The Art of Hero Worship (12 page)

Apparently, my avoidance of Liam has much
more to do with sexuality issues than unwanted reminders of the
shooting.

I’m a coward in more ways than one.

In any case, my girlfriend from high school,
Carrie Dodd, and I, have gotten together a few times, and I won’t
lie, our single attempt at hooking up felt more wrong than right…
more disappointing than sweet. The best way I can describe it is
“it got the job done” but even that’s a lie because it didn’t.
Still, I’ve done my best to roll with it… with her. Carrie’s
gorgeous and sexy and reasonably intelligent and only slightly
annoying when she drones on and on about how much all the guys at
her college wanted her freshman year. But her presence doesn’t
require me to think too hard or question myself, and I guess I like
that part.

I’m normal Jason Tripp again, right?

I’m the guy I was before I met Ginny—the
first girl to make me laugh and think and look at the world in a
different way—and before I was nearly shot in the head twice. And
before I was touched by the hand and the heart of a man who I
simultaneously crave and abhor.

Sure, I’m normal Jase….

Mom peeks her head into my bedroom. “I think
that’s all of it, dear. I have your clothes pressed and folded into
the two large duffle bags, and I baked enough double-chocolate
fudge brownies for you to share with your entire floor. They’re in
the green and white Tupperware containers, and I want the
containers back, you hear me? Tupperware doesn’t grow on
trees.”

Mom has gradually come to accept that I’m
returning to Batcheldor College to study journalism. I’m glad to be
returning. I seriously need some space from her. The woman is great
in many ways, but suffocating too. “Thanks, Mom.”

“That poor sweet Carrie looked so dejected
when she left here this morning. I hope you plan on staying in
touch with her. She would make me an excellent
daughter-in-law.”

I barf in my mouth, but swallow quickly and
offer my mother a noncommittal shrug. When Mom sends me a stern
look I smile dumbly.

“Good girls like her don’t grow on trees,
either, young man.”

I know it’s more likely that I hang onto the
green and white Tupperware containers for the long haul, than I
hold onto Carrie, but I still nod. “I think it’s time we headed to
Vermont.” Sometimes changing the subject is the only way out of
these types of unwanted heart-to-hearts with Mom. “Jack expects me
to be back at school in time for the club soccer meeting.”

Mom smiles and it makes her look a decade
younger. “Well, keep in mind that if a certain soccer player
invited a certain mother to watch a soccer game or two, she
wouldn’t say no.”

“Not subtle, Mom. But I’ll let you know when
I get my soccer schedule.”

I receive a quick squeeze before she heads
for the driver’s seat of our minivan.

“Mom, I can drive back to school.”

She shakes her head with something close to
vehemence. “The way you apply the brakes makes me ill. Now get your
bottom into the passenger seat and buckle your seat belt.” I can’t
argue with that, and like a kid, I’m driven away to college in our
family minivan for the second time in as many years.

***

I wondered if I would freak out when we
drove past the Harrison Theater on our way to RetroHouse, but I
didn’t. I just held my head stiffly and stared straight in front of
me, allowing residual numbness to encapsulate me.

Now, I’m in my new dormitory room, which is
slightly bigger than my basement room of last year, and on the main
floor, as well. Mom made my bed, which will probably never be made
again this year, unpacked my freshly ironed clothing into the
standard issue bureau, and passed out her brownies to anyone and
everyone on my floor.

I found myself eager for her to leave so
that I could go upstairs to where most of the seniors are housed,
and find Liam before the soccer meeting. I’d been surprisingly
obsessed by this desire, and the very second Mom was out of my
room, I ran for the stairs.

Seniors all have good-sized single rooms;
the reward for three long years of sharing space with roommates. I
walk down the long hall on the fourth floor and read the nametags
on each door, none of which have
Liam Norwell
printed neatly
across its width. I find this odd, because when we were at the
beach last summer, he’d told me that he was going to be in the
senior singles in RetroHouse this year.

I’m left with no choice but to ask someone.
I linger in the hallway until a hipster-looking guy saunters out of
his room. “Hey…excuse me, I have a question.”

He looks at me strangely, probably wondering
what on earth this lowly sophomore is doing up on the senior floor.
“Yeah?”

“Do you know Liam Norwell? He’s supposed to
be living up here and I don’t see a room with his nametag on
it.”

“Norwell bailed on living in RetroHouse at
the last minute. He got an apartment off-campus, from what I
heard.”

I’m surprised. No, I’m fucking shocked. And
hurt… but I’m not sure of the reason. “Do you know where his
apartment is?”

“Do I
look
like a frigging address
book?” He walks straight past me to the stairs and I pick up a
distinct “get a life” vibe.

“Uh… thanks.”
For nothing.
I’m
stunned, feeling like I’ve been slapped hard in the face. Not only
does Liam refuse to live in the same dormitory as me, he didn’t
even tell me about his change in plans.

I know… I know… I never returned his calls.
But still… he could’ve texted me.

I can’t find him.

He doesn’t answer or return my phone calls,
but I realize I can’t complain about this since it’s exactly what I
did to him at the end of the summer. I already went to the
Registrar’s Office and asked for his new address, but the secretary
told me she couldn’t disclose that information. I really never knew
who his roommate was, or any of his friends—but I do know that he
had gone to see Ginny’s roommate, Mariah Craft, perform on the
night of the theater shootings. It doesn’t take much of a detective
to figure out where she’s living. The sophomores are housed in
RetroHouse and Hamilton Hall, and since I know she isn’t living in
RetroHouse, I stop by Hamilton Hall on my way home after the first
day of classes.

It’s like the bad kind of déjà vu. I walk up
and down the halls of the girl’s floors in Hamilton Hall, reading
the names posted on the doors of the young women who live there,
and I don’t see Mariah’s name. So, I’m forced to camp out in the
lobby until a girl I recognize as a sophomore enters the dorm.

“Hi… you’re Emily, right?” I’ve never before
put myself out there like this. But I really want to find Liam.

“Yeah… weren’t you… uh, like Ginny
Blankenship’s boyfriend?” She seems to realize how stupid a thing
to ask it is halfway through saying it. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry I
asked that!”

“It’s okay. I’m okay, I guess.” It strikes
me that Ginny would likely be living in this very hallway if she
hadn’t been killed last spring. For a moment, I think I’m going to
lose it and barf in the water fountain on the wall. It hurts to
think about Ginny and it also brings back the memories of trying to
survive last summer. But I pull myself together because I have a
purpose here. “Do you know where Mariah Craft is living this year?
I haven’t talked to her since… last spring and I wondered if you
knew which room is hers. I want to say hi.”

“Oh, you don’t know?” The girl is pretty
with her blue eyes and light brown hair, but I have no interest
whatsoever.

“Know what?”

“Mariah transferred out of Batcheldor
College during the summer. She couldn’t deal with what happened to…
you know, to Ginny… and she’s going to school somewhere in
Massachusetts now.”

“Mariah’s gone?”

Emily nods. “Like… my friend Jenna might
have her number.”

This isn’t going to help me find Liam. “I… I
think I can figure out how to reach Mariah if I need her. But
thanks, anyway.” Without waiting for a response, I walk down the
hallway and out of the building.

If I want to find Liam Norwell, it looks
like I’m going to have to bump into him on campus by chance.

I have the same roommate as last year, BJ
Landon. He’s a good guy, and was especially cool after the theater
shooting. He packed all of my stuff in our dorm room into cardboard
boxes and loaded them into Mom’s minivan so I wouldn’t have to come
back to the school and face things I wasn’t ready for.

But BJ is wild. W.I.L.D. And sure, I like to
have a good time, but I’m not all about crashing into my bed, or on
the floor in the vicinity of my bed as is often the case for BJ, in
a drunken stupor. Every night of the week.

It’s the first weekend since we’ve returned
to Batcheldor College, and BJ is growing crazier by the minute. For
the most part, all week I have steered clear of parties, as my
attitude toward learning, and maybe even toward life in general, is
much changed from last year. I’m a much more serious and focused
guy now. But BJ has pretty much begged me to hang out with him
tonight—there are three keg parties in RetroHouse
alone
that
he knows of—and a late night pizza bash with some freshman girls in
the basement.

I want to be excited about the parties and
the pizza and the girls, and to be lighthearted like BJ. I want to
be the uncomplicated college student I thought I could again be, or
at a minimum, impersonate. But the apathetic reaction I’ve had to
all the welcome-back parties and crazy coeds during the past week
lets me know that I’ll never again be able to pass for a fun,
easygoing guy.

“You’ve been hitting the books too hard this
week, Jase. And you know what they say about all work and no play,
don’t you?”

I laugh. “It makes Jase a dull boy, but also
a boy with straight A’s.”

“Here, drink this.” BJ hands me a shot of
something amber, and even though I’m not in the mood, I swig it
down. Apparently, I’m still something of a follower. “Now, word is
out that you’ve been looking for some senior dude. What’s the deal
with that?”

I certainly did put the word out this week.
I did everything short of hanging signs on trees that say
LOST:
One Valiant Hero
to let the Batcheldor community know that I’m
looking for Liam Norwell. I’m still not exactly sure what I’m going
to say to him, but I know I need to see him. Badly.
Obsessively
badly.
“The deal is that I want to see the guy who saved my
butt last year.”

I now have BJ’s attention. “This Norwell
dude saved you? In Harrison Theater?”

The police know what Liam did for me, but
the details have not gone public on campus. “Yeah. And I need to
talk to him.”

“Sure as shit you do! And after you guys
talk, you gotta get him bombed off his ass, that’s what you need to
do! You owe him that much….”

“BJ, I just want to talk to him, that’s
all.”

This first week back to school has been
almost as hard for me as the week after the two shootings, which
seems like a dramatic claim, but it’s true. I thought being back in
the college environment might tear me apart because of the
reminders of Ginny and of the shooting, but what’s tearing me apart
is knowing I messed everything up with Liam because I was confused…
because I wasn’t ready to see myself in a new, nontraditional, as
in possibly gay, way.

“Well, I know a few seniors, and I’ll tell
them to kidnap him and deliver him to our dorm room, then we can
treat him to one hell of a rowdy night—I might be able to score
some weed—and we can cap it off with a freshman girl
happy
ending
!”

I sigh in frustration, and the sound is yet
another reminder of Liam.
Why didn’t I return his calls?
I
must be crazy—my inaction this summer with regard to Liam just
doesn’t make sense. After one of the best weekends of my life,
where I turned a major corner and began to recover from emotional
devastation, I literally ignored the person who gave me this peace
of mind. “Not a good idea, BJ. I don’t think kidnapping him would
be much of a thank you.”