The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

30⎜The Relapse

30⎜The Relapse

With a wide grin stretched across my face, I continued to walk down the familiar corridor of the dormitory. The door that I was seeking was in sight, and everything inside me just felt gooey and mushy. I was going to the girl who made me happy. She was as beautiful as she was broken, but that could be said for me, too. Her face was like a beacon of chilling wonder, and when I thought about her, it made me question if I was truly worthy of even associating myself with a girl like her. She was my girlfriend.

           Girlfriend. I loved that word. Well, not necessarily the word itself, for there were ones so much better than it (i.e.: football, Eric, me, Ari, escapades…), but more what it was linked to in my life. To me, it meant Ari Remon, and what she was in my life—my girlfriend. She was the girl I could kiss whenever I wanted. She was the girl who I met at the very end of August. She was the girl with a million and one secrets. She was the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about. And as of this past weekend, she was also my girlfriend.

           I got to the middle of the hallway, and stood before the door. She didn’t know I was coming, and though spontaneity wasn’t exactly either of our favorite things, I was pretty sure that my presence wouldn’t be an issue. The entrance was opened a crack, so I pushed on it, revealing the girl that not even my wildest dreams could imagine. She was sitting on her bed, looking as gorgeous as ever. Her hair was splayed over her shoulders in cascading curls, and her head was away from me. Then, I realized what was on the other side of her compact body: another person.

           But it wasn’t just any person—no, this was much, much worse. This person happened to retain the name of “Scott.” He had been the girl’s best friend for years. He had been there with her when her brother and mom died. He had been in love with her. And now, he was sitting on the bed, in her dorm room, kissing her. I wasn’t hallucinating. His lips were attached to her mouth, and her lips were attached to his mouth. They were kissing, and there was no doubt about it in my mind.

           “A—Ari,” I managed to stutter out for lack of anything constructive to say. I was stunned. Shocked. Scared. 

           “Eric!” exclaimed the girl I now identified as my “girlfriend”, immediately pulling away from the other guy. I wasn’t one to initiate physical violence, but when I saw his face, I had never wanted to kill anyone more than I had he right there and then.

           “Wilson?” Scott finished my name for her, staring at me with scrunched eyebrows. “Fuck.”

           My sentiments exactly. With the F-bomb in the tone of his uninteresting voice still ringing in my ears, I began to walk. I turned around, away from the room, and just walked. Then, I heard footsteps behind me, so I quickened my pace to a jog. My pursuer also increased their speed. I didn’t want them catching up with me, so I began to run. They also started running, but I knew for damn sure that they weren’t Eric Wilson comma two time state championship quarterback, so was fully aware that they wouldn’t be able to catch up with me. Also, they lacked my current drive and didn’t have adrenalin coursing through their veins like blood.

           “Eric!” I heard my name being called after me. It sounded like rain. “Eric!”

           I didn’t listen to the protests; I just kept running. Not once did I stop running for even so much as a breather. I didn’t need a break to allow my lungs to process the situation—I needed to run. I needed to forget. I needed to be numb.

           I continued to run after I had exited the dorm building. My feet were hitting the ground with more force than should have been allotted to a particular body part, and my heart had also joined the race. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but my feet did. They had a mind of their own as I rushed past the entirety of the Stanford campus, until I reached a grand white structure. It appeared like an angelic silo in a world of hellish chaos. Unlike the other times I had been here, the only emotion that I could relate to it was calmness, though in actuality, that was probably a false parallel.