Wildalone (23 page)

He went in first—sinking us deep into the forest, into its lifeless labyrinths. I followed his steps with the softness of a shadow. Moving with him. Breathing him. Existing only in him, as if I had belonged to him always.

While we walked, he spoke to me about darkness. About his perpetual darkness and how he wanted to take me, the way a heavy night sweeps the earth: storming it, bursting through each of its crevices and hard, hard as a root from which we would both fall toward each other, madly, irreversibly, without even knowing it—

then he turned.

I felt his eyes. Their guilt. His voice, fading as I slipped away:

far from lost
       
       
       
if you don't

open your eyes, I will

alone
       
famished

impossible to bring you back

         
from the abyss of

He didn't see it, but I did: a white figure approaching through the forest. Skipping steps. Smiling. Twirling like a child, while a dress poured silver around her tiny body. She reached him. Kissed his face. Drowned it with her golden hair: a lost sun looking for its moon—

“The sun? No, the sun is far from lost. It's out already, and if you don't open your eyes . . .” The familiar laughter spilled in my ear. “If you don't open your eyes, I will be forced to have breakfast without you. Don't tell me you want to wake up here alone and famished.”

I looked around and found myself curled up on the floor in my room. Rhys had bent over me, smiling.

“Good morning. It's impossible to bring you back!”

“Back where?”

“Here, from the abyss of sleep.”

He had already gone to the dining hall and brought a tray with food: warm toast, two omelets, coffee, and a plate of fruit. Once again, though, he seemed more interested in watching me eat than in the food itself.

“Aren't you hungry?”

He shrugged, biting into a piece of toast. “Crowds drain my appetite. I'd forgotten that Forbes is a zoo in the morning.”

My fork stopped in midair.
Forgotten?
I could see the bread force its way down his throat, as he realized that the slip hadn't escaped me.

“When were you a morning person in Forbes before?”

Just two words, carefully chosen:

“Way back.”

Then two more:

“Sophomore year.”

I had finally managed to bait it out of him: he had once attended Princeton. “Why didn't you tell me you used to live in Forbes?”

“Because I didn't. Live in Forbes, I mean.”

He sounded resigned to my questions, but I stopped them right there. Why bother? Only one thing could have kept him away from his dorm overnight, back then: the same thing keeping him away from his house now. As it were, for the moment that “thing” happened to be me.

I stirred the sugar in my coffee. “By the way, I probably won't be able to see you until Friday.”

“Why not?”

“Midterms are starting tomorrow. I have to take the book vow.”

“There's something else, Thea.” There always seemed to be something else. “Friday won't work. I'll be gone for a while.”

“How long?”

“Just a few days, I'll be back by Saturday. But until then, I need to be on my own.”

Need to be.
At least, unlike Jake, he was letting me know in advance.

“Then I'll see you over the weekend. It's not a big deal.”

But it
was
a big deal. I could tell it was, even more for him than for me. An inexplicable guilt had sneaked into his eyes and remained there.

Crazy scenarios began to swarm in my head. What if he was secretly married? Had a child? Or where did all his money come from? Corporate scams? Mafia schemes? Then I forced my thoughts back to reality: Rhys had plans and those plans didn't include me. I had no right to be upset about it, nor did he owe me explanations.

Before he left, he helped me make the bed again. And in daylight, the dreamy cloud of cotton went back to what it had always been:

Ordinary linens.

“SO, WHO IS HE?” RITA
had tracked me down at dinner. Her tray landed across from mine and the coffee mug almost tipped over—an exaggerated bang, to show me she was still ticked off that I had kept the stalker saga a secret. “Tesh?”

“Do we really have to talk about him?” It was the night before midterms and all I wanted was a quick meal.

“I'm just trying to protect you. So yes, I guess we do.”

“Protect me from what?” I took a sip from the orange juice. “He isn't my boyfriend, if that's what you mean.”

So much, at least, he had made clear.

“Then what is he?”

My fingers played with the glass, rotating it in place.

“Tesh, I'm not blind. What is he?”

“I've seen him a few times. It's complicated.”

She reached across the table, sliding her hand over mine. “That's exactly why I'm worried. The guy seems cut out for the eating club scene—which I'm not sure is a good thing to begin with—but he's also older, right?”

“Not that much older.”

“Okay, Miss Vague, give me the actual number.”

“I don't know, late twenties. Who cares?”

“What do you mean
who cares
! Wouldn't you rather be with someone your age? Or is falling for older men a Bulgarian thing?”

“Not everything has to be a Bulgarian thing. How different do you think people are over there?”

She acted like I had landed from Mars. And she wasn't the only one. Whenever I did anything out of the norm—wear heels to class, leave a party sober, or (gasp!) prefer a moody and obsessive man to the nauseating Princeton boys whose idea of “cool” was to chug beer from a hose and compete over who would get laid the most—people assumed it was a culture clash.

“Listen, there's nothing to worry about. I can look after myself.”

“Of course you can. But this isn't about you. It's about Rhys.”

Rhys? I didn't recall mentioning his name to her. “So . . . you know him?”

“Me? Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “Like they'd let me into Ivy. Dev knows him, though. I mean . . . ‘know' might be a stretch, but he's certainly seen him around a few times.”

“What does Dev have to do with the eating clubs? Isn't he just a sophomore?”

“Yes, but he's also on the crew team. And they hang out at Ivy. A lot. As do the swimmers—which is how your guy enters the picture.”

“Rhys is not ‘my guy.' And he isn't a student either, so he can't be on any teams. I think the picture is safe.”

“I didn't say he's on the team. At least not anymore. But, apparently, the swimmers don't go anywhere without him. Dev called him their mastermind. I have no idea what that even means!”

Neither did I.

“All I know is that he seemed a bit out of control last night, Tesh. And that sort of thing gives me the creeps.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “From what I understand, a ton of strange stuff has been going on.”

“What stuff?” I thought the strangest “stuff” at Princeton took place during bicker week.

“Supposedly, once a month the swimmers have these wild parties. Not at the club. They start at Ivy and then go somewhere for the real thing. It's super hush-hush, the whole shebang. But the rowers get invited from time to time—to up the ante, I guess. Dev has gone a few times and says he can't begin to describe what takes place there.”

“Drinking? Sex?” I tried to sound casual.

“Both. Although I think this is only . . . warm-up, you know? Dev wouldn't talk about it, but let it slip how once he had to leave because he couldn't take it. And Dev is not a guy with inhibitions, that's for sure.”

I wondered whether to believe her or not. The story certainly fit in with Rhys's guilt-ridden secrecy. His sudden need to be on his own.

Then an idea crossed my mind.

“Can I ask you a favor? Suppose the swimmers had something coming up this Friday. And suppose Dev knew about it. Do you think he might be persuaded to tell you?”

AFTER RITA LEFT, I WENT
back to my room. But instead of studying, I turned on the computer and found the webpage of Princeton's swim team.

Ten years of photo archives—and not one face remotely familiar. Poor Dev must have been desperate to impress his date. Conjuring up stories of evil masterminds, nocturnal ventures, clandestine sex . . . and claiming he was part of it! Rhys had never been on that team. So, even if a monthly “shebang” did happen hush-hush, why would the swimmers bring an outsider into it?

I closed the browser and reached for my book. Yet something didn't feel right. While I had been out at dinner, something between those four walls had changed. And it took me a moment to realize what that was:

Ben's orchid was gone. In its place, a vibrant poppy burst its red at the rest of the room.

GILES KEPT HIS INDIFFERENT STARE
on the clock while we scribbled the sentence on the covers of our exam books:
I pledge my honor that I have not
violated the Honor Code during this examination
. Then he wished everyone good luck and left.

My first midterm at Princeton. I rushed through the questions, lifting my eyes now and then to glance at the auditorium, at the rows of lowered heads. It was remarkable to see the famous Honor Code in action. The premise was simple: you didn't cheat and you reported anyone who did. In exchange, the school gave exams without supervision. People would drop off their answers and walk out, even when the pages were mostly empty. If you hadn't studied enough, the grade was going to be bad and that was it. No one cheated.

Midterm week itself was brutal. Physical misery. Mental exhaustion. Feeling as if I had been run over by a bulldozer. After my last exam on Friday all I wanted was a nap, but a voice mail from Ben reminded me that we had plans—dinner with friends at the Jewish Center. My first foray into the intricacies of kosher food.

Meanwhile, a question had been nagging me all week: What happened to Rhys? He never called to ask how my exams went. Not even a text message. And I had no idea where he was. Where, and with whom.

“So, did you change your mind about Boston?”

Ben's voice brought me back to the table chatter and the only topic anyone seemed interested in: fall break. He had invited me to his house in Boston with a few other friends from Forbes. His parents were in Europe for the week, and we would have the place to ourselves.

I repeated the answer I had given him earlier: Carnegie was in less than a month; I was supposed to stay at school and practice.

“You realize the campus will be a ghost town, right?”

“I think that's the point.”

“Except this is college, not the army! You're allowed to have fun at least some of the time. Plus, we have a piano at home.”

“It would never work, Ben. Too many distractions.”

I was running out of excuses. Practice was practice, but the real reason I wanted to stay, of course, was Rhys. That, and my Elza quest. I couldn't stop thinking about her paper. Was there more to it than girlish fantasies? I had to find out, with help from Giles or not. Add some luck, and I might
even stumble onto something by accident. If those first two months were any indication, clues revealed themselves when I least expected. Who knew what else might turn up, once I actually started looking?

“Fine, I get it. True art demands sacrifice.” Ben spread his arms, enacting a crucifix. “But can we at least go out tonight?”

“Sure. What's the plan?”

“Nebulous so far. I know of a party in one of the dorms. And there's always the Street.”

“I thought the Street was dead on Fridays.”

“Not tonight. It's fall break; everyone goes wild out there.”

Wild. A detail I wished I didn't know.

When we left, I heard music from the eating clubs only a block away. The postexam partying had started.

Whatever, don't think about it. Just follow Ben. Cross the street.

But even the street sign mocked me:
IVY LANE
. Everything that night was conspiring to remind me of Rhys.

“Come take a look at this, it's incredible. Frank Gehry's newest creation.” Ben pointed to a large construction site on the corner of Ivy Lane and Washington Road. “Lewis Library. Biology, chemistry, math, and astrophysics.”

Even a fence couldn't hide the mad genius of what was trapped inside. A giant silver lizard had tried to swallow a brick tower, but the bite had ripped his throat and the creature had collapsed around it, choked up in heaps of permanent defeat. Crumpled metal ribs had become roof shapes; slabs of steel razored up into the air on one side—atrophied wings cursed to always dream of flying; and below, sliced open like folds of extremely fragile skin, glass windows carried proof that somewhere, underneath, the animal still breathed.

“Have you been inside a Gehry building?” Ben continued to play tour guide, encouraged by my admiration.

“No, I've only seen pictures.”

“The experience is beyond this world. It's as if all three dimensions collide and you are at the very center.”

Being at the epicenter of a collapsing world. I had come close a few times,
although it had nothing to do with architecture: Playing onstage, with Jake walking in. The two of us in the dark museum. My hand in his at the end of dinner, while his brother watched . . .

“There used to be an opening, but they must have closed it.” Ben inspected the fence as we walked down Ivy Lane. “Amazing, isn't it? A science library that looks like an art building. I guess the eye needs a break from science, at least mine does. Slam the brain with too many numbers, and it starts to crave art desperately . . .”