Ice Cold

13

Landon Reilly

There was an icy wind tonight. On an early October night, it was colder than expected. I scowled at the sky as my hair blew into my face. It felt like I was being pushed along the path back to my dorm room, away from the dining hall where I just had a late dinner.

The dining hall was quiet this time of night on a Friday because all the students were too busy being out and getting drunk, which was something I wanted to put behind me after I proved to have bad decision making skills while under the influence. Part of me hated taking Wren's advice, but it was the drinking that led me to him in the first place.

I hadn't seen him all week, steering clear of the Brown campus and my usual running route that leads to the coffee shop he frequents, despite the fact that I was really starting to enjoy their coffee.

And instead of going out and getting drunk at the bar with my teammates, where I would inevitably run into Wren, I stayed in my dorm before having a late night dinner. It was better this way.

But the wind on my walk back to my dorm was making me rethink leaving the warmth of my bed at all this evening. That, and the fact that there were groups of drunk college students every so often stumbling down the walkways as I went.

Now my face was cold, my hair a mess, and my annoyance was elevated as I walked by a group of three girls loudly slurring their words as they walked through campus.

I hurried away from them, stuffing my hands in my pockets to protect my hands from the cold.

I was almost back to my building when I heard someone call out my last name, obviously drunk out of their minds.

"Oh... hey Reilly!" Cooper called out. I ignored him, hoping in his drunken state he wouldn't be able to catch up to me. "Reilly!"

Unfortunately, he did catch up to me, and he latched his hand to my shoulder to pull me to a stop. He wasn't drunk enough that he couldn't hold himself up, but his eyes were glossy and his speech was slurring. He had one of those dopey smiles on his face as he stared at me.

"Reilly, hey..." Cooper said again, keeping his tight grip on my shoulder. "Why didn't you.. didn't you go to Rojas's party?"

"Busy," I grumbled, starting to walk away.

Cooper followed me and stopped us when we were up against the side of my dorm building.

"I was hoping to see you there," Cooper slurred, pressing on my shoulder so that it was against the building.

"I don't do parties."

"Aw, c'mon," Cooper replied with a laugh. "Parties are fun. Rojas throws good parties."

I just shook my head at him and looked around. There was no one in sight and the doors to my building were around the corner. I didn't know who Cooper was with or where he came from, or if he had just been wandering around by himself. But I knew I didn't like being this close to him and I didn't want to be there at all.

"I wanted you there because I..." Cooper trailed. "There's more places to get some privacy and I wanted to... experm? Expermend? Exper..."

My jaw clenched as I put the pieces together to what he was getting at.

"Experiment!" he said with a grin. "That's the word. I wanted to experiment because I heard about you."

I shook my head and started backing away from him before I did something I really regretted like punching him repeatedly in the face until all his teeth fell out. Because if he kept talking, he would send me into a blind rage and I didn't know if I'd be able to stop myself.