1.
I Go Over
Jess Gordon reached the third story of Gallagher Wing and paused for a breath on the landing, taking the opportunity to tie the laces on her high-tops and pull up her tube socks. She only knew it was Gallagher Wing because a smug gold plaque near the bottom of the stairwell had told her so. It was typical of Knights’ pretensions. At Unity, Jess’s residential college, they didn’t have wings; they had blocks. Knights had been built using bricks and sandstone and something indefinable that suggested learning and Latin mottoes, while Unity was constructed from concrete and steel, with the unfortunate appearance of a jail. Unity was coed; Knights was all male. Just act like you’re meant to be there, Jess had been told—advice that completely ignored the fact that it was technically impossible without a penis.
Jess wondered if Leanne, giver of said sage advice, was having better luck. Then she forgot about it, hit by an upwelling of nausea that made her clamp a hand over her mouth. There, a wooden door with a glass insert—that had to be it. She pushed inside, hoping for a bathroom. She was in luck. The place appeared to be empty, thank God, providing sweet relief from Brisbane’s swampy heat, although it smelled faintly of ammonia and urinal cakes.
Jess made it to the nearest stall, slamming the door shut before a series of convulsions squeezed out the contents of her stomach in layers: a gush of water, more water, frothy spit, and, finally, teeth-stripping, neon-yellow bile.
“Okay,” she breathed to no one in particular, wiping her mouth on her T-shirt. Feeling weak and spent, she leaned back against the stall door, vowing to never drink again—and she meant it this time—absentmindedly patting down the front pockets of her denim cutoffs. But she’d forgotten her Zippo lighter. Damn. Her palm itched for it.
Then someone shuffled their way inside, and Jess froze. She turned her head, listening to the footsteps pass the toilet area. Much closer there was a sudden blare of synthesized music that made her jump. Ella Thompson’s voice wailed through the space, echoing off the tiles, and Jess ripped her phone from her back pocket.
It was Brendan. She hit Ignore, cutting off the ringtone abruptly.
For a moment there was only silence, as though the other person had stopped to listen, then the footsteps resumed. A door swung shut and Jess exhaled, switching her phone to vibrate before the message notification came through. Because she knew Brendan would leave one. She wished she’d stayed calm and let his call ring out instead of cutting it off—Brendan would read all sorts of shit into that. But then she remembered that Brendan and his paranoia were not her problem anymore, and she experienced a brief, floaty feeling of euphoria strong enough to propel her from the stall as soon as she heard the splash of a shower starting.
Emboldened, Jess visited the sinks before she left, washing her hands and rinsing her mouth out, forcing herself to drink a few mouthfuls of water. So thirsty—she hadn’t been able to hold anything down all morning. This time she’d try the little-and-often approach. She patted some water on her face and rubbed viciously at the mascara smears beneath her eyes. Normally, she was okay with how she looked. Her face was a little too long and thin perhaps, but a few freckles and her slightly crooked, once-broken nose gave her something like character, while her shiny hazel eyes and smile made people notice her. But right then Jess couldn’t find anything redeeming about her appearance. Her eyes were bloodshot; her smile was MIA; she officially looked like shit. On top of that, she smelled like a nightclub: beer, cheap wine, and tequila, so help her God, steaming through her pores; her hair a stale, smoky curtain. The only upside was she looked the part for the walk of shame, a plausible enough excuse for being at Knights—if you could call that an upside.
Jess left the bathroom and started down a long, gloomily lit hallway. Each time she came to a door, she tried the handle. Locked, all of them locked, which probably meant the rooms were vacant. The returning student body wouldn’t arrive until later that afternoon. Right then, the residential college’s only inhabitants were its freshman intake and its student council. Jess was hunting for a room belonging to a member of the council. There were fifteen of them, and something like two hundred and eighty rooms in the college, so the odds weren’t great. The good news, though, was that for the next hour or so she could safely assume council members were not in residence, preoccupied with hosting a ceremonial lunch.
“Leaving Home” was blasting out of an open door at the far end of the hallway. God, what was it with that song? Did they put explicit instructions in the orientation week handbook? Thou must playest Jebediah at all times. It had been the same at the beginning of last year, when Jess’s peers at Unity had pumped it out of their rooms day and night; never mind that most of them had been in diapers when the song was first released; never mind that playing it when they had literally just left home was possibly, just maybe, being too literal.
Jess paused long enough to tap out a text to Leanne—U found one??? So over this!!!—then continued on, trying doors without success. By the time she’d reached the “Leaving Home” room, she’d decided on a more direct strategy.
“Hi. I was wondering if you could…” Jess’s voice trailed off as she took in the state of the room, noticing the lump under the sheets on the bed—probably human. The stale smell of morning after enveloped her: a fog of booze, cigarette smoke, body odor, stinky beer farts, and musty mouth. Whoever he was, this guy was in a worse way than her. The thought gave Jess an odd sense of comradeship. Clothes littered the floor, and there was a collection of empty beer bottles on the desk, along with an open pizza box displaying a pile of crusts. “Leaving Home” finished, only to start up again. It was on repeat. The place was hell.
Jess spotted an MP3 player docked on the shelf above the desk, and she killed the song. Then she opened the window in another act of mercy. To do it, she had to step around a couple of traffic cones and a road sign that had become a self-fulfilling prophecy—HAZARD AHEAD—and she wondered why Brisbane City Council never seemed to figure out that roadwork equipment shouldn’t be left unattended in the suburbs of St. Lucia, Toowong, and Indooroopilly. Running shoes and turf boots were clumped in the corner of the room, leaking dirt. Knights College was big on the perfect male specimen; there was a definite preference for athletic types, especially ones proficient in the rah-rah sports: rugby and rowing.
Jess noticed the lump’s schedule pinned to the corkboard over the desk and peered at it closely. He was doing some kind of engineering, and all the subject numbers started with one, so he was a freshman. He wouldn’t have what she needed—at least, not yet.
Her phone started to vibrate. She checked the screen, hoping for a text from Leanne saying she’d scored and they could go home. Instead, it was another call from Brendan. Jess felt her empty stomach hollow further. She let it ring out this time, putting the buzzing phone down on the desk. The phone finally stopped, only to start up again, and, just for something different, it was Brendan. Jess gave the screen the double bird and a silent scream of agony: Fuck off!
At that point, a groan startled her. Pocketing her phone, Jess turned to see the lump move. She’d forgotten about him. The sheet was thrown back to reveal red hair and a flushed face, eyes screwed up against the light.
“Zat you, Griggsy?” he croaked in a hoarse voice. The guy needed water. A lot of it.
“Yep,” said Jess.
“What time is it?”
“Nighttime. Go back to sleep.”
The guy snuggled into his pillow, making loud smacking noises with his mouth, and a moment later he started to snore.
“Wait a minute,” Jess said. The snoring caught and then stopped, so presumably she had his attention. “Do any of the student council guys live on this floor?”
“Mmm … tat dowine.”
“Tatooine? It’s not Star Wars. Hey, I asked you a question.”
With effort, the redhead dragged himself out of sleep, squinting at her. “Who are you?”
“Not Griggsy. Look, I’m trying to find the student council guy. You know, the one in this block.”
“Wing.”
“What?”
“Do you mean Jarrod Keith? Because he’s … he’s not, um…” The redhead’s voice trailed away, and his eyelids flickered closed.
“Wake up,” Jess hissed, poking him in the shoulder. “Where’s Jarrod Keith’s room?”
The redhead groaned. “First floor.”
“What room number? Come on, help me out here.”
“Dunno,” the guy mumbled. He added something unintelligible and toppled back into sleep.
Jess left, closing the door behind her. On the landing, she stopped dead, assaulted by the sudden glare and cicadas that sounded like summer chainsaws. Her phone started vibrating as if in response. As Jess squinted at the screen, she felt the beginnings of a headache, and she wondered which part of her not answering Brendan had trouble processing. She turned the thing off. First floor, Jarrod Keith. If that yielded nothing, she was done, she decided, starting down the stairs.
As she was passing the second floor, Jess became aware of voices below her. She rounded the landing and slowed. Five Knights boys were coming up the steps in a clump, as though relying on one another for body warmth.
“Did you see Henryk—”
“Freshman Gobbler.”
A high-pitched giggle. “That’s right. Freshman Gobbler.”
“Puked all over Tolu’s shirt.”
“But what about that milkshake thing? That was disgusting, brah.”
Freshmen. They sported camouflage paint and towel headbands, and each and every one of them was wearing their special O-week shirt, which that year featured a pumped-up-looking knight brandishing a big barbed spear, his knees bent with its weight, his pelvis thrust forward. Above it, a screaming red font proclaimed: LIVE BY THE LANCE!
Knights and its subtle euphemisms.
The boys spotted Jess and their talk and laughter stopped abruptly. Acting as one, they put their heads down, huddling closer so that they could pass her two abreast. Relax, she wanted to tell them. Haven’t you ever seen a female before?
But what she said was, “Hope they’re taking it easy on you guys,” lowering her voice, because she’d read somewhere that the lower the voice, the greater the authority. One of the leaders mustered up enough courage to look at her. “Where’s Jarrod Keith this year?” she asked him.
The question caused them to stop and go into groupthink mode.
“Do you mean the—”
“He’s president of the—”
“I think he’s at that lunch thing.”
“No, I mean, where’s his room?” Jess asked. “Isn’t he on the first floor here?”
“Not here.”
“He’s over at—”
“Turnock Wing. First floor there.”
“Right,” Jess said. “Thanks.”
They started up the steps again.
“Who was that?” one of them whispered, but none of them dared look back at her. Jess watched them go. They seemed so harmless; you’d never guess what assholes they were going to become. The backs of their shirts read ALL KNIGHT LONG. Probably the amount of time spent playing with their lances.
She sighed, about to give up. She had no idea where Turnock Wing might be, and it was too late to ask the freshman group if anyone else from the student council lived in that block … wing … whatever. She heard a door swing open on the landing below, and she glanced over the railing, catching a glimpse of a tanned forearm and a net bag full of clothes slung over a shoulder.
The laundry room. So simple. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?
Jess took the rest of the stairs two at a time. She peeked around the bottom doorway and then followed the guy down a path that stretched along the back of the next building, heading toward the river. He had an easy, relaxed gait, and she admired his wide shoulders, the muscular triangle of his back. His nice ass. It was a shame more Unity guys didn’t place the same emphasis on being perfect male specimens. A lot of them had video gamers’ shoulders and were pale, unfit, and grungy. This guy’s blond hair was neatly cropped, the sort of cut a Unity guy wouldn’t have been seen dead with, and, even viewed from behind, he had an aura of confidence.
At that point Jess’s perving was abruptly interrupted, because the guy turned around and started walking toward her.
Shit, she thought. And then: Just act like you’re meant to be here. Smile, say hello.
He was wearing the O-week shirt, too, so he was probably a freshman, but he didn’t seem anything like the guys on the steps, his angry blue eyes flickering over Jess in a way that eventually forced her to look away. She felt busted, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong—yet. They passed each other in a prickling silence.
Why had he turned around? Had he known she was following him? Jess risked a glance over her shoulder to see him disappear through the doorway they’d just left. Maybe he’d forgotten something. She started to run, which did nothing for her headache, and was relieved when she spotted clotheslines ahead. When she peeked inside the laundry room, she was even more relieved to find the place empty. It was similar to Unity’s: a cavernous room smelling of laundry detergent and hot air, with a bank of commercial washing machines along one wall and three large dryers at the far end. One of the dryers was on, the clothes inside flopping from the top to the bottom in a steady rhythm.
Jess started with the piles of dirty clothes on the table in the middle of the room, picking through them. Underwear and socks, shirts and shorts … but no cigar. Okay, the dryer then. The machine stopped as Jess opened the door and checked its contents—jeans and a couple of T-shirts—and in the sudden quiet she realized she could hear faint music. It was coming from an old clock radio on a side bench, its neon display reporting it was after one. The student council lunch would be finishing up soon, but her more immediate worry was Blondie’s return. The dryer started ticking as it cooled, the sound heightening her sense of urgency.
Jess could feel the back of her throat growing slippery. Oh, not now! She swallowed furiously, walking the length of the washing machines, most of which seemed to be churning water. Except one: It was spinning. The lid made a hollow clanging noise as Jess slammed it open, and she watched the chamber grind to a halt, feeling dizzy. She leaned in and tugged at the circle of clothes, trying to loosen them, her skin breaking out in a clammy sweat.
As Jess pulled a shirt free, she noticed the name tag on the collar: MITCHELL CRAWFORD. Mummy still tagging your clothes, Mitch? Probably a leftover habit from when she sent you away to that rich boarding school. Lord knows why she didn’t just get everything monogrammed. Then she peeled back a pair of jeans—also Mitchell Crawford’s—and hit the jackpot. Attached to thick cotton was the Knights’ coat of arms and the words Virile Agitur, which could probably be translated as We’re better than you. Despite the fact that she was suffering from a rush of blood to the head and was about to vomit, Jess gave a delighted laugh.
The jersey was at the very bottom. She leaned farther into the machine, her fingers scrabbling to get hold of the thick cotton, trying to pull it free.
And that was when she heard someone clear his throat.
Copyright © 2018 by Kirsty Eagar
