Page 50 of Hello Forever
I shook my head. “That might be askingtoomuch.”
He waved me off. “Fine. I’ll call you tomorrow or thenextday.”
ChapterSeventeen
Cax
Three weekswithout speaking to Axel. Every day felt hollow. Even if cutting off communication with him had been the safe thing to do, I was still upsetaboutit.
And I looked for him everywhere. When I crossed the quad, my gaze landed on every guy who might be Axel. I looked for him in the grocery store and in line at thecoffeeshop.
I didn’ttryto look for him. It’s just that I couldn’t figure out howtostop.
Sitting through Scotty’s holiday concert, I kept wondering what he was up to—whether he’d found a gay bar in Providence and whether he went home alone. It practically drove me nuts sitting there in the school auditorium, wishing I wasmilesaway.
“Want to go out for ice cream?” I asked Scotty when the concertwasover.
“Isn’t it kinda late?” he asked. That was Scotty, always clinging to the rules, hoping to stay out of trouble. Justlikeme.
Howdepressing.
“Just a quick cone,” I said, hurrying him to the car. “I need something tocelebrate.”
“Okay,” he said, humoring me. “Let’sdoit.”
The holidays dragged by. The graduate housing complex emptied out. Sometimes my lonely reading light seemed like the only sign of life. I did some research for my dissertation, but often found my mindwandering.
I thought it would get easier when all the students came back after New Year’s. Classes began on Monday, but, as I sat at a conference table with a new group of undergraduates, my sense of loneliness didn’t disappear. They looked about a hundred years younger thanIfelt.
Beginning-of-semester things got posted in the teaching assistants’ office. I did a quick scan of the intramural basketball schedule, hoping to see a game with the Athletic Department coming up soon. I found it, but it wouldn’t happen for anothermonth.
Sigh.
I spent long hours in the library. On Tuesday night, I realized I’d been staring into space for a long time. Calling it quits, I closed the tabs on my Internet browser. On a whim, I checked my work email one more time. There was a message from the compliancedepartment.
Thatwasodd.
Dear Mr.Williams,
Your presence is requested next Monday at 9:00 AM in Trainor Hall for a hearing regarding charges of sexual harassment. Please reference the complaint Henry Williams Sr. v. AxelArmitage.
Ireadthat message a dozen times, because it made nosense.
Then I thought about my father, and realized thatitdid.
I stood up so fast that my library chair went toppling backwards. Grabbing my coat, I marched out of the library, hurrying through the atrium. When I left the building, I did not go home. I did not go to my father’s house, because that would leave me screaming at him in front of the boys. And I did not go to a bar to drink myself silly, although that wasn’t ahorribleidea.
Instead, I walked straight into College Park and onto the path to Axel’sapartment.
He must befreakingout.
Goddamnit! He’d come here for a job. And he’d shown me nothing but love. And now my fucking father was going to drag him down into the muck. Axel. The man I loved. My heartburnedforhim.
I was really fired-up by the time I made it to the end of the wooded path, reaching the stairs up to his door. When I got to the top, my knock was too urgent. And when the door swept open, I stepped inside without waiting for aninvitation.
“Cax,” he said, backing up as I barged forward. “You shouldn’t be here. There’stroubleand—”
“Fuck the trouble!” I shouted. “He’s the fucking devil. I can’t take it anymore.” I stood there, chest heaving, face red from the cold and fromanger.
