2? Class.
2.
Auggie sent her a thumbs up. Theo still hadn’t responded, so Auggie sent him the time and place and headed for class.
4
Theo was assisting Wagner again—another section of the same class that Auggie had been in the semester before—when the texts came through. The classroom smelled like wet wool and what might have been rust, which he associated with the massive radiators that were used to heat the building. Wagner was at the front of the room, droning through the syllabus. Half the kids were already asleep, and the other half were barely on this side of consciousness. Staring at his phone, at the messages from Auggie, Theo managed not to scream.
The rest of class was a blur. He went to his office. He turned on the computer. He left the door open, hoping the smell of vanilla-and-chai tea, which Grace must have left on her desk over the break, would dissipate. Then, at his desk, he stared at the document he had pulled up on the screen. His thesis. The Romeo and Juliet chapter. And for the life of him, he had no idea what it said.
Over the course of the next few hours, he typed a handful of words. He ate the peanut-butter sandwich he’d brought from home. When he needed to break up the monotony of staring at the screen, he shuffled the printouts of scholarly articles. At quarter to two, he packed his satchel, locked the office, and headed across campus to the library.
In the lobby, which had been redone a few years ago in the blond woods and glass and chrome that made it look like a Scandinavian spaceship, he found Auggie.
“Hey,” Auggie said, a huge smile spreading across his face. He stepped forward and hesitated.
“Just give me a hug,” Theo said, “so we can get it over with.”
Auggie squeezed him hard, his face against Theo’s shoulder, the cast on his wrist bumping Theo’s back. The hug lasted a long time, and Theo felt the tremors working their way through Auggie. He ran his hand down Auggie’s spine, counting the bumps of vertebrae, until Auggie pulled away. The younger man’s face was blotchy, and the smile was twitchy, slipping away every time Auggie seemed to forget to keep it in place.
“I didn’t know—” Auggie stopped. “It’s really good to see you.”
“How are you?”
“Me? I’m great.” The smile twitched some more. “How are you?”
“Really? You’re great?”
“Yeah. I had a great break. I had such a great time being home. What about you?”
“Yeah,” Theo said. “Me too. Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Um, yeah. Just kind of overwhelmed. I thought maybe—I don’t know, I was having this great morning, Dylan and I were—” He faltered, then rushed ahead. “And then you never texted back, and I thought maybe you hated me and didn’t want to see me anymore. So I’m just really happy. You know. Happy to see you.”
But he didn’t look happy. That first smile, the huge one, had looked like Auggie. But the person in front of Theo had dark circles under his eyes, and he held himself awkwardly, as though keeping a very specific pose to avoid aggravating his injuries any further. Whatever he said about being worried that Theo might not show—and Theo didn’t doubt that was true; he was irritated he hadn’t forced himself to answer Auggie’s texts—something else was at the heart of Auggie’s distress. Something that had been torturing him for a lot longer.
“How are you?” Auggie asked.
“How do I look?”
Auggie bit his lip, and Theo couldn’t tell if he was on the brink of smiling or crying. He wasn’t sure Auggie knew either. “Pretty awful.”
“There you go,” Theo said.
Before Auggie could respond, Genesis stepped into the lobby. She still had her hair in braids, but she was wearing a parka and snow boots—a far change from the t-shirt and shorts when they had seen her months ago. Theo could glimpse a t-shirt under her parka: Cowboy Bebop.
“Hi,” she said. “Sorry I’m late.”
“You’re not late,” Auggie said. “I booked us a study room. Is that ok? Or do you want to talk down here?”
“No, a study room would be better.” She glanced around. “Can we go up?”
They headed through the security gates, up two flights of stairs, and past a row of carrels. The study rooms lined the back of this floor, with soundproofed windows and a thick door so that groups could collaborate without disturbing other library patrons. Auggie directed them toward one at the end, where windows overlooked a portion of the quad: a few patches of pristine snow, but mostly slush and a muddy crisscross of tracks. A banner on the side of the arts facility said JUSTICE FOR DEJA – RALLY FOR JUSTICE FRIDAY. Two boys were playing catch in tank tops and shorts, obviously hoping to impress passersby with their total disregard for the cold. Theo hoped their sense of self-satisfaction endured having their dicks de-tipped after they got frostbite.
When Auggie shut the door, Genesis let out a huge breath. She laid both hands flat on the table, as though steadying herself, and said, “I’m sorry about last time.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Auggie said. “Your dad and brother were being protective.”
Genesis shook her head, but she didn’t respond. Overhead, the fluorescents buzzed, and the vent in the wall gave a little cough as something in the HVAC system shifted. Then Genesis shook her head again, this time squeezing her eyes shut, her fingers curling on the table.
“Genesis?” Theo said.
“I’m sorry.” She grabbed her bag. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
“Let’s see if we can help you,” Auggie said. “You don’t have to do it on your own.”
Lowering her bag, she sank back into the seat.
“Something happened with you and Cal,” Auggie said. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
Genesis nodded.
“And you think it has something to do with his murder?”
Another nod.
“What happened?” Auggie asked.
Covering her eyes, Genesis shook her head.
“You know what happened,” Theo said to Auggie. “Or you can guess. They were in a room, just the two of them. The door was shut. Maybe it was late, after everybody else had gone home. And then Cal assaulted her.”
The whining static of the fluorescents was the only answer.
When Genesis spoke, her voice was perfectly controlled, but she kept a hand over her eyes. “They have a massage table; they’re both trained physical therapists. I’d been back there plenty of times. My elbow, my shoulder, my thigh. Tennis is hard on your body, and it’s even harder if you want to be good. We’d gotten back from a singles tournament. My parents and my brother miscommunicated; nobody came to pick me up. It’s not like we live in New York City. I could have walked home. But I’d had a bad fall in the last match, and my leg was hurting. Cal offered to take another look and then drive me home. I walked back to the massage table. He closed the door. He turned off all the lights except one on the opposite side of the room. To help me relax, he said. He told me to lie down on my stomach. Then he went out of the room for something.”