in the very thing I decried - love. Cruise was the iron my marrow so desperately needed. He kick-started my body again, put God's own breath in my soul, and I had the nerve to deny him right to his face, openly calling these feelings budding inside me a flat-out lie.
A ragged breath escapes from me, and then the unthinkable happens. Tears begin to fall, and I'm weeping a river over his freshly pressed dress shirt. It's as if I'd carried a weight around with me my whole life, a heart of lead and granite. And today, in front of God and Cruise and about fifty of my newest peers, I dropped it. It lay shattered at my feet because I didn't want it anymore.
I do want to believe in love. I want all of its trappings, and if it costs me my sanity and a very good divorce lawyer, so be it.
I pull back and gasp at the mess I've made of Cruise. His shirt has turned to velum, and his skin glows beneath. Two necrotic butterflies stain his once-pristine dress shirt, and I'm mortified at what I've done.
"I'm so sorry," I say, gently tapping the mess with my fingers. God knows I can only make things worse. It seems to be my specialty.
"Come here." His dimple goes off as he buries a smile in his cheek. Cruise exudes his affection for me. All of his formidable lust pours out like oil, spilling its riches right into my soul. He leans in and blesses me with a soft peck, then dives in for something deeper, kissing me thoroughly, fully, and intensely on his quest to leave no lingual stone unturned as his tongue warms mine.
Cruise pulls away and his mouth opens as if he's about to say something - say it. A breath gets caught in my throat at the prospect, and I wait but it never comes.
I wonder if it ever will.
Cruise
Kenny.
I don't remember ever walking around campus with a goofy grin on my face when I professed to "love" Blair. In fact, quite the opposite, I dragged my ass all over town like a beaten down wuss with my tail between my legs - hardly smiled at anyone. That was a relationship filled with death and dying. I lived out each of the seven stages of grief every day, and twice on Sunday. I should write her a thank you note for letting me out of the tower and escaping exorbitant legal fees somewhere down the line. Although, her father is a notorious divorce attorney and would have probably only billed me my half. Looks like I avoided having my ass handed to me twice.
I hustle over in the direction of the administration building. A puff of fog illuminates the campus soft as a gas lamp. Kenny lit up my world. She peeled off the layer of hurt I've been hiding under all these months, filled me with her presence, and now the entire universe glows under her beautiful light.
Horton Hall comes upon me with its arched Roman colonnades, and I run up and duck inside. It's warm and suddenly, I have the urge to take off this thick ape suit I've strapped myself in. But Kenny left her calling card on my chest, and I'm certain the board would have its curiosity aroused at the sight of those tragic smudges.
Back in September, I applied for a fellowship, and now the committee has called me in. I'm amped as to what it might mean - hopefully dollar signs. If I get it, I might actually afford to feed myself, and Kenny, too. I'd move heaven and earth to have her stay at the house forever even if she thinks the concept of love is just an illusion. Kenny is a dove with a broken wing, and I want to be the one to help her mend it.
In the office, members of affluent academia line the periphery with the dean of graduate admissions, the dean of doctoral studies next to him, as well as Professor Bradshaw - and, holy crap, he looks like a corpse.
"Cruise." He stands to greet me, and I take his hand in both of mine, afraid he might keel over and explode into dust. He's lost about fifty pounds, and he hardly had it on him to begin with. His skin is pale and thin as parchment with dark circles beneath each eye. If ever there was death on the move, it was encapsulated