Page 44 of Notorious Man on Campus

“I will make brownies for you tomorrow, how’s that?” I hug her and she kisses me. The next day I run from the bus stop all the way home to the kitchen door. I can’t wait to get the brownies. But before I get there I notice dad’s car in the driveway. It shouldn’t bother me, but it’s like a shot went through me and I stumble. Then I run faster, but my anticipation goes from happy to panic because I know something’s wrong. When I get to the kitchen, my dad is sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and my Aunt Elizabeth, his sister is there. She starts crying the minute she sees me. I look around for mom, for the brownies, but there’s no chocolate smell and no mom.

“Where’s mom?” I ask. My aunt cries harder and covers her face with one hand, patting me on the back. Dad doesn’t look up, so I go to him, my heart pounding and fear of something I can’t pinpoint closing in around my chest, squeezing me. I push him, nudging at his arm until he lifts his head and looks at me.

“I never saw a man so desolate, so broken before in my life. I shudder remembering it.

“My dad spoke in a dead voice and says, ‘She’s gone.’ I’ll never forget that voice. He took me in his arms, though his hug was weak and I fought him, refusing to understand, refusing to believe him, yelling at him and hitting him, trying to get a different response, any response.

“After a while, my aunt took me from him and told me there was a car accident, that mom was hurt and went to heaven. I think she thought I was a naïve four year old, but I knew what it all meant. I yelled at her too because it was easier to be angry than sad. Anything was easier than to allow that pain of loss get hold of me. I saw on my dad’s face what it could do to you.” I collapse onto my bed, drained.

“Shit man,” Dylan says. He comes over and sits next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. It feels like dead weight, but I don’t shake it off. I wonder if Nyla’s touch would feel warm right now like it always does. Fuck that. Fuck Nyla.

“Jimmy came home later and came into my room, sat there and cried. It scared me. I hated it. I yelled at him too. Threw him out of my room. I refused to cry from then on.” I look up at him pointedly with a stark cold emotion free face because I need to do it, to prove I can control the emotion, not let it break me.

Dylan stares back at me, shaking his head, his eyes sad.

“Fuck.” That’s all he says and I nod in agreement.

“Nyla came to work for us when we were sophomores. Jimmy was away at college in his junior year at SPU cutting up the field. We were proud of him. He was in all the papers and on the local news. There was talk he’d play pro.

“I didn’t talk to Nyla for the first few months she cooked and cleaned for us, but she started baking and I started eating her fucking cookies. So I eventually talked to her, against my better judgment.” I stop and wonder where I’d be now if I’d held out like I should have. Maybe I’d still be sane instead of running scared from a sassy sunshiny girl who moons after me in spite of my best efforts to scare her off.

“What about the brownies?” Dylan prompts.

“Yeah. About the brownies. I realized Nyla was—is—an insanely good baker, passionate about it like my mother was. That’s where the resemblance ends,” I add in case Dylan has any plans to needle me about being intrigued by a girl because she reminds me of my dead mother.

“I took out my mom’s brownie recipe, the one she perfected that day, the one she only made that one time, and I copied it and gave it to Nyla. The original in my mom’s handwriting is in a box in my room at home. One of the few things I have from my mother. I don’t even have photos of her because once my dad started re-marrying in an effort to provide us with a new mother, all the photos of mom disappeared and we were never allowed to talk about her.”

“That’s so fucking messed up. My family’s not exactly Leave It to Beaver, but we’re close compared to the misery you suffered through, man. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” I snort and brush him off. I shared as much as I can. It’s not close to the whole story. I refuse to think of the worst parts let alone share them.

Dylan doesn’t prompt me to share more though he waits, knowing there is more. He probably doesn’t want to hear any more of my sob story. Of course not. I’m a pathetic mess and not even my best friend wants to hear about it. He wants me to be the Brick I always am.

So be it. I stand and slap my thighs.

“That’s that. Story time is over. Let’s get out of here. Breakfast at the Student Union is on me tomorrow. You can bring Allie.”

His fucking face lights up so inappropriately, like he’s put all his passion and energy and hopes on this one person, someone else, counting on her to make him happy. It’s so fucking wrong. The sharp pain that stabs my back right through my shoulder blades is for him, because I understand that his disappointment will be monumental some day and matched by equally monumental misery and pain.

But I can’t tell him. Can’t say a word of caution. That’s a lesson I learned at Kace’s wedding. Every man needs to find out for themselves, every man needs to go through the gauntlet of pain and suffer loss on their own terms.

I was lucky—unlucky—enough to be inoculated early in life. Now I can coast through the rest of my life numb and immune from that bastard Cupid.

If I could banish Nyla from my life, from my head and everywhere else she bothers me, most notably my dick.

“Tempting offer,” Dylan says as he reaches for my doorknob. “But we’re eating breakfast right here because we’re not going to let Nyla run us out of our own house. You’re going to face her down and get past the awkwardness first thing in the morning.”

I laugh and then snort. “Sure. Whatever you say.” As if it was awkwardness I was worried about. “I’ll hold my shit together. I won’t do or say anything embarrassing or inappropriate.” Even if a knife will be digging a hole in my chest cavity to carve out my heart and soul, to the extent there’s anything left, the entire time I spend with Nyla in the same room.

It seems I need a booster shot of pain because my early inoculation wore off recently.

Chapter 18

Brick

Monday morning.

How do I act like nothing ever happened? On the other hand, how do I acknowledge that she rocked my world? How do I go forward with her or without her? Fuck. Did I suddenly turn into an idiot over night?