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“Dan, could you give me a ride? I need to get back to campus to pick up my truck,” I said calling him instead of sending a text.
“Of course, man. Anything you need. Just let me know.”
It was good to hear someone else’s voice. I was going crazy living in the woods alone. I had been hesitant to do it, but talking to Dan reminded me that I still had friends.
“Did you register for class yet?” He asked me on the long ride to campus.
“Not yet.”
“You gotta get on that.”
“I know. Which reminds me, do you know of any campus jobs I could get? I’m a little short on cash.”
“Of course. There’s an opening where I work. I could get you a job there no problem. And you don’t even have to stand up to do it.”
As hesitant as I was to call Dan, I left his car with a new lease on life. Transferring over to my truck, I reminded myself how lucky I was that I had broken my left leg instead of my right. Driving wouldn’t be fun, but at least it was possible.
From the stadium parking lot, I followed Dan to the student activity center. There we met with his boss. There was an opening for a job behind the front desk like Dan had said. Being a fan of football, the manager gave me the job on the spot.
“When would you like to start?” He asked me.
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
“No. That would be perfect.”
“How quickly can I get paid? I’m going to need gas money to get here.”
“I’ll rush the first paycheck through. It will be every two weeks after that.”
“Thank you!” I said overwhelmed with relief. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
I was there the next day for training and the job was even easier than Dan had said. All I had to do was watch as people slid their student I.D.s into the scanner and then compare the picture on my monitor to the person entering. It was a mind-numbing job, but I didn’t know where I would be without it.
With not everyone back from break yet, barely anyone came in. Once the semester started, it was a different story. School began for me too. I had signed up for more education classes. It was too late for me to switch my major from athletics to education, but taking the requirements would open up a few more doors.
Entering the classrooms for the first time, I always looked around for Quin. He had taken a class on childhood education, he might have taken another. If he did, it wasn’t any that I had signed up for. And with a campus of 30,000 students, the odds were very slim that I would ever see him.
Did he even want to see me again? I had to guess that he didn’t. If he did, he would have replied to any of the now numerous texts that I had sent him. It was hard for me to believe that it had ended like that. Quin was the one person I thought wouldn’t care that I couldn’t play football. Yet, he had vanished the same moment everyone else had.
Doing everything I could to push him out of my mind, I focused on class. But every time I did, I would remember that Quin had helped me overhaul the way I took notes and studied. I would remember how into it he was and how it would make me laugh. I would then spiral off into a million other things about him that I missed. The only thing that would snap me out of it would be hunger or the beep of the scanner at work.
Lost in a spiral of thoughts about Quin, it was a beep that brought me out of it this time. Remembering where I was, I looked at the monitor doing my job. The image that came up was for someone named Louis Armoury. It made me think of Quin’s friend Lou.
Not bothering to look, a second name quickly appeared, Quinton Toro. My heart stopped. My face immediately got hot and my eyes flicked up.
It was him. I couldn’t breathe. He and Lou were ten feet in front of me and neither of them was looking my way.
I froze not knowing what to do. He hadn’t died or dropped out of school. There he was. Even if he had lost his phone, he could have found a way to contact me. I had been injured. It was his job as a friend to reach out.
Do I speak to him now?
As they passed, Lou seemed his usual energetic self. As he spoke, his arms bounced around wildly. Quin, on the other hand, looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looked achingly sad. My chest clenched feeling his pain. Why was my Quin so sad?
“Quin!” I said unable to stop myself.
Both guys turned and stared at me. Quin had a look of shock that melted into elation that quickly dissolved into distress and then finally panic. He backed away as if he had seen a ghost and then ran. What was going on with him?
“Stay away from him!” Lou told me as if I had ruined his life.
