The English Year - 56. Chapter 56: Running

The hands that wrapped around my waist were firm and strong. They felt familiar, from a man I already knew. He didn’t say anything else as we walked back to the house, but I felt his breath on the top of my head, cascading down my body like a shield.

He held me as we walked through the alley in silence. He led me past the senior Chi Beta brother who was guarding the back entrance, up the back landing, and down the hallway to the bathroom that was next to my bedroom.

“Want me to come in with you?” he asked. I mustered a nod. He led me inside.

“Which one is yours?” he asked, pointing at the dopp kits on the shelf next to the sinks. I could hear the faintness of music downstairs and wondered why he was up here with me instead of dancing in the melee of the late night afterparty. I was sure there was a huge crowd still gathered below, and yet there he was next to me helping me pick out my toothbrush from the shelf in order to help me erase the stench of vomit from my mouth.

I pulled my toothbrush from the shelf. He pulled the closest tube of paste and wet my brush under a cool stream of faucet water.

Like a child I stood there as he opened my mouth and began cleaning me. I felt helpless. Weak. But I also felt justified. I felt like I had been hit in the head. Like I was concussed almost. As if I had no motor skills or reasoning ability. I felt like an infant, unable to think or be… or feel.

And so I simply stood.

And Nick Persons stood in front of me, cleaning me. First he brushed my teeth, forcing me to rinse out in the sink with gentle instructions and hand on my back. Then he pulled a wash cloth off the wall and cleaned my face. My eyes, red and puffy, my chin, and any debris around my mouth. He pulled my hair back, looked me in the eye, and then embraced me.

When I was sufficiently refreshed, he led me to my room where he took my shirt off and threw it in the corner. Mister ran to it, then ran to me, scratching her back on my leg.

“You didn’t have to come up with me,” I told Nick finally. My voice was raw and each word seared my throat like a hot knife. I sat at the edge of my bed. He sat down next to me.

“I know, I just… I saw you run out of here, so I went after you to make sure things were okay.”

I turned my head to look at him.

“I saw you go inside that guy’s room, and I just thought it might be best to wait in the alley for a while. I wasn’t sure…” he paused. “When you ran out of here, I just wanted to make sure things were okay.”

I nodded. I didn’t say anything, but instead thanked him with my eyes.

“Remember when you ran home that one time? The first time we kissed? And you yelled at me first. It felt like that… like you were chasing someone… fighting something.”

Fighting demons, I thought.

If Nick only knew. In a way it was a parallel to the first time the two of us hooked up. I’d known him since his freshman year, but had never seen him in that light until the night I came rushing up the back landing declaring that all men were awful because the man I was in love with had demonstrated, even then, that he wasn’t capable of loving me back..

Fighting demons. Or running from them perhaps, rather.

Running.

This time I ran all the way after Pete to his space. I was still the one running, but in what direction?

“I appreciate you walking me up,” I said softly, unsure of my voice. I cleared my throat. “But you don’t need to stay. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “You don’t look okay.”

I started to respond, but instead of words a guttural sigh came out, followed by tears. In an instant, Nick pulled my head to his nook, and caressed the back of my head.

He didn’t say anything, instead letting me sob into his shirt. I felt weak again. Helpless. Tired.

Tired from chasing demons, I thought as I cried.

Chasing the wrong guy down an ally just to be dumped for a semester in DC. Dumped because it was easier to flee to his friend Dakota than face any adversity in our relationship. Dumped because of a kiss.

A kiss by a guy who declared his love for me. I’d run from that declaration, only to chase after a break up that I was naive to not see coming.

I was so entrenched with finally getting Pete that I didn’t see the things that were right in front of me. I was so entrenched with finally getting Pete that I didn’t realize we were on shaky footing from the start, on two separate pages of a book an entire school year in the making, and that nothing I was ever going to be able to do, not even sharing him with David in an act of desperation, would ever suffice.

I sat there with my head in Nick’s armpit, sobbing, wondering how I’d let it get to this spot.

When I finally pulled myself together, I sat up and wiped the moisture from my face. I was embarrassed. Defeated. Exhausted.

But there he sat, next to me, watching me. Reading me. A guy I had dumped just like I’d been dumped moments before. I’d broken his heart, and yet there he was sitting next to me as I healed.

“I want to lie down,” I said, standing up and unbuttoning my slacks. I pulled them down, and in just my boxer briefs and the wife beater I had on, I crawled into my bed. Mister crawled up next to me and laid down right above my pillow, taking up the small space between me and the headboard.

“Want me to lie with you?” Nick asked. It wasn’t a sexual invitation. Or even a romantic one. It was a friend, truly being a friend, making sure I didn’t want to be left alone.

“If you want,” I replied softly. I closed my eyes and listened to the barely there sound of Nick removing his own button down shirt, shoes, and slacks. He’d been dressed from his own formal, and so after taking his clothes off and laying them neatly on the back of my desk chair, I felt his tall, lean, muscular body climb into the bed behind me. It was awkward at first feeling him spoon me close, his chin resting on the side of my head. But after we stretched into each other, a familiarity came rushing back. A safety net. A shield.

Part of me thought about maybe turning to face him. To thank him. But part of me knew that thanking him in any way besides saying the words would only muck up what was already a murky situation.

I had been dumped by the guy I’d spent all year chasing after. After everything we’d been through to be together, it had all come crashing down.

And then there was the guy in second place who had declared his love for me, against every single odd, and I’d run away from it. Would he ever forgive me? Would he settle for second place? Would I ask him to?

Would I keep running?

There were two littles who both had their own ideas of our relationship. My real little, David, all too eager to get fucked by my boyfriend. A little eager to see what the big deal with the English guy was, but who still had some strange twisted feelings towards me. And Lee, who was there to be used, and to use me in his assent to power.

It was all so murky, so messy, and turning around to thank Nick Persons would have messed things up even more.

And so I just lay there with his arms around me. I felt safe. I felt warm. I felt like I had run a marathon, but I had finally stopped running and could rest.

“Nick,” I said finally. “When we broke up… when I broke up with you, how did you feel?”

It took him a few seconds to respond.

“I was hurt,” he admitted softly, directly into my ear. “Like, really, really hurt. I felt betrayed. Unwanted. I thought, god, Corbin Crowley finally sees me. I knew I was that goofy Sigma Chi sophomore who always convinced you to listen to beats and take shots or whatever, but then you finally saw me. Saw me as someone you could be romantic with. And when you took that away, it wasn’t easy. I’m not going to lie. At the time, I wished we hadn’t ever gotten together.”

He squeezed me harder from behind. I eased into the contour of his body as he continued.

“But you know what? It was a good thing. Like you said, we needed out before it would have been any harder. And getting to share things with you, Corbin. I guess I appreciate that I got to share something with you as opposed to not having anything at all.”

I nodded. Maybe that was the fix. Maybe that was how to look at this whole thing with Pete. The experience. The journey of chasing each other, getting each other, understanding and sharing each other. Maybe the chase was the better part of it. And maybe some things weren’t meant to be held on to. I had experienced what I felt was love at the highest call with Pete. Maybe that kind of feeling wasn’t meant to be sustained.

And yet as I’d thought about the other guys… the Vmee who had declared his love… the little with a bit too much lust… the pledge class president who knew what he wanted and how to get it… and the ex-boyfriend there with me at the right place at the right time…

There were men out there that weren’t Pete. There were options out there. There were choices. There were other fish in the sea. Other men to run to.

Nick and I didn’t say anything else to each other that night. I felt his breathing slow, and matched mine to meet his. We laid next to each other, him holding and comforting me, until the sun came up early the next morning.

I had a raging boner as I stretched awake, stretching right into the boner I felt behind me. Nick had been there all night, and all night we’d spooned. He hadn’t let go once. And as these things go, we both woke up like two horny twenty-somethings, ready to go.

I’d been able to restrain myself the night before, but there was something about the comfort of having Nick there in the morning that made me think differently. Like this was a guy that needed to be thanked for taking care of me. For comforting me. And his hard cock was poking right into me, wanting to be comforted itself.

I knew Nick wouldn’t initiate anything. He was far too polite or that.

But feeling him press against me, hard as a fucking rock, made me want to rid him of any and all politeness. As I stretched awake, I pressed back against him, grinding ever so slightly on his morning wood.

He stretched a moment later, grinding into me. His body reflexed to the stimulation, so I stretched again, this time groaning softly. I reached back with my right hand and found Nick’s pelvis. I ground into him again, this time pulling him into me.

Without saying a word, or turning back to see what state of awake he was in, I slowly slipped my hand between us and grasped his dick. I felt a sharp breath on my neck.

“Are you sure?” he whispered. I nodded. I squeezed, feeling a bit of precum ooze out of his dick. I sighed.

“Just once,” I whispered back at him. “Is that okay?”

I turned my head to face him. He nodded. I shifted completely around and kissed him, softly at first, and then more aggressively. I pulled him as close as two people could be, feeling him pressed heavily against me. I sighed as we both ground our bodies together, breathing heavily, feeling every inch of each other.

It was like a torrent had been unleashed between us. I felt like Nick was a dam, and had been holding back until I made the first move. And the passion between us came rushing through.

I climbed on top of him, grinding against him the entire time. One thing I loved about Nick was that I could straddle him and he was still able to use his well formed lacrosse strengthened torso to pull his upper body up for the most intense make out sessions. I ground into him, holding his head close to mine. We kissed passionately, pulling each other’s hair, forcing our faces as close together as possible.

It didn’t take much to remember how hard his body was, how hot he was, and what an amazing kisser Nick Persons was. I moaned into his mouth like I was in heat, biting down on his lower lip. Nick grabbed a tuft of my hair and forced my head aggressively down on his. We kissed like school kids in the back of a Mustang convertible, top down, under the stars.

And then he pulled my head back away from his own abruptly, resting his head back on one of my pillows with a heavy sigh.

“What’s wrong?” I panted. I looked down at his handsome face with a sense of desperation. Desperation to be loved again. Validated. To go from feeling unlovable to being wanted. I needed Nick to want me, I thought. It was necessary. If Pete couldn’t, or wouldn’t, at least this former lover would.

“Corbin, I’m sorry,” Nick panted back, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I can’t do ‘just once’. Not with you.”

He looked me square in the eye. I could see honesty right down to Nick’s core. He wasn’t the just once kind of guy. Never had been. Even when we first got together, we had decided to pause and make sure we weren’t reacting. Rushing. Of all the demons I’d fought, Nick didn’t want to make himself one of them.

I took a deep breath and got off from straddling him. I laid there next to him, looking up at the ceiling, feeling Mister stretch in the space between my pillow and the wall.

I felt dejected again, but in a slightly different way. In a way that made sense. In a way that felt mature. Like I’d dodged an incredible bullet. Or better yet, that that bullet was dodged for me.

And as much disappointment as I felt lying on my cotton sheets with one of the hottest guys on campus next to me, I thought about how that disappointment was a mere counterpoint. This hot guy was next to me. With the flip of a switch, with the promise of something more, he could be mine. If I offered him more than just once, Pete could be nothing more than a memory.

“I guess you want me to leave,” Nick said softly. I turned my head to face him. He did the same. I leaned in and gave him a peck on the lips. A quick kiss to seal what wouldn’t be. A signature at the end of a letter. A denouement for the guy who had rescued me, literally.

“No,” I replied. “Just… I don’t want to… but could you…?”

“Of course,” he replied. Nick squeezed me closer to him, and waited for me to drift off to sleep. At some point before I did, I felt him get out of the bed, crawl over me, and walk over to my desk. He pulled open my laptop and punched in my password which I hadn’t changed since we dated. A minute later, I heard music begin to play. It was an alt-jazz style music. Calming and soft. There weren’t any lyrics, just movements in sound. As I listened, I felt Nick return to where he was laying next to me and pull me in close.

And that’s the last thing I remembered before I closed my eyes and drifted back off to sleep with Nick next to me.

Nick and I finally woke up a few hours later, this time not with the sunrise, but with the cool March air and bright sun drifting through a little after ten that morning. Nick still held me, but this time it felt different. It didn’t feel like we were in danger of jumping on each other’s bones. In fact, I remember feeling Mister curled up in the small space that existed between us.

I decided to go the ‘pretend like nothing happened’ route with Nick and saw him out the back landing after we both got dressed. He gave me a deep hug and kissed me on the top of the head. I planned to see him out discreetly and then go about my fully packed day, however that plan was thwarted as soon as my pledge class accosted me in the dining room as I was pouring some coffee and creamer into a styrofoam cup.

“Everything okay?” Roberto asked me, pulling me in for a hug from behind, almost making me drop the coffee pot onto the table.

“Huh?” I feigned ignorance.

“You heard me, amigo,” he replied. I turned to see Roberto, Hutch, Brian, and Austin all there. They were fueling themselves up for our meeting, I was sure. As much as it was Hell Week for the pledges, having to get up to prepare, and then execute, was hell for brothers as well.

‘I’m good,” I lied with a lump in my throat. I was a good liar, but for some reason that morning I was bad at it.

“What was Nick doing here?” Austin asked.

“Leaving,” I answered quickly, stirring a packet of creamer into my cup and bringing it up to my lips.

“I thought you had a boyfriend,” Roberto said. I started to reply, but just cocked my neck to the side.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Hutch said.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I answered dryly. “You saw Nick leaving. Big deal.”

“It’s Hell Week and he’s a Sigma Chi,” Austin said. “And he was leaving in the morning after… after…”

“After what?” I asked, glaring Austin in the eye.

“You know what, Corbin.”

“And?”

“It just… doesn’t look great is all. And you know that. And you have a boyfriend, and so risking that and the optics… you know what that would look like… so we just want to make sure everything is fine.”

I changed my stance.

“I love how it’s always fifty percent my love life, and fifty percent how it looks for the house,” I said defiantly. I decided to turn my defense into offense.

“We know you wouldn’t risk the optics,” Brian said softly. “Which is why we’re curious.”

I took a deep breath, noticing that Hutch was suspiciously silent during this third degree.

“Everything is fine. I’m not fraternizing with a Sigma Chi. Nick was over to help me with something, and we ended up staying up way too late. He decided to crash.”

None of them bought it, I determined by their looks.

“You finally have a boyfriend and you spend the night with your ex?” Roberto spat. “Not smart, gamin.”

“Noted,” I replied, pushing past him towards the stairs. “Remind me how your nonexistent relationship is going…”

“Not smart…” he repeated, following me up to the library. I didn’t respond after that, but instead kicked a solo cup behind me as I ascended up to where one of our most important fraternity meetings was to be held.

The debris from the party was still everywhere, and the place reeked of beer and regret. The pledges would clean it later, after our meeting. This was the last morning of their pledgeship they’d be allowed to sleep in. After the active brotherhood got together to plan how Hell Week would go, and the subsequent initiation to follow in a week, their asses would be ours 24/7 for the next week straight. And at the end of the worst week of their lives, they’d be brothers. But first we had to meet. And then we would force them to come in and clean.

The benefit of the meeting was for the sophomores who had never been on this side of a Hell Week before. And so we all gathered, attendance mandatory, to discuss the ins and outs of Hell Week.

Dominic and the Pledge Master conducted the entire meeting, giving me the chance to sit back and think about the last twenty-four hours. There was a rumbling of their instructions in the background, but the gist was the same as the year before.

No forcing pledges to drink. Nothing sexual. Stick to the plan- make them answer questions about the house, our history, our chapter, and our brotherhood. Make them do tasks that were oriented to make them stronger brothers. They had to stay in the house 24/7 besides going to class, never alone.

They also went over the schedule. I made a mental note of when my presence was required. Each class was responsible for a lineup that went from 8pm until 3 or 4 in the morning. There was no curfew during Hell Week, and most pledge classes, including ours, camped out in the house’s basement or library.

Finally, they went over Hell Night. Next Friday night, attendance was required by every active brother. That evening, the pledges would join us for dinner, and then be released to their rooms to shower, change, and return for their final night of pledgeship. In that time, the active members would plan out initiation night and set things in motion. Once they returned on Friday, they’d endure an all night line up, their final one, which would lead directly into initiation the next morning. The planning was intricate, as we would stage the house at different times to facilitate secrecy. I listened closely to that part, noting what me and my class was on the hook for.

I didn’t plan on doing anything other than what was required of me, but even for a jaded junior who had almost been impeached, the weekend ahead was sacred and I felt a pang of brotherly love as I listened to Dom explain it.

“If there are no questions, I’ll adjourn the meeting there,” I heard. Reflexively, having been in my own head for most of the morning, I got up and walked towards the door.

“Hey, Corbin,” I heard Hutch’s voice from behind me. “Can we talk for a second?”

I felt a knot in my throat. I immediately thought of my conversations with Ben, and the machinations I was planning to overthrow my best friend from his perch as the heir apparent to Chi Beta. Had he found me out, I thought. Had I been too distracted fucking David and Lee and being fucked over by Pete? Had I taken my eye off the proverbial prize? What did Hutch want?

I cleared my throat and agreed.

“Should we go upstairs?” I asked. I anticipated a confrontation. My stomach tightened thinking about what my pledge brother had to say. I didn’t know if I had the constitution to go back and forth with him that morning. Not after everything I’d been through the night before. Sitting and listening to Dom ramble on was one thing. Having to answer for staging a coup against a pledge brother was another thing entirely.

“Is everything okay?” I stammered up the stairs, trying to get a gauge.

“You tell me,” Hutch replied. He followed me up to my room. I let him in, flicked on the light, and closed the door behind us. I folded my arms across my chest as armor, in anticipation.

“First I just want to ask you something,” Hutch began. I swallowed. “Is everything okay with you?”

I tilted my head.

“And don’t bullshit me like you did everyone else downstairs. I know you, Corbin. The other guys… they worry about you. But I know you.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to follow along. I shifted my weight and waited for Hutch to get to the point.

“After you left the house last night… running after Pete, I guess,” he continued. “The cadet came and found me. He wanted me to give you this.”

Hutch reached into his pocket and pulled out a pin. It was the intertwined letters of VMI on a pin. The pin was gold and encrusted in small jewels that were red, white, and yellow.

“What is…” I couldn’t find the words. I knew exactly what it was, so asking was futile. It was a lavalier. From Mike the Cadet. I fought back a tear as I processed what Hutch held out to me. I took the pendant in my hand and rolled it around. On the backside were Mike’s initials and his graduation year, the same as my own. I swatted a single tear from my face as Hutch continued.

“I don’t know what went down between you guys. But he said he trusted me to give you the following message. He said that he knows you don’t want him to wait for you, but he will. And that you can hold on to that for as long as it takes. And when you’re ready, you can go find him any time, any place, for anything. He’ll be there.”

I choked back as I listened to what Hutch said. This was the guy I’d run from, and for what? The guy who was ready to give it all, as evidenced by what I held in my hand. The guy who was ready to be there for it all. And I ran.

For what? To fight off a demon. To place my love in someone who had no desire to love me back. To be slapped in the face by a guy who was going off on a Washington mini-semester without consulting his boyfriend first. I ran from the guy who was actually there to chase the idea of a guy who wasn’t; who couldn’t. And it hit me.

I ran because maybe I was the one who couldn’t commit. I was the one guilty of all the things I had put on Pete. I’m the one who had fucked my little because I had the sheerest incling Pete was hiding something. And even though my inkling was correct, I’m the one who ran. I’m the one who had tried to fuck my ex hours earlier because I needed to feel wanted. I was the one who ran, literally, right into his arms. I had thought about this whole story with the context of me chasing Pete, wanting Pete, meanwhile there was a man who loved me right there, and I had his pin to prove it.

And I ran.

I looked up from the pin to my pledge brother who gave me the look you’d give a wounded puppy.

“Listen,” Hutch said. “I know we have our differences, but you’ve been my best friend here since day one. If you’re in trouble or need anything, you know you can ask. And you don’t have to bullshit me like you did the guys downstairs.”

I nodded, unable to form the words to speak. Instead I held the pin in my hand and squeezed it tight, almost like I was squeezing Mike in one of his chiseled and warm embraces.

In that moment so many things ran through my head. So many demons to fight off, and yet I couldn’t even sort them out one by one. My pledge brother who I was planning to betray standing before me, giving me the message of a lifetime from the one guy in my life that had proven he could commit.

I didn’t even know where to begin, and so I simply looked at Hutch with wounded eyes, and told him three words I had never spoken a day in my life. But they were the only three words I could think of in that moment.

“I fucked up.”