Bullet (12 page)

Had I been older and wiser, I might have just written him off, but even now I wonder if that’s true.  I cared deeply for Ethan and worried about his well being.  I wanted him to be happy and satisfied.  I would have planned on never seeing him again, except the day I was ready to leave for home, he brought me a small present.

“Open it.”

I smiled and looked at him.  “You didn’t have to get me anything.  I didn’t get you anything.”

“Oh, hell, Val.  Christmas is about giving, not getting.  Just open the goddamned present.”

My eyes grew wide.  “Well, when you put it that way…”
  It was a small gold foil box, and I remembered a time when my mother had bought me a necklace that fit in a box that size.  Could it be jewelry?  I unwrapped the pretty red ribbon tied around it.  The gift surprised me, all right, but it wasn’t unwelcome.  It was a CD, and Ethan had even made cover art for it.  It was a picture of the four of them standing on a dirt road somewhere.  Whoever had taken the picture had understood rock band poses, because it looked professional.  But the artwork on it had been more recent, because the name on it was
Fully Automatic
, not
Bullet
.  I knew Ethan had a pretty powerful computer in his dorm room with a slick printer, and after talking to his mother, I figured Ethan’s grandpa had purchased it for him for college, not knowing that his grandson used it to mix music more than to write essays.  But what did I know?  Maybe his grandpa
did
know.

But as I looked at that gift, I felt my heart swell up with newfound emotion for the young man in front of me.  He’d trusted me enough to let me into his world, and now he was sharing it with me on a whole new level.  He’d been around me enough by this point to know that I listened to the music I liked over and over and over, and that’s how it either grew on me or I would decide it wasn’t my thing.  It was a visceral response to music, but I had never discovered a way to be intellectual about it.  Either I loved it at the most basic level of who I was or I didn’t.  And I already liked their music.  I felt overwhelmed when I realized first how much trust he had in me to give himself and his art to me that freely, and then it hit me that he had that much confidence in himself and his band.

I loved that confidence.  That was part of what continually drew me to Ethan.

So, when my lips had turned up into a smile and I’d gushed a
thank you
, Ethan pulled me into a tight embrace and kissed me on the cheek.  “Have a nice Christmas, Val.”  I’m not sure what idiotic thing I said after that, but the kiss made me feel loopy the rest of the day until my dad arrived to pick me up later that afternoon.

It was weird how much I’d changed and how much the world around me at home had too.  It had only been a few months since I’d left for school, but things were different.  I met up a couple
of times with my old friend Jill, and I just didn’t feel as close to her.  We were worlds apart now, even though we’d chatted on Facebook once or twice and texted off and on over the semester.  We were now different people…adults, maybe?  And then I realized that maybe Ethan really
was
my best friend now, for all intents and purposes.

And over Christmas break, I talked about him…
a lot
.  So much so that my mother insisted on meeting him.  After all, she said, if he was my friend, the family should meet him.  I promised her she would soon.  How, I didn’t know.

And then my little brother…he was in a steady relationship with a girl named Marcy, a cheerleader at my old high school.  My brother had never been serious about anyone before, so I was a little shocked. 
Ha!
I thought. 
Take
that,
Charlotte.

But Christmas break was soon over
, and I was back at college.  It felt strange returning there too, and looking back, I think I was having a bit of an identity crisis and just didn’t know it.  I didn’t really fit anywhere anymore.  College didn’t feel right; home didn’t feel right.  And that Sunday when I returned, the day before classes, I felt out of sorts.  I considered tracking Ethan down and then decided against it.  I didn’t want to seem desperate.  So instead I put his CD in my laptop and played it.  I hadn’t had as many opportunities to listen to it over break as I had wanted to, so now would be a good time to listen.  After hearing the CD multiple times, I was able to start distinguishing different elements between Ethan and Brad’s songs.  I was pretty sure they sang the songs they wrote.  They both had good voices, no matter what self-deprecating thing Brad had said about their singing.

The more I listened to the handful of songs, though, the more differences I could identify.  It wasn’t a bad thing, and it wouldn’t hurt the band, but I wondered if there would be a way they could collaborate more on the music, like they had that night I was there.  They’d collaborated on everything
that evening, and I felt like that song was better than any of the ones on the CD I was listening to.  It had more polish and…well, more heart.  I wondered if there was a way I could gently suggest that to Ethan without hurting his feelings.  Really, the two men’s styles complemented each other.  Brad’s playing was pretty thrash and hardcore with some death metal, groove, and even industrial influences, while Ethan’s was more traditional, if you could call it that—classic heavy metal with a lot of nu metal and alternate metal feel.  And you might think they were too different, but they had no problems adding their own thing to each other’s songs (which I was more easily able to identify the more I listened to that CD), and I knew from that afternoon with the band that they could mesh even better when they worked it out on the spot.

So the more I listened, the more I loved them.

And then I felt better about being in my own skin.  I thought maybe the semester would be a fresh start.  Now that I’d realized I didn’t quite fit at home anymore, it was time to find my place in the world.  My RA gave me some pleasant news when she told me I still wasn’t assigned a new roommate.  Maybe I’d be lucky enough to have the room all to myself for the entire semester.

That first Monday made me feel better.  I knew I was going to like my classes, and I hoped that at least one of them would give me an indication of what I wanted to do with my life.  I recognized a couple of fellow freshmen
, but no one I really knew.  So late that afternoon I decided to go to Ethan’s dorm and say
hi
to him and Zane.  Ethan and I hadn’t compared schedules before break, so I had no idea what his class schedule was like.  I was hoping he wouldn’t have a class the second I’d decided to drop by.  Maybe I should have texted him first, but I wanted to surprise him.

As I walked down the hall and got nearer t
o his room, I felt my blood begin to race.  I had missed him a lot more than I would have thought.  My hands started to shake, and I knew I had to get a grip on myself.  It was then that I realized just how much I’d missed him.

When I got to his door, I just knocked without much thought, and I was glad.  As usual, I was
overthinking it and stressing out way too much.  I could hear pounding music through the door, and I smiled as my mind identified that it was Slipknot.  Soon Zane was at the door, pulling me in by the hand.  “Val.  How the hell have you been?”  He embraced me in a big bear hug.  “Have a seat.  How was your Christmas?”

I sat down on one of the two desk chairs.
  “It was…great.”  Oh, that wasn’t convincing.  Zane lowered his head, giving me a questioning look, urging me to continue.  “It was kind of hard.  I…discovered that my friends and I just don’t have much in common anymore.”

Zane
sat down, pulling the chair around so he could sit backward in it.  “That sucks.”  He shrugged.  “You know, I think the only reason I don’t have that problem is that me and my friends are in a band together.”  I nodded.  That and he and Ethan actually went home once in a while to touch base.  I hadn’t seen my friends since late August.  But it might have happened anyway.  Maybe my experiences at college were changing me more than I’d realized.  Zane said, “Ethan’s in class right now.  If my guess is right, he should be here in about ten minutes or so.  Anyway…what exactly do you mean about not having much in common with your friends anymore?”

I tried to pinpoint exactly why I felt that way.  “Well, we just don’t talk like we used to.  I guess I don’t feel like Jill and I are best friends anymore.”  I wasn’t going to tell him that she just didn’t get the whole Ethan-Brad thing at all.  Of course, that would have meant telling
Zane my deepest, darkest feelings, and we weren’t going to go there.  Zane was easy to talk too, though, and I was glad for that.

“That really sucks.  It hurts?
”  He said it like a question, but it sounded more like a statement.  I nodded.

“Don’t worry about it.  I’ll get over it.  Jill and I just aren’t as close, and I guess I should have expected that to happen.  She’s going to the community college back at home
, and I’m going to school here, halfway across the state.  She has her friends now—new ones she’s made at college and some of our old ones from high school—and I have mine.  She said she’d try to come up one weekend in February or March, and maybe I’ll be able to talk more to her then.  Maybe we’ll be able to reconnect.”

He nodded.  “I hope things work out.”  I could tell he wasn’t the most comfortable now that we were getting into talking about my feelings, but he was being a good sport about it.  “You can consider
me
one of your friends, Val.”

Well, of course, I did, and I didn’t know if that’s what he was getting at or if there was something he was being coy about.  I was too naïve to read anything too deep into it, so I just said, “Yes, I do.  If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”

“Good.”  He scooted his chair closer to mine.  “You care a lot for Ethan, don’t you?”

I felt the need to take a deep breath, but I didn’t.  How could
everyone
read my thoughts so easily?  Everyone, that was,
except
for Ethan.  I looked down at my hands but finally worked up the nerve to return my gaze to his.  I didn’t want to make it out to be something it wasn’t, though, because Ethan had made it pretty clear to me that we were friends only.  So I said, “Yes.  I think he’s my best friend now.”

His eyes bored into mine.
  “You sure that’s all?”

I wasn’t sure what or why he was asking.  No way was I going to tell him I thought I was falling in love with Ethan.  I would feel ridiculous if I told him I had stronger emotions for Ethan than I should have.  After all, it seemed obvious that Ethan didn’t feel the same way for me—he only considered us friends.  And if he wanted our relationship to remain that way, then I would be comfortable with it.  As long as he was a part of my life, I would be happy.  So I said simply, “Yes.”  It was anticlimactic.

And that made Zane realize that not only was
he
uncomfortable with the subject, so was I, and he changed it to focus on classes.  So we both talked about the new classes we’d attended that day and, before I knew it, well more than half an hour had passed and still no Ethan.  “Well, I already have reading to do for my classes, so I better get started.”

“Yeah, me too.  When Ethan gets back, we’ll swing by your room.  Maybe we can all do dinner together.”

“That’d be nice.”

When I arrived back at my room, the resident advisor called me and told me I had been assigned a new roommate who would be moving in that evening.  Well, so much for peace and quiet.  I should have known better than to expect the no roommate situation to last forever.  I just hoped my new roommate would be better than my last.

She began moving in from another floor not long after I’d spoken with the RA.  Jennifer Manders was a sweet, demure girl, the exact opposite of Charlotte.  She seemed polite and friendly.  I offered to help her move the rest of her things, but she told me she could get them.  She was nice about it but seemed quite set on moving her things herself.  Well, it was a little possessive, but I guessed I could understand that.  She didn’t know me well enough to trust me yet, so I told her to just let me know if she changed her mind.  After just a few trips, though, she had all her things in our room, and she started putting them away.  I lay on my bed reading my new psychology textbook and tried to give her the breathing room she seemed to need.  She seemed to search for the perfect place to put each item, so I wondered how her tidy self would cope with my intermittent phases of sloppiness, mixed with my incessant love of metal.  I guessed we’d find out soon enough.

Well, I had to check out a couple of things with her, and the best way to do that would be through an honest, thoughtful conversation.  I didn’t want to just sit back and let shit happen this time.  So, once she seemed completely settled, I asked, “Jennifer, not to pry, but why are you moving out of your old room?”

She looked down at her newly made bed before sitting down on it.  She seemed a little reluctant, but I could tell she thought it was important to talk.  “You’re probably going to think it’s my fault.  I seem to be hard to get along with.  At least my last roommate thought so.”  When she said that, I prepared for the worst. 
Great.
  I’d just survived one crappy roommate and now I had another to contend with.  She didn’t seem to be the type who would be trouble, though.  I was curious and nodded, hoping it would urge her to continue.  I had to withhold judgment until I’d heard her entire story.  “The first month I was here, I had a single room because the girl who was going to be my roommate decided at the last minute to switch schools.  So I was all by myself.  I was okay with that, even though it was kind of lonely.  But another girl moved into my room in October.  She’d been fighting with her roommate and I guess had been kicked out.  She called her a conniving little…”  She paused, seeming to rethink what she wanted to say.  “Well, you know.”  I nodded my head and smiled.  I might not have been worldly, but I could figure out that much.  “Anyway, I know now that she was the troublemaker.  She was rude and inconsiderate…and a man-eater, I’m tellin’ you.”