Totally Tormented (5 page)

“Hey, could you hold the door?” I asked, running up the steps.

The hipster stopped and held the door open, but when he saw me his expression changed. “Do you live here?”

I kept walking with confidence. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. Thanks for being careful, though,” I told him, as I walked past. “It makes me feel a lot safer that you asked before you just let a strange guy into our building.”

I didn’t look back to see if he was watching where I went. The fact was, I shouldn’t have been here at this time of night. The proctor wasn’t on duty so there was no way for me to sign in, which meant there probably weren’t any visitors allowed.

Oh, well. I’d have to be careful not to get caught like last time.

When I reached Lindsay’s door, I got another wave of last minute regret.

Don’t do this,
I thought.
Just turn around and go home. You’re probably still a
little bit drunk and loopy from whatever damage you sustained yesterday.

And then I said fuck it and knocked. I was going to tell her the truth and it was that simple.

After a long moment, she answered the door. When she saw me, she registered surprise. I thought maybe I’d see a flicker of happiness, but no such luck. The next moment, her eyes had gone cold and her mouth set. “What are you doing here, Justin?”

“Can I come in for a second?”

She hesitated, then opened the door a little bit and let me inside. “It’s late. I was sleeping.”

“No you weren’t.” I smiled.

She didn’t smile back. She was wearing a t-shirt and these tiny shorts and I wanted so badly to wrap my arms around her and hold her close to me, whisper in her ear, feel her body against mine.

“Justin, you need to go home.”

“I had to see you. I need to talk to you. To explain myself, about the way I acted earlier— ”

She shook her head tiredly. “No, I don’t even want to go there. I just – I don’t…

I can’t be around someone who treats me that way.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but now there was another knock on the door.

“Lindsay? It’s Dennis.”

“Shit,” she whispered.

“I’m coming in,” he said loudly, and opened the door.

“I didn’t say you could come in here,” Lindsay told him.

He looked at us, shook his head, as if surprised and disappointed by both of us. “I had to come and check because a student reported a strange man entering the building a few minutes ago and coming onto this floor.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “Is everyone around here really that uptight?”

Dennis’s eyes narrowed. “Have you ever heard of terrorism?”

“No,” I said with a straight face, “please explain it.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t.” He looked at me with disgust. “Your ignorance is obvious, buddy.”

“Dennis, please,” Lindsay said. “I’m sorry. He just came over for one second.”

He shook his head. “I’ll have to write you up again, Lindsay. I warned you, and now you have two strikes.” He ticked them off on his fingers like an asshole.

My blood started to boil. “Look man, I’m leaving.” I started towards him and he backed away with his hands up.

“Don’t do anything,” he warned. “I’ll have you arrested.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m telling you that I’m going. I didn’t tell her I was coming here, I snuck in. It’s not her fault, so please don’t write her up.”

“Rules are rules. How can I be sure you’re not lying to cover for her?”

I wanted to smack this clown so badly, but ultimately I knew I couldn’t do anything to stop him. “Can’t you just have a little decency? She didn’t do it. It’s my fault.”

“You need to leave,” he said. “But Lindsay, I’m citing you again for having a guest here after curfew.”

“Fine,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Whatever, Dennis. Do what you need to do.”

“Lindsay, I’m sorry,” I said, heading out the door. “I really didn’t mean to cause a problem. I came to explain.”

“Please go home, Justin. Please.”

And so I went.

LINDSAY

I shut the door and leaned against it, rage smoldering through my body. I couldn’t believe him! Showing up here again, when he knew he’d already gotten me into trouble once for doing the same thing. He’d obviously been drinking, and God knows what else. What did he think? That he could just show up whenever he wanted, have me available to him whenever he wanted? I was so done with him it wasn’t even funny.

I took deep breaths and threw myself down on my bed. My eyes filled with tears, and before I knew it, I was sobbing. My heart felt like it was breaking. How could someone I’d known for such a short period of time, someone I’d never even kissed, make me so sad? It was a sure sign that he was bad for me. But then why did I feel so awful being away from him?

The door to my room opened, and Rachel walked in. I hadn’t seen her all weekend. She’d been away, spending time with her friends at BU. I quickly wiped away my tears, embarrassed. I knew how she felt about me and Justin, and I didn’t want her to see me crying.

“Hey,” I said brightly. I tried to think of a reason why I’d be up so late. “I couldn’t sleep so I decided to study.”

“Cool.” She didn’t seem that concerned. She crossed to the other side of the room and pulled off the boots she was wearing. Then she collapsed onto her bed.

“Did you have a good weekend?” I asked. I grabbed a tissue off the nightstand and wiped at my eyes, thankful I’d taken the extra step to clean off my eye makeup when I’d gotten home. At least now I wouldn’t be a complete mess.

“It was really fun,” Rachel said. But her back was to me. She was lying in bed, fully clothed, staring at the wall. Her voice sounded distant and kind of flat.

“Everything okay?” I tried.

She turned around and smiled at me. “Everything’s fine. Just tired, I think.” She put her hand on her head. “And I think I have a headache. Too much drinking, probably.”

“Yeah.” I gave her an
“oh I’ve been there”
kind of look, even though I hadn’t.

“Do you mind if we turn out the light?” she asked. Her hand was over her eyes.

“I’m really tired.”

“Oh. No, that’s fine.” I switched off the light and then lay there in bed. The dorm seemed unusually quiet. Usually there were the sounds of people playing music or someone on the floor above me stomping around, or the squeak of the elevator as it moved through the building. But now there was nothing.

The silence was disconcerting.

I reached over and picked up my iPad and put the buds in my ears. I tried to listen to music, but every song made me think of him.

***

Dr. Klaxton obviously wasn’t going to give a crap about my broken heart, so I made sure I was up early for his class. Rachel and I grabbed coffees and bagels from the dining hall, and then sat down and went over the reading, quizzing each other on the review questions.

“I think we definitely have it down,” I said to her as we walked up the steps of the science building. “If he asks us a question, we’ll be prepared.”

“Maybe.” She chewed on her lip. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her eyes were bright, but there were dark circles under them, like maybe she’d had trouble sleeping.

“What do you mean maybe? We know the answer to every single review question.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know what he’s going to ask. He might ask us something that has nothing to do with the reading.”

“Wow, way to be pessimistic,” I teased.

“Not pessimistic.” She shrugged and opened the big double doors. “Just a realist.”

I wanted to ask her why a girl who had a picture of a goddess taped to her notebook for good luck had suddenly become a realist, but I didn’t have time. We were filing into the classroom.

Dr. Klaxton was two minutes late, which I thought was kind of ironic.

I halfway expected him to single me out for some kind of torture, but he didn’t.

He was the same as always, standing at the lectern, pontificating on his thoughts while every so often slipping his spidery fingers into his coffee mug to grab a jellybean.

When class was over, I breathed a sigh of relief. We hadn’t gotten called on.

Which was more than I could say for a kid in the front row named Tyler who had been interrogated to within what seemed like an inch of his life. Rachel had been right –Tyler wasn’t just asked about the reading. He was also expected to make inferences based on what he’d read. Which was a lot trickier than just regurgitating the stuff you’d memorized.

“We made it,” I said to Rachel as we closed our notebooks.

“Yup. So all that studying was for nothing.” She sounded sour. It was the first time I’d really heard her sound like she was in a bad mood.

“Okay,” I said, sliding my bag over my shoulder. “Out with it.”

“Out with it?”

“Whatever it is that’s making you so upset.”

“I’m not upset.” But her eyes shifted to the side, a sure sign that she was lying.

“Something’s obviously bothering you. You’ve been salty all morning.”

She sighed. “It’s not anything. I’m freaking out over nothing.”

“Well, what is it?”

“I don’t –”

Dr. Klaxton approached us without warning. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two girls having some kind of gossip fest in my classroom?” He was standing in the aisle a few feet away, looking at us with distaste.

“We weren’t gossiping,” Rachel said. “And the fact that you would just assume that since we’re girls we – ”

“We were just leaving,” I said quickly, grabbing Rachel’s arm and starting to pull her toward the door. No way I was going to let her have an interaction with Professor Klaxton while she was in this kind of a mood.

Dr. Klaxton sighed. “Why are you young people always in such a hurry?”

I wanted to say it was because if we were ever late, we risked getting humiliated by people like him. But I didn’t.

Instead, I just stared to walk toward the door.

“Ms. Cramer,” Dr. Klaxton called after us. “May I see you for a moment?”

I turned around. “Why? I mean, um, what’s this in regards to?”

“It’s in regards to the paper you slipped under my office door this weekend, even though I specifically told you I wouldn’t be accepting it.”

Rachel gave me a weird look. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her what I’d done.

“Oh,” I said. “Um, okay.” I turned back to Rachel.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll see you back at our room later.”

She continued toward the door.

I turned around again. Dr. Klaxton came toward me. “Do you speak English, Ms.

Cramer?”

“Of course.” I squared my shoulders, determined that I wasn’t going to let him get to me, no matter how hard he tried.

“So you did understand me, then, when I told you that I wouldn’t be accepting your paper.”

“Yes.”

“So then why did you leave it under my door?”

I thought about it. “Because I didn’t want to take no for an answer.”

“I see.” His lips pursed and moved to the side. I was beginning to recognize it as one of his signature moves, the thing he did when he was thinking. “You do realize that my research assistants spend their days essentially being my slave?”

I nodded.

“And you still wanted to go out of your way to obtain that position, even after the interaction we had in class the other day? The one where I humiliated you in front of everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to learn everything I can. Even if that means I might have to endure things that aren’t that pleasant.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Very well,” he said. “Carter will give you instructions on where to report later this week.”

“Carter…?”

“Yes. Carter? My teaching assistant? He’ll be in touch.”

“Oh. So does this mean…?” My heart was soaring, but I held it back, like a balloon I was afraid to let go.

“Yes, Ms. Cramer. I’ll probably regret it, but I am giving you one of the research assistant jobs.”

“Oh my God!” I said. “Thank you! Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Thank Carter. Apparently your paper made quite the impression on him.” He waved his hand at me. “Now, go on, get out of here before I change my mind.”

And so I did.

***

I practically flew across campus back to my room.

I couldn’t believe it! Talk about a comeback!

I was so excited that at first I didn’t see the box that sitting in front of my door.

It was small brown cardboard box, the kind you could get at any post office.

There was a cream-colored envelope stuck to the top, and my name was written on it in black sharpie.

Had my mom sent me a package? Or maybe it was something from Dr. Klaxton.

I opened the envelope. Inside was a card, with was a picture of a dog on the front. It was a Bassett Hound, with floppy ears and sad eyes.

Underneath the picture, printed in a loopy font, were the words
“I’m sorry.”

Inside, there was a handwritten note:

“Don’t worry, I paid a kid ten bucks to leave this in front of your door. I’m sorry
about what happened last night. Let me make it up to you. JB”

Inside the box were two movies – Dead Poet’s Society and The Fighter. I realized he was sending me my favorite movie, along with The Fighter, which was probably his.

My chest tightened, and my first instinct was to pull out my phone and call him, to tell him I missed him already, to forgive him. But then I got angry.

He wouldn’t have had to leave me a cute little gift and a cute little note if he hadn’t acted like such an asshole. I wouldn’t have to forgive him and get excited about things like this if he just acted like a normal person. It was the second note he’d left me.

He was always disappearing, he was always taking off.

It was completely infuriating. I realized that in the end, he was just trying to manipulate my emotions, charm me out of feeling hurt and angry. Well, I wasn’t going to be that stupid and naïve anymore.

I picked everything up, then opened the door to my room. I balled up the card and tossed it into the garbage, then put the DVDs on the floor and stomped on them. But their protective cases didn’t break, so I picked The Fighter up and pulled the DVD out of its case. The disc was shiny and perfect. I ran my hand over the underside of it, feeling how smooth it was. And then I broke it over my knee.