Someone To Love

The Syllabus

Early Tuesday morning, on what will officially be my first day at Garrison, I pull back the curtain and catch a glimpse of the dark, angry sky. The brooding clouds, all dressed up and nowhere to go, lie stagnant overhead like a layer of black coals. The evergreens stretch their branches toward heaven in hopes to burst the pregnant sacks, but are impotent to the challenge, and the earth remains dry, thirsty for something that might never come.

The sun has no hope in a place like this. I'm not sure I can get used to a world without sunshine, but the snow, the friendly footprints of the birds and squirrels stamped throughout the roadside, more than make up for its loss. Then there's Cruise. The way his smile widens when he sees me, those brilliant flashing teeth that would make pearls ashamed of their color, the five o'clock shadow affording him that perennial bad-boy look. He reduces me to dust and ashes without even trying. There's no doubt Cruise Elton is unforgivably sexy. How I long for him to be mine. How thirsty I am for his body and soul to want me the way I desperately want him. I wonder if that shower of affection will ever come. If it will ever be genuine or just some lesson on how to score a homerun.

The double dating debacle runs through my mind. I'm such an idiot for thinking Cruise would ever want to be my date. But he sort of was in the end, and that's all that matters. I can still feel his fingers relaxing over mine, warming me with his palm, the current that ran through us, alive and anxious. Cruise and his affection seem as innocent as a downed power line thrashing in a pool of water. Loving Cruise would only hurt in the end, cause irreparable damage if I'm not careful. But I'm not all that interested in being careful anymore.

I tumble out of bed and find a note on the kitchen table.

Have an early meeting. See you in class.

I'm pretty sure he meant at school. I doubt I have any classes with a graduate student.

I rush through my morning routine and put on the warmest clothes possible. It looks like a nuclear winter has set in out there. God, I hope those classrooms at Garrison have the heaters turned up full throttle.

I step outside and the icy wind knifes through all four layers of clothing like a sickle hacking through weeds. My skin enlivens from the blowtorch effect. This is what I imagined love would be like, the beauty of the landscape luring you in then the surprise of the flames as you burn under the guise of your own foolishness.

And, as foolish as it sounds, I wish Cruise would step into that fire with me. God knows I'm looking forward to the burn.

I'd do anything to melt with Cruise.

Garrison University is a superhighway of bicycles, bodies, and brick buildings as tall and ornate as cathedrals. A tower sits in the center, erect, proud, and well, in every way a monument to all things phallic. A giant metal-framed globe sits on top, declaring it the tallest structure on campus. I gaze at it an inordinate amount of time and wonder how frightening it would feel to be perched on top of its skeletal frame, how fragile the world would look from that vantage point.

I move through the crowd and soak in the people, the luxurious landscape that puts to shame the tiny junior college I went to back home. The stone benches with students sitting beneath the trees, expensively dressed girls with tall leather boots, warm wool coats and supple leather handbags. I keep forgetting most everyone at Garrison is a child of privilege, save for the few like me who managed to score a scholarship. But I'm here. I've escaped the soup kitchen that was my mother's home, the dreadful beat box neighborhood where she landed us time after time. And now, Morgan and I are both quasi independent, freeing my mother of the lead shoes we had been for the better half of two decades. Here I am at Garrison, officially on my own. It feels as if the very next step I take will usher me over the threshold into adulthood.