“Well one of the students did it,” another lady says. “And we had that harassment complaint against Summers a year ago that the Dean refused to listen to, remember? The poor girl dropped out.”
“Do you think it’s true, then?”
“College students do a lot of silly things,” the first lady says. “But they don’t typically write ‘pervert’ in fake blood on doors unless they have a good reason to.”
“If he’s been inappropriate to the female students, so help me, I’ll –”
“Campus security is interviewing his students now, you know, and they’re looking at all the cameras, but there’s no footage…”
The door shuts and their voices cut off, but word of my exploits doesn’t stop. It filters around a few people eating cream puffs on the steps of the Culinary Sciences building.
“Ew, blood?” A girl wrinkles her nose.
“It deserved to be written in shit,” A guy scoffs.
“I’ve always thought he was too nice,” another guy shakes his head.
“Why does a guy with his looks need to perv on girls? That’s f**king sleazy as hell.” The scoffing guy scoffs again.
I keep walking. A group of frat boys sees Summers crossing the lawn and hoot at him, and, startled, the handsome, tall, slightly pot-bellied professor drops his notebooks and scrabbles to pick them up. The snide glances and doubting whispers are proof I’ve turned the school against him. It’s proof I still got the magic, sweetass Isis touch that strikes fear into the hearts of evildoing men everywhere –
“Isis!” Kieran runs up to me, a scowl on his face. “I told you not to do anything!”
“Yes well, me and orders don’t exactly jive. I mean, we jive, but it isn’t smooth and it isn’t pretty to look at.”
“You’re going to get so busted. They have cameras, you know.”
My stomach twists unpleasantly, but I shake it off.
“Never fear, they spontaneously combusted because of my hotness.”
“Nothing is spontaneously combusting, and you’re going to get kicked out!”
“Then we must make do with what little time we have.”
“Isis –” I feel his hand on my wrist, jerking me back. I whirl around and plant my feet and clear my throat.
“I know that kiss was nice,” I say. “And we kissed a lot for two people who met each other next to a shirtless guy throwing up on some petunias, and you’re a really nice guy and you look sort of Welsh which is always a good thing, ladies love kilts, not me specifically but most ‘ladies’, in air quotes, denoting roughly seventy percent of women aged eighteen to thirty-eight, and I know you think you like me as a person, and that you want to date me and that we’d get along well but here’s me, overturning your hopes and dreams; I don’t wanna date anyone. Or that’s not true, actually, the butthead I want to date just doesn’t want to date me. So. So I was just trying to get over him. And I was using your lips to get over him like a terrible person in a movie would, a villain, but I’ve always been the villain or the dragon and I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m a dragon and I burn stuff down and I’m sorry.”
Kieran’s dark eyes well with shock, and his grip goes limp. I tear away and leave another person I hurt behind, and I’m sorry for it but I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I hate walking around with black eyes on my heart all the time.
I march away so hard I don’t even notice when Diana passes me. She squeals, backtracks, and catches up with me.
“Isis! There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for yo-”
“Not now, moon goddess, I have boys to confront.”
Diana laughs, and slows. “What about the county fair tonight? You said you wanted to go –”
“I’ll be there!” I shout, and push through the door to the boy’s dorm. I take the stairs two at a time and knock hard on his door. There’s three seconds of silence, and then it opens. Jack looks like he’s taken a casual jog through a meat grinder , if said meat grinder ground only the souls of good-looking boys.
“Hello,” I say crisply. “I want you to help me kill Will Cavanaugh.”
Jack’s ice-cold eyes crack a little with surprise as I say Nameless’ full name out loud for the first time in four years. I suddenly remember my priorities.
“Oh, but actually we can put that off for a while. First, I want you to come with me to the county fair tonight, and if your new girlfriend Hemorrhoid doesn’t want you to, she can go explode in a spleen for all I care.”
I expect him to refuse or get angry, but his eyes crinkle on the outside - the Jack-version of a smile.
“Alright.”
“I’m driving.”
“Alright.”
“Meet me by Warrick Building at nine.”
He nods, and opens his mouth to say more, but I quickly pivot and walk away. I can’t have any more words with him – not until I’ve practiced what I want to say. Six hours and a flurry of closet raiding is all that stands between me and figuring that out. Yvette watches with the casual interest of a hurricane observer as I chuck socks and pants and shirts over my shoulder.
“Where were you, though, seriously?” She asks finally. “Diana and I thought –”
“I was talking to a nice lady,” I say. “And she helped me figure some stuff out. Contrary to popular belief, strangers are nice to divulge your desperately nasty secrets to.”
I hold up the pink blouse, and Yvette makes a cooing noise.
“Oooh, that one.”
The Isis of a day ago would have wrinkled her nose and thrown it aside. I pick it up and pull off my shirt, replacing it with the blouse. It’s cool and airy on my skin, the ruffles flickering with my every move. Yvette helps me pick out jean shorts, and lends me an old, ratty army surplus jacket that looks balls rad and is perfect for the cool fall weather. Yvette pulls my hair back from my neck, and puts it in a ponytail for me.
“You look way hotter like this,” She says.
“I just want people to look at me and think ‘I want to give her a million cash dollars’.”
“Why are you so obsessed with money?”
“Because with it you can buy stuff and also things.”
Yvette laughs and shakes her head. “I want to give you maybe a ten. And a dime. A single dime.”
I hold out my hand expectantly and she rifles in her wallet for a single dime. I tuck it in my bra for good luck.
I practice what I want to say in my head, over and over and over and under, through all the possible loopholes of conversation I create counter-arguments, quips, and the finest of snarks, but they all drain out of my ears when I see Jack waiting for me near the parking lot. He leans against a peach tree, hair combed but still somehow messy, with dark jeans and a red flannel shirt on. His legs are so long, his shoulders so broad, his face proud and fine like a lion’s. It hits me just then - he’s getting older. I’m getting older. Time isn’t waiting. I spent four years of my time mourning over someone who was never worth it to begin with.
But this boy. This stupid, wonderful boy just might be worth it.
“It’s not a lumberjack carnival,” I say as I approach. He looks at his shirt, then speaks without turning around.