Against his better judgment, Harvard peered at the note affixed to the largest fruit basket. It was a square of white cardboard reading, Heard you might need a new roommate, Aiden! A note on a box of chocolates wrapped with a dusky crimson ribbon read Call me lover roomie.
“Huh,” said Harvard.
He thought again of their first day seeing Kings Row, when he’d asked Aiden to be roommates. Aiden had been talking excitedly about the harvest festival in town. Harvard had looked forward to going with him.
Only he hadn’t. Aiden had gone with a date instead. People said the Kingstone Fair was a guaranteed great date. Harvard had never actually been to the fair.
“Are you… in the market for another roommate?” Harvard asked.
“Don’t bother me with absurd questions,” said Aiden.
Harvard didn’t really think Aiden was. Of course, he’d seen Aiden cast off people with a shrug, as if they didn’t matter, all the time… but Harvard was different.
About twenty guys had sobbed on Harvard’s shoulder saying they’d thought they were different, wailing over Aiden while Harvard patted them on the back. But obviously, that was… not the same.
This was probably just a misunderstanding.
But… if Aiden did want a new roommate, who would Harvard room with? He got along well with everybody and didn’t have anyone specific to ask. Just as he usually didn’t have anyone specific to hang out with while Aiden was busy on his dates.
“Coach made some suggestions to me just now,” Harvard said tentatively. “About the team bonding exercise.”
“Yeah, yeah, go on a picnic, make a graph. Do whatever you like,” snapped Aiden, crunching up another piece of paper. “Leave me alone.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Harvard retreated from Aiden’s mood and the gift apocalypse occurring in his room. He went into the hall to get a breath of air. Once he did, a basic strategy formed in his mind.
It was pretty clear what Harvard’s next step should be. He took out his phone and called the person he knew would help, no matter what his problem was.
He smiled as soon as he heard her voice on the other end of the line. “Hey, Mom. Just called to say I love you. And, uh… do any of your friends have a daughter my age? Who might be interested in going on a date? With me?”
3: AIDEN
I believe you should start as you mean to go on, so I was born gorgeous, Aiden wrote.
So what if it was a lie? Aiden was literally being blackmailed to write this. Two wrongs gave Aiden the right to do anything he chose.
He looked distractedly about the room—it seemed as though there was more stuff in here than usual—in search of inspiration for his great work of fiction. Their shadowed bedroom floor stretched on like gray desert until it met the forbidding mahogany door Harvard had closed behind him. Aiden wanted to crawl under the beds he and Harvard had pushed together in the center of the room and hide there.
Actually, Aiden hadn’t been a prepossessing child. He was born premature, so his first baby pictures were of him looking like a shriveled hairless hamster in a plastic cage in the NICU. Even when he was out of the hospital, Aiden stayed shrimpy and spindly.
I had an oppressive childhood in many ways. “Stop doting on me, Mother, I have things to do,” I would be forced to tell her. “Go to the country club; those charity galas won’t organize themselves.”
Maybe if he’d been a cuter baby, his mother would’ve stuck around. She was a model; she was always poised for the next great photo op. But by the time Aiden was cute, he’d looked too old to be a good accessory, and she didn’t want the world identifying her as the mother of a teenager. She’d had other kids later—adorable, curly-haired tots with some soccer player in Spain—and taken glossy photographs with them. He’d seen them smiling perfect-family smiles at him from a magazine.
When Aiden was younger, he’d told himself he remembered his mother leaving, the sounds of shouts and thrown gifts and the screech of a sports car in the driveway. The truth is, Aiden was too young when she’d left. He couldn’t possibly remember her leaving. He was remembering other women leaving, long after his mother.
His dad hadn’t had any other kids. When he had Aiden, he’d discovered he didn’t find fatherhood amusing. What his dad did find entertaining, and worth collecting, was women. Kids were boring because you had to keep them, but you could always find a brand-new shiny romance if you had enough money to pay for it.
It didn’t really matter that Aiden couldn’t actually recall his mother leaving. They all left in a similar way. His dad’s women were all the same.
Aiden had believed one of them was different. Once. A long time ago.
When he was five, his father had taken up with a Brazilian singer foolish enough to believe faking a maternal instinct would please his dad. Aiden used to follow his father’s girlfriends around the house, allured by the glitter of their jewelry and the scent of their perfume and the sense that something exciting and glamorous was happening. The Brazilian one used to take his hand when he chased after her, slow her step, and tell him stories as she did her eye makeup. She used to hug him and say, “Aiden, you’re so cute.” (Total lie. But he was a little kid back then, so what did he know?) When she and his father got engaged, she showed him the ring, told him they were going to be a family, and asked if she could adopt him. She told him she wanted to be his mother, and could she? Aiden said yes with all his heart.
His dad had married eight women so far. He didn’t marry that one. She left more quietly than most, but she left. There was no screaming, no screech of a car in the driveway, only her engagement ring left gleaming in the shadows of their big cold house. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye.
Whatever. She was only one of many. Aiden didn’t even remember her name now, and he was never fooled again.
Aiden had cried every night for two months after she’d left. Then he’d started school and met Harvard.
Hadn’t Harvard been around, just now? Aiden could’ve sworn he’d come in. Aiden was occupied wrestling with writing and trying not to dwell on Coach’s hideous threat.
Mostly, Aiden found it both useful and amusing to know other people’s weak points. Eugene’s was the fear of letting people down. Seiji’s weak point was his former fencing partner, Jesse Coste. Aiden had used that weak point to needle Seiji and beat him in their tournament. Seiji was a better fencer than Aiden. Seiji should’ve won. Aiden had proved what his father always said was true: Caring was for losers.
Everyone had a weak point. Harvard did, as well. Aiden couldn’t bear to think about it, because Aiden couldn’t bear to think about hurting him.
Harvard was Aiden’s weak point. Coach knew his secret. She knew it would work when she’d threatened to separate them, after even the threat of being removed from the fencing team hadn’t been effective. Aiden had clearly been a lot more obvious and pathetic than he’d realized.
Aiden found himself chewing on a fingernail, stopped, and scowled at himself. What was he doing? He wasn’t a beast of the field.
Where has Harvard wandered off to? Aiden wondered. It wasn’t like him to not be here when Aiden wished for him. Perhaps he’d gone to find someone to deal with this mess.