Mirrored Cuts

Chapter 54

March

The week prior to Spring Fling was a whirlwind of activity. Third party tents started popping up all over campus. Signs for every kind of themed alcoholic event possible covered the electrical poles, the billboards, the sidewalk and the back of my eyelids. The atmosphere was electric. There was a countdown ticking away in everyone's heads; it is almost time. I got ready to spend a lot of the weekend doing my homework. During the day, from eight am to two pm, if people were feeling conservative, were the times when everything apparently slowed down. We had been told not to plan to do anything during the rest of the twenty-four hour period in a day because we would be running around.

By the time the weekend came, everyone had been warned. The neighbors had been asked to please excuse the students as they let loose for the only time that year. The city paramedics had been warned that there would be an unusually high number of intox calls. The students had been warned that the police would be on patrol for the underage among them. We had been warned that this was our last chance to pass calls.

Lily had passed her last call and gone through her scenarios a few weeks prior, which left me as the only one of our friends who hadn't moved up.

I went to Flint's room to see what his plans were. He jumped when I opened the door without knocking. His face didn't have the same smiling light it usually did, when I saw him. He seemed to have been staring at one beam in his bed frame for a while.

"What does a guy have to do to get a little privacy around here?" he said.

"Stop leaving his door unlocked," I said, shutting the door behind me. "Are you doing anything fun for Spring Fling? Remember, I have to live vicariously through you."

"Right to the point. That's my girl." He pushed his fingers through his hair in his typical thoughtful way, as if I had asked him a philosophical question. "Probably just going to lay low. People have been getting pretty crazy preparing for this. I feel like something bad is going to happen."

I looked at him again. He seemed paler than usual and sweaty. I reached out to touch his forehead.

He slapped my hand away. "I'm fine."

I held my hand in my other hand, behind my back, like I was leading myself off my favorite playground. "Why did you do that?"

"I don't want to be touched."

"I was trying to help. You don't look well," I said.

He shook his head. "I have homework to do."

Dismissed, I walked towards the door. When I glanced back, Flint was staring at a different beam in his bed like he expected it all to come crashing down around him. He didn't have any homework in front of him, not even paper. I slammed the door on my way out, probably angering the rest of the floor and not bothering Flint one bit.

Why was he always so confusing? What had I done wrong? Why had he reminded me of my father in that moment?

I tried to push that thought out of my mind without thinking about it. I couldn't bear it if it was true.

* * *

My teachers had assigned a test and a project for after Spring Fling weekend, probably to try to temper the drinking with the need to get something done. But they didn't understand. The project would just stress everyone out the Monday after the weekend. It was taboo to do homework during this sacred time. This weekend was for shoving all the shenanigans we usually didn't do into reality. So I tried to work on studying for this test and making this project early. I could feel the excitement radiating from the other rooms. It made the lights brighter, the air crisper. Ruby was all smiles for a change. Someone had bought her a bottle of neon pink liquor. She told me it tasted awful but it looked so pretty, didn't it?