“Shit,” I mutter. “You all right?”
My question is dumb, but I can’t think of anything else to say. He is already headed for the bathroom, clamping his nose between his thumb and index finger, leaving blood dotting the marble floor.
“I’m sorry, man.” It’s maybe one of a handful of times I’ve said it in my entire life, probably the one time Archie has ever heard me apologize and actually mean it. He yanks a paper towel from the rack mounted on the wall and holds it up to his nose, tipping his head back.
“Dude,” he says, sounding like a high-pitched, nerdy version of himself with his nose clamped shut, “you need to calm down, bro. You about took my head off.”
I frown at his exaggeration.
He checks himself in the mirror, looking up his nostrils like he can pinpoint the exact spot that’s bleeding. “You literally have a year and a half until we graduate to win her back. I have faith in you, champ.” He clamps a hand over his heart. “Mad faith, bro.”
“Well, that makes one of us,” I mutter.
“Yo, Arch!” Chase calls, opening the door just enough to shout into the bathroom. “You in there?”
“Present,” Archie says in that nasally voice again. Chase continues around the corner.
“What the…?” Chase looks between the two of us and gapes, his eyes going wide. He’s probably debating if I sucker-punched Archie in the face.
He puts that shit on lockdown fast.
“It’s cool,” Archie says, waving at Chase. “Our man Becky has learned to use doors as deadly weapons.”
Chase snorts, and Archie gingerly touches each side of his nose, wincing as he feels around. At least his bleeding has slowed to a trickle.
“Broken?” Chase asks.
“No.” Archie shakes his head. “But I think Beckers did it as part of his master plan. You know he’s always been jealous of how pretty I am.”
Chase cracks a grin.
Archie looks at me as he heads for the door, tossing his bloody towel in the trash on the way.
“You know she’s totally obsessed with you, right?” he says.
Now, I’m interested. I raise an eyebrow in response.
“I’m just saying, like, I’ve totally tried to hit that, and I can’t make it past the best friends club.”
Best friends. What the fuck?
Wait. Is he still trying to get in her pants?
Now, I am for real going to find a deadly weapon.
Archie takes note of my face, which evidently looks murderous, because he keeps walking backward toward the door and raises his hands up in innocence.
“I’m just saying you’ve always been the one,” he says. “Many brothers have tried and failed.” He knocks a beat against his heart. “Remember, mad faith, my man. Mad faith.”
Then he’s gone, following Chase out the door like I am a bomb ticking down into the single digits.
Probably because I am.
Probably because without her, I am dangerous, unpredictable and uncontrolled.
She’s the pin in my grenade. Without her, I’m afraid I might explode.
38
Harlow
Open book tests can be a bitch. At first, they sound awesome, right? All your notes in front of you, the answers at your fingertips, an easy GPA boost, basically a promised A. Eventually though, you realize that you don’t have enough time to search for every answer and your professor has taken the exam as an opportunity to see if you could qualify for a scholarship to Harvard or a Mensa membership or maybe even a Nobel prize.
I sit in Adaptive English, staring down at the page, at my thirteenth and final translation. It’s my last exam, and I’m supposed to fly home tomorrow. I should be focused on my test, but my attention has wandered since I first sat down in my chair nearly two hours ago.
My mind drifts back to Ian like he is a lighthouse, and I am lost at sea. The metaphor hits a little too close to home. I feel very lost at the moment.
I need to talk to him. I need to say something, anything, but I don’t know where to begin or what to say. I don’t even know what I want anymore.
This morning he let his fingers graze over my shoulder as he made his way to his seat behind me. I thought he had sat down, and I let my eyes close, relishing in the warmth of his touch, the strength he seems to exude even from his fingers. When I opened my eyes though, he was still there, staring down at me. He’s still devastatingly beautiful, heart-stoppingly so, and my heart did just that—stopped—when I looked up and saw him.
I miss him. I want him. I need him.
I’m scared. I’m alone. I have no one to blame but myself.
The old English worlds swirl and dance on the page in front of me. Although I see my translation written there in small graphite letters, I don’t really see what I have written. Instead, I see the image in my head. Beowulf’s neck clamped between the dragon’s teeth, his body drenched in blood as he lay there, dying. The mental image sends a shudder racing up my spine.
It’s just me and three other students, including Ian, left in the classroom with ten minutes left. A girl off to my left scribbles ferociously while the guy two seats in front of me stares out the window. The first student to finish turned in his paper an hour ago and my immediate thought was I’m going to fail. I was barely halfway through.
I should really go back and review my answers. I should double check verb tenses and pretend like this isn’t all Latin to me. No, it’s worse than Latin because at least the little Latin I’ve seen doesn’t have characters that look like a cross between two letters written atop each other.
I can’t find it in me to read over my answers. I am lost in space, biting the end of my pen as I stare past
