When Theo got to Liversedge Hall, campus was busy, and he realized that the first official move-in day was in full swing. He arrived later than he would have liked. He had gone to Downing first that morning, just as he went every day now. It was too far for his bad leg, even on the bike, so that meant the bus, and the bus meant being late. Everywhere. All around him, kids—eighteen, most of them, but with eyes and hair and skin like babies—were everywhere: carrying hampers full of clothes, toting bedding, one boy with thirty shirts on hangers slung across his back, a pair of girls carrying what looked like a brass monkey. The damn thing looked tall enough to reach Theo’s knees. And parents. Don’t forget the parents. Moms whipping back and forth between cars and dorms, lugging suitcases and beanbag chairs and posters of teen pop stars. Justin Bieber? Theo had never heard of him, but then again, he wasn’t sure he’d read the name right. The dads, for the most part, puttered around, obviously feeling very important and just as obviously trying to figure out how to look busy. One poor guy was walking in a circle with a screwdriver until a woman with a Jackie O bouffant put her hands on her hips and screamed, “Peter, get the lead out.”
Once, on the farm, Theo’s dad had had to put down an old mule. The look on Jackie O’s face was eerily similar.
Theo went inside Liversedge. He filled up his water bottle at the fountain. He checked his bag for pens and pencils and notebooks and for the little Disneyworld keychain that he’d hooked to the inside of the D ring. The front of the keychain’s plastic rectangle showed Sleeping Beauty’s Castle; on the back, Theo had an arm around Ian, and Ian was holding Lana, who’d been two at the time and way too young to appreciate the experience—an argument that had dragged on and on before the trip. In hindsight, Theo wasn’t sure he’d ever admitted that Ian had been right.
He ducked into the ground-floor men’s room, checked his hair, tried to flatten his beard, which looked absurdly poofy today, and washed his hands. He ended up at the elevators, staring at the brass plate, the up button, the smudged fingerprints.
Theo was still standing there when Peg walked up, looking a bit like a carnation in her pink summer dress, and delicately pressed the up button with her matching pink nail.
“Well, Daniel,” she said, her face almost as pink as the nail. “Hello!”
“Hi, Peg.”
Her eyes slid to the cane, and Theo wasn’t fast enough to stop himself. He shifted his weight, trying to hide the support.
“Well,” Peg said. “Aren’t you looking great?”
“Thank you.”
“And after everything that happened.”
Theo nodded.
“Daniel, I’m really just so terribly sorry.”
“Thank you. That means a lot.”
“We were all just so devastated.”
Theo nodded again. He figured he’d better get it right while he was still in the warmup round.
“Such a tragedy,” Peg breathed, her pink nails splayed against her pink dress, the whole effect like one giant pink carnation expressing its deepest sympathies.
“Yes. Yeah.”
Peg blinked. Her eyeshadow was turquoise, which Theo thought might be a complementary color. The elevator dinged. The doors rattled open. Peg was still frozen with her nails spread against her chest.
Theo had almost forgotten his line. “It’s, uh, been hard.”
“You poor dear,” Peg said and started to sob.
After that, Theo had to help her onto the elevator, and they rode up together to the third floor, where Theo guided Peg into the English department’s main office and got her seated at her desk. Peg ripped tissues out of a box like a magician with handkerchiefs up his sleeve, and Theo filled a paper cup with water and set it by her elbow. By then, Ethel Anne had arrived, and she started crying while she was taking off her coat—never mind that it was September and almost ninety degrees outside. Ethel Anne had to hug Theo, and he had to repeat his performance from the elevator, and then Ethel Anne and Peg had to hug each other, both of them still calling him Daniel for the simple fucking reason that they’d read it on his student account, and somewhere in the middle of the whole fiasco, Theo had to soothe himself by imagining Liversedge Hall imploding and the three of them buried in the rubble.
When he finally extricated himself, he made his way to his office at the end of the hall, glad that the light was off behind the pebbled glass. He shared the office with two other grad students, and while Dawson rarely showed up to use the space, Grace spent most of her waking hours there. Technically, the semester didn’t start for a week, and Theo was hoping he’d have that time to settle in and—well, adjust was a pretty small word for it. Normalize? Somehow feel like the universe still made sense?
He let himself into the office. He hadn’t been there since the accident; it smelled the same, a mixture of chai and pencil shavings and old books. Grace had hung four cardigans, one on top of the other, across the back of her seat, and her desk was covered with vinyl clings shaped like flowers and ducks and a Visigoth with a period-appropriate battle axe. Dawson’s desk had only an aging computer, supplied by the department, with what Dawson probably considered a discreet 4/20 sign taped to the side of the CPU. Theo’s desk was bare. Grace had been very thoughtful about that. She had taken down all the pictures, framed and unframed; she had removed all the trinkets from vacations and all the holiday gag gifts. Everything was in a banker’s box shoved into the desk’s knee hole. Theo caught the back of the box with his foot, balanced on the cane, and dragged the box free. He shoved it to the side. He’d have to deal with it eventually.
Theo had barely powered on his computer when a knock came at the door. The pebbled glass made it impossible to tell who it was, but the spikey hair made him think of Ethel Anne. He considered the window. This was an old building; they had safety proofed everything. And anyway, he was only on the third floor, and he figured a jump would probably only land him in the hospital, and then he’d have to start this whole fucking terrible process over again.
“Come in,” he said.
It wasn’t Ethel Anne.
The kid who stepped into the room was definitely not here for move-in day. He was older, that was part of it, but Theo had been late to college himself—and even later to start grad school—so it wasn’t the only factor that influenced his judgment. No, this kid didn’t move like he was new to the school. He waited respectfully in the doorway, yes, but he didn’t have the freshman timidity that made the kids buzz so fast they were almost hovering. Theo put the kid’s age in the early twenties; the kid had unkempt hair and small, dark eyes.
“Hi,” he said. “Dr. Stratford?”
Theo nodded but said, “Mr. Stratford. Actually, just Theo, if you’re comfortable.” Wheeling over Dawson’s chair, Theo pointed to the seat. “What can I do for you?”
“Thanks. This is kind of awkward, but—” He produced a pink slip. “Is there any way?”
Taking the slip, Theo glanced at it. Robert Poulson, senior. Fall 2013. Civ 1: Shakespeare in the World. Theo raised his eyebrows. “It’s already full?”
Robert’s eyes shot down to his hands, which he clasped between his knees. “Uh, yeah. Guess so. Everybody registers in the spring.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never had people lining up to take Shakespeare in the World.”
Now Robert released his hands, and he scrubbed at his shorts. That was it. Nothing else. But somehow, Theo knew it had to do with the fucking accident. Everything in his life had something to do with that fucking accident now.
“Robert? Or Robbie?”
“Robert’s fine.”
“We’re not supposed to add students. They cap the class sizes for a reason.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m really sorry. I realized over the summer that I could graduate in December if I took this class, but then it was too late to register online, and when I called the secretaries, they told me I had to talk to you in person and get you to sign it.”
Theo laid the pink slip on his desk.
“So, um,” Robert said. “Mr. Stratford. I mean Theo. I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sure,” Theo said.
“Oh, man.” Robert grinned and looked up. “Thank you.”
“As soon as you tell me what they’re saying about me.”
“Mr. Stratford, I don’t—”
“This is an easy deal. And I won’t hold it against you.”
Robert named one of the most popular rate-the-professor sites; he was scrubbing his shorts again.
“All right,” Theo said, signing the slip and passing it back. “Have a great day.”
“Thanks, Mr.—um, Theo.” Robert paused in the doorway. “And, uh, I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
Theo logged on to the computer, navigated to the site Robert had mentioned, and found his profile. It had ratings for classes he’d taught before—as well as the highly sought-after fire emoji that meant he was hot—and a section for general comments. There it was, laid out in staggered time stamps from June and July.
—nearly died—
—boyfriend decapitated—
—husband, dummy, not boyfriend—
—little girl didn’t make it—
—she did, actually, but she lost her legs, I think, or—
—just saying I had a class once where the professor killed himself and we all got A’s—
—total bullshit, you stupid troll—
He closed the tab. His hand was sweaty against the mouse. His pulse beat in his fingertips. Then, for the first time since June, he opened his email.
Hundreds of unread messages waited for him.
He scrolled all the way down, opened it, and the words blurred together. He started typing the phrase he’d be using for the rest of his fucking life.
Thank you. That really means a lot.