One of the Boys

The next fortnight went unbearably fast. Professors and doctors lectured us on seasons daily. Summer was over and now that it was autumn it was time to get serious because winter was coming soon an our first exams will be happening. Maybe next week they'll teach us the colors of the rainbow.

It's true however that Holderness is excessively intense, I feel like one of those suffragettes that had to be force fed, except instead of life saving nutrition, it was 'life saving education'. Or was it the suffragists? I never liked 20th century history, that's when it all started getting complicated and you stopped having to learn who gave birth to whom.

Luckily French class and English Literature were a lot less stressful. I had Eric in those two classes, who I copied off in French and he did off me in English. I find it hard to admit, but those classes where actually fun, our French teacher was a Frenchman who mumbled French wisdoms to himself, and was going through a mid-life crisis. Eric and I would exchange knowing looks with each other whenever he exclaim to the class how thirsty he was only to sneakily empty a clear liquid from a canister under his desk into a plastic water bottle. Our English teacher on the other hand was loud and easily excitable, and eager to participate in inner classroom conversations. Most of the staff at Holderness were male. Only about a tenth were female, and that included my mother, who except on the day of her wedding anniversary, always appeared more man than woman to me.

Ever since the Marcus and Teddy incident, where he blabbed about my broken organ to his brother and his brother's best friend, I have been getting a non stop stares at the space between my legs and sorry smiles from unknown classmates. Now every time I go into a cubicle or hide behind a shower curtain to change after P.E., the coach gives be two hard, though intended to be friendly, pats on the back, and says, "You’re a good man John. At least your first name isn't Long," and he would go off laughing at his own joke, leaving me in a desperate need of a cold shower.

So far I've had two dinners with my parents, due to be repeated every Wednesday. I try hard not to compare myself to Mia Thermopolis of the Princess Diaries, who had weekly meetings with her grandmother. Each time my parents use the family dinner as a chance to teach me a life lesson they didn't have the opportunity to teach me before though, I fail. So far we've covered Internet safety, and ways of adult content on the internet. Next week it's Feeling Peer Pressured. Now, I love my parents because there is not much to hate, other than their dedication to this school and the students. I am their fourth child, the only girl, and my youngest brother and me are ten years apart. I am an oops baby. Oopsy was the nickname my parents used until I was four, when I finally asked them what it meant, and cried at the answer.

My two weeks did have two very good highlights however. Firstly my math teacher continued to be absent for the rest of the two weeks, giving me a luxurious extra free period, which I spent eating nutella sandwiches Eric made for me the night before, and practicing football and rugby skills with Cameron. Those were the best moments of my days. Just us, the lingering summer sun and empty sports fields that we would collapse on together, exhausted from laughing more than running. We talked quite a lot like this. I explained that I didn't have a disease of any kind anywhere, and that sharing a room with Marcus and Teddy was proving to be more than I could handle.

"Marcus is constantly blasting his music in the room, claiming it helps him study and Teddy litters the whole room with candy wrappers. And the stupid maids don't come here as often as they do for the other dorms," I whined, laying my head next to his on the green grass.

"Trust me Lucas," Cameron said winking against the sunlight, "It's a very good thing. Ely is like our castle to rule with little adult interruption. Maids get snoopy and always find things they should not."

"Yeah well you have it easy. Your room is huge and you only have to share it with Leo. He can't be hard to live with."

"No," Cameron sat up cross legged, turned slightly towards me. "He is pretty easy. Very neat, and he makes sure his ties are all ironed." This I raised my eyebrow to. "But lately he's been acting strange. You wouldn't notice, as you two aren't very familiar but he…he isn't himself. Been like that since the first day of school. Real jumpy, looking over his shoulder and staring at people."

"Since the first day of school did you say?" I coughed lightly trying to hid the guilty look I felt coming on when Cameron vaguely nodded, obviously deep in thought.

"Does he have anything hide?"

This caught Cameron's attention and he smiled at me. "Well if he did it wouldn't do for me to tell you now would it?" I was slowly falling in love with that half smile of his, it was always coming out when I least expected it. Aware that I was just gazing at him, I quickly stood up and turn towards the side lines were we had dumped our bags.

"Do you think I am ready for the try outs?" I asked him, keeping my eyes fixed on reorganizing my satchel.

"Definitely, you've really improved. You're still small in general, so you're aware that your throws and kicks won't be as strong as the other more muscled ones, but you have great stamina and speed, plus you are quite good at controlling. So I think you stand well within the reaches of joining the A football team and B rugby team. I believe in you."

I looked up at him, his six feet four frame shadowing my face. A breeze blew then, gentle, warm and sweet smelling due to the orchard of apples not far off. I was growing aware that I wasn't hearing anything he was saying, too busy trying to decipher the meaning behind the loud pulses that filled my ears.

"Disaster like the year before the last." I caught on the end of his sentence. "This year is going to be great, stress free apart for university applications. You'll grow to love it here Luc."

"Thanks," I shrugged, "I’m not really fussy, as long as I just stay focused and keep a low profile I'll be happy."

"Hmm," he sounded troubled as he bent down to reach for a brown envelope from his bag, "How low, do you mean. My friends, Nathaniel and Ludovic, and of course Leo and Marcus were thinking of hitting London this weekend. We thought you'd like to come with us."

"What, I was requested?" My surprise was with good reason. Nathaniel and Ludovic were in my math and chemistry class respectively, but I had very little conversation with either of them, and Leo, well he had been playing sleeping lion with me, and hadn't paid me any attention.

"Yeah, well, I might have suggested it, but it didn't take much convincing. Leo though it would be a good idea to "get to know you better" before your initiation, seeing as you are a slightly different case than the first years."

"What initiation?"

"Don't you worry, it's nothing really, just a school wide ceremony, it's all in the envelope. Read it carefully. We'll come get you from your room to go to London tomorrow round seven. Make sure Marcus is dressed on time, and don't let him get drunk in advance."

"Marcus swore at me when I told him off for sneaking in drunk last weekend."

"Yes, that was our fault, Marcus can be a bit of a lightweight. Oh and I really hope you come, I’m sure you'll make the evening more exciting and entertaining, from what I hear from Marcus you have a rebellious side."

"Nah," I joked watching his honey eyes, eager to make him laugh again, or even just smile. "It's the whole side." I was rewarded with a man hug before Cameron check the time on his cell phone and threw me one last smirk before running of towards a class.

It seemed that Eric had been right in warning me about this initiation. I'd have to ask him about it tonight, for our soon to be regular Friday night Prison Break and Dexter, accompanied by melted marshmallow crepe feast. His two roommates were Fraser Nook and Skylar Richardson, who were never there in the evenings. Robert always took off whenever I came into the room - laptop in hand- claiming that my constant high pitched laughing, squeals and nervous fidgeting were distracting and not normal for a guy. Eric assured me that it was just that he was just going off to go on Chat-Roulette and he didn't want anyone to know.

Richardson, I just never saw. Ever. His bed was always perfectly made and no clothes or underwear lying around to be stepped on like Eric's. One thing that always caught my eyes when I came into Eric's room was Richardson's nightstand. On it was the land-line phone and answering machine the school provided to each student with, to discourage the use of the mobile phone. Each time I came into Eric's room I checked the display on the answering machine, and each time the number of unheard messages increased. This Friday night it was at 19.

"Richardson is a bit of a weird one, a loner of sorts. I've shared this dorm with him for three years and I barely know him. Hates it if you touch his stuff, and comes in late at night. He's a nice guy though, he just doesn't say much."

And so it was on this Friday night, one similar to the previous two that I sat on the couch next to Eric watching Prison Break in his room, trying not to laugh at Eric's imitation of a southern accent when we heard a boom on the floor right above us. And then an eruption of cries.

Eric turned to me wide eyed and looked at his watch that read 3 am. Fraser had come back in from his late night chatting to sleep with his white noise headphones a couple of hours ago. He didn't even stir. Of course, Eric's other dorm mate wasn't here.

"Eric, what was that?"

"No idea, and does that sound like a cry to you?"

"Yeah, or more like a dog's whine. Or more likely a puppy's cry?" Eric peered at me questioningly, "What? I used to dog walk over the summer. This is a one story building, what's up there? A TV?"

Eric, his eyes back on his room's ceiling shook his head slowly following with his eyes what he imagined to be footsteps creating the muted thump, thump sound that filtered through.
When he looked back at me, I was surprised to see a great big ear to ear grin on his face. It always reminded me of Heath Ledger's 10 Things I Hate About You Smile. He grabbed my arm and ushered me out of the room.

"Where are we going?" I cried, confused by his enthusiasm. We crept further down the dorm corridor aware that it was ridiculously late at night, and Teds and Marc would skin me alive if I woke them up. "There is nothing down there, Eric. Just a locked door."

"Well it's not going stay locked tonight. The door leads to the dean's quarters. He lives above us."

"But he's been gone for these past two weeks. He can't show up in the middle of the night." Paying me no heed, Eric dug into a stone filled pot that decorated the locked door's entrance and revealed a key.

"Lucas, calm down. He knows that I've found the hiding spot for his spare key. And he knows I probably heard him, as we are the only room he is directly above. He won't mind. I'll just say hello."

"At three in the morning?"

"Or good night," He unlocked the door revealing a narrow, steep stare case.

"He lives in the attic? Like a ghost?"

"No, like a serial killer,"

"I am being serious here."

"Shush," Eric clasped his hand to my mouth. "I want to surprise him."

"I thought you said he knew you'd hear him?"

"Ah, well," Eric halted midway up the stairs and turned around wiggling his eyebrows mischievously, "He should by know, I've dropped in on him often enough."

I stared retreating, stepping backwards slowly, a tight grip on the banister. I didn't want to get on the bad side of the dean on his first day back. He had the role of the Ely dorm's mentor, councilor and general on site guardian role. I didn't want him thinking he needed to keep a particularly close eye on me.

Something out of the darkness of the staircase came and held on to my wrist tightly, I followed the hand up to Eric's unrelenting smile, now somewhat more saddened. "Please come Lucas, I need to talk to him because I've been worried. He's missed two weeks of school. Introducing you is a great reason to come up and see him."

"You mean excuse," I said scowling into the dark.

"Please?"

"Eric, I don't know."

"Please trust me," He had stepped down and had placed his mouth so close to my ear that I could feel the outline of his lips. "Something, is going on up there."

I nodded and together we continued to climb up the stairs opening the last door with a slow turn of the brass handle. Eric and I crept in and I took in the surroundings. The room was much larger than I could have imagined. and seemed to spread further down a blackened hallway. Large white clothes covered most of the furniture. I am able to guess some by them by their outline. A couch and an armchair around a coffee table on one side. A small table and chair in a small kitchen area on the other side of the room were also covered. My brain took these elements of the room in subconsciously, it was only later that I really notice them. It's later that I saw the wallpaper held a pale silvery sheen, there was a small writing desk and file box in a discrete corner, and a heap of baggage lining the hallway wall.

What I took in the instant I crossed the threshold of the Deans dorm was a man standing in the middle of the small apartment room. He was not tall but long, and the shadow the ceiling lamp cast of him was even longer. He had short dark hair, was wearing a terribly wrinkled shirt and jogging bottoms, and I could tell his black shoes were from two different pairs.

Secondly I notice that one of the covered up items in the room was obviously shaped as a television, meaning it couldn't have been the procurer of the noisy cry. And finally when the dean turned around jumping half a foot off the ground on hearing us approach, I recognized his face instantly as I have known it for most of my life. But most importantly, as he turned around, we saw the small child he was holding in his arm, a little girl with white blond hair.

I heard Eric's loud inhale a he stood frozen next to me. We all stayed like this for a good minute until the little girl in Kingston's arms let out a little yawn and startled us all back into reality.

Hale spoke first. "Mr. Max, what the hell is Keira doing here?"

And with a look of utter defeat and exhaustion, Kingston closed his eyes and brought the sleeping child to his chest, where she nuzzled into the crock of his neck falling back asleep.

"She left me Eric. She left, I signed the divorce papers yesterday."