The Broken Hearts' Society of Suite 17C Page 9

  Rion grinned. “Your shirt. Fucking hilarious, man,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he smiled back. “And I believe it, too.” He met her eyes, still smiling, but she felt the warning. Don’t fuck with this guy’s religion. She smiled in response.

  “Cool,” Crash said.

  God, she’d almost forgotten he was there.

  “Well, since you’recovered, I’ll start my shift. You’d be amazed how many college students get drunk and then come in to talk to me about tattoos. Too bad I can’t actually do the art on drunk girls, or I’d be a rich man.”

  Rion, Amy, and Random Guy stared at Crash. Rion tried to glare, but she couldn’t.

  “See you later, man,” Random Guy said, sticking out his hand to shake Crash’s. Holy hell, he’d just activated Crash’s forearm muscles, which flexed his tattoo in a way that made Rion’s mouth water. Rion bit her lip and looked down. She watched Crash’s feet as they walked his deliciously chiseled ass into the Studio, and exhaled.

  “Are you okay?” Amy’s voice was gentle as she nudged Rion’s elbow with her fingers. Rion forced her own legs to move. Holy shit, why did one stupid guy have this much of an effect on her? She gritted her teeth. She’d worked her ass off for the past two years to make sure nobody, and nothing, would be able to mess with her emotions ever again.

  Dealing with one parent’s death and another’s betrayal in a three-month span was enough of that to last her a lifetime.

  “Yeah, I’m…yeah.” She stumbled over every syllable. “Crash is just …” Just what? Gorgeous? Captivating? Infuriatingly charming? “Annoying.”

  Amy smiled. “Okay.”

  Rion felt the teasing in Amy’s tone, and her mouth twisted into a frown. “Seriously. He’s the guy I wanted you to meet me here so I could avoid him.”

  “I sense I probably shouldn’t be in on this conversation,” the ginger guy said.

  Oh, that was right. Amy had her own guy to be interrogated about. The satisfaction of the realization almost made Rion smile. “Who’s this?” Rion asked, tipping her head toward him.

  “This is Matt,” Amy said offhandedly. “He says it’s maybe not the safest for girls to be out walking at night.”

  Matt nodded. “Which is ridiculous, but yes, definitely the case at Northern. We’re working on increased police presence, stronger penalties for sexual assault, but it’s all…I don’t know. Missing the point? Doomed to be ineffective? Really discouraging.”

  “Who’s ‘we?’” Rion asked.

  “Student Government. It’s kind of a joke, actually. You’d think things would have changed since sixth grade, but it’s still just a popularity contest where the biggest change we could hope to affect is slightly tastier lunch selections. Sometimes they ask us about big stuff, like building a new parking garage.”

  Both girls looked at him. Rion had no idea what to say without going on a rant about how all government was corrupt, and he shouldn’t be surprised, and he was being a fucking misogynist if he thought all women needed male protection to walk through campus, but she didn’t for two reasons. One, Amy seemed to be cool with him, and even if she’d been late, she had kept her promise to meet Rion after work. And two, Rion’s insides still felt all rumbly, and her hands slightly shaky, from talking to Crash.

  Exactly why she’d been so desperate to avoid him.

  I had a boyfriend all freshman year who lived in Florida. He came up a few times to Ohio and decided the next year he would move up (he was a year younger). So we found an apartment with two other girls, so we had three bedrooms but each of us would pay a quarter of the rent. Well, mid-summer he just said he wasn’t coming and I never heard from him again (until almost 5 years later.) So the kicker was I got the biggest room but had to pay double the rent the next year.

  He still tells me to this day that I’m the one who got away. He was just young and scared. Crazy how life changes.

  Because of that living situation the next year I decided to live in the sorority house. That didn’t end well. And then I left OSU. I think that one breakup completely changed my life. Not for better or for worse, just…changed.

  ~Jessica Wadler

  Arielle

  Arielle loved her mother. She really did. She loved that Mom supported her no matter what, loved that she held her hand through every step of the college selection roller coaster—first the application to Indiana Northern, the acceptance to every school except Northern, and the ensuing heartbreak, then the whiplash of getting into Northern after all.

  Mom had known why Arielle had her heart set on Indiana Northern, and had held her tongue against warning her to pick a school just because the girl she loved went there. Instead, Mom had made a list of everything she thought Arielle would love about it.

  Mom had been a self-proclaimed LGBT ally from the moment Arielle came out at age 15, when she realized that, when she was with the boy she’d been dating, she didn’t get worked up at all. No nervousness, no sweaty palms, no jittery anticipation of whether and when he would put his arm around her, touch her, try to kiss her. She Googled ridiculous shit like “How do I know if I’m gay?” and she came across one man’s explanation of how he knew: When he imagined himself in a room full of both boys and girls, he realized the only ones he would want to see in their underwear were the boys.

  That day, while trying to dodge flying kickballs and otherwise completely disengage from gym class, she tried it out. The boys were all gangly limbs, acne, and bravado, trying to keep their still-sometimes-breaking voices in check. They also stank, which Ari knew from experience with her little brother was usually due to deodorant management issues—she often had to yell at Ethan to put deodorant on before bed, too.

  Then, she’d surveyed the girls. She’d gone to school with most of them since kindergarten, so trying to figure out if she would be sexually aroused by any of them in their underwear was just…no. But then…the curve of that one girl’s hip was so beautiful, and the way the other girl’s neck gracefully curved up into hairline and down into collarbone looked almost…kissable. Like if these girls were new girls, ones she didn’t know from sleepovers and tee ball and ballet and synagogue youth group, she would want to get to know them. She would want to touch them, and, yes, see them in their underwear. Probably less than their underwear.

  She’d never forget the feeling when she realized what that thought meant. After all, she’d always known it deep down inside, but now it was a truth, one she’d uncovered from deep inside her that she just knew couldn’t be hidden. She motioned to the gym teacher that she had to use the restroom, and tried her best to jog, instead of sprint, off the gymnasium floor.

  Her butt landed on the first hard-wood slatted bench she saw, and she put her elbows on her knees and head in her hands. Her heart raced, her chest burned, and her stomach was tight. It was scary, this shift, but Arielle could feel a sense of relief starting to take over, the very same place inside of her that she’d just uncovered telling her that she was going to be alright. And, letting her hands smooth over the back of her neck, she’d smiled.

  She’d come out to Mom that night, when she was lying in her low twin bed and mom was sitting on the floor beside her. Since Arielle was a little girl, mom had had a series of questions she asked her at bedtime because “How was your day?” had annoyed Ari as long as she could remember. “What was your best thing today?” “Who did you hang out with?” and “Are your classes what you expected them to be?” all preceded the final question—“Is there anything else you want me to know about?”

  Arielle had answered Mom’s questions that night, but she could sense that Mom knew something was different. Before the last question, Mom had reached up and stroked her hair, something she hadn’t done in years. “Anything else, my Ari?”

  “I think…I think I figured something out today.”

  Nothing from Mom. The silence, instead of being scary, gave her room. Let her breathe. Made her feel like she could speak anything, and it would fit perfectly int
o the space between them.

  “I think I like girls. In that way. Like most girls like boys? That’s how I like girls.”

  She’d expected Mom to come back with a barrage of questions about how, when, why, who. She’d heard coming out stories, and they were all far more dramatic and tense than this one, with parents in tears, asking stupid questions, stubborn in their denial.

  But Mom had just done what she’d done every other night. She’d raised up on her knees, bent over, and kissed Ari on the forehead. Most nights, Arielle had hated that, but tonight, it felt like a promise. Not a seal of approval, but something deeper. Something that told her that Mom saw her, and heard her, and loved her.

  “You okay?” Mom had murmured.

  And Arielle had smiled into her pillow. “Yeah. I think I am.”

  That memory was one of those Arielle carried with her everywhere, always, one of the most precious of her life. After that, Mom’s show of support had started small. Mom searched online for articles about how to be a good parent to your gay kid, what signs to look for that she needed to talk. But quickly, she realized that nothing really had to change. Arielle had never liked talking about boys or romantic stuff anyway.

  So, aside from changing her Facebook profile picture to a square-shaped rainbow with ALLY written in big letters across from it, and attending the Rainbow Seder at their synagogue, which board members were all encouraged to do anyway, nothing much changed.

  Until Rachel.

  Rachel’s family had moved from Chicago to Indianapolis when she was in eleventh grade, and Arielle would never forget seeing her on the first day of school. Ari’s first reaction wasn’t how beautiful she was, or how tall, or how new—their small suburb hardly ever saw new students—it was how scared she looked. Her hands trembled at a locker three spaces down from Ari’s, and Arielle had just wanted to make it better. She’d slammed her shoulder into the locker and pulled up quickly, smiling up into Rachel’s warm brown eyes and explaining, “This row sticks.”

  And then Rachel’s smile had completely taken her breath away. And then they’d talked, and she’d helped Rachel find all her classes, and Arielle had thanked God and everything holy that she wasn’t a freshman, because that meant she knew enough to show Rachel around. When she’d found out that Rachel was Jewish, she’d just about lost it right there in the hallway. She was perfect. They were perfect.

  All those Disney Princess movies where the girl is floating around on a cloud after meeting her Price Charming? That was Arielle the day she met Rachel. And Mom had known something was different—something big and important.

  Which made telling her about the breakup that much harder. Mom had loved Rachel—probably more for what she had done for Arielle than Rachel herself. Arielle knew Mom well enough to hear the conversation in her head—she didn’t want to upset Arielle more, and she didn’t want to seem like she didn’t care. But Mom was upset, too.

  Arielle’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she knew from counting the buzzes and repeats enough times that she had six text messages, all sent back to back. Mom’s most annoying habit, by far, was writing a novel of a text message and sending it all at once, so it got split up and jumbled and hard to assemble. But it didn’t matter. Ari knew what she was texting to lecture about.

  It was that time of year.

  Mom: Do you want me to rent a car for you to drive home for Rosh HaShanah?

  Okay, I just checked. You can’t drive a rental car.

  Arielle rolled her eyes. Obviously, everyone knew that.

  Mom: I’ll come pick you up.

  Arielle: Mom, don’t be ridiculous.

  Mom: It’s ridiculous to want my daughter home for the holidays?

  A tear rolled down Arielle’s cheek. She hardly ever went to Friday night services, didn’t keep kosher—not eating shrimp because the texture grossed her out didn’t count. Jewish stuff happened a handful of times a year—at Passover seder, at summer camp, and at High Holiday services at the synagogue she’d been named in, had her bat mitzvah in…and met Rachel in.

  She hadn’t been back to that building since last year, when Rachel had come back home after her first three weeks at Northern. Those three weeks, Arielle thought she would die if she didn’t see her soon. Then she’d managed to sit through Unetaneh Tokef before texting Rachel, underneath cover of prayer books, to meet in the coat closet. They made out for what turned out to be a little under an hour.

  Thankfully, Mom hadn’t noticed. Or, more likely, hadn’t cared. Arielle and Rachel had agreed to keep their relationship under wraps, since it had started in adverse conditions—Rachel was leaving for college in four months—and would only get more challenging over the course of the year. If they could do long distance for that long, then Rachel promised they could tell everyone. Their mothers were friends. Everyone knew them. Hell, probably everyone had known about them, but Arielle was too ensconced in her own stupid bubble of love to realize it.

  Their entire relationship was based on a future that would never exist. The worst part was that home was such a big part of that future, and its loss still stung like hell.

  Mom: It’s only six days away, Ari. We need to make plans for getting you home.

  Arielle bit her lip and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  Arielle: I already made plans. I can’t miss class that day or the day after. I’m going to Hillel. Already paid for dinner.

  Amy had dropped a flier on Arielle’s desk a week or so ago. Arielle had looked at her with questioning eyes. “You’re not Jewish.” Amy had shrugged, but when Arielle had seen the name scrawled on the front, right above ‘Harrison 17C’—Amy Bauer—it had made sense. Of course the most Christian girl Arielle had ever met would have a Jewish last name, while she was firmly stuck in a sea of WASPs with Dad’s French surname, Duval.

  That flier was the only reason she knew that Hillel on campus—which she hadn’t thought about since Rachel had told her how lame it was last year—was hosting dinner for the low price of $20 for Rosh HaShanah evening.

  Which, given that she would rather listen to nails running down a chalkboard than sit in a huge dinner surrounded by Jews she didn’t know, there was no way in hell she’d be attending. Just like there was no way in hell she was going to go home. Which just made her pathetic, and scared, and homeless for the New Year for the first time in her entire life.

  Arielle’s phone trilled one last time.

  Mom: Oh! Shelley’s son is on the student board there. Do you want me to have him meet you there? She says he loves it.

  Ari: I’m sure I’ll find him. Thanks Mom.

  Arielle had no idea who Shelley’s son was, or whether she would even want to shake his hand, let alone spend hours sitting through services next to him. That just got her thinking about services, about how she’d have no idea what they would be like until she sat down, and then it would be too late. Would the chairs even be comfortable? Would the prayerbook have translations? Would she know the tunes? Would the rabbi be weird?

  She stewed over it for the next five days, feeling her heart sink each time she came to the inevitable conclusion. Rachel would definitely be going home, which meant Arielle couldn’t go home. She couldn’t think about Rachel without feeling her heart twist and sink—if she saw her, she knew she’d lose it. Sorority row and the two blocks around it were off limits for that very reason, which is why Amy had agreed to meet Rion after work the other night. The chance of running into Rachel on her way in or out of her sorority house was too risky if she wanted to make it through the semester in one piece.

  The day before the holiday, she kept her nose in her book and her focus on her professors’ lectures, swatting away thoughts of home and brisket and the Temple Beth Am coat closet like the annoying blood-sucking mosquitoes they were. That period of her life was over, and even if Rachel had wanted to get back together, Arielle had enough self-respect to know that she would never, ever allow that. Some wounds could never be stitched back together.

&n
bsp; Her phone buzzed one more time.

  Mom: :( We’ll miss you. Will you call me after?

  Arielle knew what Mom’s easy acquiescence to the whole ‘I can’t come home’ solution meant. She was delighted that Ari had decided to go to Hillel all on her own. In Mom’s ridiculously optimistic brain, which thought much more highly of Arielle than she ever would think of herself, it would be easy for Ari to make friends. Everyone at the Jewish student center would love her, and soon she’d feel more at home on campus than at Temple Beth Am.

  But Arielle knew the truth, deep down in her soul, and it stung like a bitch. If she ever had been the kind of cheery, sweet girl who made friends instantly, that had certainly been wiped away in the last three weeks. Indiana Northern had gone from being her biggest dream to her worst nightmare, all in the five devastating seconds it took Rachel to break her heart.

  Still, maybe Mom was right. Maybe after four weeks of pure pain broken up by college classes and lunches with one very cute girl who may or may not have been interested in her, it was time for Arielle to, at the very least, try. The image of Lauren sitting across from her in the dining hall, flashing a smile and coaxing one out of Arielle, too, lingered sweetly, bringing Arielle to the edge of a daydream.

  Maybe one walk over to Hillel couldn’t hurt. Just to take a look.

  Arielle’s boring-as-hell bio lecture was actually only a block away from Hillel, which was tucked into an alleyway just off Francis. Around the corner was a coffee shop, which Arielle told herself she could easily duck into if she chickened out at the last minute.

  Get a hold of yourself, Arielle. It’s a bunch of Jews in a nice building. They won’t bite.

  The smell of burnt wood laced through the air, which had turned from muggy to sunshiny and crisp at twilight in just a couple of weeks. This was Arielle’s favorite time of year. She commanded her feet to stop outside the building and forced her lungs to open up, fill with the smell of chilly air and leaves turned brown and new beginnings. Something that just might bring her peace.