The Fire In My Eyes (7 page)

Relief was immediately evident on her face and she jabbed her fork into her salad. “Good. I was wondering if I was the only one. He's really something. Really.”

I wanted to ask if she had experienced anything like I had. Ripley had said not to mention our encounter, and I didn't want her to think I was crazy. If I wanted to stand a chance with her, I'd have to be a nice, sane, normal guy. Not a freak. I picked up my glass. “Definitely something,” I agreed.

Two weeks passed. Classes were in full swing and I was easily keeping up. Ripley hadn't spoken directly to me since the first class. I didn't lose any sleep over that, nor did I lose any more sleep to weird dreams, night terrors, hallucinations, or glowing green eyes. Those particular memories were fading, and I was settling into a routine.

The most pleasant bit of my routine involved Ripley's class. Nikki and I ate dinner together each week after his class. I was becoming more and more interested in her. Not only was she pretty, our personalities meshed in a way that just felt right. I wanted to see her more often than once or twice a week. When she smiled, I wondered if she was starting to feel the same way.

I decided that I'd ask her out soon. There was incidental physical contact, her hand brushing my arm or hand as we walked. She looked me in the eye and smiled when we spoke. She listened carefully and paid attention to what I was saying. The signs were there, but I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't misreading things.

When it came to this sort of thing, I knew who to ask for advice: Not Max.

Drew looked at me as if I had asked him about the meaning of life. “You want to what?” he asked.

“Talk to you about a girl. Get your advice, I guess,” I said. Drew was a decent guy. I was sure he’d give me a hand.

“You want my advice about a girl,” he repeated, then scratched the back of his head and looked slightly embarrassed. “Hey, look, I know Max talks me up like I'm some player who gets with a different chick every weekend, but I'm not that bad.”

I crossed my arms and stared at him. His expression grew pained. I had learned a long time ago with my family that silence could get better answers than asking questions.

“Come on, Kev, he walked in once and built a legend around it!”

“Once?”

“Ok, twice. And almost a third, but she was just about to-”

“Do you need to count on your fingers?”

Drew glared, but proceeded to do so. He counted off three fingers, looked thoughtful, and counted off a fourth, then a fifth. By the time he was done with the other hand he was grinning. When he went back to the first hand, I waved a hand in front of his eyes. He blinked and focused back on me. “Well, maybe Max was right for once,” he said. “Kev, man, I really don't know if I'm the guy you should go to for advice on relationships.”

I chuckled. “Drew, I know three guys here well enough to ask their advice. You, Max, and Andreas. Should I ask one of them instead?”

“Point, Kev. Get your coat.”

“What for?”

He grinned at me. “We're going to the gym. If you're going to make me talk about chicks and shit, I’m going to make you get some exercise. The indoor courts are always empty around now. We'll get some one on one in.”

I tried not to look too horrified. I wasn't in the mood to walk ten minutes in the freezing cold just to get my ass kicked at basketball, but I’d pay that price. “I assume you're going to spot me some points at least, right?”

“Two or three,” he said. “You get some advice, plus a workout. Twice the benefit.”

I groaned and followed him. It wouldn't hurt to get some exercise and start shedding some extra weight. I shivered when we left the building. It had only gotten colder as January had progressed. Drew stretched his arms over his head and grunted. I heard several distinct pops. “Man, this feels good.”

“Still too cold,” I muttered.

“Yeah, but at least there's not a lot of wind. We'll warm up quick when we get to the gym. Come on.” We started down the road that led to the main campus. “So, this chick. The one you were having dinner with last night?”

“How do you know about that?” I asked.

Drew laughed. “I was in the Caf when you came in yesterday. Was about to wave you over but saw you were with a girl. Now, see, I didn't want to steal her away with my good looks and charm, so I just watched. She's cute, dude. Good eye.”

I forced a chuckle. This was not exactly how I had imagined my chat with Drew going. “She is pretty. That's not really part of the problem.”

“Got problems talking with her?”

“No, not exactly, but-”

“Easy guess, then.” Drew stretched again, this time with a twist. His back popped. I winced. “You want to date her, but you're being a gigantic pussy about it, and you want to know how to do it right.”

I covered my face with my hand. “He shoots, he scores.”

“That's what I figured. Look, Kev, I'll tell you the best way to ask her out. You ready?” He looked over at me with a huge grin.

“I'm ready,” I said. “But I think I'm starting to regret this.”

“Ok. You're the girl, right? And I'm you. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He looked me straight in the eye, still grinning. “Hey, I'm having a lot of fun hanging out with you. Want to get some drinks or have dinner downtown sometime?”

I blinked and waited for him to say something else. “And?”

“That's it. Go ahead, say no.”

“No.”

“Ok.” He walked on in silence. “See?”

“I don't get it.”

“You said no. I kept walking. That's all it takes, man. If she's not interested, she says no, you both get on with life.” He shrugged. “That's why I don't think I'm the right guy to ask for advice on this. It's simple, but guys like you and Max and Andreas make it into this huge thing. Your life isn’t going to come to a screeching halt if she says no. That's why Max hasn't asked Jess out, he's afraid she'll say no.”

“But what if she does?” I knew it was a stupid question, but I just didn't have his level of self-confidence. “I like her and we're getting to be good friends. What if I ask her out and she doesn't want to be friends anymore?”

Drew sighed and stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “Look. You both know what you want from the other. Now you need to find out what the other wants from you. Flip the situation, man. If you were only interested in her as a friend, but she wanted more, would you really be comfortable around her? No, right?”

“No,” I admitted. “But-”

“No buts. Look, I went to senior prom with this amazingly hot girl, took her to a hotel that night, had amazingly hot sex with her, and never talked to her again after that night.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“Because we were both looking for a hot prom date, a fun night, and a great memory. I was going away to school up here and she was staying local. Honestly, she was a whiny little bitch. No way was I going to get serious with someone like that, let alone try a long distance relationship with her.” Drew poked a finger into my shoulder, driving me a step back. “The point is that we both knew what we wanted, we were up front about it, and neither of us played games. My advice, if you want to get serious with this girl, ask her out and make your intentions known straight up. If she's not interested, move on. Don't disrespect her by playing games, and make sure she doesn't play you either.”

I stood there for a moment. While I didn't have Drew's level of confidence, he was right. I had just met Nikki, and if she turned me down, it wouldn't be that big a deal. I had only known her for a couple of weeks, after all, so there wasn't much to lose. I had problems making new friends, but this was a new place and a new start.

Drew slapped my shoulder. “Kev?”

“Sorry. Just thinking.” We started walking downhill toward campus again. “You're right. I'm going to ask her out after class next week. Earlier if I run into her.”

“You don't have her number? Or what dorm she lives in?”

I shook my head. “She's got a night class on Wednesdays, so she leaves after we eat, and I've never asked her what dorm she's in or for her phone number. I'm a dumbass, right?”

“Yup,” he said. “But you're learning, man! You're growing more balls in a month than Max has in a year. At least where girls are concerned. You ever had a girlfriend before?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“You guess?” Drew laughed. “I bet it was one of those awkward high school things where you were friends and just ended up being around each other so much, everyone thought you were going out anyways, so you did.”

“What the hell, Drew? Did you spy on me during high school? Read my mind? Read my diary?”

“You keep a diary? Freak.”

I sighed. “Figure of speech. It's like you know what I'm going to say before I say it.”

“Hey, don't sweat it, man. I've been friends with lots of people through high school and college and I've seen plenty of beta types like you go through the same thing. So tell me what happened with this girl. I promise I won't predict what happened.”

I didn't say anything right away. This was the reason why I had left in the first place. “You're close,” I finally said. “We were friends through high school. Got closer as it ended. Ended up spending a lot of time together, and then I just figured we'd take the next step.”

“What happened?”

I shook my head. “She transferred.”

“Where?”

“Berkeley.”

Drew winced. “Damn. Did you try a long distance relationship?”

“No.” I didn't want to talk about it. Just remembering it was painful enough.

“What was her name?”

“Her name was Stephanie. Hey, what about Lisa?” I asked.

Drew stopped dead again. “What about her?”

“Did you ask her out again?” I wanted to change the subject, and I was curious as to whether Drew followed his own advice. I figured he was the sort of guy who would walk the walk as well as talk the talk, unlike Max.

He shrugged. “Not yet. After that other night, I've been avoiding her. Still recovering.”

“I'm surprised you're still interested after that,” I said.

“She called me the next day and apologized,” he told me. “She was very serious about it, man, she felt bad. See, I'm going to give you some advanced tips. It's all about the balance of power. Now that I'm the wounded party for once, I have the balance, and I'm letting her squirm for a while to get her worked up. You have to keep your distance, Kev, otherwise they don't think anything of you, cause they already have all of you they want.”

“I think I've learned more in the last few minutes than I have in all my classes so far,” I said.

“And my lessons are probably more useful in real life,” he said.

We both started to laugh, and then everything went to hell. I heard a car's engine roar from behind us and we both spun around. Bright lights came on, blindingly white, heading right for us. There wasn't time to think, only time to react.

Drew was on the inner side of the sidewalk, closer to the row of houses. I pushed him with one hand, as hard as I could. He flew out of the way, out of my field of vision. I caught a look of surprise on his face just before I lost track of him, and then it was just the car and me.

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see it happen. I didn't want to see the impact. Didn't want to see the world spin around me. Didn't want to see the ground rush up and hit me. Didn't want to feel that pain.

Fuck that. I didn't want to die.

I opened my eyes and jumped, straight up in the air, as hard as I could, as high as I could. I thought that even if I could just land on the hood and roll over the roof and off the back of the car, I could make it with fewer injuries. I might even look awesome in the process, like something out of a movie. Even if there weren't any witnesses, I could imagine what it would actually look like.

I never imagined I would jump high enough for the car to pass completely under me.

A rush of air buffeted my legs as the car roared through where I had just been standing. In the dimness of the evening, I couldn't tell the exact color of the car, but I did notice small details as I hung in midair. The windshield wipers were on. There was a thin crust of snow stuck to the roof. The car was actually traveling slightly slantwise, not straight along its axis as cars normally do. As it passed under me, I twisted to watch it continue forward. One of the taillights was out. There was no license plate.

The ground then proceeded to rush up and hit me.

I laid there in a daze. I hadn't landed on my head, but my legs had buckled on landing and I ended up flat on my back. Spread-eagled on the sidewalk, I contemplated the stars, the moon, and how amazingly lucky I was to be alive. I lifted a hand up toward the sky to see if I could figure out how many fingers I was holding up.

Two fingers, shaded green. My temples throbbed. I squeezed my eyes closed and curled up on my side. The pain in my head grew and I held back a sob. My head hurt, my back hurt, my legs hurt, my heart pounded and I couldn't breathe and all the weird things that I had been trying to forget over the past two weeks were all coming back. I just wanted to live a normal college life, and now this was happening again. I could almost hear Ripley's voice warning me about others looking to neutralize me. Was that a warning or a threat? Was that what had just happened?

“Kevin! Kev! Holy shit, are you ok?” I felt a thump as Drew crashed down to the side of me. “Dude, answer me! Are you ok? Did it hit you?”

“No,” I managed to say through clenched teeth.

“I'm going to call an ambulance,” he said. “Hang on, man, hang on!”

“No!” I said it louder. “I'm fine. Don't worry. Wind knocked out of me.”

I felt his hand grab my shoulder. “Kev, are you really all right? What happened? Look at me man, I can't tell if you're hurt or not!”

I tried to shake his hand off and closed my eyes even tighter. The headache was starting to fade away. I didn't want to open my eyes until it was gone. “Don't. Give me a minute. Ok?”

“Ok.” His grip loosened, then let go. “Man. I didn't think you were that strong.”

“Strong?”

“You pushed me like twenty feet away! Sent me flying over that snow bank, I think I did a complete flip. Almost landed on my head!” Drew sounded almost in awe. “Crazy, man, totally crazy. I don't know why that guy was so out of control, he must have hit the gas at just the wrong time. It's not that slippery on the roads tonight. Dude, seriously, I had no idea how strong you are! How much can you bench?”