And just like that, he’s gone. Without a goodbye, striding right out of the gallery.
It’s one of the most embarrassing scenes I’ve ever been a part of.
And yet, I feel the best I’ve felt in a while.
Maybe my ride-or-die has been right all along.Spring break, fourteen years ago…
LukeI grab the steaming bowl of popcorn from the microwave and walk quickly toward my futon to set it down on the table. The DVD player is fired up, the menu screen for Wedding Crashers dancing with its readiness to be played.
The dorm is pretty quiet otherwise, with most of my fellow co-eds either at home recharging their batteries for spring break or away on nonstop booze-pounding vacations—the latter of which includes my girlfriend, Nicole. We’ve only been together for a couple weeks, and I probably should have taken her up on her offer to join her and seven of her friends in Cancun, but even with last-minute plane ticket and hotel costs aside, it didn’t really sound like that good of a time.
Don’t get me wrong, Cancun for spring break could be fucking fantastic and my uncle Gary probably would’ve spotted me the cash, but I’ve seen Nicole’s friends in action and it almost always ends up in a goddamn drunken disaster. One that I would’ve had to help clean up…every single night.
Instead of a fun-filled vacation, it sounded like the kind of fucking headache Advil can’t cure.
Ready to dive into the movie, I plop down on my futon and pick up the remote. My finger hovers over the play button when, like a whip of thunder in a silent sky, my door flies open and bangs into the adjacent wall with a crack. I jump at the unexpectedly violent entry, and my eyebrows knit tightly together as Ava comes whirling inside my dorm, all limbs and blustery blond hair.
“Code Blue! Code Blue!” she yells frantically, the only other explanation being a series of panting, winded breaths.
I jump to my feet and look behind her, half expecting a fire or, I don’t know, a nuclear explosion, when she grabs me by the shirt and repeats her cryptic plea. “Code Blue, Luke!”
“I don’t know what that means, Ava.” I try to reason calmly, but that only angers her more, and the familiar little line between her eyebrows that forms in moments of extreme emotion digs deep into her otherwise perfect complexion.
“Didn’t you pay any attention to Grey’s Anatomy last week?” she screeches.
“I did. In fact, I paid loads of attention to the sexual dalliances. I don’t remember paying attention to a Code Blue, though.” But Meredith and Cristina and Addison and Izzie? Well, I was definitely paying attention to them.
“It means a medical emergency, you horndog!” She turns to run back out of my dorm, yelling over her shoulder, “Now, come on!”
Real concern hitting me for the first time since she thudded into my room, I grab my Nokia off the desktop in case I need to make a call and take off at a run down the hallway after her.
It doesn’t surprise me that we end up at her room, what with her track record for disaster and all, but Desi is away in Destin, and Ava and Ben broke up two weeks ago. A weird, pinch-y feeling in my chest makes me nervous for whom I’m going to find in there needing assistance.
Ava bounds in the door, and I follow closely behind. We only make it three feet into the small room before I realize something strange is at play and speak up.
“Ava, there’s no one here. Why on earth would you get me all worked up, thinking there’s a—”
It’s almost scary how close I come to saying guy in here. I don’t even understand it, really. We’re friends. But my God, I wasn’t looking forward to finding some douche with a twelve-foot dick that somehow got injured during sex, lying in Ava’s bed.
Finding the room empty is strangely comforting.
“A…medical emergency,” I finally finish. “We could be watching Wedding Crashers right now, and the popcorn is getting cold.”
“Shut up and get over here!” she yells, scooping a tiny, clearly dead goldfish out of the bowl next to Desi’s bed. “Do CPR. Do mouth-to-mouth! Do something!”
Oh.
I step closer to my frantic friend’s back and put a calming hand to the top of her shaking one as she tries to use her finger to perform chest compressions on Sir Swims A Lot. He’s been a staple in their dorm room since freshman year, and I know Desi has a huge attachment to the little guy.
As it seems, she may not be the only one.
“He’s gone, Ava. I’m sorry.”
A shaky rattle betrays her emotion as she sighs. “What are we gonna do, Luke? Desi loves him. I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to him while she was gone, and now look. He’s dead. Just like Teddys one through four.”