Home > They Told Me I Was Everything(2)

They Told Me I Was Everything(2)
Author: Gregory Ashe

 “It’s gay porn, dude. You’re living out your gay porn fantasies.”

 “Fer.”

 “That’s like a staple of gay porn, Augustus. You’re moving into your dorm, the new roommate steps out of the shower, he’s naked, he’s a fucking stud, he bends you over that stack of cardboard boxes and you guys do the two-boy bucking bronco.”

 “You know an awful lot about gay porn.”

 “Sexuality is a buffet,” Fer said, stopping again to point a finger at Auggie. “Gotta get a little of everything on your plate, little bro.”

 “Hold still,” Auggie said.

 “What? Why?”

 “I’m hoping this truck will hit you and kill you.”

 Fer slapped him on the back of the head before Auggie could get away.

 There was only one box left in the back of the SUV. Auggie hoisted it, balanced it, and stepped back while Fer shut the door.

 “You want me to come up and make your bed?”

 Auggie rolled his eyes.

 “You want me to count your socks?”

 “Bye, Fer.”

 Fer surprised him by pulling him into a hug, kissing him on the cheek, and then giving him a noogie so hard that Auggie thought he had a traumatic brain injury.

 “Love ya,” Fer said.

 “Love ya,” Auggie said.

 “You call me if any assholes give you trouble,” Fer said. He hesitated, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and looked up the street as he added, “Especially about, you know.”

 “Nobody even knows about that here.”

 “I’m just saying. I’ll drive all the fuck back and kick some fucking ass.”

 Auggie smiled and adjusted the box. “Yeah.”

 “I’ll tell mom you said you missed her.”

 “Do not,” Auggie said. “Don’t you dare.”

 Fer threw him the bird, got into the Escalade, and backed out of the parking stall. A moment later the SUV was turning at the corner, the California plates winking out of sight. Then Auggie was alone with a Missouri sky, Missouri kids, and the un-fucking-bearable Missouri heat. Surrounded by people swarming to move into dorms. Surrounded by kids his age laughing and playing. Surrounded, virtually, by hundreds of thousands of fans who wanted to see his latest video or his next joke. Surrounded in just about every way imaginable, and feeling oh-so-fucking alone right then that he thought he might cry. He pulled a sad face, snapped a few pictures of himself—had to get the jawline right—and scrawled wish you were here on the bottom of the best one. He posted it and figured that it could easily hit high five figures.

 He carried the box back to Moriah Court, climbed the stairs—this time, two girls were moving an electronic keyboard and a brass monkey the size of a Doberman—and let himself back into the dorm room.

 His first thought, upon seeing Orlando for the first time, his roommate standing with a towel around his waist, nothing but muscle on muscle on muscle and a thick pelt of hair on his bare chest, was: oh, fuck, he’s hot.

 His second thought was: fucking Fer, being fucking right again.

 And his third thought, seeing the slight shift in Orlando’s expression when he noticed the elongated moment of attention, was that he, Auggie Lopez, was fucked.

 

 

2


 When Theo got to Liversedge Hall, campus was busy, and he realized that the first official move-in day was in full swing. He arrived later than he would have liked. He had gone to Downing first that morning, just as he went every day now. It was too far for his bad leg, even on the bike, so that meant the bus, and the bus meant being late. Everywhere. All around him, kids—eighteen, most of them, but with eyes and hair and skin like babies—were everywhere: carrying hampers full of clothes, toting bedding, one boy with thirty shirts on hangers slung across his back, a pair of girls carrying what looked like a brass monkey. The damn thing looked tall enough to reach Theo’s knees. And parents. Don’t forget the parents. Moms whipping back and forth between cars and dorms, lugging suitcases and beanbag chairs and posters of teen pop stars. Justin Bieber? Theo had never heard of him, but then again, he wasn’t sure he’d read the name right. The dads, for the most part, puttered around, obviously feeling very important and just as obviously trying to figure out how to look busy. One poor guy was walking in a circle with a screwdriver until a woman with a Jackie O bouffant put her hands on her hips and screamed, “Peter, get the lead out.”

 Once, on the farm, Theo’s dad had had to put down an old mule. The look on Jackie O’s face was eerily similar.

 Theo went inside Liversedge. He filled up his water bottle at the fountain. He checked his bag for pens and pencils and notebooks and for the little Disneyworld keychain that he’d hooked to the inside of the D ring. The front of the keychain’s plastic rectangle showed Sleeping Beauty’s Castle; on the back, Theo had an arm around Ian, and Ian was holding Lana, who’d been two at the time and way too young to appreciate the experience—an argument that had dragged on and on before the trip. In hindsight, Theo wasn’t sure he’d ever admitted that Ian had been right.

 He ducked into the ground-floor men’s room, checked his hair, tried to flatten his beard, which looked absurdly poofy today, and washed his hands. He ended up at the elevators, staring at the brass plate, the up button, the smudged fingerprints.

 Theo was still standing there when Peg walked up, looking a bit like a carnation in her pink summer dress, and delicately pressed the up button with her matching pink nail.

 “Well, Daniel,” she said, her face almost as pink as the nail. “Hello!”

 “Hi, Peg.”

 Her eyes slid to the cane, and Theo wasn’t fast enough to stop himself. He shifted his weight, trying to hide the support.

 “Well,” Peg said. “Aren’t you looking great?”

 “Thank you.”

 “And after everything that happened.”

 Theo nodded.

 “Daniel, I’m really just so terribly sorry.”

 “Thank you. That means a lot.”

 “We were all just so devastated.”

 Theo nodded again. He figured he’d better get it right while he was still in the warmup round.

 “Such a tragedy,” Peg breathed, her pink nails splayed against her pink dress, the whole effect like one giant pink carnation expressing its deepest sympathies.

 “Yes. Yeah.”

 Peg blinked. Her eyeshadow was turquoise, which Theo thought might be a complementary color. The elevator dinged. The doors rattled open. Peg was still frozen with her nails spread against her chest.

 Theo had almost forgotten his line. “It’s, uh, been hard.”

 “You poor dear,” Peg said and started to sob.

 After that, Theo had to help her onto the elevator, and they rode up together to the third floor, where Theo guided Peg into the English department’s main office and got her seated at her desk. Peg ripped tissues out of a box like a magician with handkerchiefs up his sleeve, and Theo filled a paper cup with water and set it by her elbow. By then, Ethel Anne had arrived, and she started crying while she was taking off her coat—never mind that it was September and almost ninety degrees outside. Ethel Anne had to hug Theo, and he had to repeat his performance from the elevator, and then Ethel Anne and Peg had to hug each other, both of them still calling him Daniel for the simple fucking reason that they’d read it on his student account, and somewhere in the middle of the whole fiasco, Theo had to soothe himself by imagining Liversedge Hall imploding and the three of them buried in the rubble.

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