Finals (13 page)

“
You’re fucking kidding me
!”
I hollered.

“
Did the girl go to the hall director or talk to anyone else?” Scott asked.

“
I don’t think so, over winter break the girl told her parents she didn’t want to come back so she doesn’t go to USE anymore,” Arthur said.

“
Wow, that little creep did get away with rape,” I said.

“
Essentially, yes,” Arthur agreed.

“
I think he was just lucky. If she would have gone to another RA or her hall director or even Public Safety Harvey would be bragging about his sexual escapades from behind bars,” Scott said.

“
Really
,
Scott? You’re blaming this timid Asian chick for getting raped?” I said.

“
No, I’m arguing that she could have prosecuted him further but decided against it, and Harvey is lucky she took that route.”

“
No doubt the event traumatized her,” I said.

“
Or, Donna created doubt, making this girl believe she was drunk, misconstruing the night’s events,” Arthur said.

“
Either way, he’s off the hook,” said Scott.

“
She
still
could go to the police,” I said wistfully.

“
A month later she’d be the scorn former lover, another victim of a typical one-night stand.
The cops
wouldn’t give her a second
thought,” said Scott.

“
You can’t perform a rape kit that long after the fact. I guess if anybody deserves to pound down a few beers in gratitude, it would be Harvey,” said Arthur.

“
Too bad that girl isn’t twenty-one yet, because she’s the one in dire need of a drink,” I said.

“
I’ll drink for her,” Scott said, waving our waitress over, “I’ll take another pint.”

“
I’ll take one more as well,” said Arthur, examining his empty glass.

“
Would you care for another drink, too?” asked our waitress far too sweetly, still blissfully unaware of the dismal tip she was going to receive from this bunch.

Did I want another? Yes, I did, but as of late, I was overindulging, feeding my inner desires without disciple. Deep down, I knew I wanted it and the whisperings within only continued to provoke me, “Don’t deny yourself, this is who you are.” What was one more, really? I could manage. I was in control. People without self-restraint, like addicts, continuously fall off the wagon and the next morning as they look at themselves in dirty mirrors with disgust they vow this will be the last time
until
it happens again and again and again.

But, I wasn’t that sort of guy. I was an almighty, all-knowing college senior. I was cocky, vain and void of doubt. Most college kids live in the present, disregarding the worries of tomorrow. When tomorrow morning does roll around, you pop a few Advil for the massive headache and plow through the day like a champion. I knew when to say when and this wasn’t the time. I could get away with just one more. I knew I could.

Smiling at the waitress, I finally gave her an answer. “Why not? One more isn’t going to kill me.”

Chapter Twelve

O
f the two murders, planning to kill Brent was easier than actually killing him. I knew he peed more often than my grandpa, I knew of his study habits, and the fact that the library bathroom was contaminated with filth was icing on the cake. The hardest part had been sitting on the toilet, peering underneath the stall to get a glimpse of Brent’s shoes.

I think I waited roughly an hour before Brent finally showed up, during that time I must have thought about backing out at least four or five times. I looked back on the good times and the many laughs Brent and I shared over the course of our four years at St. Elizabeth.
As I thought
about Gavin working at a fast food joint,
the
freshman girl who almost died and
the
four expelled freshmen,
I began to
quickly forget about those
“
good times
.”

Then I started thinking about my upbringing. The old nuns and stringent teachers from my adolescence constantly asserted that violence never solved anything. My parents would never be able to hold their heads up if their only son was found to be guilty of homicide. I was a good student, a good Catholic and an accepted member of society, if I were to see this plan through to completion my reputation and basically my livelihood would be in jeopardy.

All these thoughts were bouncing around in my head when Brent’s black Nikes came into view. As I watched Brent walk over to the urinal, a soothing tranquility came over me as if I were listening to Norah Jones or swallowing the first delicious sip of a chilled cocktail.
The time was upon me and I knew I had waited my entire life for this moment. My thirst was finally going to be quenched as I vanquished Brent’s worldly wickedness. I was no do-gooder, but more of a spider who disposes of the bothersome fly. The fly has no value in society, yet most view spiders as dreadful creatures. People don’t understand, just as my friends and family wouldn’t understand this need.

After hearing Arthur’s story, I wanted to kill Harvey Cho. Unlike Brent, Harvey and I had never been chummy. I thought he was like one of those douche bags you see on
Tool Academy
that spray on too much Axe, wear shirts entirely too tight, spike out their hair, and treat their X-Boxes better than their girlfriends. Harvey thought I was a pretentious, stuck up, holier-than-thou Catholic who followed all the rules and respected women. Yeah, there was definitely a mutual disliking.

This time around, killing wouldn’t be the issue. There was no question I could gut the narcissistic little prick with a smile on my face, then go grab some T-Bell without giving him a second thought. The problem was that I knew little to nothing about Harvey. I had discerned he enjoyed women, particularly small Asians, porn, and that he liked secretly filming himself doing the no pants dance. Unless I managed to morph into a tiny Asian girl, I was out of good ideas. Which is why I decided to pay a visit to the virtuoso of pop culture, the fountain of useless knowledge, because I had faith the goddess of gossip could give me the skinny on Mr. Cho.

†

“
Whip cream on your frappuccino, huh? What’s the occasion?” I asked, picking up our drink order at the coffee bar.

“
What can I say? I’m a fatty,” replied Lexie
while she unwrapped her straw
.

“
She’s been making brash decisions as of late,” Lexie’s roommate, Selina, said
reaching
for her chai.

“
Hush.”

“
Do tell
,
Selina, I love hearing tales involving Lexie making a fool of herself,” I said.

“
If I recall we came here to study Consumer Behavior,” Lexie said, in a pathetic attempt to change the subject.

“
You can’t intrigue me with a story then unjustly withhold it.”

“
True, but you see, this story isn’t too intriguing,” Lexie answered.

“
Gosh
,
Lexie, you are such a stick in the mud. I guess I’ll have to disclose the intimate details of your texting affair with Evan,” Selina said, as she guided us towards the one empty table in Starbucks.

“
Your basketball boo?” I asked.

“
Yes, the same one she’s been swooning after for ages. Our dear Lexie hasn’t been able to get those adorable, boyish dimples out of her head.”

“
Please,” said Lexie, shaking her head as though the notion was absolutely absurd. “I suppose I will have to shed light on this matter since Selina’s exaggerated account of last Saturday’s events will surely make you think less of me.”

“
Surely.”

“
It’s no big deal, but I may have confessed my love for Evan via text,” Lexie said.

“
May have?” Selina
asked
.

“
I only said I miss him.”

“
You followed with three exclamation marks, basically exclaiming your love for the boy,” Selina said.

“
Punctuation means nothing.”

“
How did he respond?” I asked.

“
He said, ‘Who is this?’” Selina said, as she began to laugh.

“
I told him this is Lexie Naples and that I didn’t really miss him, the message was meant for someone else. To which he said, ‘LOL, it cool, you seem standoffish so why would you miss me?’” Lexie said, reading the text from her phone.

“It gets better,” Selina said, continuing to laugh.

“
I asked him to elaborate and he replied, ‘You too rigid, you gotta get defrosted so you’ll be chill.’”

Selina and I began to chuckle as Lexie placed her phone back in her purse. “I’m a bitch who needs defrosting, how reassuring.”

“
At least now you know Evan isn’t worthy of eating one of your scrumptious love muffins,” said Selina, causing Lexie’s lips to curl ever so slightly.

If I didn’t know Selina or Lexie well I would have assumed this to be a misguided
sexual
innuendo. However, this was merely another one of their obscure references to either the latest “
How to Satisfy Your Man
” article in
Cosmo,
the recent ramblings of celebrity trailer trash, Perez Hilton, or a quote from current primetime MTV garbage. I had given up learning about the origins of their inside jokes years ago in order to save time and sanity.

Although Selina and Lexie were marketing majors, they were excellent students and I enjoyed having side conversations with them while listening to droning professors. After sharing introductory level business courses my first semester freshman year, I tried to coordinate with the girls so we could at least have one or two classes together. This semester we were all in Professor Nolan’s Consumer Behavior class. We had yet to take a test in that class
,
but one was lurking in the near future. As usual, I purposed a study session involving large doses of caffeine in order to aid the cramming process.

Similar to most study sessions, Selina whipped out her Mac and began scanning the class PowerPoint presentations for useful information. I usually highlighted important sections in the textbook, which I would later share with the girls. Lexie liked to play with her bangs as she pretended to write up key vocabulary terms on note cards. Once she grew bored of altering her hair, Lexie would steer Selina off-course with a discussion about the recent fashion faux pas of one of our classmates. Today before Lexie was able to talk about Janice Perkins’s bleak blunder, I started in on Harvey Cho.

“
Since we’re on the subject of tools, guess who I ran into yesterday?”

“
Who?” Selina asked, not averting her eyes from her screen.

“
Harvey Cho,” I said nonchalantly.

“
Ah, Selina’s ex lover. How is the little creeper?” Lexie asked.

“
Fine, he simply shared a rather vulgar story about his latest sexual escapade,” I stated, as if run-ins with Harvey were a frequent occurrence. “I didn’t know you and Harvey were ever an item.”

“
She’s ashamed to admit it,” Lexie said.

“
It was merely a fling, nothing materialized,” Selina said unfazed, as she continued to scroll through Professor Nolan’s slides.

“
He was only one of your many gentlemen callers before Fischer Hughes came into the picture,” Lexie stated.

Selina gave a brief smile as she continued to read. She and Fischer were a peculiar pair. Their adoring pet names and baby talk did little to coax those uninvolved that becoming part of a duo was the way to go. Also, Lexie and I were convinced Fischer was straddling the sexual fence. His DVD box set of
Grey’s Anatomy
in addition to his love of cooking thirty-minute meals alongside Rachel Ray led us to the conclusion that Selina’s lover boy was not just another sensitive metrosexual.

A plan began to formulate as I posed the question to myself, “How would Harvey feel about Selina if she were to be detached?” She was half Chinese and half Portuguese, so lingering interest seemed plausible since Harvey was a raving nymphomaniac. There was only one way to find out if this truly was the case.