CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“TENTīGō?” ELLIOTT SMILED AT JAMES, who had stopped by his dormitory laundry basement the next week. He’d missed his flight to Montana.
However, James wasn’t smiling, he was drenched with rain. “Did I hurt you?”
“We agreed it didn’t really mean anything.
” Elliott was folding his clothes for once, he usually dumped his clothes everywhere.
That morning, he had to take his finest clothing to the Winterthur Hall basement washing machines and dryers for the banquet next month.
“Friendship is what we decide, not what the world decides for us. We’ve always said that. ”
“Is that what we are then?”
“Aren’t we best friends still?” Elliott’s heart stopped for a moment.
“We’ll be whatever you want, Elliott.” James smiled at him, sincere.
Usually, they did their laundry together when one of them remembered that laundry needed to be done weekly.
Except, James didn’t live in Winterthur Hall anymore.
Elliott missed their old days carrying overloaded baskets full of clothes, never really bothering to sort out the darks, coloreds, and whites.
He missed watching the baseball games on the portable Watchman while they waited for the machine to cleanse their dirt, sweat stains, and sauce blots, arguing about the greatest pitcher of all time.
He missed his best friend.
“In the fall, you should decide your major,” James told him.
He’d meant to tell him on the plane from Montréal.
The Canadian prime minister had invited the congressman to speak at a climate conference.
“I’m going to ask the administration to transfer you to Montana with me.
Kitty will have a better psychology degree, if she decides to matriculate to Mercian.
You can select any degree you want a career in. ”
Elliott paused. AEscwulf was part of the Crucian League.
A student couldn’t leave without strict approval.
Elliott barely kept himself from mentioning how much Professor Ilaria told him she depended on him in her letter to him. She really believed in him. He lived through her letters.
He hadn’t met with her yet, but Elliott never had a professor believe in him as greatly as she believed.
Elliott was even polishing his oxfords for his banquet ceremony next month.
“Will the provost actually allow me to leave?” Elliott asked instead. Then he remembered it was almost a redundant question. James was entering into the political grounds that significantly benefitted the Crucian League.
He was their golden oxen.
He could ask for what he wanted.
Therefore, Elliott trusted him and smiled. He concentrated on the banquet. Perhaps if Elliott knew the tragedy ahead of him in the banquet…Perhaps if Elliott had never accepted the banquet at all, never accepted the re-admission to AEscwulf, then maybe everything would’ve ended differently.
Only he didn’t know that then.
He didn’t know the agony fate had for him.
No one in his family had made it to college before, let alone AEscwulf College.
His father was a fireman. His mother worked at the burn unit as a receptionist.
Maybe it could be different for him, he thought.
Therefore, when James tilted his head at him and asked, “Did you rent a suit for something? That’s new, isn’t it?” Elliott lied and stammered, “I was thinking of taking Kitty-Kat to dinner on Saturday to celebrate her birthday. I missed it in March.”
Elliott told himself to stick to small truths.
“Take her tonight. I’ll come with you,” James started, reaching for a tie, and Elliott realized his mistake.
If he mentioned that James couldn’t come with them, then James would think it had something to do with what happened in Elliott’s bed last week.
James might think they weren’t friends anymore.
He might believe Elliott regretted what transpired between them.
Instead, Elliott scratched his brow. “Actually…I hate to ask you for a favor…But can you take her for me?–”
“Don’t worry about it,” James agreed, oblivious that Elliott would meet with Professor Ilaria next month. That Elliott had spoken in little half truths that he would writhe in regret on the midnight of July thirteenth.
If only he had confessed to James right then. If only fate, or destiny, had somehow conspired to shift the alignment of his future to warn him to confess everything he withheld, then the death would’ve never happened.
No one would’ve died at all.
Instead, James only knew Elliott for his honesty, and it tore him apart how easily James believed his word for everything.
Elliott owed Professor Ilaria for his return to life.
The least he could do was sit for a banquet.
Professor Ilaria always seemed to go above and beyond for her pupils. She’d even written a play for James, which led to his widespread commendation. She was a bit overdramatic, Elliott figured, but she was otherwise one of the nicest humans he’d ever met.
She motivated her students to their limits.
She loved them so much, and Elliott felt like the only person who understood what it felt like to always love too deeply.
Elliott knew little of mimesis, diegesis, or narratology. He knew nothing of cue sheets, house lights, or sight lines. He knew nothing of tragedians, bards, or dramatists. He didn’t even know anything about belletrists or dramaturgy.
All he knew was that Professor Ilaria believed in him.
All he knew was that it was the least he could do to return her generosity.
Before the banquet, however, he had to prepare to confess everything that he’d done at the hibernal ceremony to the reporter. Warner Hammett.