn’t need me. You just need to sober up, and I’m not the man for that.”
He stops his steps in the middle of our room and looks at me sideways.
“Thanks, man. Seriously,” I say.
He nods with a tight-lipped grin then leaves our room and lets the door slam behind him just to remind me that I’m hungover.
At the sensation of a text coming in, I feel in my pocket for my phone and pull it out. It’s from Brooklyn, wanting to know I’m okay. It’s not her first message either, and it looks like she’s called me. I need to find her. I know she said it wasn’t my fault, but I need to be better than that. I let those guys push my buttons. I let them win. I embarrassed myself, and now that I know Brooklyn’s dad was there, I probably embarrassed her, too.
I gather my things for a shower and make my way to the bathroom to get cleaned up. I’m not sure how long I stand under the steaming hot water, but long enough to feel semi-human. I slip into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black tee that smells nothing like bootlegged whatever-the-hell-that-was-I-drank-last-night.
I grab my wallet and phone then head out the door, poised to call Brooklyn and beg her to forgive me for going dark last night. I make it to the stairwell when my phone buzzes with a book’s worth of paragraphs type of text. I don’t recognize the number, so I scroll back to the top of the message and stop to read it from the start.
UNKNOWN:Hello Cameron. This is Hal Burkhauser. Your mother gave me your number and said I could contact you. I tried calling yesterday afternoon. I would have left a voicemail, but it said your inbox was full.
I purse my lips and silently scold myself for being lazy. I haven’t emptied my voicemail in a year. It’s probably full of useless messages from dumbasses who want to get high or drunk. Angry at myself, I stop at the bottom of the stairs and take a seat on the last two steps, first spending an entire eleven seconds on deleting the messages in my voicemail—seriously, I’m a lazy fuck—and then reading the rest of Hal’s message.
I’m researching your father’s last hearing and I noticed that someone wrote a letter in support of denying him parole. I did some digging and was able to get a copy of the full file with the letter. It was written by Walden Bennett. You may or may not recognize his name, but he is running for Senate and is currently serving in the President’s cabinet. Your mother said he’s a Welles alumnus. I made a few calls, and it seems his daughter actually attends Welles now. In the event that you know her, I thought maybe you could reach out to see if she would be willing to help your lawyer connect with her father for some research. I don’t want to put you in an awkward situation, so I can handle the details. We would like to know why he requested a denial, but more importantly, it would be good to know if he plans to do so again. Please let me know when you receive this and if you are able to assist. I’m really hopeful we can help your dad this time. Kindly, HB
I’m not sure how long I have been sitting in this stairwell staring at his message, reading it over and over with foolish hope that one time it will read differently. It never does because that’s a stupid fantasy. Reality is shit. Reality is cruel. Reality wants to crush my soul and still my heart and bury my worth all at once.
I’m too broken to scream, and my body has lost the will to be strong. I can’t even seem to cry on the outside. Inside, I’m drowning. How? How is this my life?
A door a few floors up slams and the stairs begin to echo with clomping steps and laughter. I get to my feet and run my hand through my hair, pulling it forward to hide my face in case they catch up to me. I manage to make it out of the building just as a bunch of third years rush out behind me with a football. They literally toss it to one another over my head as I trudge along the main walkway toward the library. I bypass my trusty window because I don’t think I have the strength to scale the wall and pull myself through. Plus, this place is the first place Brooklyn will look for me, and I need time to process everything. How do I even share this with her?
The trail is busy with students today. It’s one of those rare crisp mornings with a bright sun and an ocean-blue sky. If I were any of these other people, I would be out here too, loving life and breathing this air. This air isn’t for me, though. The place I’m at—the darkness in my head—needs to be buried.
Desperate to get away from people, I decide to slip into theactuallibrary, somewhere quiet where nobody would look for me. Somewhere people go to read books for a long time and study their weekends away.
I find myself in the far corner where old newspapers are bound and organized by year and where donated sets of encyclopedias are collecting dust because we have a fucking Internet now. It’s the most useless nook on this campus, and there’s a chair. I wish there weren’t four of them, but it’s solitary enough for now.
My body sinks into the worn leather and I slump down, propping my phone on my stomach and holding it at the top with the tip of my finger. I tap the screen to wake it up and stare at the worst part of Hal’s message again.
Walden Bennett.
Somehow, Brooklyn’s father hated me before he even knew who I was. A premonition, perhaps. This can’t be on accident. This isn’t happenstance. This is premeditated cruelty. And I don’t know how to handle it.
* * *
Present
I love her.
I love her so fucking much.
