Just then, Basile opened the door. “Grant? Cella? What’s going on?”
Max tried to hide the frost in his eyes, but the bite in his voice gave him away. “None of your concern.”
Shit. I tried to grab Max’s attention, tried to get him to relax, but there was that same dogged determination in his eyes. The need to prove that we could do this, work together again like old times. And maybe just a smidge of him wanting to prove to me and to the world that he was deserving of all the accolades and all the love it had given him.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t about to let anyone get in his way.
Basile turned to me. “What is this?”
“We just wanted to ask him about the meme,” I said.
Grant jumped at the chance for escape. “Last I checked, it wasn’t illegal to make jokes,” he gritted out.
“Only ones that don’t lead to girls being killed,” Max said dangerously. Foolishly, because now Basile’s gaze flickered toward us, eyes wide with alarm.
Basile frowned, all paternal figure. A shining white knight rushing in to save his charge. He beckoned to Grant like a child, arms outstretched like he would shield him with his body. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”
Basile turned back after Grant was safely inside, propping the screened door with his arm. He hesitated on the doorstep. “If … if you would like to speak to him again, I think it best you go through our lawyer. I don’t think the council intends to accuse any of its students of wrongdoing without ample evidence, and I don’t think a simple meme warrants any of this.”
When he shut the door on us, I sagged back against the railing, sliding down. “Well, that went well. You lost your cool.”
His aura felt like a thunderstorm, hissing and swirling in a mass of dark clouds. “I wouldn’t have if you didn’t get all giddy when you see him, like some schoolgirl.”
“Grant?” I snorted. “Yeah, the creepy incel is totally up my alley. I just can’t control myself around him.”
“Not him,” he said, as we trudged back across the grounds. “Basile. Acting like he’s some genius incarnate. Like he’s Aristotle come back from the dead.”
I swallowed. I thought I’d done a good enough job of hiding it, but there was only so much you could hide when you were tied together like Max and I were. “Actually, I’m more of a Plato girlie, myself. Aristotle’s writings are an absolute menace to wade through …”
Max scowled and mumbled something about going to check on the horses.
“I’m kidding!” I said. But he’d already reached the parking lot and was climbing into his truck.
I returned to my room and took a hot shower. I’d scrubbed the shower door until my fingers were raw, and thankfully no new threats or bizarre words had appeared written in the condensation. I stared at my bare feet against the terra-cotta tiles, letting the water and steam wash all the stress and chaos over the last few days down the drain.
I didn’t trust Grant. But Basile was Grant’s friend, so what about him? Max didn’t like or trust Basile, but I did. Not for the first time, our relationship as dimidiums led us in two entirely opposite directions. But something about Basile was different. I was convinced Max would see it too, in time.
I’d gone to one of Basile’s talks on campus earlier in the week. It was amazing to see how he commanded a room with just his energy. People perched on the edge of their seat when he spoke, just to get a bit closer to him. He was a force all his own, and we were drawn to him like some myth straight out of the Greeks, with his glittering eyes and dark hair and his strong nose and sun-drenched skin. His face belonged on the back of coins, like some philosopher-king of old.
“Our world is subject to famine and disease,” he’d said, loafers softly echoing across the auditorium stage. “It could perish in an instant. But we don’t have to suffer that fate. There’s another world. Changeless, eternal.”
A woman leaned forward in the crowd, her eyes bulging wide. “Is it like Heaven? This other world?”
“Not exactly. Upon death, the highest level of sage will go there and live forever through his ideas. You see,” he said, in his velvety voice, his eyes touching each member of his rapt audience, “our souls have always been immortal, and the immortal soul aspires to freedom even while the body holds it prisoner. But the purer your soul is, the closer you are to stopping the endless cycle of rebirth and death.”
But while his face drew me in, it was his mind that held me. His discussions of mathematics, his thoughts on the world captivated me. It all just made so much sense. And I realized he was cunning, too, just like the crafty strategist Odysseus. Basile didn’t use social media because he wanted to, but because it was the fastest, easiest way to reach an audience, and I couldn’t deny that he deserved an audience. People needed to watch him; they needed to hear him speak. I watched him talk about how mathematics could unlock infinite possibilities, how we were so much more than this one life and all the mistakes we’d made while living it. I listened to Basile speak about how mathematics could change the world, and I believed him.
I believed he could do anything.
I’d never felt closer to death than during my time at Seinford and Brown. But watching Basile walk onto stage, hands pressed together, eyes pointed to Heaven, I’d never felt closer to God.
After the talk was over, he spotted me trying to slip out unnoticed.
“Cella! Great to see you, though I have to say I’m not surprised to see you here.”
“I’m an academic. Curiosity comes with the territory.”
“Of course. I only meant you’re not the first person who’s come to us grieving the loss of a loved one. Aaron was a kind soul. You both deserve a second chance.”
