"Oh God," Charlotte whimpered, ruffling through her backpack frantically. "It's not here! Oh God what'd I do with it?"
Her friend Brandon leaned up against the stucco wall behind him, waiting for the previous class to let out. "Where do you last remember having it?" he asked, sipping his latte, paying more attention to a pack of athletic guys standing near the door to the next classroom than his friend's impending mental breakdown.
"I printed it out and stapled it, and then I set it on the table downstairs while I made breakfast and..." Her eyes got wide as she pictured the place on the table where it was still sitting, "And it never ended up in my backpack. Why am I such a spaz?"
She chewed on her thumb as anxiety rose in her throat, making it hard to breathe. A nervous glance at the time on her watch told her that class would start in fifteen minutes: nowhere near enough time to drive back home to get it.
"Do you think if I explained what happened, he'd let me hurry home to get it and come back?"
Brandon hesitated, a grimace on his face. "Were you listening to the same deadline lecture I sat through last week? Lord Hoffman made it pretty clear he expected the oral history assignments at the beginning of the class period."
Charlotte winced, knowing it had been a long shot to hope that the professor all the history majors had nicknamed "Lord Hoffman" for his demanding and unmerciful demeanor would deign to make an exception.
She groaned, "I'm going to flunk this class. And I won't be able to graduate because I'll have to retake it in the fall, and I'll have to postpone the job search..." she trailed off, her chest constricting as she felt the onset of a panic attack approaching.
Before she could fall too far down the rabbit hole, she heard Brandon breathe beside her, "Dear God who is that beautiful creature?"
Charlotte looked up, glad for the distraction from her impending doom, to find with surprise that the man her friend was ogling was her roommate. "Leroy?" she asked, puzzled as it was only nine in the morning and Leroy out of bed before noon was a rare sight, "What are you doing here?"
"I saw this on the table when I got up. I thought you might need it." In his outstretched hand, he held her oral history project.
Relief flooded through her and her eyes started to tear up in gratitude. Without thinking about it, she threw her arms around Leroy's neck and pulled herself against him. "Oh, bless you, Leroy. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
He seemed a little taken aback when she pulled away and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. His face flushed as color rushed to his cheeks. "No worries," he said with an embarrassed glance at Brandon.
"You must have sensedthat I needed my report with your twin's picture in it. Is that what people mean when they talk about telepathy?"
Looking more like himself, he rolled his eyes. "That guy is not my twin."
"Well in any case, I owe you one," she said as he took a step back.
"Good—I'll cash it in now to get you to stop talking about this Tank guy." As he disappeared into the crowd he called, "Have a good final."
Brandon elbowed her once Leroy was gone. "Was that the roommate you keep hiding from me?"
"You make it sound like a conspiracy or something."
"Now I'm convinced that it is," he said as the previous class streamed out and they were able to take their usual seats in the back. "No wonder you never want to study at your place—I wouldn't want to risk sharing him either."
"I swear, it's not like that. We're just friends."
"That friendship better come with benefits or I won't believe it. Why else have you been hoarding him to yourself?"
"I haven't been hoarding him. I just don't want to bother him by bringing a bunch of classmates around. He's kind of a weird guy—very private."
Brandon rolled his eyes and stuck his feet up on the extra chair. "You know, I get the feeling he'd make a very good stress reliever, if you know what I mean."
Charlotte hissed under her breath, cheeks flooding, "Nuns would know what you mean."
"Sue me: I don't buy that you could live with a guy like that and not even think about hitting that..."
She felt the blood rush to her cheeks. He was an attractive guy—she wouldn't deny that. Maybe she'd thought about it, once or twice. Alright, maybe, if she was being really honest with herself, the thought had popped into her head more than just once or twice. But why ruin the great friendship they had for a fling? And that was if she didn't embarrass herself by getting turned down.
"I don't need to 'hit that.' My sex life is just fine, thanks."
Brandon snorted so loud it grabbed the attention of Lord Hoffman who was setting up the projector for presentations. "I could understand turning down Keith from History 175, but that man? You're insane if you don't do it even just to blow off some steam..."
Charlotte's face flooded. Brandon knew perfectly well that she'd had awkward sex on Keith's futon and hadn't been able to make eye contact with him since.
"Ever heard of not shitting where you eat, Bran?" A smile broke out over her friend's face and Charlotte added quickly, "If the next thing out of your mouth is the joke I'm sure you're just dying to make, I'll never speak to you again."
Brandon shrugged. "If you say so."
Lord Hoffman finished setting up and went down the roster alphabetically. It was soon Charlotte's turn to present. She stood up, taking deep breaths to remind herself as she always did before presentations that these people had to turn their attention on her; they didn't have any ulterior motives for doing it. She hated being stared at; it always gave her the stress sweats and second-guess herself as if somehow by concentrating on her for a few minutes, they could see her transgressions written across her face like a book.
***
Charlotte fiddled with her makeup in the bathroom mirror, adjusting her matte burnt rose lipstick. Leroy came in and leaned against the door jamb just as she was fixing one of her blonde curls with a resigned sigh. She looked at his reflection in the large mirror. His dark hair was combed out of his blue eyes, looking put-together for once. He was wearing a blue polo shirt—a polo shirt for God's sake! —tucked into a nice pair of dark wash jeans with a light brown belt slipped through the belt loops. It was the most normal she'd ever seen him look and it unnerved her a bit. She almost preferred the emo-punk-rock look—on him, at least.
She turned around to look at him, expecting to see that impish grin tugging up the sides of his full lips. Instead, he looked taken aback, his lips parted in a tiny "o" of surprise.
"What's wrong?" she asked, patting herself down, worried she'd forgotten something important.
"Nothing. You just...you look great."
She scoffed and pushed past him to grab the graduation robe out of her closet and tucked it over her arm. "Let's just get this over with."
They took the 5 freeway up to UCI, parking as near to the gym as they were allowed. Leroy walked her around to the back where the rest of the Arts and Humanities graduates were assembling. Before Charlotte could thank him, he was gone. It always unnerved her how fast he could disappear—as though he could disintegrate into the air.
"Charlotte!" She heard Brandon calling to her from the history majors' line. She hurried over and hugged her friend, their brief squabble during the Hoffman final forgotten. In only a few short days, he was leaving to get settled for grad school in San Francisco. Nostalgia made her give Brandon the benefit of the doubt. She had no illusions about ever seeing him again once they parted ways.
"Where's Hot Roommate?" he teased, elbowing Charlotte. "I still need to make him fall in love with me, so he'll agree to follow me up to San Francisco to start our life together."
Charlotte rolled her eyes as they were ushered inside as the ceremony began. She walked into the large gym for the first time since she'd attended the school. Looking around at the crowd of people, she couldn't help searching for Leroy. It was hopeless—his was just one face in a thousand.
Her heart sank, of the hundreds of loved ones and supporters in the audience, she had only one. And while she appreciated Leroy's presence, she couldn't help longing for the loved ones who couldn't be there. She fiddled with the gold locket around her neck, knowing her dad would have given anything to be there with her that day. There was a knot in her stomach—the pain of missing him that never quite dissipated. It was the entire reason she'd elected to attend UCI in the first place—it was where her dad had gotten his master's degree. It wasn't much, but at least it was some connection to him, some way to feel like he was there in the gym celebrating with her.
During the speeches, Charlotte couldn't manage to keep her attention on the speakers. They meant well—their confidence and affirmations on the graduates' futures were well-intentioned, she knew. But there was only so much she could take of hearing cliché after cliché and the cynical part of her didn't care about the well-meaning kind words of strangers. The one person whose congratulations would actually mean something to her was six feet under on the opposite side of the country.
The graduates started getting up row by row to go up and cross the stage. She shuffled along behind Brandon, listening with a touch of bitterness as her classmates' names were called and their families hooted and hollered even though they'd been asked to refrain from doing so until all the names had been read.
"Charlotte Evans," the announcer called.
She jumped at the obnoxious sound of a contraband air horn followed by even more boisterous cheering coming from somewhere left of the stage. A tear slipped down her cheek, touched that Leroy had tried so hard to make her cheering section sound larger than it really was. "Leave it to Hot Roommate," Brandon said with a laugh as he grabbed the railing to help him down the stairs. Charlotte followed, stepping down from the stage and looking around the crowd again, trying to locate him.
For the briefest of moments, she thought she saw her dad standing at the end of a row of professors, clapping along with them, his light brown hair coiffed as just she remembered it, his green eyes shining. But then she blinked, and the apparition was gone.
When the graduation was finally over, she gave Brandon a hug as they exited the gym. "If you're not too busy, Leroy's got a show on Sunday. I'd love for you to come so I can see you one last time before you leave."
"I'll be there," he said with a smile as his family descended, sweeping him away for pictures.
Charlotte stood alone, rubbing her arm, watching as the other graduates found their families and they hugged, huddled together to take pictures in various combinations of family members.
"Cheese!" A voice said behind her, a camera flashing right as she turned.
She rolled her eyes, "Leroy, I don't want any pictures."
"It's your college graduation. You'll regret it later if you don't have any pictures."
Leroy snapped another picture of her, and then wrapped an arm around her and attempted to take a selfie with his old Polaroid camera. Why he wouldn't break down and learn to use a smartphone or even a digital camera, she had no idea. Charlotte laughed at his horrifying selfie-taking abilities and took the camera from him so that she could take some proper pictures of the two of them.
***
Two days later, Charlotte sat in the serenity of her living room, reading a biography she'd been wanting to read for years but hadn't had the time while she was in school. Leroy played his acoustic guitar on the couch, morphing between familiar melodies and improvised ramblings, occasionally playing parts of a new song that made her pulse race in happiness.
It was playful but simple—so unlike the usual sound of his songs. He hummed what she assumed would be the vocal part—a soulful, lilting melody she was sure would highlight the soft crooning quality of his voice. She was dying to know what the lyrics were. He was so secretive about it that he wouldn't even tell her the title of it. But every time he played it, it sent a thrill through her body and she wondered if he'd ever let her hear it in full.
She ran a finger down the spine of her large book, thinking of her professorial father with his mountains of books and term papers. Even after so much time had passed, it was hard not to think about his sudden death and everything he'd already missed in her life and would continue to miss. She knew he'd have been proud of her new degree, but she wondered what he'd have thought about the rest of her life.
Looking over at Leroy, so focused on his playing that he didn't bother to push the hair out of his eyes, she couldn't help wondering just how much her father would have hated him. The chain-smoking, alcoholic, tattooed, emo punk-rocker wasn't the kind of roommate most dads would want their daughters spending any time with—let alone all of it. But what her dad didn't know wouldn't kill him a second time.
***
"Okay seriously?" Brandon said as he sipped his vodka tonic. "How do you not melt all over him all day?"
To everyone's surprise, Leroy's show was almost better in the absence of his bandmates. Instead of replacing them right away, he'd instead decided to do an acoustic show. Sitting on a stool in the center of the stage playing his songs slower and with more purpose was somehow sexier than his wild-edged show.
Stephen and Martin had watched the entire show from the booth to Charlotte's left, by all appearances hoping that Leroy's solo act would fail, and he'd come crawling back to them. The resentment at his success without them was written across their faces, Martin's arms crossed over his chest in animosity.
Charlotte looked at Brandon, then back to Leroy, playing a cover of Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" that almost brought tears to her eyes.
"Bran? Please just drop it."
With a sigh and a mumbled reply of what Charlotte thought was something like, "Just a little honesty would be nice," he took another long drink of his vodka. Then he smiled and said, "So, how's the job hunt going, then?"
Charlotte's shoulders dropped like this was the topic she'd like to discuss least, after Leroy. "Well I've got my resume all touched up and my references ready. I even made a list of the few places nearby where I'm going to apply. All that's left is just to do it."
Brandon raised his eyebrows. "Got a reason to stay nearby, do you?"
Charlotte shot him a warning glance. "I'm comfortable here. Why leave when I don't have to?"
An hour or so later, Charlotte and Brandon parted at the door with a long hug and blatant lies that they'd stay in touch.
Charlotte watched as Leroy tucked his guitar into his case and strode across the bar toward her. He flashed a gloating smirk at Martin and Stephen. Feeling unsettled, she looked at the former bandmates who were arguing about something before Martin stomped out.
Leroy was quiet the entire drive home, looking out the windows at the passing streetlights, taking occasional sips out of his flask. They got home, and Leroy settled into the couch with a fresh bottle of bourbon, taking a break before he started his hike up the stairs to clean up and get out of his show clothes. Charlotte sat on the other end of the couch, enjoying the comfortable silence. That was the good thing about Leroy—he didn't try to clutter the quiet, like he knew her mind was too busy for small talk.
The doorbell rang. Leroy stood and walked over to the door, wobbling a little. Charlotte watched with a nagging feeling in her stomach, curious about who could be calling on them at two o'clock in the morning—they didn't get visitors even during acceptable hours. Leroy swung the door inward to reveal Martin, standing on the porch, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his face red with anger.
Before Leroy could even get out a snide remark, Martin pulled a Glock from his jacket and shot Leroy right between the eyes.
Charlotte sat still on the couch in shock, frozen with horror as Leroy stumbled back and fell, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Martin ran off into the night without noticing Charlotte from where she'd been lurking on the couch. She leapt to her feet, hoping it'd been some kind of trick. She skidded to a stop in front of Leroy, ears ringing as she held in a scream. With a deep breath, she forced herself to turn at look at her roommate. He lay motionless, a small pool of blood growing around him. His gorgeous blue eyes were still open, staring sightless up at the ceiling.
Taking a moment to kick the door closed, she looked back at him, hoping that his eyes would be looking back at her with recognition this time—that he'd just been playing along. But when she looked back, his eyes had glassed over, and she knew he was gone. With a sob, she closed his eyes and leaned over, placing a kiss on his cheek. She fixed his hair so that it would cover the oozing wound on his forehead. Charlotte fought back another sob, her mind going blank as she tried to think what she was going to do.
Leave.
It was all she could do. Someone had to have heard the shots, and she couldn't risk being there when the police came. She'd managed to start over and leave her past behind. After everything she'd been through, she couldn't let herself get thrown in jail now. She stroked the roses on his forearm, taking one last lingering glance at him.
She ran up the stairs to throw the most important of her things into her small suitcase—including Leroy's camera and the old platoon photo she couldn't bear to part with. She stopped at Leroy's room to raid his cash stash and to grab one of his ratty old band t-shirts to remember him by. She skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, taking a last look at her friend, the puddle of blood beneath him having grown while she was upstairs.
"Thank you. For everything," she whispered, hoping that somewhere out there, his soul could hear her. Then she turned to go, grabbing her blue beach cruiser to pedal out into the night, tears rolling down her cheeks.