Slammed #3 (6 page)

My toes were starting to hurt in the boots by the
time I got to the frat house; even a block away I could hear the roar of music
turned all the way up, and as I slipped my jacket off and draped it over my
arm, following Jess’ advice, I could make out the fact that there were a ton of
people scattered over the lawn, packed into the house—and probably still more
in the back yard. I shook my head; at least some of the people partying it up
had to have classes the next day—but they’d either be too
hungover
to make it, or they’d be utterly useless when they did get into class. I rolled
my eyes at myself. Not everyone had my priorities, and not everyone was
depending on scholarships and their own hard work to pay their way. If they
wanted a raging hangover the next day, it was on them.

I approached the front door, moving through a throng
of people who were milling around, stumbling and talking too loudly. It
occurred to me that at the rate the party was
raging,
it would end up getting dispersed in next to no time. But that wasn’t my
problem. I went to the front door and knocked on it—fully expecting to have to
knock again. But there was someone who was apparently waiting for new arrivals;
one of the pledges, wearing a toga that couldn’t possibly be warm enough for
the weather outside, opened the door with a boozy grin.

“Good evening, and welcome to the party!”

He handed me a red Solo cup from a loaded-down table
next to the door; I almost refused it—I wasn’t there to get drunk—but I decided
I’d be able to move around a lot more freely if I had a cup in hand; I wouldn’t
be as conspicuous.

“Maybe you can help me,” I said, trying a polite
smile on the freshman in front of me. “I’m looking for Zack—any idea where he
is?”

The guy shrugged, nearly losing the shoulder on his
bed sheet toga. “No clue, hot stuff,” he said, the grin still on his face.
“They have me manning the door—I don’t know where anyone is unless they’re
right here.”

“Thanks anyway.” I edged away from the guy, taking a
sip of the cup. It was punch; it wasn’t as good as the punch I’d had the
previous party, but I figured that the people at the party were so intent on
getting plastered that it wouldn’t much matter to them anyway. I wandered
through the public rooms of the frat house, looking for any sign of Zack.

I grabbed one of the upperclassmen as he was walking
through the living room. “Hey,” I said, keeping my polite smile plastered on my
face. “I’m looking for Zack—
is
he around?”

“I don’t know; I saw him around earlier but I
haven’t seen him in a minute. I’ll talk to you, though.”

My smile grew in my nervousness. “That’s okay—I just
needed to talk to Zack about something. I think that girl over there is trying
to get your attention though.” The guy looked in the direction I pointed out and
saw a girl who was looking in our direction; he made a beeline to her.

I sipped my drink, trying not to go too fast. I went
to the back yard and saw—to my amazement—a bunch of people cavorting in and
around the pool; it was in the fifties outside but they seemed to be mostly
comfortable. There was no sign of Zack, and I narrowly avoided getting pulled
into the pool by an aggressive partier. I went back inside and into the
kitchen. Someone tried to convince me to take another drink, but I waved my
mostly-empty cup, smiling brightly and saying I was just pacing myself so I
wouldn’t get sick.

I found another member of the frat dispersed amongst
the crowd; he was someone I thought I’d seen with Zack at the dining hall at
one point or another. “I’m looking for Zack,” I said; the guy looked like he
was just this side of plastered, staring down the front of my shirt. I felt
skeeved
out, but I didn’t make a move to cover myself
up—after all, this was what Jess had had in mind with the outfit I was wearing.
“Have you seen him?”

The guy’s features screwed up into a caricature of
deep thinking, his brow furrowing and his lips twisting in a grimace. “I know
he was in the living room a while back—but I don’t know if he’s there anymore.
Zack
kinda
moves around a lot.”

I nodded and thanked the guy, pulling away and
heading towards the living room before he could think of
who
he was talking to—or decide to waylay me.

I wandered through all of the public areas of the
frat house, even going upstairs to the den there to see if Zack was hanging out
with some of the more elite guests. I watched someone get thrown into the pool
for smoking inside the frat house, saw couples canoodling together on couches
and any horizontal surface that would hold their weight. I remembered the fact
that Zack and I had been making out right in public—just like so many of the
couples here—and blushed. I tried my best to find Zack on my own, moving
constantly until my feet started to ache. I started to despair of ever finding
him; the frat was simply too packed, and there were too many places where Zack
could be. It would be impossible to track him down if no one knew where he was.

Part of me even started to wonder if Zack was there
at all. After all—those of his frat brothers who could remember seeing him had
said that it had been a while. Zack could have gotten the party started, and
then wandered off to another party at a sorority or another frat, or he could
have even gone off campus. I realized I really didn’t know very much about his
life, all things told; I had been shocked to find out that he apparently went
to the Library regularly, after all. The music, pounding constantly in my ears,
was starting to give me a headache—I couldn’t hear myself think, and if I had
to ask many more people where Zack was, I was going to end up hoarse the next
day from shouting. It was a stupid idea; I should have just called or texted
him and asked him to meet me somewhere. That way, he could have told me
outright if he never wanted to speak to me again.

I decided that I would ask one last person—someone
at the frat—if they knew where Zack was, and if I couldn’t get an answer that
made sense, I would call it a night and maybe go back to the dorms and send him
an email. It was a cowardly way out of the situation, but at least it was
something. I couldn’t deal with the drunk, lurching, loud mess of the party for
much longer. I looked around and found someone who I thought
I
recognized from either
the previous party or one of the times I had seen
Zack around; he was wearing a toga, indicating he was a member of the frat, and
he looked like an upperclassman—probably he was in the same year as Zack was.

“Hey! Excuse me!” I ducked and darted around the
people between
me and the frat brother
. “Hey!” The guy
stopped and I caught my breath, downing the last of the contents of my cup.
“Hey, you know Zack, right?”

The guy looked me up and down with an undisguised
leer on his face. “Yeah, I know him—he was in the same pledge group as me.
You looking
for him?” I nodded. “He’s up in his room.
Punked
out on
the party early.
Must be off his feed.”

 
I laughed,
the alcohol beginning to fuzz my brain slightly. “Where’s his room? I just need
to talk to him about something.”

The guy looked me up and down again. “Yeah, you
might be able to get him to talk. He’s been moping these last few days. He’s on
the third floor, last door on the right.”

I let the toga-clad brother give me a quick, sweaty
hug—holding back my instinctive cringe. He was off in the direction of some
other girls in the next instant, fortunately; I didn’t know what I would
actually do to distract him if I’d had to.

I climbed the stairs, dodging around people who were
heading down to the living room or to the second floor—or who were simply
stalled out, too drunk to know where they were going. The last flight of stairs
was much less crowded, and I raced up them, my heart pounding in my chest at
the thought of seeing Zack. What if he didn’t even want to see me? I bit my
lip, telling myself that surely he had enough feeling for me to at least hear
me out. He had to.

It struck me as strange that the music was every bit
as loud on the third floor as it was downstairs; I looked around as I walked
through the hall of bedrooms, and noticed that speakers were mounted at the
ends of the hallway—that made sense. I wondered if there were ever issues with
sick brothers trying to get sleep in their rooms while a party raged
downstairs; probably not, with a group
like
the one
Zack belonged to. I walked the length of the hall, smiling slightly to myself
as I spotted a few doors with neckties on them; as innocent as I was, I knew
full well that particular sign and its meaning. I hurried to the end of the
hall and looked at Zack’s door for a long moment. There was no necktie on his door
knob; he wasn’t with anyone.

For a long moment I was just standing there, the
music pounding around me, the sound of a couple hundred people partying below.
The one drink hadn’t been enough to get me drunk, but it had left my brain
fuzzy, and I didn’t quite know if I was ready. What if Zack didn’t want to talk
to me? I pressed my lips together. My hands felt like they were weighted down
with lead. I swallowed against the tightness I felt in my throat. I just had to
get through it, I told myself. If he didn’t want to hear me out, I’d at least
know that it was done with us permanently. I lifted my hand to knock on the
door; it fell to my side once more as I continued to stand there. If he sent me
away without hearing me out—if he didn’t answer or if he did and then just told
me not to bother, I’d have to be ready to walk through the frat house without
looking like I was going to cry. I took a deep breath and lifted my hand again.
I knocked on the door quick and hard, my knuckles stinging from it—I wanted to
make sure that Zack could hear me over the music.

“
Yo
! I’m not feeling it!”
he called out from inside. My heart fluttered in my chest and I knocked again.
“I said I’m not feeling it, bro!” I knocked a third time.

Instead of calling out again, after a moment, the
door opened abruptly, showing Zack standing there, changed out of his toga—if
he’d ever been in a toga in the first place. He was standing there with an
irritated look on his face, in a pair of worn jeans and a tee shirt. The
irritable look dissolved in a moment, as soon as he saw that it was
me
. I blushed as Zack’s gaze traveled up and down along my
whole body, taking me in slowly, a mixture of surprise and consternation on his
face. The red Solo cup was still in my hand and I fidgeted with it, smiling
nervously.

“
Evie
,” He said; I could
barely hear him over the music.

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said, my throat tight. “Can I
talk to you for a minute?”

Zack’s eyes widened and he opened the door wider.
“Yeah—yeah, absolutely.”

I stepped into Zack’s room and my knees went weak.
It was cleaner than I would have expected; there was a pile of dirty laundry
next to the closet, but there was no trash hanging around, only a few empty
reusable water bottles. It smelled like him, and I closed my eyes for a moment,
breathing it in. I turned in time to see Zack closing the door and I wondered
if he had put a necktie on the knob—to signal that we needed privacy. I wasn’t
sure whether or not I wanted everyone to think that Zack was having sex.

“I…” I licked my lips, leaning against his bed,
unsure of how to actually start saying what I was there to tell him.

“It’s so good to see you. What did I do,
Evie
?”

I shook my head. “You didn’t do anything, it’s not
your fault,
it’s
my fault.” Words were tumbling out of
my lips in an unsteady rush. “There’s…I’ve been an idiot.
Just…okay.
I’m sorry; I just don’t really know how to explain it.”

“
Evie
, calm down,” Zack
said, smiling faintly. He moved closer to me and kissed me lightly on the
cheek. “Just say what you came to say. I swear I’ll listen to you—I won’t
interrupt.”

I swallowed again, wishing I hadn’t had the drink
that the brother at the door had handed to me.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath and tried to collect my
thoughts. “So the other day, after…I guess after practice…there was a guy
hanging out at my dorm room door.” Zack raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say
anything to interrupt me. “I recognized him; he was someone from your team.
Anyway, he told me he would consider it a personal favor if I would stop
hanging out with you, if I would just leave you alone. He didn’t really give me
any reasons. At first, I just sort of brushed it off. I told him if he didn’t
get the hell away from my room I’d call the RAs.” I smiled slightly.

“That sounds about right,” Zack said, reaching out
and taking my hands in his. I hadn’t realized how much they were shaking until
I had Zack’s firm, warm grip.

“But then I got to thinking that he must have
thought I was a distraction, and that things could really easily get to be
really serious between us, and I don’t want to be a distraction to you—I just
panicked.” Zack nodded. “I didn’t know how to tell you why—or what was going
on. So I just sort of…” I shrugged.

“You could have told me, you know,” Zack said
gently.