Love Story(20)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“That’s an idea,” Hunter whispered in my ear. “Want me to spike this for you?”

I shook my head and said softly, “I have homework to do later.” His bare shoulder next to mine sank like he was disappointed. I couldn’t waste energy puzzling that out when I needed to rescue Gabe’s reputation. Gabe mattered to me, and Hunter did not.

“I like Gabe,” I said loudly enough to carry. “He reminds me of someone.”

“Who?” Hunter asked. “Tommy?”

Although it had been hard for us to hear each other before, Hunter’s one word seemed to have rung out clear as day for everybody. “Who’s Tommy?” Kyle asked, and the others sat up to hear the answer.

I did not think this was the time or place or company to state that Tommy was Hunter’s easygoing father, and that Hunter and I knew each other from way back when. I could not trust Wolf-boy on top of everyone else with the stable-boy secret.

Hunter was thinking the same thing. He shifted the subject. “I like the way Gabe trusts us to comment on each other’s stories.”

“He goes too far,” Brian said. “Pedagogically speaking, it’s one thing to create a student-centered classroom by asking for the students’ voices. It’s another thing to let them bulldoze each other.”

“Is it bulldozing to express your opinion?” Manohar asked. For some reason we were having a hard time hearing each other again. He was shouting. “If you let a creative-writing student think her story is great when it isn’t, aren’t you doing her a disservice? If she sucks, she needs to know so she can change her major before it’s too late.”

I opened my mouth and quickly closed it again. My eyes were on the prize, keeping Manohar from going to Gabe with the stable-boy secret. If the price was allowing him to take potshots at me in public, I could pay it.

Summer said what I didn’t dare say. “You’re assuming that the student making the comment knows what he’s talking about. What if he tells another writer that she sucks and discourages her, when her work is very good? What if the student making the comment is, for instance, an economics major and is only taking creative writing in the first place because the honors program requires it, and in actuality he doesn’t know shit?”

“This is just a replay of class,” Hunter said. “If we’re going to talk about creative writing, let’s be less specific.” I wished he were coming to my aid, but I knew he was only taking control and keeping the peace, as usual.

And I’d had enough. “I don’t think it’s possible to talk about creative writing without being specific.” I turned to Kyle, across from me. “Do you have a really sharp knife?”

He blinked at me, then peered into his cup. “Is this a trick question?”

“No. I only came up here because I need to borrow a very sharp knife, and I thought you might have one.” I didn’t add that thinking of him as “Wolf-boy” had called to mind the necessity of a knife in the wilderness. This connection made no sense anyway since he was from Brooklyn.

Brian raised his hand and called out, “I have a really sharp knife.”

“May I borrow it?” I asked.

“My father gave it to me.”

I squinted at him through the mist. “May I borrow it without telling your father?”

“Why don’t we go get it from our room,” Hunter called across me to Brian. “Then we’ll take it down to Erin’s room and use it. It will never leave your sight.”

I clamped my teeth together to keep from saying anything about Hunter’s presumptuous “we,” his decision that my use of Brian’s knife needed Hunter’s input. I could not forget his hands on that girl.

Brian scowled behind his shades, but no one was immune to Hunter’s charm. He stood and nodded to Summer. “Save my seat, would ya?”

“Kyle will save it, won’t you, Kyle?” Summer asked. “I’m comfortable here.” She winked at me.

I assumed that was the signal to me that she felt comfortable with Manohar—more than comfortable. The mango daiquiri was probably helping. I felt uneasy about leaving her there. But after all, half the people crowding the bathroom were chicks, and home was three floors down.

Carefully I crossed the slippery floor, assuming Hunter and Brian would follow. I reached for the handle on the bathroom door, but a man’s hand reached past me and opened it first—Hunter, I saw, glancing over my shoulder. I stepped into the hallway, the air dry and freezing in comparison, and told myself the temperature change was the reason I shivered.

“This way.” He reached his arm around me and touched my shoulder. He walked ahead of Brian and me, three doors down. Brian fished his key from the pocket of his bathing suit. Hunter reached his own key first and turned it in the door.

Their room was set up exactly like mine but looked completely different. As Brian opened a drawer in his dresser to retrieve the famed knife, I scanned his floor-to-ceiling collage of psychedelic posters. Hunter quietly sat on the opposite bed. His wall was blank, almost as if he and Brian were having an interior design standoff.

I stood awkwardly between them. “Manohar got the small room? How did that happen? I’ve talked to a lot of people in this dorm and there’s always a story behind who gets the small room.”

Hunter patted beside him on the bed, an invitation for me to sit.

Blushing, I shook my head.

He spoke without skipping a beat. “I didn’t want it. That room is claustrophobic.”

“And I came out of the closet when I was thirteen.” Brian turned to us, brandishing a glinting dagger. “I’m not going back in.” He came toward me with the knife, handle first.

“Brian!” Hunter jumped up from his bed. “Don’t give it to her when she’s never used one before.”

“She asked to use it,” Brian said. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“You’re going to use it for her. Or I will.” Hunter took the dagger by the handle. “Sometimes Erin doesn’t know what’s good for her.” Barebacked and blade down like a jungle man ready to stab the python that crossed his path, he led the way out of the room.

Brian and I exchanged a glance and followed. “What do you need it for, anyway?” Brian asked me in the stairwell.

“I’m almost out of face cream and I can’t afford another tube. If I cut it open and put it in a plastic bag, I think I can get another month out of it, maybe six weeks.”

Hunter turned suddenly on the stair below us. Brian and I both jumped backward, but Hunter knew better than to turn with a knife point out. The knife was down by his side. “That’s what this is about? You don’t need face cream. You look fine.”

“That’s because I’ve been using it,” I said at the same time Brian said, “That’s because she’s been using it,” and rolled his eyes.

We exited the stairwell at the second floor. I unlocked the door, ushered them inside, and opened the inner door to my little bedroom.

“What’s your story, then?” Brian asked, already nosing around in my stuff. “How did you end up in the closet?”