He trailed off and a dull pressure expanded from my gut and up.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean for anything to happen. It just … I was so upset.”
He burst into tears, a horrible rending sound. My heart slammed against my chest.
“Tyler, what are you talking about?”
“I killed him, Mark. He’s dead. Please, can you help me? I killed Addison.”
CHAPTER 13
I shut the engine and cut the lights. Black night and silence. “You’re sure there are no security cameras?”
“I’m sure. They keep saying they’re going to install them but never do it. It’s been this whole thing.”
The rain had finally stopped. We got out of the car. Students would return when campus reopened tomorrow, and Monday classes resumed. We crossed to a small path, avoiding puddles, weaving between a cluster of low buildings. They looked like they’d been built in the fifties, white brick and narrow windows. A sign above the entrance to each building christened it with a word, emblazoned on a bronze plaque: FAITH.GRACE.SALVATION.
Tyler noticed me looking. “They named all the dorms from the Bible. It’s kind of weird, I think.”
“I see.” Before the school’s secularization. How strange that I ended up here—although there was something Jewish about it, finding myself in a place I didn’t belong.
“Nobody uses the names, we just say the letter.” Tyler went quiet and stopped walking. He pointed, barely raising a hand. “This is it. P Building.” I turned and looked. Over the entrance: PROVIDENCE.
I followed him around a corner to a side door. He pulled an ID from his pocket. I caught a flash of the photo—a girl’s face, a sweep of red hair.
“Who is that?”
“Nobody.”
“What do you mean?”
“Literally no one. My friend works in the ID office. He figured out a way to make fake bar codes. We found some random photo online.”
Tyler swiped and the door popped unlocked. We pushed in. A light flashed on—“Fuck!”—I jumped—“Sorry.” There was no one there. The lights were set to a motion detector.
We climbed the stairs. A light blinked on at the next landing, boomeranging off the thick glossy paint of the walls. At the third floor, another light flashed on and we exited onto a hallway. It smelled of mildew, cigarettes, weedy sweat. Worn industrial carpeting ran the length of it. No signs of life. Tyler led us down the hall. We stopped at a door, a small dry-erase board with Tyler’s and Addison’s names on top. A marker hung tied to a string. Across the faded remnants of old notes, someone had drawn a cock and balls reading a book. The book—Das Kapital—was upside down. Beneath the cartoon in blocky print: College is Hard. Tyler fished for his keys and found them. He pushed in and I followed.
He shut the door behind us and we stood still in the unlit room. A moment passed, and then another, as we waited perhaps for some intervention, divine or otherwise, that would set us down a different path. As my eyes adjusted, I could just make out Tyler in front of me, arms at his sides, white fingertips glowing. I wanted to reach toward him and brush my hand against his, as if to say,Everything will be okay.
Earlier at my apartment, after Tyler calmed down, I coaxed the story from him.
A group of friends had organized a ski trip for spring break. A family’s house in Colorado. The trip had been in the works formonths. Tyler and Addison were going, and Kennedy. She and Addison had been hooking up on and off all year. She’d pull away and then go back to him. But in December, just before the break, Kennedy ended things for good. She had been nice about it, Tyler said, but offered no explanation. She just wasn’t into it. As more time passed, rather than getting over it, Addison had grown fixated on the idea there must be some reason. If he knew why, he could change things, make her understand that they could work. “I’d never seen him like that, probably because he’s never been rejected. He has this spell he casts over girls,” Tyler said. “Over everyone.”
The day before they were set to fly, Addison backed out of the trip. Tyler tried to convince him to change his mind, pushing every line of argument: The others would think it was weird; the change of scenery would be good, he and Tyler could go off, do their own thing. Nothing worked. Addison was adamant. He asked the RA to let him stay behind, even though the dorms were closed. She wasn’t sure; she might get in trouble. But, eventually, she agreed; everyone knew she had a crush on him. Addison swore not to tell a soul.
Tyler passed the days sulking in the house. He didn’t care about skiing, he had only agreed to come along to spend time with Addison. In the bored and aimless hours, he started to worry. It seemed it would make things worse, being alone in the empty dorms. They were all meant to fly back together on Sunday but on Thursday Tyler made up some excuse. He packed and left.
He arrived on the deserted campus that evening. He hadn’t told Addison he was returning, it would be a surprise. He got to their room but Addison wasn’t there. Hours passed. He texted—something innocuous,Hey what’s up—nothing to reveal he was back.
Tyler woke Friday morning to Addison’s return. He had been hanging out with this girl from Kent State; he’d stayed the night. “I thought he’d be miserable, but he was fine, of course.” They started drinking early, using Tyler’s counterfeit ID to roam; it opened every building on campus, and they had it all to themselves. They’d hung out on the roof of the music building, wandered the creek that ran through the woods on the east side. They finished off a joint and a second six-pack in the auditorium. Addison had done community theater as a kid and tried to summon his monologue from a summer play. He stalked the stage, waving his hands and reciting the mangled lines, Tyler in the front row, egging him on.
Evening fell and they returned to their room. They opened a bottle of vodka and Addison ordered a pizza. And then he got a call, from the girl at Kent. She and some friends were going to a party. She gave the address, someone’s house. Addison said he would meet them. Tyler was annoyed—“That’s it, you’re going out?” Addison said he could join them if he wanted. “Why would I want to hang out with a bunch of random girls in Akron?” Addison didn’t think it was fair for Tyler to be pissed. The plans had been proposed the night before; Addison didn’t even know Tyler would be around. “It’s one night,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.” He said he was going to shower to sober up. Tyler saw an opening and took it: They’d been drinking all day, it wasn’t safe to drive. Addison was growing impatient with Tyler’s insistence. On his way to the bathroom he said he appreciated Tyler’s concern. “But you’re not my mother. Or my girlfriend.”
Tyler sat and fumed. He’d flown all the way back to check up on him and Addison wasn’t even grateful. Suddenly, not even aware he’d gotten up, Tyler was crossing to the bathroom. “We never locked the door.” Addison called out from behind the showercurtain. Tyler said nothing, just stood there. After a moment, Addison pulled back the curtain.
Tyler’s arm snapped forward—“It just happened. I didn’t know I was going to do it.” The flat of his palm struck Addison square in the chest. Addison’s feet sailed from under him and he flew back. There was a terrible crack as his head smacked against the tiled wall. And another sound, a snap. Tyler thought it was the curtain rod; Addison had pulled it down as he fell. “I picked up the rod. It was really awkward and heavy, like from the weight of the curtain. Water was spraying at me and I was just looking at the rod, trying to figure out where it had broken.” He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he realized the tub was filling up. Addison was covering the drain, the water rising around him. Tyler shut it off and for the first time looked at Addison, tucked into the corner as if someone had pressed him to it. His head was twisted at an impossible angle. His eyes stared, open wide, like he’d seen something he couldn’t believe.
