Astor Hill

Chapter 2

2

Ben

Two years later, the start of Ben’s senior year

Everything is the same here at Astor Hill, but thankfully I’m not.

Panting, I lean against the edge of the bridge I’ve stopped on. Beechwood Park is emptier than I thought it would’ve been at 6:30 in the morning. The cool weather alone was enough to convince me the park might be teeming with students, but the sunrise this morning is otherworldly. It feels criminal that I’m the only one here, on this bridge, witnessing it. I’m not complaining, though. After two years away from this place, I want to enjoy the beauty of this campus, not be thrown head first into shallow Ivy small talk while I try to finish my run.

I check my watch. 6:45 a.m. I don’t have a class till this afternoon, but I want to be out of the way before the hordes of tittering Astor Heads shuffle their way to classes. If I start now, I can get two more laps in.

I pick up my pace, unzipping my hoodie as I feel the morning sun begin to warm the air around me. I let out a small huff, surprised and amused at myself. I’d worked up this day for months in therapy with Morgan, my therapist, helping me develop action steps for when I get overwhelmed, affirming my decision to come back here every time I had doubts. But running along the tree covered path of Beechwood, the same path I used to take with my former teammates, I feel none of the anxiety or angst I used to feel. I guess a year of intensive therapy will do that to you.

When I left Astor, I was burnt out. It wasn’t until I was in the calm quiet of Pop’s townhouse that I felt the permanent angst in my chest start to unfurl, felt the weight of everyone’s expectations lift off my shoulders. In isolation, I don’t think that night would have messed with me the way it did. It was just a party; Will, my brother, was just being a stereotypical dickish freshman; I was just being ogled in the same way I’d been for years. I don’t even know when it all started to grate on me.

Coming to Astor was always the goal. Playing ball was always the goal, being captain was most definitely always the goal… and suddenly it all felt suffocating. Like I couldn’t catch a breath, couldn’t even get close to the surface. I’d been having panic attacks for months by the time it happened at that party, but I was so sure there was a tea I could drink, a walk I could go on, a meditation I could listen to that would quell the anxiety roaring in my chest. Anything to make the feeling disappear. When I tried to talk to mom about it, Dan just wormed his way into the conversation. Told me to grow the fuck up and be a man. Told me that it’s normal to feel overwhelmed sometimes, but a real man wouldn’t complain about it to his mother. Told me I better get my shit together, because the Chapman’s have an impeccable reputation at Astor, and he’d be damned if his step son sullied it for him. He always emphasizes the step part.

So I tried what he said. I stopped complaining, to my mom and to myself. I got my shit together, putting in two hundred percent at every summer training drill, organizing separate practice drills for the incoming freshman. I accepted my friends’ offers to go out, picking up girls and taking them home like we’d always done. But it all felt like a hollow attempt to perform a version of myself I no longer identified with. That felt the most suffocating of all.

That night it felt like the universe, out of everyone, was listening to me. For the first time in months, I felt like I could move on from the anxiety, just turn a new leaf and be someone new. But nothing comes that easy, I’ve learned.

The path toward healing ended up involving a lot of uncomfortable self-reflection, hard work, and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Thankfully, my grandfather— my Pop , when he’s in earshot— let me hide away and figure my shit out. By the end of what would’ve been my senior year, had I stayed, Pops gave me an ultimatum: go back home to Dan and my mother, or go to said therapy. I chose the latter. With Morgan’s help, we worked through the dad issues, the step-dad issues, the brother issues, the validation issues— all of it. But just like practicing your three pointer for hours only matters if you get a chance to implement your technique mid game, talking about why you’re fucked up and reframing years of deeply engrained beliefs about yourself is only effective if you’re out in the world applying your newfound self-knowledge.

And I knew this, deep down. That at some point, I’d have to come back and live my life again. I’m ready; I know that whole heartedly. I just don’t know what living my life is going to look like now, especially with Will here.

I finish my last lap and move into a slow jog as I make my way to the locker rooms off the practice pool, rather than the lockers in the practice gym. Coach will know I’m here eventually, but that can wait for another day.

Students are meandering about campus, trailing each other through the cloisters, stopping to catch up on benches. The freshmen are the easiest to spot because, unlike the returning students, they walk alone, staring at the tops of the buildings looking for names. The west side of campus feels buoyant, and it’s contagious.

My shower is peaceful, the scalding hot water cleansing the thin layer of sweat from my skin, sluicing down my chest, the sound of it putting me in a meditative trance. I lose track of time until I hear a group of guys filtering into the showers, the nostalgic sound of towels cracking.

I quickly shut the water off, toweling myself off in a hurry and snatching up my duffel bag. In the stall furthest from the men’s swim team, I slip on my sweatpants and slide my shirt on, unceremoniously trading my running shoes for my Killshots, cringing at the way the collar scrunches. I escape from the lockers unnoticed, but my previously meditative trance is gone.

Deep breaths, Ben , I remind myself.

Slowing my pace, I stroll through the campus center.

My real concern isn’t that some guy on the swim team will stop and ask me about the weather— though that would be annoying. It’s that I might see Will, who I haven’t spoken to in any meaningful capacity since I left. Which is fucked up, I know. He needed me more than he’s probably ever needed anyone, and I chose myself. Thinking back to the space I was in, though, I’d probably choose myself again. And I don’t need to be reminded of that, just like I don’t need to be reminded of her . Don’t need to be reminded of everything that happened.

I haven’t been able to shake Olivia Beckett from my thoughts since that night. The pull I felt toward her was so new to me; the urge to go to her, listen to her, admire her, be near her, protect her was confusing. I hadn’t even met the girl. But looking at her under the glow of those market lights, I felt a spark of hope. Even now it sounds like the most nonsensical thing, but I can recall how relieved I felt when I found her.

I was going to go to her, try to get her attention. I would’ve asked her everything there was to know about her before seeing her stifle a yawn and offering to drive her home. I wouldn’t have tried to kiss her, wouldn’t have made even the slightest move, mostly because it's exactly the type of thing I would have done to most girls. And I knew, just by the way she stood there, Olivia wouldn’t be like most girls to me. She probably still isn’t, but I wouldn’t know.

Will’s been dating her ever since, but he hasn’t brought her home. Hasn’t been welcome to, really. But then, I guess I haven’t been welcome there either. It was a mess; it still is. It’s been two years, and I know whatever connection I think I had to Olivia has been snuffed out by Will’s claim to her, that and the fact she has no idea who I am. That doesn’t stop me from dreaming of her on a regular basis.

Morgan thinks my fixation on Olivia is because I’ve tied her to this emotionally draining night, and that I’ve “romanticized this idea of her” in contrast with the women of my past because I’m “eager to shed the playboy act” I adopted when I came to Astor. Her words, not mine. She’s probably right, though. Maybe I was on the precipice of a breakdown anyway, and that night just set me over the edge. Maybe I saw Olivia and felt like I could go be someone different with her, and that’s the end of it. Regardless, I don’t want to see him, I don’t want to see her, and most importantly, I don’t want to see them together.

I haven’t even told Will I’m back. Neither Pops nor Morgan could convince me on that one. I’d rather just let that bomb explode at a later date.

Blinking back into the present, I witness a wisp of chestnut hair whip around a column as a girl gracefully strides out of Cliveden. Of course. Like I summoned her with my thoughts.

Not two seconds later do I see my brother speeding after her.