Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
The EX
When we went to the Phi Kat house to question Grant, he wasn’t there. Basile was.
“It’s good to see you again, Cella,” he said and gestured us inside. “Grant’s not here, I’m afraid, but I’d be happy to try and help if I can.”
As we faced each other in the living room, beer bottles on the coffee table and the faint smell of sweaty soccer gear in the air, I couldn’t help but notice the contrast between the two men.
Max appeared to be nearly Basile’s opposite.
Where Max was rough, Basile was smooth, in his pressed trousers and airy shirts, unbuttoned at the top so you could just see a sliver of his chest. Max wore a hat because his hair was a mess most of the time, while Basile’s was polished and perfectly arranged.
Max smelled like rain and hard earth and the outdoors, Basile like expensive cologne.
Basile had dark circles beneath his eyes and hands that were smudged with ink.
He looked like he’d been grading papers until the early hours of the morning.
As for Max … well, to be honest, Max always looked a little disheveled and feral, like he’d just had sex.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Max smiled roguishly.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?” Basile asked, directing the question to me.
“I’m okay, thanks,” I said, trying to ignore Max raising his eyebrows and gesturing at his jeans. “We were hoping you could tell us about Grant Hafer. How did he know Maya?” I asked.
“Of course.” Basile set down his cappuccino.
“Before we go in, if I could ask you to remove your shoes?” His nose crinkled at Max.
Max had just driven over from the ranch and had dirt splattered across his jeans and caked on his boots.
“We don’t usually have workers trudge through the house.
They’re the original floors. I’m sure you understand. ”
A flush crept up Max’s neck. “Sure thing.”
We followed Basile and sat down on the sofa. “Grant and Maya were high school sweethearts. He actually proposed to her here, sophomore year. They broke up shortly afterward.”
Max glanced at me, his expression as shocked as mine. How had this not come out earlier?
“What happened after that?” I asked.
Basile shrugged. “And then Maya was single for a while. Went to parties, enjoyed her time as a college girl.”
Max lifted an eyebrow. “Huh. Guessing Grant wasn’t too happy about that.”
Basile rubbed the back of his neck; he tapped his fingers against his knee. A tremor in his statuesque calm. “No, he wasn’t, but it’s not as if she was terribly discreet or gave any thought to his feelings. I’m not saying it was right, but I understand why he felt the way he did.”
“Her sophomore-year roommate mentioned threatening notes,” I said. “Guessing that was Grant.”
Max leaned back. “Sounds like your boy had a case of small-dick syndrome.”
Basile’s expression darkened.
“How far did it go?” I asked.
Basile grimaced. “He called her a whore. Look, I know how it sounds,” he said when Max and I exchanged a glance, “but he’s all talk. Grant’s not dangerous. He’d never actually do anything—”
“But obviously he had some animosity toward Dani,” Max said.
“Dani and Maya started dating nearly a year after all this happened. Grant was over it at that point.”
“Doesn’t sound like he was over it to me.” Max showed him the meme on his phone. “I’d like to know what you make of this.”
Basile leaned forward to grab the phone, accidentally brushing against my knee. “Sorry,” his lips murmured. I traced the cut of his jaw, his long nose, every inch of him regal and refined. I could feel Max’s eyes on me and cut my glance away.
Basile studied the image for a moment and winced. “Obviously, it’s not good.”
“You’re tellin’ me. It was posted two days after her death. What’s it mean?”
“Well, I should think there are some obvious implications …”
“We understand the reference,” Max said, a little more sharply than was warranted. “We mean the first part. The cryptic ‘Receive not a swallow in your house.’”
Basile sighed, his shoulders rocking back, legs spreading.
“You must understand, we think of Phi Kat as a well-rounded organization, well-versed in culture, the arts, literature, philosophy, science, math. Renaissance men, if you will. I imagine it’s in reference to some obscure bit of philosophy.
Grant has the tendency to be a bit pretentious when he wants, and he likes to speak in codes.
Though what the full meaning of it is, I couldn’t tell you.
He often finds rather colorful ways to insult people. ”
“He thought she was dumb,” I said.
“Grant thinks everyone is dumb. But please, that has no bearing on the rest of Phi Katharos. It’s just his nature.
He comes from a very long line of Magical families, straight from Princeton.
He’s doing a split degree program to study under Professor de Vries on his way to his PhD.
He’ll probably spend his entire life in academia, sneering down at people.
It’s what he likes best. I’m not saying he’s perfect, and he can be downright cruel when he wants, but please, believe me when I say this: He is not dangerous. ”
He looked imploringly at me when he said it, as if I was the more reasonable of the two of us.
“Uh huh,” Max said. “Look, your Phi Kataros fellas—”
“Katharos,” Basile said, correcting his pronunciation.
The cord stuck out in Max’s neck. “Katharos,” he spat.
While a part of me wanted to believe Basile—a very large part—I recognized this for what it was: damage control.
Spinning it in a way that, while not looking exactly rosy for Grant, at least would absolve him from any wrongdoing or criminal action.
But that made sense, too. Not only was Grant Basile’s friend, but his involvement would also look bad for the entire organization, something that Basile had no doubt poured countless hours of his time into.
He gathered volunteers for outreach projects.
He put on conferences. Whatever he said, it was clear he cared about this fraternity-not-fraternity of his.
I imagined he would do quite a bit to protect it.
I wondered if Grant was even gone from the house, as Basile had said. Or if he was simply in an upstairs bedroom, lying low until we left.
A bell sounded across campus, signaling the noon hour. Students came barging into the house, dropping bags, rummaging in the fridge. We stood to leave.
“Thank you for this, Basile. This has been really helpful.”
“Of course. And I’ll talk to Grant,” he said, directing that same hopeful gaze toward me. He barely spared a glance at Max. “We’ll get this all sorted.”
Basile lingered a moment on the porch. “Cella? Could you wait up a sec?”
Max was already at the bottom, staring at the dirt as though he’d like to pummel it.
“I was wondering … we were wondering if you’d give a talk to the brothers on your research in Object Theory?
You have a lot of fans here. I know I’m not the only one who’s a little star-struck around you.
” He scribbled against the inside of my palm with a Sharpie.
“If that sounds like something you’re interested in, here’s my cell. Anytime; the offer doesn’t expire.”
“Oh,” I said, tucking a hair behind my ear. “I don’t know if Max will want to do that, with everything going on and all—”
“Oh, no,” he said, smiling. “He’s welcome to come, of course. But we’re really more interested in hearing from you.”
Me? It’d been so long since I got to talk about my research. And longer still since someone had approached me about it and not Max. Maybe the world wouldn’t come crashing down if I were to admit that I missed my work, just a little bit.
“Sure. Um.” I peered down at the numbers scrolled on the palm of my hand. “I’ll get back to you.”
Basile smiled warmly. “Please do.”
I was quiet as we walked back, shaking rust-colored soil out of my sandals, even though Max could’ve bored a hole through my head with his staring. I knew he was just dying to know what we’d talked about.
“Renaissance men,” he snorted. “What a pretentious ass.”
He looked over, waiting for me to agree.
My head was a jumble of thoughts. Someone wanted to talk to me, about my research. Not just as an opener for Max, not as Max’s sidekick.
Though in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help wondering if what Basile wanted to hear about wasn’t my research, but my catastrophic meltdown. The worst moment of my life.
The day I was called into Dr. Robetresse’s office, and she calmly explained to me that my brother was dead, that they’d found him in his room, limp and cold.
Only the night before, he’d come to my dorm room, asking if we could talk.
To ask me for help, I’d realized later, but did I help him? Did I talk to him that night? No.
I was too busy fucking studying Magic.
When I’d walked out of Robetresse’s office that day, everything was too sharp, too bright.
The Magic flowed hot and steady. I could barely control it, could barely get a handle on my emotions.
That’s when I saw Luce. I remembered her sitting in her polka-dotted bra in Max’s bed, and the twist of my stomach felt like the twinge of a knife.
I only remember bits and pieces after that. The flames, the desperate thumping against the car door, Dr. Perez shaking me to get me to stop. And everyone’s eyes on me. Girls pulling their friends out of the way, people staring like I was some sort of animal, ready to tear out their throats.
I wasn’t na?ve. That’s what the brothers wanted to know; it’s what they all wanted to know. Why I did it—and how I was able to do it in the first place.
And yet I couldn’t deny I was intrigued by Basile, by everything he represented.
I wanted him to like me, wanted him to teach me more about his Reality Paradox, about what it could do.
A world where your mistakes were erased, where things could be different …
where maybe … where maybe my little brother hadn’t killed himself.
Since we’d met, I could barely tear myself away from Basile’s TikToks.
I hated watching them, but I also couldn’t stop.
In part, I’d blamed social media for Aaron’s death.
I never liked how everything you posted was attached to that little fear in the back of your mind—will this flop?
Every statement watered down to some easily digestible segment that had already been stated days before by someone else precisely so it wouldn’t flop.
The entire system encouraged sameness, every thought and image subjected to peer approval.
That wasn’t even mentioning what happened when you didn’t get their approval.
How the suicide rate of girls was at an all-time high.
How every single like and comment you didn’t get on a selfie or swimsuit picture subtly scraped away at your self-esteem, your self-worth subject to a jury of your peers.
You want likes? Dance for the masses. Show us your tits so we can judge them.
And how it must have been for someone like Aaron, a shy eighteen-year-old who wasn’t classically handsome or entirely comfortable in front of a camera, who grew up thinking his worth was in his follower count.
The sick way social media companies were beholden to nothing—no code of ethics or responsibility to the mental health and well-being of the public except through what they themselves established and in spite of the countless studies conducted by their own researchers that found the platforms directly responsible for the decline in mental health of their users.
And instead of doing something to fix it, they tried to make it more contentious by testing adding downvotes, so now unpopular takes and the people who housed them could be bullied into oblivion.
And then they said, Hey, how about we make a version for children?
Despite the guilt and shame I felt, how with each swipe and scroll and little double tap I contributed to the same system that made my brother and countless other kids feel worthless, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Basile’s posts.
With a frenzied, compulsive fervor, I started counting myself one of his many fans, just another in a sea of numbers.
The difference between six thousand likes and six thousand and one.
I, along with thousands of others, Basile, waited with anticipation for new content to drop, for you to fill us with new words so we could drink from your cup like a god.
I turned to Max. “Mind if we meet up a bit later? I forgot to eat lunch.”
“Sure,” Max murmured. I could still feel his eyes on the back of my neck as I walked away. Like he’d give anything to pry open my head and figure out what I was thinking.
It was fine. Normal, in fact. I was an academician. It was only natural for me to want to know more about any groundbreaking theory.